Making sense of the polar vortex and record cold on a feverish planet

The author, A few years ago, the “polar vortex” surged into the public language of weather and climate change. Now, in 2019, when I ask my students to describe a cold wave in Michigan, they immediately talk about the vortex coming down from the pole. The story continues: The polar vortex is surrounded by the jet stream; the jet stream is getting more wavy; it is more wavy because of climate change, and likely, the loss of Arctic sea ice. This is a concise narrative, reasonably extracted from news reports and knowledgeable scientists. As with most concise narratives of complex situations, there is a core of truths, surrounded by a quagmire of confused details. There is, in fact, an official definition of cold wave, namely, a drop of temperature within a 24-hour period that requires increased protection of our enterprise. The cold wave of late January 2019 in the central eastern United States and Canada was characterized by temperatures dropping rapidly to values that are dangerous to human life and damaging to buildings and infrastructure. In Ann Arbor, Mich., where I teach, the low temperature on Jan. 31 was minus-17. Farther to the west, in places where the temperature is less influenced by the Great Lakes, it was much colder. For example, in Lacrosse, Wis., it was minus-31 on Jan. 30. The record or near-record cold temperatures came after record or near-record warm temperatures earlier in the month. The cold wave was predicted days in advance, and people and institutions took steps to protect themselves. As predictable as the weather was the emergence of the political messaging that the reality of a cold wave showed the falseness of global warming. This political messaging is so predictable that scientists, like myself, reposted their explainers and prepared for calls from reporters. Potential record-cold temperatures and threats to life and property are compelling events, as are the messages of such events. Plus, on its surface, it is, perhaps, paradoxical that we see record-cold temperatures on a planet that is, on average, definitively warming. It is, therefore, worth disentangling the confusion that surrounds the core of truths in my students’ ready explanation of the polar vortex coming to Michigan. Because Earth’s rotation influences atmospheric motion, many weather systems can be described as either a vortex or a wave. A vortex in the atmosphere is, simply, air in a circular flow. Most are familiar with


Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos accuses National Enquirer of extortion over intimate photos

was politically motivated or influenced by political forces.” In his post on Medium, Bezos called his ownership of The Post “a complexifier” for him. He wrote that it’s “unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy. President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. Also, The Post’s essential and unrelenting coverage of the murder of its columnist Jamal Khashoggi is undoubtedly unpopular in certain circles.” Despite mounting evidence, Trump has disputed that Khashoggi was killed on the orders of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudi crown prince was the subject of a flattering glossy magazine produced by AMI in 2016, at a time when the Saudi regime was attempting to portray Mohammed as a reformer in Middle Eastern politics. It’s not clear how the Enquirer acquired the texts between Bezos and Sanchez. Bezos commissioned de Becker — his longtime security consultant — to investigate how the material fell into the Enquirer’s hands. The Enquirer has said that it obtained the texts and photos lawfully, and that it had the right to publish the material under the “fair use” doctrine of copyright law. It also said the photos were newsworthy, given Bezos’s prominence. But as Bezos began to investigate the leak, the tabloid’s parent disputed any suggestion that its story was politically motivated. The company “emphatically rejects any assertion that its reporting was instigated, dictated or influenced in any manner by external forces, political or otherwise,” Fine wrote in an email to de Becker’s lawyer, Martin Singer, which Bezos shared. “Simply put, this was and is a news story.” Ted Boutrous, a veteran lawyer who briefly represented McDougal in a dispute with the Enquirer, said the emails Bezos described in his post are “a textbook example of blackmail and extortion. It’s ripped right out of the law books.” He added, “At an extreme level, this shows how frightening it should be to the citizens of the United States that the National Enquirer reportedly has a safe full of information about the president of the United States. That’s one of the dangers to democracy of what they were engaged in when they were catching and killing information they could have used against Candidate Trump and now President Trump. . . . It’s a shocking and frightening thing Mr. Bezos has revealed.” paul.farhi@washpost.com sarah.ellison@washpost.com devlin.barrett@washpost.com


Amid Baltimore’s persistent violence, police department failing to fill positions

hires. Despite the decline in the ranks, Tucker said Pugh “believes the measures she has put in place are the right ones to attract not only a greater number of candidates but the right type of candidates who can be part of neighborhood solutions and reestablish trust between residents and the Baltimore Police Department.” Sgt. Michael Mancuso, president of the police union, said the city isn’t offering competitive enough packages to attract officers, and isn’t doing enough to train the number of recruit classes it would take to have recruitment outpace attrition. “In recent contract talks, we stressed this to the city, and they refused to recognize the mediocrity of what they were putting across the table,” Mancuso said, “not just in salaries but in regard to many working conditions that could have been improved.” The starting salary for officers is around $52,000. The union’s most recent contract with the city, signed in November, gave officers a $1,000 ratification bonus and annual raises of 3 percent each year through 2021, plus a $1,000 “patrol incentive” for any officer who works patrol an entire fiscal year. The latest decline in sworn officers represents a setback from 2017, when recruitment had been a positive glimmer amid a sea of negative headlines for the department. That year, there was a marginal net growth of four sworn officers, the first increase since 2009, and Pugh cited the figure during her State of the City speech in March. Now, police and city officials said they were working diligently to turn the tide once more, with the help of state regulators and federal overseers. Pugh has included funding for the positions in her budget, and assigned the task of boosting recruitment and retention to a special “Innovation Team” funded by billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg. The city renegotiated its contract with the police union to change officer schedules in a way they said would cut down on shortages and overtime pay. State regulators in 2017 eased restrictions on past marijuana use by police applicants, something Baltimore officials said was disqualifying large numbers of applicants. And the city’s consent decree with the Justice Department mandates a full review and restructuring of the recruitment process, after federal investigators found police districts were short-staffed and the recruitment process insufficient to reverse the trend. Matt Jablow, a police spokesman, said the department has already begun restructuring, and recently converted much of


The U.S. is now negotiating with the Taliban. Would negotiations work with al-Shabab?

drove al-Shabab out of Somalia’s major cities and ports and into inland strongholds. But the war has been in a stalemate since then. The Somali army and its international partners have not been able to push al-Shabab farther back or stop the group’s assassinations and bombings, such as an October 2017 attack that left more than 500 civilians dead in Mogadishu. To prevent al-Shabab from regaining territory, AMISOM needs more funding and troops. But international donors are tiring of the indefinite commitment and are planning troop reductions. Meanwhile, the Somali army is plagued with corruption and mismanagement, making it unlikely to be able to lead the fight against al-Shabab alone. Given these challenges and widespread fatigue among Somalis, the militarized approach appears unlikely to bring a decisive victory or a conclusive peace. Our research shows that counterterror may be counterproductive For the past two years, we have worked with the international peace-building organization Saferworld to research constructive alternatives to the counterterror approach in Somalia. This entailed more than 300 interviews with community members, politicians and elders from government- and al-Shabab-held areas. We also conducted an extensive literature review involving countries around the world that have, since the 1990s, concluded civil wars against insurgent movements. Policymakers and local communities we talked to throughout Somalia increasingly feel that military counterterror operations are not moving Somalia toward a durable peace. AMISOM and the Somali army measure success by metrics such as how many al-Shabab leaders and fighters they kill and how much territory the group occupies. But death and acreage are poor measures of peace and stability. Nor does the military effort provide an effective response to the poverty, corrupt and dysfunctional government, collapsed justice institutions, and displacement that enable al-Shabab to retain support and act as a shadow government in the areas it controls. Many of the people we interviewed said that military attacks on al-Shabab have actually made life worse, especially in areas under the group’s control. When it perceives a military threat of elimination, al-Shabab ramps up its efforts to control territory and populations, protect against infiltrators and spies, and generate revenue for its war effort. That leads to heightened paranoia, distrust, oppression, punishment and harsh taxation in al-Shabab territory. While AMISOM, the Somali army and U.S. airstrikes have killed many top al-Shabab leaders, they are regularly replaced by successors who are even more determined to launch high-profile attacks against


Netflix’s ‘Velvet Buzzsaw’ is a revenge fantasy against elites — making it perfect for the age of Trump

audience. Success in the art world is gathered and accumulated. Social contacts and entree are essential, but neither is a guarantee of fame and riches. Some of the judgments — by curators, critics (both mainstream and academic) and gallery owners — may seem capricious and unaccountable, and often they are deeply influenced by things that have nothing to do with the art itself. But those judgments are a collective product of a discrete social world and are subject to ongoing evaluation and reconsideration. It is rare that any artist gains and sustains the instant benediction of the entire art world. And yet that’s what happens in Gilroy’s film, when a young gallery assistant discovers an apartment full of unknown work by a recently deceased artist named Ventril Dease, a psychotic loner who left behind a huge tranche of paintings mostly in the style of Francis Bacon. These works electrify Morf and his colleagues throughout the art world, spur the jealous admiration of other artists and are instantly successful with collectors. A film that began with the possibility of some sharp social observation is quickly rerouted down a familiar Hollywood path: the idea of genius, troubled genius, transformative genius, supernatural genius. America’s love of genius is the tribute it pays to art, for which it otherwise has little use. Genius isn’t just a matter of superlative talent, insight or creativity — it’s also destructive. It doesn’t build on the work that came before, but annihilates it. We fetishize genius because it is too much work to figure out the complicated, often technical and sometimes arcane discourse of art, or music or science. And so, no surprise, the works of Ventril Dease turn out to have occult and murderous powers. As people start dying in horrific ways, the film devolves into something little better than a teen slasher flick, with the art world standing in for the snooty sorority girls who get their well-deserved comeuppance. This is a perfect film for the age of Donald Trump, a revenge fantasy perpetrated against elites, who are caricatured as venal, corrupt and beyond redemption. And despite a few attempts on the director’s part to distinguish authentic art from his parody of art as a vast con game, the film ends on a profoundly anti-art note. Spoiler alerts are for children, so if you have an infantile relation to narrative, read no further. The film ends


How Ethiopia got its grain back

Roosjen’s possession. He continued to market teff products with new companies that didn’t need to follow the terms of the original agreement with Ethiopia. Ethiopia "found itself squeezed out of position to utilize its own teff genetic resources — for example, through collaboration with other foreign companies — in Europe and wherever else the teff patent might be granted,” wrote Regine Andersen and Tone Winge in a 2012 study of the case for the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, a Norwegian environmental research foundation. Such patent problems are increasingly common. With populations exploding and companies experimenting with high-yield plants, designing and patenting seeds has become a big business. A survey in the scientific journal Nature noted that three-quarters of plant DNA patents are held by private companies — half of them in the hands of 14 multinational corporations. Andersen and Winge highlighted how countries can enter into such agreements without experienced negotiators or fully understanding the implications of patents. According to the report, the Ethiopian side later concluded that “the company took advantage of the goodwill and trust of the Ethiopian negotiators, who were looking for a long-term relationship.” Once the deal fell apart, the report concluded, “a financially poor developing country has few prospects of achieving justice, as long as there are no support measures from the side of the user countries.” After years of trying to negotiate back the rights to its own grain, the Ethiopian attorney general’s office announced in May 2018 that it was filing a case against Roosjen at the International Court of Arbitration in Paris. But it was a separate case that eventually broke Roosjen’s hold on teff. Bakels, another Dutch company, had been marketing its own teff baked goods. When Roosjen sued them for patent infringement, the Dutch patent office declared that Roosjen’s patent was void — a decision then backed up a court at The Hague. On Wednesday, the deadline for an appeal expired. Outrage over the teff patents has bubbled continuously on Ethiopian social media, and Roosjen’s decision not to appeal was hailed as victory — even if it was partial one. While Ethiopia can once again market its teff in the Netherlands, Roosjen’s patents remain in force in Belgium, Germany, Britain, Austria and Italy. The Ethiopian attorney general’s office has since issued a statement that the ruling was critical to its own efforts to one day restore its “full ownership of teff.”


Rocky restart after government shutdown: Many workers still haven’t received back pay

guard, and the 35 days of the shutdown had a chaotic and improvisational quality that probably contributed to the chaos of the restart. Simply signing on to an agency’s computer network proved difficult for many people returning to work, because their passwords expired during the shutdown. Private contractors have also had to surmount bureaucratic hurdles. Some contracts expired during the shutdown. That happened, for example, with the contract for handling Freedom of Information Act requests at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said attorney Ethan Bodell, who handles such requests. He said the contract hasn’t been renewed, and as a result, the office can’t get working on new requests or access its database of existing ones. Private contractors are also drumming their fingers waiting to be paid for work done months ago, said David Berteau, president and CEO of the Professional Services Council, which represents members of about 400 companies that do business with the government. “Old invoices have not been paid. New invoices have not been paid. The first thing that should have been paid were old invoices that were actually for work done last October and November,” Berteau said. The paycheck problem cropped up in the National Finance Center, which operates out of the USDA and runs the payroll for many of the government agencies affected by the shutdown. The center was given only a few days to process two full pay cycles for more than 600,000 employees, and had to modify its systems to process 1,343,456 disbursements totaling $5 billion in gross salary, USDA spokesman Tim Murtaugh said. The computers balked. “Unfortunately, processing such a large quantity of payroll disbursements in such a short period of time resulted in 3,908 employees who received payment for only one pay cycle, and 7 did not receive any pay,” Murtaugh said in an email. Those numbers do not jibe with anecdotal reports from employee union representatives and from interviews with government workers, which suggest that the number of people underpaid or not paid at all is much higher. Many of the 450 Internal Revenue Service clerks who process tax transcripts for the lending industry in four offices across the country were not fully paid, according to interviews with employees and the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents them. The clerks spent about two weeks on furlough during the shutdown before the Treasury Department, under pressure from the industry to


13 million people in poverty are disconnected from the social safety net. Most of them are white.

More than a quarter of the people living in poverty in the United States receive no help from food stamps and other nutrition programs, subsidized housing, welfare and other cash benefits, or child-care assistance, according to a new Urban Institute analysis examining the reach of the social safety net. The analysis found that 13 million people living below the poverty line — a household income of less than $25,100 a year for a family of four — were disconnected from federal programs for the neediest Americans. Among the very poorest — for instance, a family of four making less than $13,000 a year — nearly a third receive no benefits from the federal safety net. “There are a lot of people in this country who are not attached to our major systems of support, and they are in desperate need,” said Gregory Acs, vice president for income and benefits policy at the Urban Institute. The study found that African Americans were most likely to get assistance; 85 percent of those living in poverty received at least one form of aid. They were followed by poor whites, at 70 percent. Poor Hispanics and Asians were least likely to receive aid, at 66 percent and 67 percent, respectively. Researchers who study poverty and government assistance suggested various reasons some groups are more likely than others to receive benefits. For instance, studies have shown that low-income white families generally have more resources to fall back on than low-income nonwhite families in times of need. The assets and net worth of poor African Americans tend to be significantly less than those of whites with similar incomes — leaving them with fewer alternatives to government assistance, said Arloc Sherman, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Families with even a bit of savings — $250 to $750 — are less likely to receive public benefits as a result of job loss, unexpected medical bills and other financial disruptions, said Signe-Mary McKernan, an economist at the Urban Institute. Whites are more likely than blacks and Hispanics to own homes, have retirement savings and inherit money, even at lower-income levels, she said. “That’s money that can be used to tide families over in an emergency,” McKernan said. Beyond family wealth, immigration status and the social stigma surrounding government assistance may also play a role in the gap, researchers said. Undocumented immigrants — a


The three intersecting threads linking Trump’s campaign to Russian intelligence

speaks with an assistant to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, about the Moscow project after becoming frustrated by Sater’s progress. 🏢 Jan. 21, 2016. Sater emails Cohen to tell him that Putin’s office “called today.” It’s unclear what happened after that. 🏢 Jan. 26, 2016. Sater emails Cohen to ask him to speak with Shmykov by phone. Cohen agrees. At some point afterward, Sater emails Cohen to tell him the trip is “set.” As it turns out, it isn’t. At some point early in 2016, Cohen and Sater begin communicating using an encrypted messaging platform. Feb. 1, 2016. The Iowa caucuses take place. Trump comes in second. 💻 March 15, 2016. Hackers associated with the GRU allegedly begin probing the Democratic National Committee network for vulnerabilities. 💻 March 19, 2016. Various members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign are targeted with emails intended to access their network log-in credentials. 💻 March 21, 2016. Hackers gain access to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s email account. 🕵 March 29, 2016. Manafort joins the Trump campaign to manage the delegate process before the convention. 🕵 Spring 2016. At some point, both Manafort and his longtime business partner Rick Gates transfer both public and proprietary campaign polling data to Kilimnik, their business associate. The information is then shared with two Russian oligarchs with whom Manafort has worked in the past. 💻 April 6, 2016. An employee of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee accidentally provides her network credentials to the hackers. 🕵 April 11, 2016. Manafort emails Kilimnik to ensure that a Russian oligarch with whom the two had a long-standing business relationship, Oleg Deripaska, is aware of Manafort’s new position with the campaign. 💻 April 12, 2016. Hackers gain access to the DCCC network. 💻 April 18, 2016. Using credentials stolen from a DCCC employee, the hackers gain access to the DNC network. 💻 April 22, 2016. The hackers steal several gigabytes of material from the DNC network. April 26, 2016. Campaign adviser George Papadopoulos is informed by a professor linked to the Kremlin that Russia has dirt on Clinton in the form of emails. 💻 May 2016. The DNC and DCCC learn that their networks were compromised. 🕵 Early May 2016. Kilimnik and Manafort meet in the United States about two weeks before the latter is named campaign chairman for Trump. 🏢 May 4, 2016. Sater tells Cohen he “had a chat with


Matt Golsteyn planned to join the CIA and go to Iraq. Now he faces a murder charge.

Virginia in August 2016, marrying Julie in May 2017 and having a son with her last year. He also has a 12-year-old-son from a previous marriage. In Golsteyn’s office at work hangs military memorabilia from his career and a photo of him shaking President George W. Bush’s hand in 2002 as a new graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Golsteyn deployed to Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2009 after undergoing heart surgery in 2006 stemming from an accident at the Special Forces Underwater Operations School near Key West, Fla. In January 2010, Golsteyn was deployed to Afghanistan with the 3rd Special Forces Group. As commander of Operational Detachment Alpha 3121, he would lead not only his unit but also about 30 Marines and 300 Afghan soldiers in a major offensive against the Taliban involving a total of 15,000 coalition and Afghan troops. The Battle of Marja would prove to be far more violent than other missions. For days, Golsteyn and his troops faced hours of gunfights. Explosives laced the city, and he and other service members were frustrated with rules of engagement that were designed to prevent civilian casualties but limited how aggressively they could target the Taliban. On Feb. 18, a booby-trapped garage door exploded, killing Sgt. Jeremy McQueary, 27, and Lance Cpl. Larry M. Johnson, 19, Marine combat engineers deployed alongside Golsteyn’s unit. After a search, Afghan forces detained a man with bombmaking material. But Golsteyn said U.S. forces were told they could not keep any detainees because of the amount of resources doing so would require. Golsteyn targeted the suspected bombmaker in circumstances that are still mysterious and central to the case. With a criminal charge pending, he declined to answer some questions, including how long the man had been free before he was killed, whether anyone else was with Golsteyn at the time and whether he reported the killing to anyone afterward. “He probably had anywhere from between . . .” Golsteyn said of Rasoul, before stopping mid-sentence. “To be honest, I don’t know because I was out [away from the base]. He had a long walk,” Golsteyn continued. “He had a long time to figure out where he was going in life.” Rachel E. VanLandingham, a military justice expert at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, said the specifics of how Golsteyn targeted the man are central to the case.


National Zoo’s young gorilla seems to be on the mend

The news about Washington’s young gorilla with the fractured femur seems to be good. The 9-month-old “daredevil,” Moke, appears to be standing and walking with increasing strength each day, the National Zoo said on Friday. A rambunctious youngster, Moke, a western lowland gorilla, seems to be “in great spirits,” the zoo reported. On Jan. 27, keepers noted that the prized young primate was favoring his left leg. The fracture in his leg was subsequently found. The zoo decided to let it heal on its own, although more hay was provided to cushion against falls. So far, the zoo’s cautious optimism seems justified. “One would hardly realize” his leg was broken, the zoo said. “The healing abilities of gorillas are truly remarkable.” martin.weil@washpost.com


Japan-South Korea ties ‘worst in five decades’ as U.S. leaves alliance untended

workers forced into labor during Japanese colonial rule, but the root of the crisis runs much deeper and its effects have reverberated in all directions since. In November, South Korea shut down a foundation established to help care for the Korean women — more commonly known as “comfort women” — who were forced into sexual slavery in Japanese military brothels during World War II. The foundation was funded by Japan as part of a 2015 deal intended to put the issue to rest. Then Tokyo went public with accusations that a South Korean warship had locked its fire-control radar onto a Japanese patrol plane, a move seen as a precursor to actually firing. Seoul denied the accusation and countered with the charge that the Japanese plane had been flying dangerously low. Japan’s conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korea’s liberal President Moon Jae-in come from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. In South Korea, Abe is an unpopular figure, seen as reluctant to express genuine remorse for Japan’s behavior during its colonial rule over the peninsula. In Japan, Moon is seen as the latest in a long line of South Korean leaders who have exploited popular resentment of Japan to shore up their own flagging popularity and reneged on agreements reached by previous governments. Tokyo says the Supreme Court decision violates a 1965 deal establishing diplomatic relations, under which Japan gave South Korea much-needed economic aid as compensation for forced labor. But if Japan takes a legalistic position, then many South Koreans are more concerned with what they see as justice, said Shin. Moon himself was a human rights lawyer who once represented claimants in a case against Mitsubishi over forced labor. Liberals in South Korea tend to see the 1965 agreement as an unequal treaty imposed by Japan on a weak country still recovering from the ravages of war, led by military strongman Park Chung-hee, who trained in the Japanese puppet state in Manchuria during the final stages of World War II. To outsiders, the antipathy between the two countries — both free market democracies with close relationships to the West — can come as a surprise. But the tragedy of the current crisis, according to Yasushi Kudo of the Japanese think tank Genron NPO, is that this antipathy had been gradually subsiding, especially among young people, thanks in part to booming tourism and a mutual affinity for


White House declines to submit report to Congress on Khashoggi killing

The Trump administration declined Friday to submit a report to Congress determining whether Saudi Arabia’s crown prince is personally responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Senators had asked for the finding by Friday, with an eye to imposing new human rights sanctions on Saudi Arabia over the journalist’s Oct. 2 killing inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. Under the Magnitsky Act, the president has 120 days to respond to a direct request from Congress about possible violations. The request, made Oct. 10 in a letter signed by 11 Democratic and 11 Republican senators, required the administration to make a determination of responsibility for the killing, particularly including involvement by the Saudi royal family, and to act on it by imposing sanctions on responsible individuals. “The President maintains his discretion to decline to act on congressional committee requests when appropriate,” a senior administration official said in a statement. “The U.S. Government will continue to consult with Congress and work to hold accountable those responsible for Jamal Khashoggi’s killing.” The Trump administration cited the constitutional separation of powers and the precedent of the Obama administration in declining to meet what the lawmakers had called a deadline. The decision was expected, and a bipartisan Senate bill introduced Thursday would supersede the request and direct the president to impose sanctions on anyone — including Saudi officials and the royal family — he determines was “responsible, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing” acts that caused or contributed to Khashoggi’s death. The new legislation relies on the authority of the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and imposes a 30-day deadline from the date of passage for presidential findings and sanctions imposition. The act is named after a Russian whistleblower, Sergei Magnitsky, who died while in detention in Russia after being beaten and denied medical care. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated and almost certainly carried out on orders from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudi government claims that the prince, who is the kingdom’s de facto ruler, was not involved. Trump announced in November that he would not downgrade the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, regardless of whether Saudi rulers were culpable. Discounting his administration’s intelligence findings, Trump has repeatedly pointed to the lack of a single piece of evidence, or a “smoking gun,” that would irrefutably pin blame on the prince. The administration has said


At the National Zoo, a dentist had a tiger by the tooth

Nikita, a 308-pound Amur tiger, was blissfully gassed out on a gurney at the National Zoo. On Saturday morning, as the orange, black and white feline lay on her side, her tongue dangling out, some 15 zoo staffers fearlessly hovered. They opened her mouth, checked her heart rate, and, crucially, monitored for the slightest signs of muscle twitches and the long-shot chance that she’d suddenly wake. Everyone knew the stakes. It would be bad, very bad, if Nikita woke up in this moment, in this very small room. The 6-year-old was getting a root canal. Then, Barron Hall, a Northern Virginia-based, board-certified animal dentist, did what no other sane human would do to a sleeping tiger. He jammed a needle into her upper left canine tooth. Near the top. Near the gums. He kept doing this. Over and over. But this was his job — digging a hole, irrigating the tooth’s precious insides, and restoring it — and he’s one of animal dentistry’s best. (He has worked on Secret Service dogs and more than 50 tigers.) And Nikita deserved the best. She’s part of the Amur tiger subspecies, an endangered population that lives mostly near the Amur River in Siberia. Poaching and habitat loss have reduced their numbers dangerously. As few as 360 are left, according to the National Zoo, but conservation efforts in Russia promoted by President Vladmir Putin have helped slow down the decline. Fear not, Nikita does not hail from an Internet troll farm. And she’s no spy. Hopefully, she’s a breeder. Nikita was born at the Bronx Zoo in New York in 2012 and came to Washington in November 2018 so she could commune with the National Zoo’s other Amur tiger, an 11-year-old named Pavel. He arrived at the National Zoo in the fall of 2017 from Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. For the National Zoo, Pavel was a huge prize: He was the first of his endangered subspecies to be exhibited here since 1948. The zoo’s wish is that Nikita and Pavel produce at least one litter. “With the cats, however many they have is awesome,” said Craig Saffoe, the zoo’s curator of the Great Cats. “We’d love to get a breeding at bare minimum.” But before Nikita and Pavel could begin their courtship, she needed that root canal. As Hall, the dentist, began the procedure Saturday morning, he explained the root problem. Since Nikita


Diabetics in Britain worry a no-deal Brexit could put their lives at risk

GLASGOW, Scotland — Neil Macdougall has had Type 1 diabetes almost as long as he can remember. He wears a pump on his hip, the size of a mobile phone, that drips insulin into his body. It’s as precious and necessary to him as air. Macdougall says he stays on top of his condition. But he’s worried about what happens after Brexit. Nearly all the insulin in Britain is imported, the bulk of it from Denmark. If Britain crashes out of the European Union in March without a deal for how to manage the withdrawal, drugs that keep him alive could suddenly be hard to get. Without insulin, Macdougall figures, he’d be dead in 48 hours. “It’s all very well for politicians just sitting in ivory towers saying, ‘We will get through this with a bit of courage and a bit of hope.’ Courage and hope don’t control my blood sugar levels,” said Macdougall, 44, a telecommunications engineer who works in Glasgow. Britain is getting wobbly in the knees as it faces what was once unthinkable: leaving the E.U. with no deal, no transition period, nothing to replace a system that has provided frictionless trade for more than 40 years. The British newspapers have been a little hysterical, revealing plans, for example, to evacuate the queen from Buckingham Palace in the event of mass riots in London stoked by empty grocery-store shelves. Hardcore Brexiteers dismiss it all as propaganda generated by “project fear” Europhile campaigners. But just because some fears may be exaggerated doesn’t make others less real. And growing numbers of patients, doctors, pharmacists and hospital administrators are worried about what a “no deal” Brexit could mean for medicines and medical supplies reaching this island nation. There doesn’t appear to be appetite in Westminster for a cliff-edge Brexit. Parliament last week voted to assert that Britain should not leave the E.U. without a deal. Still, the current legal default position is that the country will exit the bloc on March 29, with or without a deal. Most analysts agree that a no-deal departure would be disruptive, at least in the short term. Overnight, Britain would lose its status as part of the E.U.’s single market and customs union, and it would become subject to third-country rules. Trucks carrying food and medicine could face new border checks. The Road Haulage Association, a transport industry body, has warned of “disastrous queues


100 percent guarantee that nothing goes wrong in such a chaotic and untested situation,” Dayan said. He noted that beyond testing medical supplies, a no-deal Brexit could contribute to rising medical costs if the pound falls, and could cause personnel shortages at hospitals abandoned by E.U. nurses, and more strain on the health-care system if British retirees living in the E.U. suddenly lose their European health-care benefits and return home for treatment. Some pharmacists have already reported drug shortages. “We are on the front line, and we see, on a day-to-day basis, people coming in, quite desperate to get medication,” said Amo Sohal, owner of Kitsons Pharmacy in Worcester, England. Sohal said he has noticed a sudden drop in the availability of anti-inflammatory painkillers and epilepsy medication. “I’ve been told, ‘No, there’s no stock available,’ ” he said. Sohal attributed the fall in supply, at least in part, to no-deal anxieties. He said he has heard stories of patients and other pharmacies ordering in bulk because “no one really knows what’s going to happen.” Macdougall, the Type 1-diabetes patient, is among those hoping to have extra medication on hand, just in case. He said he has had trouble filling his usual order of pump parts, though — a supply shortage he suspects has to do with stockpiling by others. Diabetes has become one of the most high-profile conditions to be highlighted by Brexit jitters, in part because 99 percent of Britain’s insulin is imported, largely from the E.U. It also needs to be refrigerated, so it cannot sit indefinitely in traffic jams. “People with diabetes feel a visceral sense of fear about losing access to their insulin,” Hewings said. While the physical response varies from person to person, “if someone stopped taking insulin on a Friday, then they would probably need to go to the hospital by Sunday.” It’s “genuinely bloody terrifying,” said James Patrick, 39, a writer whose 7-year-old daughter has Type 1 diabetes. Patrick said he imagined that stockpiling insulin would be pretty much impossible. “Your doctor isn’t going to prescribe you a year’s worth. You can’t just buy it, because it is a controlled substance, and it’s not shelf-stable,” he said. Some of the major pharmaceutical companies have outlined backup plans. Novo Nordisk, the Danish drug company that makes most of the insulin used in Britain, said it has more than doubled its stock and has reserved


The Daily 202: Ralph Northam should read these books to better understand racism, historians say

SHUTDOWN WATCH: -- The risk of a second government shutdown at the end of the week increased significantly after bipartisan negotiations fell apart. “The stalemate left the path to keeping the government open unclear. There were behind-the-scenes efforts late Sunday to salvage the talks, but it was uncertain whether they would be successful. … Another funding lapse could affect many Americans within days because one of the agencies that would go unfunded during the shutdown is the Internal Revenue Service … Lawmakers on the 17-member conference committee had been trading offers over how much money could go to barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. They were looking at between $1.3 billion and $2 billion — far short of the $5.7 billion Trump had demanded. … But throughout the talks, Democrats had also been focused on limiting ICE’s ability to detain unauthorized immigrants, which has become a major issue for the party because of Democrats’ opposition to the Trump administration’s aggressive detention tactics.” -- Key lawmakers plan to meet Monday afternoon in a late-stage bid to revive talks, -- -- California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) will pull around 360 National Guard troops from the state’s border with Mexico days after Trump labeled Central American refugees and migrants traveling there a “national security crisis.” -- Workers harmed by the last shutdown are dreading the damage another one could cause. -- The threat of another shutdown has left some wondering whether more airports should turn to private contractors rather than TSA for security. 2020 WATCH: -- Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar became the latest Democrat to enter the 2020 presidential field. Klobuchar’s “entry into the race came at an outside event at which the bareheaded candidate, her introductory speakers and hundreds of supporters were pelted by relentless snow. She sought to use that, too, as defining her candidacy. ‘We don’t let a little snow stop us! We don’t let a lot of cold stop us!’ Klobuchar said as she started her speech.” -- But stories about Klobuchar being a bad boss have cast a pall over her campaign launch. -- Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet implied he may enter the crowded 2020 field. -- Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a critic of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), is also thinking about joining the field. -- Taking her first direct shot at Trump since she formally launched her campaign, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the president “may not even


The complete list of Grammy winners

Best Latin rock, urban or alternative album “Aztlán,” Zoé Best regional Mexican music album (including Tejano) “¡México Por Siempre!,” Luis Miguel Best tropical Latin album “Anniversary,” Spanish Harlem Orchestra Best American roots performance “The Joke,” Brandi Carlile Best American roots song “The Joke,” Brandi Carlile Best Americana album “By the Way, I Forgive You,” Brandi Carlile Best bluegrass album “The Travelin’ McCourys,” The Travelin’ McCourys Best traditional blues album “The Blues Is Alive and Well,” Buddy Guy Best contemporary blues album “Please Don’t Be Dead,” Fantastic Negrito Best folk album “All Ashore,” Punch Brothers Best regional roots music album “No ’Ane’i,” Kalani Pe’a Best reggae album “44/876,” Sting and Shaggy Best world music album “Freedom,” Soweto Gospel Choir Best children’s album “All the Sounds,” Lucy Kalantari and the Jazz Cats Best spoken word album (includes poetry, audiobooks and storytelling) “Faith — A Journey for All,” Jimmy Carter Best musical theater album “The Band’s Visit,” original Broadway cast recording Best compilation soundtrack for visual media “The Greatest Showman,” Hugh Jackman and various artists Best score soundtrack for visual media “Black Panther,” Ludwig Goransson Best song written for visual media “Shallow,” Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper Best instrumental composition “Blood and Soil,” Terence Blanchard Best arrangement, instrumental or a cappella “Stars and Stripes Forever,” John Daversa Big Band featuring DACA Artists Best arrangement, instruments and vocals “Spider-Man Theme,” Randy Waldman featuring Take 6 and Chris Potter Best recording package “Masseduction,” St. Vincent Best boxed or special limited-edition package “Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic,” “Weird Al” Yankovic Best album notes “Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris,” various artists Best historical album “Voices of Mississippi: Artists and Musicians Documented by William Ferris,” various artists Best engineered album, nonclassical “Colors,” Beck Producer of the year, nonclassical Pharrell Williams Best remixed recording “Walking Away (Mura Masa remix),” Haim Best immersive audio album “Eye in the Sky — 35th Anniversary Edition,” the Alan Parsons Project Best engineered album, classical “Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11,” Andris Nelsons and Boston Symphony Orchestra Producer of the year, classical Blanton Alspaugh Best orchestral performance “Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11,” Boston Symphony Orchestra Best opera recording “Bates: The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs,” Santa Fe Opera Orchestra Best choral performance “McLoskey: Zealot Canticles,” Donald Nally Best classical instrumental solo “Kernis: Violin Concerto,” James Ehnes Best chamber music/small ensemble performance “Landfall,” Laurie Anderson and


The Technology 202: Sen. Amy Klobuchar, announcing 2020 bid, comes out swinging on Big Tech

would launch a U.S. national strategy on artificial intelligence. "The U.S. is the world leader in artificial intelligence," an administration official told reporters on a call Sunday. "It is not surprising to us that the Chinese are interested in this particular domain and are spending and investing heavily." But as the U.S. confronts that heavy spending on AI in China, the order does not introduce any new funding for AI research. An administration official told reporters that’s because it’s the responsibility of Congress to appropriate funds. The order does direct federal agencies to prioritize AI research in their budgeting and also better track their spending on AI, which is not a category that is typically earmarked today. The order will also direct agencies to make data that could enable AI more available to researchers, and it aims to set AI governance standards within federal agencies to mainatain a “safe and trustworthy” introduction of new AI technologies, especially as there are privacy concerns about government using AI tools. BYTES: Amazon is reconsidering whether to open part of its second headquarters in New York City amid mounting opposition from activists and several politicians including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) The New York state Senate has nominated an opponent of the project, Sen. Michael N. Gianaris (D-Queens), to a state board where he could potentially veto the deal for Amazon's New York campus — Sprint filed a lawsuit that accuses AT&T of misleading consumers by using the label “5G E,” which stands for “5G Evolution,” even though consumers are still using AT&T's 4G LTE Advanced network — Liberal activists are urging tech companies such as Facebook and Google not to provide technical or financial assistance to Trump's 2020 reelection efforts and the Republican Party out of disagreement with the president's positions “It's no longer acceptable for these companies to play both sides like they're equal,” Rashad Robinson, president of the civil rights advocacy group Color of Change, told Politico. — More technology news from the private sector: — Privacy advocates and policymakers in California worry that lobbying groups for tech giants may seek to weaken a landmark state online privacy law that is set to take effect next year The tech sector has denied that it is trying to water down the legislation. — Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the French capital is suing Airbnb for publishing 1,000 illegal rental advertisements — More technology


The mere threat of another shutdown will do lasting damage to the federal workforce

in 2013. For up to five weeks after it ended, the effects lingered among employees. “Furloughs are about much more than financial stress,” Baranik said in an interview. “Employees gain a lot of intangible benefits from the workplace like talking to friends, engaging in interesting projects and getting support from their supervisors." When that’s taken away, they also lose a lot of the positive effects of work, such as optimism or a sense of achievement, and those take time to build back. And that five-week recovery timeline happened in a shutdown that was less than half the length of the one that just ended, suggesting this one could take longer. Some argue that differences in motivation among federal workers to work in public service make it trickier to compare it to private-sector layoffs. The government workforce, said Max Stier, president of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, “is unique in that the value proposition for federal employees is in the mission.” And others say that historically, federal employees have been somewhat accustomed to shutdowns. Jonathon Halbesleben, a management professor at the University of Alabama, said in an email that as he’s talked to people about new research possibilities, that’s what he’s heard, and that comparing them to layoffs in the past would not be equal. But that may not be the case in the last shutdown. “I think most would agree that this past shutdown and the threat of the upcoming shutdown is a very different psychological experience,” he said. “I imagine the current shutdown experience for federal workers is a lot closer to layoffs in the private sector than has been the case in the past." Either way, there is still stress — and plenty of it. David Ballard, assistant executive director for organizational excellence at the American Psychological Association, said long-standing research has shown that unpredictability and instability that increases stress levels on the job — whether it be a furlough, a layoff or mere scheduling irregularities — spill over into a worker’s home life, affecting both personal well-being and performance on the job. “The common thread there is those things increase work stress,” Ballard said. “We have to realize that just because people came back to work, the stress is not over. You can’t be fully on at work because that’s weighing on you.” Read also: The ‘perfect storm’ keeping struggling federal workers from accepting help Like


Scotland dreads Brexit. But is it enough to boost sentiment for Scottish independence?

EDINBURGH, Scotland — The craggy Scottish capital is ancient and modern and pretty to look at. It’s home to posh bankers, throngs of international students and the video-game wizards who created “Grand Theft Auto.” This city has got buzz, politics, creatives and soul. And it keeps topping the lists of “Best European Cities” in which to live and work. Which people here find ironic, since Edinburgh, along with the rest of Scotland, is scheduled to leave the European Union next month. To say that Scots are dismayed by Brexit doesn’t quite capture their downcast mood. Many are disgusted. While England and Wales voted to leave the E.U. in a June 2016 referendum, Scotland voted to remain by a wide margin, 62 percent to 38 percent. In Edinburgh, three of every four voted to stay. In some neighborhoods of the city, it’s hard to find a vocal Brexiteer. In interviews and opinion polls, many Scots say they now feel triply put upon: They don’t especially like Brexit; they worry it will hurt their livelihoods and their place in the bigger world; and they don’t seem to have much say in it. Ian Blackford, a lawmaker and a leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), frequently rails in the British House of Commons about Scotland “not being heard” and being taken out of Europe “against our will.” The Scottish government, ruled by the SNP, predicts Brexit will deal an “economic shock” to the north, leave every Scot worse off by $3,000 a year, wipe out 80,000 jobs and “damage growth and business opportunities for decades.” There is a sense, north and south, that Brexit could threaten, ultimately, to break apart the United Kingdom — first Scotland and eventually Northern Ireland. In many ways, Brexit makes the case for another Scottish independence vote stronger: Scotland could say goodbye to English hegemony — and remain in Europe. But Scottish voters are divided about national identity and political sovereignty, over their place in the European Union and in the United Kingdom. The allure of breaking free at the time of the last independence referendum — in 2014, before Brexit — was tethered to the notion that Scotland and England would remain fellow members of the European Union, maintaining close economic and social integration, a common currency and open borders. You could have warm feelings for the queen, and the pound sterling, and still be


After Ahmed Hussein-Suale’s murder, who will stand up for global press freedom?

Anas Aremeyaw Anas is a Ghanaian undercover investigative reporter and founder of Tiger Eye PI. Jon Ossoff is an American investigative journalist and executive producer and CEO of Insight TWI. Insight TWI and Tiger Eye PI have collaborated on anti-corruption and anti-organized crime investigations since 2009. On Jan. 16, our colleague Ahmed Hussein-Suale was assassinated. He was killed around midnight near his family home in Madina, a vibrant Muslim market town near Accra, Ghana’s capital. In the dry season, the night in Madina smells like wood smoke and spiced rice. The call to prayer comes like clockwork. The bubbling market is alive at all hours. Some residents are middle class, some are poor, but this is not the violent, desperate Africa fetishized by first-world movies and charities. One never hears gunfire. Then, three weeks ago, shots rang out. Ahmed was driving his car when men on motorbikes shot him in the chest and throat. Dying, he crashed into a shop. They followed him in and finished him off. His wife and young children survive. First, we stifled grief and did practical things. We increased security. We attended to his family. We rallied press freedom groups and allies in governments. We began assisting the Ghanaian police investigation, which is ongoing. (Ghana’s president has demanded that the“perpetrators of this heinous crime” be brought to justice.) Today we gather in Accra to honor Ahmed, a fearless undercover journalist and one of our team for nearly a decade. Ahmed was unassuming, respectful, hardworking, devout. He never shirked his responsibilities as a father and a husband. He died because he dared to expose how power and secrecy enrich the corrupt. We produce journalistic investigations targeting organized crime and corruption. Last year, we completed an exposé of corruption in international soccer. The BBC broadcast our findings, shaming powerful figures in sports and politics. Sprawling across 16 countries, the investigation required a large team. Ahmed was one of the lead journalists. We had expected to find corruption, and indeed dozens of officials were filmed taking illegal payments, including a referee scheduled to work the World Cup in Moscow. But then the stakes were raised much higher. Kwesi Nyantakyi, a member of the FIFA Council — the sport’s global governing body — was caught on camera pitching not just fixed matches and sweetheart sponsorships but billions in Ghanaian infrastructure contracts. He solicited, in exchange, $11 million in bribes


In Yemen, Iran-aligned rebels tighten their grip through fear and intimidation

When Mohammed Bamuftah arrived at the post office to pick up his salary one day in 2015, he said, a rebel fighter stopped him to inspect his ID card. The 55-year-old lawyer was from Aden, where Yemen’s internationally recognized government was based. That was enough to get him arrested. By the time Bamuftah emerged from prison three years later, he had suffered shocks from an electric prod, he said. He had been suspended from a ceiling with his hands cuffed for three-hour stretches and beaten with rubber-coated electric cables. “I was in so much pain that I would pass out,” recalled Bamuftah, a father of three who was released last summer in a prisoner exchange. In Yemen’s war, a Saudi-led coalition backed by the United States has been denounced for killing thousands of civilians with airstrikes, waging an economic war that has driven millions to the precipice of starvation, and allegedly torturing foes and critics in secret prisons. The criticism has gained more traction since the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey in October focused attention on Riyadh’s behavior and the coalition’s conduct in Yemen. But abuses are also being perpetrated by the rebels, known as Houthis. Torture, detentions and forced disappearances are widespread, according to legal documents and interviews with victims and human rights activists. The abuses are fueling an expanding atmosphere of fear and intimidation in this capital and across rebel-controlled areas. The Washington Post reached out to 13 former prisoners and victims of the Houthis. Only four agreed to speak on the record, because they and their families had fled the north, where the Houthis are strongest. Those still in Sanaa suspect they are being followed by Houthi intelligence agents. Some victims were afraid to speak even by phone, fearing they were tapped by the rebels. The Houthis have targeted activists, journalists, lawyers, religious minorities, business executives — anyone deemed to be against their rule and ideology. Gunmen have raided homes at night, arresting and beating people over minor disputes or for voicing criticism of their movement. Few are given trials or have access to lawyers. Courts are either nonexistent or used purely for sentencing, according to human rights activists and victims. “The Houthis have really gone after a wide spectrum of people who they perceive to be a threat or political opponents to them,” said Kristine Beckerle, Yemen researcher for Human Rights Watch. “Now,


Pentagon watchdog to review SpaceX’s certification to launch national security satellites

his job was to “literally transform the company” to compete with SpaceX. Then-Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James appointed a former high-ranking Pentagon official to lead an independent review of the certification process, which she said at the time would explore whether there are “ways that we can streamline, speed it up, do things a little bit differently.” For years, there has been a significant culture clash between SpaceX, the hard-charging company with a Silicon Valley ethos, and the more bureaucratic Pentagon office. “There’s always tension there,” a former senior defense official said. In 2015, the Air Force and SpaceX settled the lawsuit, and the Air Force granted SpaceX certification for its Falcon 9 rocket, allowing it to compete against ULA, the only other company that holds a certification. Since then, SpaceX has won five missions to launch GPS satellites and has completed one of those.. The Falcon 9 has flown 66 successful missions, and has had two failures, once while launching cargo to the International Space Station for NASA, the other while on the launchpad before an engine test. By the time it was certified, the rocket had flown 18 times, and officials said it had gone through a lengthy certification process. The Air Force has said introducing competition into the launch procurements helped the agency get a much better price. Given the value of the contract awards — single launches can be worth more than $100 million — “there is a lot of pressure,” said a former senior defense official. “It’s big business.” Last year, the Air Force certified another of SpaceX’s rockets, the more powerful Falcon Heavy, which can lift even heavier payloads to orbit. It was certified after a single flight, meaning SpaceX would have been required to give the Air Force “a ton of data,” the official said. Still, “that probably did raise eyebrows,” the official said. Late last year, the Air Force awarded three major contracts, worth more than $2 billion combined, to help companies develop their rockets for future national security missions. ULA, Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin each won contracts. SpaceX did not. (Blue Origin is owned by Jeffrey P. Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.) The Pentagon has said it would only pick two companies to provide launches for that next round of missions. SpaceX has led a lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill, according to multiple industry and congressional officials,


Schiff: The need to probe Trump’s finances is getting more urgent

Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s killing. But Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on whether the crown prince was responsible. In the face of that disconnect, Schiff had previously told this blog that he intends for the Intelligence Committee to do a “deep dive” on the Khashoggi murder, on the president’s response to it, and on the larger questions raised by both. This would entail nailing down what the intelligence community has concluded about the murder, and how firm the basis for that conclusion is. That, in turn, would give members of Congress a clearer sense of whether Trump is publicly misrepresenting or glossing over what his own intelligence agencies have concluded, to protect the crown prince. An Intelligence Committee inquiry, Schiff told me at the time, could also look at Trump’s possible financial ties to the Saudis to determine whether there are any “conflicts of interest” that are shaping U.S. policy towards Saudi Arabia — including the U.S. response to the Khashoggi killing. All this has suddenly become pressing once again. Last week, the White House declined to submit a report documenting the administration’s conclusions about the Khashoggi killing to senators who had requested it. Under the Magnitsky Act, the White House had 120 days to submit the requested report to determine whether human rights violations have occurred, and whether to undertake punitive action. Senators had asked the administration to make a determination of responsibility for the killing, including on the question of whether the Saudi royal family was behind it. Schiff now tells me there is a reason the administration has probably blown off this deadline to produce the report. “I presume that they haven’t produced one, because we know what the conclusion would be,” Schiff said. “Apparently they don’t want to put that in writing to the Congress.” Schiff said an investigation into this matter might also probe why the administration is dragging its feet on divulging its public conclusion on the killing. “The broader question is why does the administration continue . . . to try to cover for the Saudi royal family?” Schiff told me, as well as “why does the president continue to dissemble about the role of the crown prince in the murder of Khashoggi?” "The concern that we have always had is whether this president is acting in the national interest, or because of some hidden financial motivations,” Schiff continued. “I think


The Health 202: Democrats face tricky questions about state laws expanding access to late-term abortion

a health-care provider’s electronic record, like doctors’ notes, without being charged. “Today, hospitals generally offer online patient portals, but these often lack material such as doctor notes, imaging scans and genetic-testing data,” Anna reports. And sometimes, patients are charged to retrieve that data. The proposed rules would also call on insurers with government-sponsored plans, like Medicare Advantage or Affordable Care Act exchange coverage, to “open up new digital pathways to claims data for consumers, including information on costs of services,” Anna reports. And companies like Apple that are creating resources for patients to store medical information on their phones and other digital devices, could benefit from such a proposal. Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said employer plans would be encouraged to offer a similar resource. “Patients have really lost in the system,” Verma said. “Today, instead of filing cabinets and paper silos, we now have electronic silos” to complicate patient access to health data. — Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is the latest Democratic presidential hopeful calling for marijuana to be legalized at the federal level, and her support signals a shift in how politicians are talking about marijuana policy. “I believe we need to legalize marijuana,” she said during an interview on New York City-based radio show “The Breakfast Club.” She added there would need to be research on the impact of smoking on a developing brain and on measuring impairment for regulating use while driving. But Harris dismissed rumors that she doesn’t support legalization. “That’s not true,” she said. “Half my family is from Jamaica; are you kidding me?” She said she smoked pot herself in college — “and I inhaled,” she joked. “Harris’s unflinching support for legalization shows the dramatic evolution in the ease in which politicians talk about pot now,” our Post colleague Colby Itkowitz writes. “Whereas once policymakers decried marijuana as a gateway drug, Harris defended its use by saying, ‘It gives a lot of people joy.’ ” Colby adds: “Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has sponsored legislation to end the federal prohibition on marijuana use. His co-sponsors include primary contenders Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).” — And here are a few more good reads: Today Coming Up His mother is an anti-vaxxer, but at 18, it’s his choice. ‘How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn?’: Trump on owning a dog


Staff news: Gillian Brockell to anchor Retropolis

Announcement from Local Editor Mike Semel, Deputy Local Editor Monica Norton and Local Assignment Editor Lynda Robinson: Gillian has worked at The Post for five years as a video editor, first on the National desk and then for Post Opinions. But her real love is writing, especially writing about history. When The Post announced the creation of a new history blog two years ago, she begged to write for it. Since then, she has used her time off to contribute two dozen posts to Retropolis, including how a painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware went 19th century viral and the enduring mystery of Roanoke’s Lost Colony . Gillian, a former JetBlue flight attendant who has written a screenplay about George Washington’s misspent youth, majored in history at the University of Texas at Austin and has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University. She loves collecting stories people find incredible. Want to know about the bromance between Abraham Lincoln and Karl Marx or the Supreme Court justice who shook hands with both John Quincy Adams and JFK? She can tell you all about it. Gillian has plans to make our history posts more visually compelling and to find new ways to deliver them to our growing audience. She promises Tweet storms, GIFs and AMP stories. She even hopes to dive into our old print photo archives, where treasures abound but unearthing them can be…challenging. If anyone is up to it, she is. Gillian will start her new job later this month. Please welcome her when she joins Metro.


General Dynamics reports first financial fallout from business with Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi killing

An international dispute between Canada and Saudi Arabia is holding up hundreds of millions of dollars in armored-vehicle payments that were promised to U.S. defense giant General Dynamics, executives disclosed recently in a call with investors. It’s an early sign that U.S. arms manufacturers are not immune to backlash over doing business with Saudi Arabia in light of its role in a long-running humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. arms manufacturers have struggled to reassure investors that their Saudi business is safe in the months since Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and critic of the Saudi ruling family, was killed at the hands of the Saudi state. In the United States, policy has fallen largely in their favor. President Trump has stubbornly resisted calls to curtail U.S. arms sales with Saudi Arabia. And no legislation has emerged from Congress that would fundamentally alter the U.S.-Saudi security partnership, despite growing awareness of the humanitarian situation in Yemen amid a Saudi-led military campaign there. But events unfolding in Canada are materially hurting the Falls Church, Va.-based defense giant’s finances as it awaits payment under a $13 billion armored-vehicle contract. General Dynamics chief executive Phebe Novakovic said in a Jan. 30 call with investors that cash flow for the company’s land systems business unit was “significantly impacted” by “diplomatic contretemps” between Canada and its unnamed “customer," referring to a Canadian arms deal with Saudi Arabia. A General Dynamics spokesman declined to elaborate Monday. “Our payment issue got caught up in a larger international political issue, diplomatic issue,” Novakovic told investors. “While we got some payment last year, those diplomatic contretemps slowed the payment that we otherwise anticipated.” For the better part of a year, Canadian leaders have straddled a fine line between calling out Saudi human rights abuses — something that has differentiated Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration from that of Trump — and mollifying a Saudi regime that has been known to retaliate sharply against its critics. “Having [the dispute] show up in a quarterly earnings call shows you this conflict has more legs to it than it appeared to initially,” said Andrew Hunter, a defense industry expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “What we don’t know is, does this deal rupture? Or is it something the two countries are going to get past?” Relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia soured in


Loveday Morris named Berlin bureau chief

Announcement from Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl, Deputy Foreign Editor Eva Rodriguez and Europe Editor Marisa Bellack: We’re thrilled to announce that Loveday Morris, our bureau chief in Jerusalem, will become Berlin bureau chief, effective this summer. Loveday is a tenacious reporter and perceptive writer whose courageous and enterprising work from the Middle East for much of the last decade made her a true standout. In the past year alone, Loveday delivered powerful first-hand accounts from Gaza as Israeli sharpshooters opened fire on Palestinian protesters, who had been encouraged by Hamas in many cases to march on a well-guarded border fence; she painted revealing, moving portraits of ordinary people to illuminate a sense of despair and resignation among Israelis and Palestinians 20 years after the Oslo accords; and she assumed a pivotal role during five nonstop weeks in Istanbul in The Post’s remarkable reporting that led the world in unearthing high-level Saudi complicity in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Loveday joined The Post in 2013 as a Beirut-based correspondent. She became Baghdad bureau chief in 2015, delivering agenda-setting coverage on Iraq during the rise and fall of the Islamic State, including weeks reporting from near the front lines during the Iraqi assault to retake Mosul. She moved on to Jerusalem in 2017, covering Israel and the Palestinians during a period when the Trump administration’s full-throated support of Israel is shaking up the long-accepted status quo in that conflict. Loveday began her career as a retail reporter for Bloomberg News in London, then moved to the Middle East where she was a reporter for The National in Abu Dhabi and a freelance journalist in Beirut. She has also worked as a freelance news editor for The Independent and The Times in London. She is a graduate of Exeter University, where she majored in Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic. She has also studied some French and German. In moving to Berlin, Loveday will take over from Griff Witte, who is returning to the newsroom. Her long experience in the Middle East will serve her well in a region whose demographics and politics have been transformed by waves of migration, particularly from Syria. She will work in close partnership with the rest of our Europe team, which includes correspondents in London, Brussels, Paris, Moscow and Rome.


China’s state-owned rail-car builder looks close to bidding on Metro contract; also eyeing N.Y. subway work

concern about the economic precedent of allowing a state-subsidized manufacturer into the U.S. market. Other rail-car makers who attended last month’s Metro event included Hyundai Rotem, of South Korea, and France-based Alstom, according to meeting documents. CRRC has bested Hyundai in the past, however. Kawasaki Rail Car, the Japanese maker of Metro’s 7000-series rail car, which is built in Nebraska, has not made site visits for the 8000-series project, which calls for up to 800 new rail cars. Observers say that’s probably because the company is consumed with a contract to build an initial batch of new rail cars for the New York subway. CRRC was initially believed to be on the verge of securing that $3.2 billion contract — which would have been the company’s largest U.S. deal — but lost out in a joint bid with Canada’s Bombardier Transportation, according to media reports. A China-based rail expert said the decision reflected “political considerations,” among other factors, according to a summary of his comments in the Beijing-aligned Global Times. A spokesman for MTA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the agency has heeded cybersecurity and economic concerns about CRRC. Kawasaki, which had delivered about three-fourths of Metro’s 7000-series cars by the end of last year, is expected to have delivered all 748 by the end of this year, according to Metro projections. Neither Kawasaki nor CRRC returned requests to multiple employees for comment. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority awarded CRRC a $137 million contract in 2017 for the construction of 45 regional rail coaches, to be built in Massachusetts. SEPTA said CRRC beat out two other bidders based on two factors: technical rating and pricing. “SEPTA determined the CRRC proposal was the best value and most advantageous for the Authority,” agency spokesman Andrew Busch said in a statement. SEPTA said the next lowest bid was from Bombardier, for nearly $172 million, followed by Hyundai Rotem at nearly $185 million. Safeguards added After cybersecurity concerns were raised, Metro updated its bid solicitation to address some of the issues. It also extended the deadline for bids to April from January. Last week, the transit agency outlined several new procurement requirements for the contract, such as requiring the manufacturer disclose the country of origin of all rail-car components, assert that any software-related “back doors” have been disabled and remove any communications ports that wouldn’t otherwise be needed


Why did the food media ignore the best-selling cookbook of 2018?

Gathering” by Joanna Gaines, published in April by William Morrow ($30). More than 1.3 million copies had sold by November, and more than 2 million copies are now in print. According to NPD Bookscan, “Magnolia Table” was the No. 2 bestseller across the entire book industry last year, behind Michelle Obama’s autobiography. That’s a lot of Jojo’s Biscuits. Those buttery biscuits and convenience-product casseroles and green beans amandine, the meatloaf and apple pie are what “Magnolia Table” is made of, but hardly the draw. Joanna and her husband, Chip, are beloved lifestyle royalty who are by all accounts genuinely nice folks. Their hit “Fixer Upper” series ran on HGTV for five seasons, until the couple, citing a need for more family time, ended it. Their Magnolia Foundation is involved in community restoration. Their Magnolia Market retail complex has made Waco, Tex., a destination for ardent fans, whose hunger is partly responsible for this cookbook. Above all else, the book demonstrates how well the Gaineses know their audience. Some perspective Cookbooks in the United States do sell into the millions, but it typically takes decades to get there. According to the Daily Meal, the total for the “Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook” is 40 million; its first edition was published in 1930. The various editions of “Joy of Cooking” (1936) add up to some 20 million. “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” (1961), 1.5 million. Looking at more recent culinary juggernauts, there are 12 million of Ina Garten’s 11 cookbooks in print to date (since 1999). Samin Nosrat’s 2017 “Salt Fat Acid Heat” (Simon and Schuster), thanks in part to its acclaimed Netflix companion series, clocks in at 330,000 copies. Cookbook authors and their publishers these days might expect to hit a threshold of no more than 15,000 sold — or even 7,000 to 10,000, despite substantial food media coverage. “Magnolia Table” did huge numbers online, with signed editions specifically created for Target and Walmart, but not so much among the top independent cookbook retailers, whose bestseller lists it did not crack, according to EatYourBooks.com. It was not included in Amazon’s late-January compilation of “100 Books for a Lifetime of Eating and Drinking.” Achieving New York Times bestseller status did not launch it onto gift-giving season cookbook lists of that paper, nor those of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Atlantic, Epicurious, Kitchn, Eater and Food52’s Piglet Tournament of Cookbooks. It


Botanic Garden celebrates a flower once reserved for royalty

colorful blooms, including some rarely seen orchids. As you poke around, follow a map and complete a seven-question quiz to earn an orchid stamp. And pick up a free “orchid-gami” kit at the front desk and make your own paper flower at home. There are about 30,000 known orchid speciesand three times as many hybrids (what you get when you crossbreed different plants). New species and hybrids appear almost daily. “Humans love to dabble and create,” said Devin Dotson, who oversees Botanic Garden exhibits. Once a gift for royalty and the wealthy, orchids are now sold in grocery stores. Many growing in the wild, however, are listed as endangered or threatened. So if you see an orchid, whether on a nature trail or in someone’s garden, look but don’t touch. Smelling is allowed, though. Go ahead, stick your nose in close. Some orchids smell sweet, others stink wickedly and some have no smell at all. Did you know that vanilla is an orchid? “Who wouldn’t love a plant that produces vanilla?” said Lee Coykendall, the garden’s children’s education specialist. Diversity is key to the orchid family’s appeal. Many orchids grow in most weather conditions and different habitats. Some grow in the ground; others grow on trees. One species in Australia blooms underground and is pollinated by ants. Insects and other pollinators move pollen grains from one plant to another to create new plants. “Orchids spend a lot of effort on how to attract pollinators,” Coykendall said. Many orchids rely on a single species of pollinator and may lure them with tricks. For example, the flowers might mimic the look of female bees or wasps to attract mates, or they might give off a nasty odor to lure flies. The lady’s slipper orchid has a pouch that traps insects to make sure they pick up or leave some pollen before escaping. Orchids come in many shapes, sizes and colors. Some even look like animals or people. If you divide the flower in two, top to bottom, the two sides are mirror images, like a human face. This is called bilateral symmetry. It results in orchids that look like monkeys, egrets, lions, owls and even a ballerina — which may be why we like orchids so much. Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the photographer of the lady’s slipper orchid. She is Candice Turner. The story has been updated. kidspost@washpost.com


I’m a chest surgeon in India. It’s clear that pollution is a health emergency.

Dr. Arvind Kumar is a surgeon at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi and a founder of the Lung Care Foundation. NEW DELHI — As a chest surgeon who has been operating on lungs since 1988, I am pained to say that it is time to call India’s deadly pollution crisis a public health emergency. Over the years, I have witnessed a change in the color of patients’ lungs from pink to black. It is a rarity for me to see a normal pink lung in any adult patient today. In essence, there are no nonsmokers in India, given our wretchedly polluted air. Newborns in many of our cities become “smokers” from their very first breath. Business leaders and government officials gathering here for the World Sustainable Development Summit this week must face this reality: India’s development is anything but sustainable. An unhealthy population cannot build a strong nation. The government must declare an emergency and swiftly enact transformational change in policies regarding energy and transportation, the two main contributors to air pollution. The science demands it. A recent study by the Lung Care Foundation on the air in New Delhi and an adjoining city revealed shockingly high levels of manganese, lead, nickel, barium, silicon and iron. And while New Delhi has attracted the most attention, the problem of air pollution is pan-India, with hardly any city in the country coming anywhere close to World Health Organization standards, except on a few days of continuous rain. Breathing such highly polluted air has deadly health consequences. Toxins in polluted air (particulate matter, gases and other chemicals) are taken in through the lungs, and then many pass into the lung membrane, enter blood circulation and eventually reach every organ in the body. They can also get lodged in the placenta and potentially affect an unborn baby. While lungs bear the brunt of the attack, blood vessels, the brain, the heart and other organs are also badly affected. Such exposure can lead to chronic diseases. Breathing toxic air is directly responsible for the rise of asthma among Indian schoolchildren to as high as 25 percent. Well more than a million deaths in India in 2017 are reportedly due to air pollution. Pulmonologists across the country are reporting a rise in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Even more disturbing is the change in lung cancer patterns I’ve witnessed over the past three


Zoo has a new kudu; have we made enough of a to-do?

A question that now arises is whether we have made enough to-do about our new kudu at the National Zoo. As it happened, a new lesser kudu calf was born Jan. 12, during the time of the partial government shutdown. That prevented the sending of timely birth announcements. But it would seem that sometimes exceptions must be made. Even if the event occurred a full month ago, it seems difficult not to make a good-sized fuss about the birth of a creature from a species whose very name rhymes with zoo. If there were any doubt, the name kudu is pronounced Koo Doo, (as in Zoo Zoo.) According to the zoo, during last week’s warm weather, this striking striped antelope was spotted at the Cheetah Conservation Station where he was born; he has been staying behind the scenes, bonding, the zoo said, with his mom, who is named Rogue. But in addition to bonding, he could be seen leaping and bounding about the exhibit area, in that graceful antelope way. As part of kudu lore, it might be noted that they are among those animals whose diet is the one in the joke that shows the importance of punctuation. The lesser kudu according to reference works, eats shoots and leaves. (As opposed to a dinner guest, perhaps, who consumes his meal, fires a pistol and makes an exit. Of such a person, it might be said that he eats, shoots and leaves.) Anyway, we have a kudu at our zoo, there for me and for you. Perhaps some day to have his attention attracted by shouts of yoo hoo! Mr. Kudu! According to the zoo, the International Union for Conservation of Nature considers lesser kudus to be threatened. Martin.Weil@washpost.com


Trump shields the Saudi crown prince

the crown prince. This week, the New York Times reported on a 2017 conversation between the crown prince and a key aide in which he vowed to use “a bullet” to end Khashoggi’s criticism of the Saudi regime. Not long before that, a U.N. human rights expert said that Saudi Arabia had “seriously curtailed and undermined” Turkish attempts to properly investigate Khashoggi’s disappearance after entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. “Evidence collected during my mission to Turkey shows prime facie case that Mr. Khashoggi was the victim of a brutal and premeditated killing, planned and perpetrated by officials of the State of Saudi Arabia,” special rapporteur Agnes Callamard said in a statement. Key allies of the crown prince may ultimately escape serious punishment, too. According to a new report in the Wall Street Journal, one of the main ringleaders that Saudi Arabia has named in the plot, Saud al-Qahtani, has retained much of his power. Though fired from his official position in the court and included in the list of Saudi individuals subjected to sanctions by the United States, he remains an informal adviser to the crown prince and was recently spotted on a trip to the United Arab Emirates. “For MBS, Qahtani was the backbone of his court, and [Mohammed] assured him that he will be untouched and will return when the Khashoggi case blows over,” a Saudi royal told the Journal, using the crown prince’s initials. “MBS had no intention whatsoever to let go of Qahtani." Saudi officials are still waging a propaganda war over the killing. “I think this investigation is ongoing, and I would expect that eventually we will find the truth,” Jubeir finally mustered. As readers of Today’s WorldView know, Trump has his own reasons for rallying behind the Saudi throne. His dodging of the congressional request was a sign of how White House officials “are slow-rolling” the Khashoggi affair, former State Department spokesman John Kirby said in an interview with CNN. The Saudis are vital allies in Trump’s maximum-pressure campaign on Iran — and the White House is scared of tarnishing them. “This whole episode shows you the degree to which this administration has gone all in on Saudi Arabia,” Kirby added. “It shows you the degree to which their Middle East policy is about Iran, and they see Saudi Arabia as the biggest counterweight against Iran.” The complexities of Trump’s anti-Iran campaign will


U-Md. researchers develop smart fabric that automatically warms or cools you off

If you work in a large office building, there’s a decent chance you tailor your attire to two separate weather forecasts. There’s the outdoor weather, an evolving state of dynamic atmospheric conditions dictated by seasonal patterns. Then there’s the indoor weather, an evolving state of arbitrary conditions dictated by an all-powerful being known as the building manager, an individual whose atmospheric whims unleash equal amounts of cursing and praise. While you luxuriate in a cold blast of air conditioning on a hot summer day, your co-worker bundles under a fleece blanket, shivering and miserable. But there may come a time — my fellow office mates — when the building manager’s power is reclaimed by the common worker. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they have created a fabric that responds to its wearer, regulating the amount of heat that passes through the material. If you’re sweating on a hot summer day, for example, the fabric allows heat to escape. But when the outside temperature is cooler and the air drier, and your body gets cooler, the fabric becomes more compact, retaining heat from the wearer’s body, researchers say. The researcher’s paper, “Dynamic gating of infrared radiation in a textile,” was published in the journal Science. YuHuang Wang — a U-Md. professor of chemistry and biochemistry who co-wrote the study — said he envisions a time in the not-so-distant future when clothing becomes a “secondary skin” that helps people save energy and reduce the costs of air conditioning and heating by relying on them less intensely or shut them off entirely. “This technology would allow you to regulate your local environment and that would give people a much wider tolerability for the heating and cooling conditions inside a building,” Wang said. “How much could you get people to change their habits,” he said, referring to using clothing to offset energy costs, “that’s certainly an additional challenge.” Three-quarters of all homes in the United States have air conditioners, which use about 6 percent of all electricity produced in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In addition to costing homeowners $29 billion annually, air conditioners release roughly 117 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year, the agency reports. Beyond reducing energy consumption, the research offers a potential solution to another long-standing challenge, one that has inspired countless Inspector Gadget-like patents over the years: creating


was published in the journal Science. YuHuang Wang — a U-Md. professor of chemistry and biochemistry who co-wrote the study — said he envisions a time in the not-so-distant future when clothing becomes a “secondary skin” that helps people save energy and reduce the costs of air conditioning and heating by relying on them less intensely or shut them off entirely. “This technology would allow you to regulate your local environment and that would give people a much wider tolerability for the heating and cooling conditions inside a building,” Wang said. “How much could you get people to change their habits,” he said, referring to using clothing to offset energy costs, “that’s certainly an additional challenge.” Three-quarters of all homes in the United States have air conditioners, which use about 6 percent of all electricity produced in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In addition to costing homeowners $29 billion annually, air conditioners release roughly 117 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year, the agency reports. Beyond reducing energy consumption, the research offers a potential solution to another long-standing challenge, one that has inspired countless Inspector Gadget-like patents over the years: creating clothing that actively cools the wearer. In 2015, Finnish researchers, inspired by the design of the human cardiovascular system, developed “a way of adding a plastic film containing microscopic channels filled with liquid to jackets and other clothes,” according to the Daily Mail. By filling the clothing with liquid, the clothing could be cooled or provide insulation, the paper reported. Across the globe in Japan, researchers looking for novel solutions to energy shortages, unveiled air-conditioned garments equipped with small battery-powered fans that could reportedly provide cooling air for up to 11 hours at a time, according to the Telegraph. The fabric created by the U-Md. researchers doesn’t rely on batteries or liquid. It starts with a specially engineered yarn coated with a conductive metal. When conditions are warm and humid — such as when the wearer is working out and sweating — the strands of yarn activate the coating, which in turn warps the strands of yarn, bringing them closer together. Once that happens, researchers say, pores in the fabric open, allowing trapped heat to escape. When conditions are cold, however, the process is reversed, and heat remains close to the body. To explain where the concept for the fabric


U.S. lawmakers call on Saudi Arabia to free imprisoned women’s rights activists

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced a resolution Wednesday calling on Saudi Arabia to “immediately and unconditionally” release women’s rights advocates imprisoned there, as Congress intensifies its criticism of the kingdom’s human rights record after the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The House resolution, introduced by Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), is separate from pending legislation aimed at cutting off U.S. support for the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen and holding Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for the killing of Khashoggi. It focuses more narrowly on the plight of the women’s rights advocates, notably on allegations that at least 10 of the women have been severely abused while in custody. The resolution calls on the U.S. government to “continue publicly and privately demanding the release of individuals wrongfully detained.” The Saudi government has been forced to reckon with intense scrutiny of its human rights practices in the months since Saudi agents killed Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. His death followed a harsh crackdown on the government’s perceived enemies that included the arrests of clerics, business executives, royal family members and political dissidents inside the kingdom. Beginning in May, authorities began rounding up activists who had advocated for women’s rights. Their causes included the lifting of a female driving ban, which the crown prince repealed last year. Saudi authorities accused the women of having improper contacts with unnamed foreign governments. Human rights groups dismissed the accusations as baseless and said that by arresting the women, the Saudi leadership was trying to send a message about the futility of grass-roots activism. During a visit to Washington last week, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, repeated the government’s accusations that the women had contacted unidentified “hostile” foreign powers and said the detention of the women “had to do with national security, not activism.” Saudi officials have also denied allegations of torture. The women have yet to be formally indicted, and there has been a marked contrast between the slow pace of their prosecution and the Saudi government’s speedy handling of the Khashoggi case: Within seven weeks of Khashoggi’s death, charges were brought against 11 suspects. The House resolution identified several of the detained women, including Hatoon al-Fassi, a Saudi scholar and writer, and Aziza al-Yousef, a U.S. resident who had helped lead a campaign against rules requiring Saudi women to seek approval from


Cummings, Connolly and Wexton seek answers about workers’ back pay after shutdown

With lawmakers days away from another government-shutdown deadline, Democratic leaders of the House Oversight and Reform Committee want to know why some workers still have not been made whole from the last shutdown. Freshman Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) joined Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) and Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), chairman of the subcommittee on government operations, in sending a letter Tuesday requesting information from agencies that are in charge of paying federal workers. The representatives want to know how many workers are still owed pay from the partial government shutdown, what plans are in place to make sure they get paid, how workers can pay wage garnishments that were interrupted by the shutdown and how workers can ensure tax deductions are accurate, according to the letter. The letter is addressed to Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Margaret Weichert, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management. Congress passed legislation ensuring that workers would be fully reimbursed for paychecks zeroed out during the last shutdown. But Amir Avin, a spokesman for Wexton, the primary force behind the letter, said constituents called her office to request help getting their full pay after the government shutdown, which lasted 35 days and set a record as the longest in U.S. history. “We have heard reports of many instances of shorted pay and inconsistent tax deductions that left workers unable to make mortgage or rent payments,” the letter says. “They also received paychecks that did not reflect adjustments for missed insurance premiums, Thrift Savings Plan loan repayments, and court-ordered deductions, which have resulted in confusion and additional burdens on federal workers.” Wexton and Connolly represent tens of thousands of federal workers in Northern Virginia, and Cummings’s district includes much of Baltimore. In the letter, the lawmakers also ask for an update on the progress each agency that was affected by the shutdown has made in reimbursing workers. They requested answers by Feb. 26. jenna.portnoy@washpost.com


Trump confidant Thomas Barrack apologizes for saying U.S. has committed ‘equal or worse’ atrocities to killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi

Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a billionaire real estate investor who is one of President Trump’s closest confidants, apologized Wednesday after defending Saudi Arabia in the wake of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s killing and saying the United States has committed “equal or worse” atrocities. Barrack’s remarks on Khashoggi, made Tuesday at a summit in Abu Dhabi organized by the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Milken Institute think tank, were first reported by Dubai’s Gulf News. “Whatever happened in Saudi Arabia, the atrocities in America are equal or worse to the atrocities in Saudi Arabia,” Barrack told the crowd at the Milken Institute’s MENA Summit, according to audio provided by Gulf News reporter Ed Clowes. “The atrocities in any autocratic country are dictated by the rule of law,” Barrack continued. “So, for us to dictate what we think is the moral code there — when we have a young man [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] and a regime that’s trying to push themselves into 2030 — I think is a mistake.” In a statement Wednesday, Barrack called the murder of Khashoggi “atrocious” and “inexcusable” and apologized for “not making this clear in my comments earlier this week.” But he appeared to suggest responsibility for the killing should not rest on Saudi leadership. “I feel strongly that the bad acts of a few should not be interpreted as the failure of an entire sovereign kingdom,” Barrack said, maintaining that “rule of law and monarchies across the Middle East are confusing to the West.” Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist and prominent critic of Mohammed’s policies, was killed and dismembered by a team of Saudi agents inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, Turkish and Saudi prosecutors say. In November, the CIA concluded Mohammed ordered Khashoggi’s killing. Saudi officials reject that assertion and say the agents who killed Khashoggi were acting against orders. The issue has led to a rift between Trump and congressional Republicans, some of whom have joined Democrats in accusing the Trump administration of misleading the country and obscuring the truth of Mohammed’s alleged involvement. Barrack, the executive chairman of real estate firm Colony Capital, has been a friend of Trump’s for more than three decades. He was also a top fundraiser during Trump’s 2016 campaign and helped raise more than $100 million as chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee. Federal prosecutors in New York are currently investigating activities related to the