Privatizing the U.S. effort in Afghanistan seemed a bad idea. Now it’s even worse.

It’s been 17 years since 9/11, the pivotal event that precipitated the start of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In recent weeks, there has been new talk of privatizing that war. As I and many others have written before, this was not a good idea when Erik Prince introduced it in May 2017, or when he and Stephen A. Feinberg (owner of DynCorp International) reportedly met with President Trump and his top advisers in July of that year. Laura Dickenson points out the legal problems — which could leave the United States on the hook if things go wrong. Those familiar with private forces say it is unlikely to work. And critics submit that privatization seems to line up more clearly with making Erik Prince rich and satisfying commercial interests than enhancing national security. Privatizing the U.S. effort in Afghanistan also seems likely to complicate what is already a fraught relationship with the Afghan government. Reportedly, top administration officials such as H.R. McMaster, Jim Mattis and John Kelly, all of whom have significant military experience, disagreed with this plan last year. At a recent Pentagon press briefing, Mattis noted, “When Americans put their nation’s credibility on the line, privatizing it is probably not a wise idea.” Prince reportedly plans to launch a media campaign to get the president to embrace the idea. He outlined details of the plan in an interview with the Military Times on Sept. 5 and reportedly sees an opportunity now that John Bolton has replaced McMaster as national security adviser and progress on the ground in Afghanistan has been sparse. But even bad ideas can deteriorate — and a plan to fully privatize the Afghan war would be even worse now. Here’s what you need to know. Private contractors aren’t new to Afghanistan The United States has used contractors in Afghanistan from the start. As in Iraq, as violence spiked and sending more troops seemed politically untenable, the Pentagon turned to private military and security companies (PMSCs). With the exception of 2010, contractors have outnumbered U.S. forces during the Afghan war, sometimes making up nearly half of the forces there. The latest Department of Defense (DoD) census report (July 2018) shows nearly 27,000 contractors — roughly 10,000 U.S. citizens and 10,000 third-country nationals, and the remainder Afghans — accompanying 14,000 troops. Early in the war, PMSCs caused serious problems for counterinsurgency efforts. Especially problematic were armed


is probably not a wise idea.” Prince reportedly plans to launch a media campaign to get the president to embrace the idea. He outlined details of the plan in an interview with the Military Times on Sept. 5 and reportedly sees an opportunity now that John Bolton has replaced McMaster as national security adviser and progress on the ground in Afghanistan has been sparse. But even bad ideas can deteriorate — and a plan to fully privatize the Afghan war would be even worse now. Here’s what you need to know. Private contractors aren’t new to Afghanistan The United States has used contractors in Afghanistan from the start. As in Iraq, as violence spiked and sending more troops seemed politically untenable, the Pentagon turned to private military and security companies (PMSCs). With the exception of 2010, contractors have outnumbered U.S. forces during the Afghan war, sometimes making up nearly half of the forces there. The latest Department of Defense (DoD) census report (July 2018) shows nearly 27,000 contractors — roughly 10,000 U.S. citizens and 10,000 third-country nationals, and the remainder Afghans — accompanying 14,000 troops. Early in the war, PMSCs caused serious problems for counterinsurgency efforts. Especially problematic were armed private security contractors, who did not coordinate with U.S. troops and often used heavy-handed tactics to protect their clients, at a cost to overall security efforts. As the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction documented at length from its inception in 2008, corruption has also been rampant. Some companies allegedly used the fees they collected from the U.S. government to pay protection money to the Taliban. Many PMSCs were simply inept — including, at times, the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF), a fee-for-service force run by the Afghan government. Because NGOs, foreign companies, and other government mission also use private contractors, coordinating PMSCs and U.S. and NATO forces has been particularly difficult. There has been some improvement in contractor management Controversies, including the Blackwater guards killed in Fallujah and contractors implicated in prison abuse in both Iraq and Afghanistan, led Congress to mandate that DoD address its contractor issues. In response, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Logistics and Materiel Readiness established the Program Support Office in 2006 to address concerns over contractor mismanagement, abuse and fraud, and improve private security contractor policies. This office has become the principal adviser to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) on


U.S. military braces for Hurricane Florence, begins evacuations

The U.S. military faces a dual mission this week: help some of the millions of civilians in the path of Hurricane Florence and brace for what could be a devastating blow at bases on the East Coast. The storm is projected to make landfall somewhere in the Carolinas on Thursday, bringing flooding, a storm surge and high winds. The U.S. military has begun evacuating some people in the area, including from the Marine Corps’ recruit-training depot at Parris Island, S.C., which sits in a marshy area on the coast. The recruits and the Marines training them are being bused to the Marine Corps’ logistics base in Albany, Ga. “I have determined the safest course of action is to evacuate,” said Brig. Gen. James Glynn, who commands Parris Island. “For everyone’s safety, I have issued the evacuation order well ahead of the storm in an effort to ensure everyone is able to seek refuge before the storm impacts the area.” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that he was being updated every day on the status of the hurricane and plans for the next 24 and 48 hours. He also is receiving reports throughout the day about preparations involving the military. The Marine Corps, with its large concentration in North Carolina, could be especially affected. Camp Lejeune, one of the service’s largest bases, is on the coast close to where the hurricane could come ashore. Capt. Joseph Butterfield, a Marine Corps spokesman, said many personnel living there are being encouraged to leave, while essential ones are preparing to ride out the storm so that they are positioned to help others afterward. Florence could cause serious damage up the coastline, where the Navy sent nearly 30 ships to sea from the port of Norfolk on Monday to get out of the way of the storm before it strikes. It also could cause significant flooding farther inland, where bases such as the Army’s Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, are hubs of operations and home to tens of thousands of service members. The military also has begun to move some aircraft, especially fighter jets, away from the coastline. The Air Force, which operates F-22 Raptors and other jets from Joint Base Langley-Eustis near Hampton, Va., began sending planes to Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Ohio on Tuesday. The Coast Guard started positioning rescue helicopters, equipment and people to


Irish government says Trump has scratched planned trip to Dublin this fall

President Trump has canceled a trip to Ireland, the Irish government said Tuesday, amid planned protests over his climate policies, international relations and treatment of immigrants, women and minorities. The visit had been projected for November, when Trump is scheduled to be in Europe for a French commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. “We can confirm that the proposed visit of the U.S. president is postponed,” said Laura Durkan, a spokeswoman for Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. “The U.S. side has cited scheduling reasons.” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement that Trump still plans to travel to Paris. “We are still finalizing whether Ireland will be a stop on that trip,” she said. “As details are confirmed we will let you know.” The cancellation was first reported by the Irish Independent newspaper, which noted that political parties, including Labour and the Greens, had planned to protest the Nov. 12 visit to Dublin. Other protests were planned in Dublin and other Irish cities. Trump had planned to spend one day in the Irish capital before traveling to a Trump golf course in Doonbeg, in County Clare. The White House had announced the visit on Aug. 31, taking Varadkar by surprise. “It came a little bit out of the blue,” Varadkar said in an interview on RTE Radio One this month. “We hadn’t known until just a couple of days ago that he was going to take the opportunity.” When the trip was announced, Ireland’s Labour Party tweeted that Ireland is “an open and tolerant nation. Trump’s values are not our values, and there should be no welcome mat laid out for a man of his worldview.” The tweet included a photo with a caption that said, “The invitation to Trump is unnecessary, unwelcome & unwise.” Labour leader Brendan Howlin tweeted that Trump “has been no friend of democracy or human rights.” “We will always be firm friends of the American people, but Ireland will not welcome a man with Trump’s record of discrimination, sexism and lies,” Howlin said. On Tuesday, Labour tweeted a statement from Irish Sen. Aodhan O Riordain, the party’s education spokesman, welcoming the cancellation. “Clearly the outpouring of objections to this visit has had the desired effect,” he said. Jon Tonge, an expert in Irish politics at the University of Liverpool, said Varadkar would be “breathing large


Brexit might be so bad that Cadbury is stockpiling chocolate just in case

LONDON — Britain is scheduled to leave the European Union next year, but it still hasn’t reached a deal on how exactly this could happen. If it leaves Europe without a deal, some experts have warned that there may be chaos at the borders and a shortage of key goods. On Tuesday, the owner of the beloved confectionary brand Cadbury announced that the company has a plan to deal with the threat of this dreaded “no-deal” Brexit: a chocolate stockpile. Hugh Weber, the president of Mondelez Europe, told the Times of London newspaper that while they hope British Prime Minister Theresa May can reach an agreement to allow the free flow of goods with Europe, they had a contingency plan in case no deal is reached before the March 29 deadline. The company was “preparing for a hard Brexit and, from a buffering perspective for Mondelez, we are stocking higher levels of ingredients and finished products, although you can only do so much because of the shelf life of our products,” Weber was quoted as saying. Weber added, however, that “the UK is not self-sufficient in terms of food ingredients, so that could be a challenge.” U.S. company Mondelez has owned the Cadbury brand since 2010. Founded in Birmingham in 1824, Cadbury is perhaps the most iconic chocolate producer in Britain, known for its Dairy Milk chocolate bars, as well as other favorites such as Creme Eggs, Crunchies and the Cadbury Roses chocolate selection. It isn’t the first time the chocolatier had warned about the possible effect of Brexit on its product. Last year, Glenn Caton of Cadbury’s British operations told the Guardian that the company may eventually have to pass on higher costs to customers by raising prices or selling smaller products at the same price. Following the vote to leave the E.U. in 2016, the British government has consistently dismissed the possibility of a no-deal Brexit that would see the country revert to World Trade Organization rules on its borders. However, the British press has warned of a “doomsday scenario” that could result in chaos at ports and land crossings, with days-long traffic jams and other delays having a dramatic effect on trade. With the deadline fast approaching and the government facing rifts over how to approach negotiations with Brussels, these warnings have become more urgent. Last month, it issued its first “technical notices” on how British citizens


The ubiquitous Knock Out rose takes a hit as a tiny mite punches above its weight

ugly; for the rose, the disease means slow death, usually within three growing seasons. There is no cure, though the malady can be checked by pruning or, better yet, by removing infected plants entirely, bagging them and thus protecting clean roses in the vicinity. You can plant another rose in the same spot, as long as you have removed all the roots of the old one. The disease is caused by a virus transmitted by a tiny mite. The featherweight eriophyid mite is so small that it moves from rose bed to rose bed on the breeze. The last point worries Lois Petzold, who grows roses in her townhouse garden in Alexandria and was aghast to see the extent of RRD along the Georgetown waterfront. In her own garden, she is quick to remove infected plants, she said, and fears that the public plantings in Georgetown (and elsewhere in the city) will cause problems for home gardeners. “They’re basically beds of infection waiting to float away,” she said. “I think it’s the one disease that can wipe out domestic rose growing.” Plant pathologists don’t quite share that view, but they do say that the key to controlling the disease is vigilance. “Symptomatic plants should be rogued out as soon as possible, since infected plants may harbor large populations of eriophyid mites,” write Mark Windham, Alan Windham and Frank Hale of the University of Tennessee’s Institute of Agriculture. The disease “will prove to be controllable,” they say. “However, these efforts will take time, require increased levels of research funding and a lot of hard work.” Knock Out is no more susceptible to the disease than other rose varieties, the experts say, but its success works against it. Because it is so tough in other respects, it has been planted by the millions over the past two decades in public and commercial landscapes that inherently get less care and attention than places with dutiful gardeners. As shown at the Georgetown waterfront, the disease can become widespread. Thomas Evans, a plant pathologist and RRD expert at the University of Delaware, said the landscape industry has moved away from Knock Out and other shrub roses in recent years as the disease has spread. “When you have half an acre of roses in a landscape, that’s a big target for the eriophyid mite,” he said. Evans is part of a research team conducting a five-year,


Chinese billionaire Jack Ma steps down at Alibaba, announces successor

BEIJING — Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba announced Monday that chief executive Daniel Zhang will replace Jack Ma as chairman of the board next September, outlining the celebrity billionaire’s plans to fade from the business empire he co-founded in 1999. Ma, who is worth an estimated $36 billion, will stay at the helm of one of Asia’s biggest Internet companies for the next year to ease the transition for Zhang, who joined Alibaba 11 years ago, the firm said. Then Ma, 54, will step down from the Alibaba Group’s board of directors after its annual shareholder meeting in 2020, shedding top-brass responsibilities unusually early for a business leader of such prominence. “This transition demonstrates that Alibaba has stepped up to the next level of corporate governance from a company that relies on individuals, to one built on systems of organizational excellence and a culture of talent development,” Ma wrote in a letter published Monday. The businessman will continue to work for Alibaba as a “lifetime” adviser, the company said. Ma, a former English teacher who launched Alibaba out of his apartment with 17 of his students and friends and roughly $60,000, said he wants to shift his focus to philanthropy in education. He described the decision as a return to his passion after running a company that has transformed the way Chinese people shop and helped usher in an almost total reliance on mobile phone payments in cities. But Ma’s surprise departure fueled speculation that his popularity had irked a government that doesn’t like to share the spotlight. Rock-star entrepreneurs in China tend to attract elevated scrutiny, research has found, making them more likely to be investigated or arrested than those who avoid relentless press coverage. In recent years, state-backed media has pounded Alibaba for failing to crack down on counterfeiters on its platform and highlighted reports that Ma bought a $193 million mansion in Hong Kong. “When your star starts to rise too high, the government likes to take you down,” said Shaun Rein, managing director at the China Market Research Group in Shanghai. Ma has hinted about the dangers that come with wealth. “I think among the richest men in China, few have good endings,” he told a group of rural teachers at a charity event in 2016. The country’s businesses, meanwhile, are grappling with increasing uncertainty, as economic growth is slowing, debt is rising and the United States


Burgers grown in a lab are heading to your plate. Will you bite?

and, they say, are finally on the cusp of an affordable product. Production of cell-cultured meat involves retrieving a live animal’s adult muscle stem cells and setting them in a nutrient-rich liquid. Proponents claim future techniques could allow these cells to make many burgers without collecting more cells from an animal. Groups of these multiplying cells eventually look like patties or nuggets because they grow around a “scaffold,” which helps the meat take on a desired shape. The result is a product that looks and tastes like meat because it’s made from animal cells, rather than plant-based products that lack animal tissue but try to look and taste like it. Because cultured meat doesn’t involve livestock and thus avoids the associated environmental impacts and ethical issues, it’s been highly anticipated by environmental groups, animal welfare advocates and some health-conscious consumers. Producing cultured meat, it’s claimed, could consume fewer natural resources, avoid slaughter and remove the need for the growth hormones used in the traditional meat industry. Before cell-cultured meat goes on the market, regulators need to decide what it can be called. Possible names include “clean meat,” “in vitro meat,” “artificial meat” and even “alt-meat.” But opinions and critiques vary widely. Most notably, the United States Cattlemen’s Association worries that the term “meat” will confuse consumers since these products will directly compete with traditional farm-raised meat. The industry group prefers what are perhaps less-appetizing terms, like “cultured tissue.” Jumping onto the “clean eating” craze, the Good Food Institute — a nonprofit that promotes alternatives to animal products — favors the term “clean meat,” claiming the language evokes a positive image with consumers and may increase its acceptance. Consumers Union — the advocacy arm of the magazine Consumer Reports — counters that the public wants to know how the product was made, requiring a more-visible distinction from farm-raised meat. Meanwhile, the American Meat Science Association — an organization focused on the science of producing and processing animal-based meat — worries that the term “meat” may inaccurately suggest that lab-grown protein is as safe and nutritious as traditional meat. This summer’s FDA meeting sparked even more discussion over labeling. The debate is reminiscent of the one over what to call nondairy beverages, such as almond and soy “milk,” that do not originate from an animal. Yet even as regulators and industry lobbyists spar over names, they are overlooking a far more important


‘No pain, no gain’ sounds tough, but you may only be hurting yourself

While training for a half-marathon last fall, Janet Sherman, 57, started noticing pain in her right leg and left foot. A diagnosis of a quadriceps strain and plantar fasciitis led to shoe inserts and cross-training. Before long, the Wyoming-based teacher was “just good enough” to get back to training, and so she did, although she opted to drop down to a shorter 10K race distance. On race day, Sherman’s foot began bothering her early, and by a water stop two-thirds of the way through the course, she knew she should drop out. “It was so painful, but I was stubborn and finished out the race,” she said. “Afterward, I could barely walk.” Sherman recognizes that failing to quit the race probably led to a month-long layoff from the sport she loves. “If I say I’m going to complete a goal, however, I’m going to complete it,” she said. “I regret that I couldn’t pull the plug psychologically.” To the inactive, Sherman’s attitude might be hard to understand. But for amateur athletes and weekend warriors, pushing through pain is a common refrain. “As a society, we are more active in sports than ever before,” said Adrienne Langelier, a Texas-based sports psychology consultant. “But at the same time, as a culture we have developed a ‘no days off’ mentality.” That needs to change, said Mark Cucuzzella, a physician and a professor at the West Virginia University School of Medicine. “ ‘No pain, no gain’ — no, thank you,” he quipped. “For too long, we have glamorized that way of thinking. It’s not sustainable.” There are plenty of contributing factors to our society’s “push until it hurts” approach. Cucuzzella speculated that some of it began decades ago with the National Football League and associated sports-brand advertising. “We were given the message that in order to succeed, we needed punishing workouts,” he said. “In the short term, that might work, but the burden of proof now shows that it’s damaging in the long run.” Langelier added that athletes often look to others as reference points rather than considering what’s best for themselves. “This might stem from a lack of trust in your own ability, or wanting to emulate what the pros do,” she said. “It can translate into an all-or-nothing approach.” Some who become immersed in a sport fear a loss of hard-earned fitness if they take off even a day or two. “People


What to do about powder post beetles in furniture

which declines as the wood ages. Even if larvae already in the wood emerge as adult beetles ready to mate, they will not drill holes to lay eggs in wood that has a finish of any kind, even just wax or stain, Potter said. Bostrichids, too, are unlikely to come back because they need wood that has a relatively high moisture and starch content. With live-edge wood, you might also see pinholes made by other kinds of insects, such as shothole borers or bark beetles, Potter said. But these insects attack trees when they are living. They won’t produce new generations within your home. If you’re willing to wait for the infestation to die on its own, you should see the piles of sawdust peter out over the next year, perhaps sooner. The powder is usually most abundant from late winter to early summer, Potter said. But as the starch content of the wood declines, it takes longer for the larvae, particularly lyctids, to mature. So, you could still see the results of the initial infestation for up to five years. “Seventy-five percent might emerge the first year,” Potter said. Waiting may seem too scary, particularly if you don’t heat or cool your vacation home while you are away and aren’t sure about the moisture content inside. “If you start seeing more and more holes and get more and more anxious about winding up with Swiss cheese, talk to the cabinetmaker about replacing the wood,” Potter suggested. Or try one of the other proven ways of killing powderpost larvae. But trying to treat the wood in place by somehow fumigating one room won’t work. “What the cabinet guy did is completely ridiculous,” Potter said. For fumigation to be effective, your whole house would need to be tented and infused with sulfuryl fluoride, or you would need to take the shelves to a company that has a fumigation vault. Find these companies by searching online for “tent fumigation” or “vault fumigation.” Or, instead of having the wood fumigated, you might be able to kill the larvae using heat. For bedbug infestations, many pest-control companies have invested in chambers where they can kill bugs by heating mattresses and other infested items. To kill powderpost larvae, the wood would need to be heated to 120 to 140 degrees for about 24 hours, Potter said. It’s also possible to kill the larvae by freezing


14 things to do around D.C. in September, from street festivals to Art All Night

Adams Morgan Day The city’s oldest neighborhood festival is celebrating its 40th anniversary and seems to be back to its old self after a few bumpy years. Eighteenth Street NW will be closed to traffic between Columbia Road and Wyoming Avenue to allow a curated selection of vendors and makers to sell their wares in the street, while stages at both ends host bands and performers. The fields at Marie Reed School are being turned into a family zone, with games and activities, and the D.C. Public Library is sponsoring an exhibition on the history of Adams Morgan Day and the neighborhood itself. Grab a seat with a view — such as the rooftops at Roofers Union or Pitchers — have a drink and take in the scene. Noon to 6 p.m. Free. — Fritz Hahn ‘Sean Scully: Landline’ at the Hirshhorn Museum, Irish-born abstract artist Sean Scully explores many mediums — oil paintings, pastels, watercolors, aluminum sculpture and photographs — but his works in the Hirshhorn exhibition, “Landline,” are almost all inspired by the horizon line where the sky meets the sea and the land. Scully’s vertical and horizontal stripes in rich colors will encircle the Hirshhorn’s second-level galleries. Scully’s first midcareer retrospective appeared at the museum in 1995, and visitors to “Landline” can see his career progression as well as two dozen works never before seen by the public. Through Feb. 3, 2019. Free. — Adele Chapin 25th anniversary at Black Cat Washington’s music scene has been lucky to have this venue for 25 years and counting, and the venerable club is marking the history with a two-night bash. Night One’s bill features local punks Des Demonas and a solo set by Ted Leo. Saturday will provide a double dose of Mary Timony, who will headline the night with Ex Hex and will debut a new supergroup called Hammered Hulls, featuring local punk rock luminaries Alec MacKaye (Ignition, the Warmers) and Mark Cisneros (Deathfix, Chain and the Gang) and drummer Chris Wilson (Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and Titus Andronicus). Doors at 7 p.m. both nights. $25 per night. — Hau Chu H Street Festival The biggest and baddest street festival in the city is expected to draw more than 150,000 people to an 11-block stretch of H Street NE this year. The closed-down pavement will be filled with music stages, fashion shows, dance and theater performances, food


Trump issues new order authorizing additional sanctions against countries or individuals for interfering in upcoming U.S. elections

Lawmakers of both parties immediately said the effort does not go far enough. National security adviser John Bolton said the criticism that President Trump had been too deferential to Russia or blinkered in his view of Russian interference played “zero” role in the new action.This is a developing story. It will be updated.


You better believe Roosevelt would have built SCMaglev

President Franklin D. Roosevelt preferred traveling the country by train, especially between Washington and his home in Hyde Park, N.Y. He traveled in train cars with upgraded equipment suited to his comfort, mobility and security requirements. Had something such as the superconducting magnetic-levitation train — SCMaglev, for short — been available, I cannot imagine Roosevelt (or any New Dealer) endorsing a “no-build” option. The New Dealers were all about planning and building projects to better unify the nation, provide jobs, promote the movement of people and ideas, and get the nation out of its Depression-era doldrums. They led innovative projects and programs in housing, transportation, agriculture, jobs creation, manufacturing, education, anti-poverty, conservation and the arts. Roosevelt would have endorsed the environmentally friendly SCMaglev rapid-rail project between Washington and Baltimore and eventually to New York. He would have promoted the development of renewable energy sources — such as wind and solar — to help meet our 21st-century energy needs, as well as NASA’s James Webb space telescope and rovers on Mars. The Roosevelts had no patience for maintaining the status quo. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “How hard it is to project oneself into the future. We are always prone to think of the conditions which are with us today as being permanent conditions.” We won’t know until next year whether the project is given the green light by the various government agencies involved in the approval process. But the SCMaglev rapid-rail project in the congested Northeast corridor is very much needed. Robert Snyder


House plans hearing on progress of train safety device that could prevent hundreds of deaths

The head of the Federal Railroad Administration will be summoned to Capitol Hill on Thursday, one day after the 10th anniversary of a Los Angeles train wreck that killed 25 people and injured more than 100. A subcommittee of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee wants FRA chief Ronald L. Batory to provide a progress report on Positive Train Control (PTC), a device that could have prevented the head-on collision between two trains in the Chatsworth neighborhood. Installation of the device was mandated by Congress in the immediate aftermath of the crash, with a completion date at the end of 2015. Congress later relented, under pressure from the railroad industry, and extended with deadline until the end of this year. But lawmakers allowed the 40 railroads that were to install PTC an exemption until the end of 2020 if they made substantial progress on the project. The National Transportation Safety Board has been recommending PTC installation since 1990. In the years since Chatsworth, the technology could have prevented these fatal crashes: •Red Oak, Iowa — Two crew members died when their coal train hit a maintenance train in 2011. Contributing factor? The NTSB report says: the “absence of a positive train control system.” •Mineral Springs, N.C. — Hours before dawn, two crew members died when their speeding train slammed into the back of a train waiting for a signal to change in 2011. NTSB conclusion: “Had a positive train control system been installed on this track, it could have prevented the collision.” •Goodwell, Okla. — In 2012, three crew died in a head-on train crash when the engineer on one of them missed a signal. The NTSB cited the “lack of positive train control, which would have stopped the train and prevented the collision regardless of the crew’s inaction.” •Bronx, N.Y. — In 2013, an engineer dozed off on early-morning commuter train, allowing it to speed into a turn at close the three times the posted limit in 2013. Four passengers were killed. Had PTC been in place, the NTSB said, “that would have automatically applied the brakes to enforce the speed restriction.” •Hoxie, Ark. — In 2014, dozing crew members missed a signal at 2:28 a.m. and crashed head-on into another train, killing two of them. The NTSB said, “A functioning positive train control system would have prevented this accident.” •Philadelphia — An engineer’s “loss of situational awareness” caused


Climate vs. business is rarely a fair fight. Trump is ensuring that it isn’t.

It starts with sunlight. The sun shines on Earth, meaning that it sends radiation that passes through the atmosphere and provides warmth and light to the planet. Some of that energy is reflected back from the surface of Earth and up toward the atmosphere. Sometimes that energy passes through the atmosphere and heads back into space. Sometimes that energy encounters a gas molecule in the atmosphere, where it is absorbed. And sometimes those molecules end up expelling that energy in a random direction, including at another molecule or back toward Earth. Understandably, the more molecules there are in the atmosphere that can absorb that energy, the more likely it is that the energy hits a molecule and is absorbed and potentially radiated back toward Earth. Also understandably, the more likely a molecule is to absorb that heat, the more likely it is to do so. So the more molecules floating in the atmosphere and the more of those molecules that are good at absorbing heat, the less likely it is that heat will escape into space. And, by extension, the more likely it will remain in the atmosphere. This is the essence of global warming: More molecules in the atmosphere, thanks to extracting and burning fossil fuels or from decomposing organic material, means more heat trapped in the atmosphere. Which means a warmer planet. That warming leads to a number of changes in the global climate. We can see one effect of that right now. Hurricane Florence is spinning toward the Mid-Atlantic coast, quickly gaining energy as it approaches. That energy comes from warm ocean waters, a function, in part, of the oceans absorbing more heat than in the past, thanks to a warmer climate. Our Chris Mooney explains the science behind the increase in gigantic, powerful storms: Most of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, and most of the greenhouse gas produced in the United States comes from burning gasoline in cars and trucks (28 percent of emissions in 2016) and burning fossil fuels for electricity (an additional 28 percent). This week, the New York Times reported on a new proposal expected shortly from the Trump administration. President Trump's team has already announced plans to scale back higher fuel efficiency standards and rescinded a plan by President Barack Obama that would have cut back on greenhouse gas emissions at existing coal-burning power plants. The new change


U-Md. president told commission some allegations ‘probably occur in every football program’

University of Maryland President Wallace D. Loh stood before reporters Aug. 14 and apologized to the family of Jordan McNair, a football player who died days after a team workout. That day, Loh also announced a commission charged with examining the culture inside the school’s embattled football program, an undertaking that could prompt sweeping changes at the state’s flagship university. In June, the school had contracted with an outside consulting firm to investigate the events surrounding McNair’s death. But the commission Loh announced nearly two months later would be charged with a separate and broader inquiry into the culture of the school’s football program — a “thorough investigation by an independent group,” Loh said — following media reports that suggested some coaches were abusive toward players, relying on fear, intimidation and bullying. Few details about the group’s work to date are publicly available, but the commission’s directives and composition reveal some of the inherent obstacles that arise when independent bodies investigate problems in university athletic departments. In an initial email to the newly appointed commission members, a copy of which was viewed by The Washington Post, Loh advised that some of the allegations they would be investigating “probably occur in every football program” and that the line between aggressive and abusive training techniques is “imprecise.” Also, several of the commission members have previous ties with the university and the stakeholders in the affair. One served as a personal adviser to Loh. Another is the brother of an influential booster. Almost immediately after the commission’s unveiling, the University System of Maryland’s board of regents took control from the College Park campus, adding five additional members to the three named by Loh and suggesting that key decisions about the football program’s future would be made by the regents, not necessarily the school president. The vice chair of the board of regents is a prominent donor to the athletics department and has voiced public support for the football team’s head coach, DJ Durkin. This investigation could go a long way to determining the fate of Durkin, who was placed on administrative leave along with three other member of the athletic staff in the immediate aftermath of the media reports. One of those, football strength and conditioning coach Rick Court, has negotiated a settlement and resigned. According to multiple people familiar with the process, Durkin was interviewed by investigators on the morning of Aug.


Trump issues new order authorizing additional sanctions for interfering in upcoming U.S. elections

leader about Moscow’s efforts to influence the election. Trump instead renewed a demand for an investigation of Clinton’s email practices as secretary of state and noted that Putin had issued an “extremely strong and powerful” denial. Bolton said Wednesday that the White House is open to ideas and proposals from lawmakers, but said new legislation might be slow in coming. He cast the White House action as a way to strengthen U.S. defenses immediately. “We felt it was important to demonstrate the president has taken command of this issue, that it’s something he cares deeply about,” Bolton said. “The integrity of our elections and our constitutional process are a high priority to him.” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sen Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) immediately issued a joint statement calling the White House effort insufficient and calling on Congress to pass tougher legislation now. “Today’s announcement by the Administration recognizes the threat, but does not go far enough to address it,” they wrote. “The United States can and must do more,” such as the mandatory sanctions attached to legislation they proposed, the senators wrote. “We must make sure Vladimir Putin’s Russia, or any other foreign actor, understands that we will respond decisively and impose punishing consequences against those who interfere in our democracy.” Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the order puts too much power in the hands of a president who has previously failed to demand accountability from Russia on the issue. “An executive order that inevitably leaves the President broad discretion to decide whether to impose tough sanctions against those who attack our democracy is insufficient,” he said. The executive order was also panned by some lawmakers and witnesses at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Russian interference Tuesday afternoon. Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), the top Democrat on the committee, said the move “won’t substitute for mandatory sanctions required by law” and shouldn’t be used to blunt congressional momentum on the issue. Coats warned last month that Russian efforts to undermine U.S. elections continue. U.S. officials have also identified China, Iran and North Korea as potential threats. “In regards to Russian involvement in the midterm elections, we continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States,” Coats said in August. He described the White House response as broad, including assessments by intelligence, law


As a new leader rises in Ethiopia, its diaspora dares to dream

to Eritrea for weeks and months at a time to mobilize armed resistance units. Andargachew is now a free man — he and hundreds of other political prisoners were released by Abiy in May. Zeleke watched on television as his old friend was welcomed by rapturous crowds in the streets of Addis Ababa. “I’ve invested so much time, energy and money on this," he said. "Now I feel, finally, I feel that part of what I’ve struggled and sacrificed for is in the process of materializing.” The optimism is deeply tied to the figure of Abiy, whose charisma and reforms have captivated many Ethiopians abroad. "You know, I used to watch movies after work. Now I just watch YouTube videos of Dr. Abiy,” said Tibebu Hailemariam, 50, the vice president of the Ethiopian Community Center of Maryland. Bellay admitted that he is also prone to flipping through news items about Abiy while he mans the counter at Sidamo Coffee & Tea, the coffee shop he owns in Northeast Washington. Everyone he knows, he said, has been talking about the new prime minister for months. So when Abiy announced in July that he would tour the United States, his visit quickly dominated the attention of the community here. Ethiopians from as far away as Florida and Colorado booked tickets to Washington, where Abiy was scheduled to speak at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on July 28. Hailemariam visited the embassy multiple times in the hope of finding a way to participate. The excitement swelled during the week of Abiy’s “grand rally.” Groups crowded into the lobby of the Watergate Hotel, where Abiy was staying, hoping to get an early glimpse of the new prime minister. Dozens of Ethiopian restaurants in the region prepared their kitchens to host parties scheduled for Saturday night, while those at home pored over road maps to determine the best routes into the city. When the morning of July 28 finally arrived, the line to see Abiy wrapped several times around the block. Families driving in from North Carolina and New Jersey honked their car horns and rolled down windows to high-five performers swaying their hips along Mount Vernon Place; those waiting in line cracked open plastic containers of curries and injera bread to share with neighbors. “It’s just like back home,” said Fekadu Amanu, 46, who was standing near the front of the line with


A low-tech method for combating climate change

In June, the clean energy firm Carbon Engineering announced that it had developed a technique to remove carbon dioxide from the air by turning it into fuel. The company uses massive fans to blow air onto a chemical solution that captures carbon dioxide, which then undergoes a series of chemical reactions to transform into liquid fuel. To execute this process, Carbon Engineering estimates that it will cost roughly $100 per metric ton of carbon dioxide removed, which is relatively cheap when compared to other methods. While this is no doubt an exciting discovery, Carbon Engineering’s invention exemplifies one of the constant challenges plaguing high-tech climate change solutions: they might be cost-saving in the long run but require huge amounts of upfront investment. As environmental writer John Vidal has noted, “The Achilles’ heel of all negative emission technologies is cost.” All existing carbon removal technologies and research are expensive. The Southern Company’s carbon capturing power plant in Mississippi was forecast to cost $2.2 billion to build but is still unfinished and will now cost roughly $7.3 billion to complete. While Carbon Engineering has not publicized how much it would cost to refine and scale its technology globally, it will likely require hundreds of billions of dollars — not to mention the massive amount of resources needed to build the enormous fans. Where will that funding come from and even more importantly, will the funding come in time? In the quest to curb climate change, we must remember that there are low-tech methods at our disposal that can achieve similar results with much less initial investment. In fact, there is already an economical large-scale technology for removing carbon from the atmosphere: agroforestry. Agroforestry is essentially a forest-mimicking agriculture that involves growing trees, shrubs and vegetables in tight assemblages. It is an ancient technology created by indigenous peoples and popularized in recent decades by newer landowners. Although it’s difficult to pin down how much of the world’s agricultural land contains tree cover, figures range from 100 million hectares to as much as 1 billion hectares, which lock up an estimated .75 gigatons of carbon per year. By comparison, there were 32.5 gigatons of global carbon emissions in 2017. In terms of cost, agroforestry is likely much cheaper than Carbon Engineering’s invention, not to mention that it will likely take much more carbon-emitting energy to operate their machines on the global scale that they


U-Va. moves football game because of Hurricane Florence; Virginia Tech’s opponent cancels trip

This article was updated Wednesday afternoon with the announcement of the Howard football postponement. With Hurricane Florence making its way toward the East Coast as a Category 4 storm Many models No. 13 Virginia Tech’s game against East Carolina was canceled after the Pirates informed Hokies athletic officials this afternoon they would not be traveling because of Florence’s potential impact in the Carolinas. Virginia Tech, according to a university release, had planned to wait until Wednesday to issue a formal decision on the status of the game originally scheduled for Saturday at 12:20 p.m. at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Va. There was no immediate word if the game would be rescheduled. “We will do what’s best for Virginia Tech moving forward as it relates to ECU and to the game,” Hokies Athletic Director Whit Babcock told the Richmond-Times Dispatch in a text message. “We certainly understand the need for safety, of course. We just felt that tomorrow, making the decision then, would’ve been more responsible and accurate. We informed ECU of this multiple times.” Hokies Coach Justin Fuente was unavailable to comment, according to an athletic department spokesman, because the team had already begun practice. The school also announced no decisions have been made with regard to other home athletic events. Virginia moved its home football game against Ohio to Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville, the university announced Tuesday afternoon. The game, originally scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday, will be played at 4:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. in Nashville). It was not immediately clear how the change would affect broadcast availability for the game. James Madison rescheduled its home opener against Robert Morris, originally scheduled for Saturday, to Thursday night at 7. On Wednesday, Howard’s conference and home opener against Savannah State, which had been scheduled for Saturday at 1 p.m., was postponed by the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. A makeup date was not immediately set. As of Tuesday afternoon, Maryland did not have plans to reschedule Saturday’s noon home opener against Temple, but the athletic department said in a statement that the university will monitor the weather and will communicate updates as quickly as possible. “Decisions will be based on the safety of the teams, officials, fans and others traveling to attend the game,” the statement said. “As of now, there are no changes to any scheduled athletic events at home for the week ahead. Any necessary changes in status will be


Hurricane Florence forces postponement of UNC, N.C. State football games; NFL monitoring weather

be postponed, with an official announcement coming Wednesday. The TV station reports that N.C. State is refusing to move the game to Morgantown “even if NC State took all the profits,” and that it could be rescheduled for Oct. 12, with West Virginia’s originally scheduled game against Iowa State that day moved to Thursday, Oct. 18. Stadium’s McMurphy also is reporting that the game has been canceled. Southern Miss at Appalachian State (Saturday, 3:30 p.m.): The teams will not play Saturday afternoon. “Officials from both schools are exploring options to reschedule the game,” Appalachian State said in a statement Wednesday. Norfolk State at Liberty (Saturday, 6 p.m.): The game has been postponed until Saturday, Dec. 1, at 2 p.m., Liberty announced. The game will not be played if Norfolk State has qualified for the FCS playoffs, however. Old Dominion at Charlotte (Saturday, 6 p.m.): The game has been moved up to Thursday at 4 p.m., Charlotte announced Wednesday. As of Tuesday afternoon, Maryland did not have plans to reschedule Saturday’s noon home opener against Temple, but the athletic department said in a statement that the university will monitor the weather and will communicate updates as quickly as possible. Robert Morris at James Madison (Saturday, 6 p.m.): The game has been moved to Thursday at 7 p.m. Campbell at Coastal Carolina (Saturday, 7 p.m.): The game between the Chanticleers and the Camels has been moved to Wednesday at 2 p.m. in Buies Creek, S.C. Marshall at South Carolina (Saturday, 7:30 p.m.): South Carolina has canceled classes starting at 1 p.m. Tuesday. The school says it is monitoring the forecast for Saturday night. NFL The NFL said it is monitoring developments related to Hurricane Florence and its potential effect on the Washington area in case contingency plans must be made related to the Redskins’ game against the Indianapolis Colts scheduled for Sunday at FedEx Field. The game is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday. The game between the Kansas City Chiefs at the Pittsburgh Steelers, which is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday, could also be affected. MLB Chicago White Sox at Baltimore (three-game series begins Friday) Miami at Philadelphia (three-game series begins Friday) Emily Giambalvo, Gene Wang and Mark Maske contributed to this report. Read more from The Post: Novak Djokovic closes out a stellar summer with a U.S. Open win Billie Jean King: Serena Williams is still treated differently than male athletes


Can we stop or weaken storms like Hurricane Florence? No — and here’s why.

mining. Many suggestions advocate cooling the water over which a hurricane is going to travel. This makes intuitive sense, because hurricanes need warm water to form and strengthen. But the idea has several weaknesses. First, although forecasts have improved remarkably in the past couple of decades, we wouldn't know what part of the ocean to cool. Forecasters would have to know exactly where a storm would track to invest the incredible amount of money and energy it would take to cool such a large area of ocean. Environmental effects are probably the biggest concern. Sea life has evolved to live in certain temperatures. Cooling a large part of the oceans could wipe out some fisheries. Also, most parts of the world depend on rain from evaporated seawater. Would cooling a large area of the reduce precipitation over downwind areas? Another common suggestion is cloud seeding, in which tiny particles are injected into the atmosphere to change where clouds and rain form. This is a straightforward method of weather modification that’s useful in specific cases — such as drought and snow creating — but has little effect on hurricanes. The first proponent of cloud seeding was Irving Langmuir (1881-1957), the chief scientist at General Electric and a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. GE scientists had invented ways to use dry ice and later silver iodide to encourage clouds to produce more rain or snow that they otherwise might have. The GE scientists actually attempted cloud seeding on a hurricane on Oct. 13, 1947, when an Air Force B-17 bomber dropped 180 pounds of shaved dry ice into a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean about 350 miles northeast of Jacksonville, Fla. Another B-17 took photos and a B-29 acted as the control aircraft. Those aboard the planes saw no changes in the storm. Langmuir never published anything providing a hypothesis for his many claims about how cloud seeding would work. After the seeding airplanes left the storm, which had been heading toward the northeast away from land, it turned toward the west and came ashore north of Savannah, Ga., where it killed one person and caused an estimated $3.26 million in damage before dissipating over southern Alabama. All in all, it probably makes more sense to learn to safely live with hurricanes than try to destroy or change them. Editor’s note: A version of this post ran during the 2017 hurricane season.


The glaring loophole in our climate policies

The 1990s were a crucial decade in the history of climate policy. Following the launch of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, negotiators from over 50 countries successfully shepherded the Kyoto Protocol to fruition in 1997 — thus formally inaugurating the modern era of international climate policy, with its focus on national contributions toward global emissions reduction targets. What the climate negotiators of the 1990s did not know at the time was that a parallel and simultaneous set of global trade agreements would create a glaring loophole in their efforts to contain the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change. The formation of the World Trade Organization in 1995 opened the valves of global trade and ushered many new producers into the modern global economy, bringing prosperity and modernity to hundreds of millions of people. But it also set off a surge in carbon emissions. In 2015 (the most recent data), about 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions passed through this glaring “carbon loophole,” one of the most critical and under-discussed problems in international climate policy circles. Last week, we released new research that updates previous efforts to fully quantify the carbon loophole and shows why closing it is increasingly urgent. Our findings reveal that in many cases, countries that have claimed net reductions in carbon emissions see those reductions fully — or mostly — wiped out once the carbon loophole is taken into account. The reason for this is that the targets of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement only measure domestic emissions — that is, the greenhouse gasses emitted directly inside a country’s borders. When the Kyoto Protocol was drafted, the concept of emissions fleeing regulation was discussed but was ultimately not included in the treaty, presumably because it was too complex. But while virtually every nation on Earth participates in the global system of trade, the emissions associated with the products they import — which often constitute significant shares of a nation’s economic activity — are not counted in the Paris targets. The foreign portion of a country’s consumption-based carbon footprint is therefore effectively invisible. With the loophole, traded emissions are attributed to producers while consumer nations enjoy the benefits of “meeting their targets” without having to reduce pollution that results from their economic activity. According to our research, the overall trend is that high-income, high-consuming countries, such as the


Untangling the train wrecks: Congress holds yet another hearing on its mandate to end what’s causing most of them

Then he said, “The NTSB is extremely concerned about any further delay to this lifesaving technology.” In 2016, months after rushing up to an Amtrak wreck in Philadelphia — eight dead, 185 passengers taken to the hospital — he lamented, “Every day that PTC is not in place, we run the risk of another Amtrak crash. Is it going to take another five years or another three years for it to be implemented? If that’s the case, that’s unacceptable.” Sumwalt on Thursday got an answer to that question he asked two years ago: Some railroads have PTC in place, 65 percent of them are either operational or in testing, and 35 percent of 41 railroads will fall short. It’s unclear on exactly how many railroads PTC is operational — and it’s important to remember that several rail lines can operate on the same track — but the Federal Railroad Administration anticipates most railroads that qualify will need extensions from a Dec. 31, deadline to make their PTC operations functional. “While railroads are making progress, FRA [believes] that most railroads will need to request an [extension beyond December] to complete testing, obtain systems certification and complete interoperability requirements,” said Ronald L. Batory, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration. Interoperability is jargon for the ability of trains from other rail lines to use PTC signals from towers operated by their host railroad. Despite Batory’s contention, Edward R. Hamberger, president of the freight railroad lobby Association of American Railroads, told the committee that 80 percent of railroads covered by the rule would have PTC in operation by year’s end. “While some class 1 railroads expect to be fully operational by the end of the year, all class 1 railroads will be fully implemented no time later than sometime in 2020,” Hamberger said. Hamberger added, “Rigorous and repeated testing is the only way to make sure it works." Susan Fleming of the Government Accountability Office told the committee that as of June 30, many railroads remained in the early stages of PTC implementation and that many had begun testing their systems. “Moving for field testing . . . has taken an average of two years to complete,” Fleming said. “About a quarter of the railroads told us they had encountered software bugs.” The frustration of the House subcommittee has surfaced with regularity at the multitude of hearings on PTC. “I have zero sympathy for


You can’t put America first if you put climate change last

It is in America’s core economic and national security interest to contain greenhouse-gas emissions “at a level that prevents dangerous human interference with the global climate.” That’s because climate change is a “threat multiplier” that “poses immediate risks to U.S. national security.” It will correspond with an “increasing frequency or intensity of extreme weather events” like hurricanes. And the shifting climate will create conditions abroad that “can enable terrorist activity and other forms of violence.” Which namby-pamby liberal band of Birkenstock-wearing birdwatchers wrote such alarmist trash? Let me check my notes. Ah, yes – those were quotes from either President George W. Bush’s post-9/11 National Security Strategy or those snowflake soldiers at the Defense Department. Flying in the face of that consensus, President Trump stripped climate change from his National Security Strategy in December 2017. Trump has tweeted absurd climate-change denialism at least 115 times, including his infamous claim that it is a hoax “created by and for the Chinese.” Those delusions are shifting government policy. Trump announced he would pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord. He put a former climate-change denier in charge of NASA. The Energy Department tweeted that Secretary Rick Perry is “winning” against climate scientists. An outspoken climate scientist at the Interior Department was reassigned to the accounting office. After Scott Pruitt resigned from the Environmental Protection Agency in disgrace, he was replaced by Andrew Wheeler, a climate-change skeptic who previously worked as a lobbyist on behalf of coal-mining company Murray Energy (whose head, surprise, surprise, donated $300,000 to Trump’s inauguration). And this week, the Trump administration is trying to make it easier for polluters to release methane, one of the worst greenhouse gases. In doing so, the man sworn to protect and defend the United States makes us all less safe while weakening the long-term vitality of the U.S. economy. But you don’t have to take my word for it. You could also ask that flower-power hippie, Trump’s handpicked director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats. In February, he reiterated how much of a threat climate change is to America’s economic prosperity and national security. Hurricane Florence is currently bearing down on the eastern seaboard. Trump rightly warned that the storm is “extremely dangerous.” He’s right. After all, Hurricane Maria killed nearly 3,000 Americans in its aftermath (even if Trump wants to pretend that those avoidable deaths were the product of a


Florence’s flood waters could be half a foot higher, thanks to climate change

a difference everywhere there is flooding.” Higher sea levels mean that any storm will have what Strauss calls a larger “floodprint,” affecting more homes and businesses and land. “On the margin, flooding reaches places it wouldn’t otherwise have reached,” he said. But the bigger problem? “Everywhere that floods is deeper,” he said. One key question is whether, after Florence hits, scientists will be able to portion out the climate-change component by showing which areas were flooded or in other ways affected that might not have been otherwise, as was done with Sandy. As of Wednesday, according to an analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, some 110,000 residential and commercial properties worth $29 billion were in the projected storm-surge zone for Florence. But Kristina Dahl, a climate scientist who heads the group’s sea-level-rise analyses, said her team is not yet able to say which of these properties might not have been in that zone if not for climate change. She also underscored that the analysis is preliminary and based on storm-surge models that could change anytime up to landfall. The issues of sea-level rise and how — or whether — to deal with them have been contentious in North Carolina. In one of the nation’s most notorious battles over climate change, the Republican-controlled state legislature voted in 2012 to prohibit the government from basing coastal policies on findings from the state’s Coastal Resources Commission, which forecast that the ocean is likely to rise 39 inches by the end of the century. That prediction, along with the development of a website where people could check by street address to see how their property might be affected, triggered a wave of alarm among some coastal residents and the real estate industry, which worried that the dire predictions could harm home values and result in skyrocketing insurance costs. They and others helped persuade Republican lawmakers to pass legislation that looked ahead only 30 years rather than to the end of the century, a forecast that would show no more than eight inches of sea-level rise. The episode brought disdain from environmental advocates, who argued the state was merely choosing to ignore science, as well as much mocking on national television. "This is a brilliant solution,” comedian Stephen Colbert joked at the time. “If your science gives you a result that you don’t like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved.”


Ten years after crash that pushed Congress to mandate life-saving train technology, one-third of nation’s rail network remains without

that’s unacceptable,” said Sumwalt, who now chairs the panel. His forecast was correct: Despite another implementation deadline this year, most freight and passenger railroads plan to seek an exemption that will delay flipping on the PTC switch until December 2020 at the latest. Though the NTSB has recommended PTC installation since 1990, and Capitol Hill already was in motion after several deadly crashes — including a 2005 South Carolina wreck that leaked chlorine gas, killing nine, sending 556 to the hospital and requiring thousands of nearby residents to evacuate for days — the death of 25 people in Chatsworth finally got Congress over the hump to pass legislation. “For nearly 50 years, the NTSB has issued one recommendation after another for the [Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)] to require the railroads to implement some form of positive train control,” said Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the House Transportation Committee. “Those recommendations fell on deaf ears and it took the Chatsworth crash for Congress to finally take action to force PTC implementation. We can’t afford any further delay in adoption of this lifesaving technology.” Signed into law by President George W. Bush a month after the Chatsworth crash, the legislation mandated that PTC be in place on nearly 58,000 miles of railroad by the end of 2015. When Republicans came to dominate both houses of Congress in January 2015, railroads’ powerful lobby saw an opportunity to seek relief from the deadline, which it found onerous. Members of Congress have received nearly $60 million from railroad lobbyists since 1990, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The railroad industry argued successfully in 2015 that the mandate required a rush to invest in technology they said was too complicated and not fully developed. They argued that the nearly $15 billion required to educate rail workers and install onboard computers in engines and communication towers along more than 40 percent of the nation’s 134,000 miles of freight and commuter lines was prohibitive. Congress relented, extending the deadline to the end of this year, but it added a caveat. If a railroad had installed the necessary PTC hardware, trained rail workers, acquired radio spectrum and had the system ready on 50 percent of the required lines, they could seek an exemption until the end of 2020 to turn on PTC. The FRA issued a progress report last month that


How ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ helped rekindle my love for Korean food

There’s a scene in Netflix’s popular teen romantic comedy “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” in which Peter Kavinsky, the jock with a heart, is giving Lara Jean — his fake girlfriend — and her little sister, Kitty, a ride to school. He takes a sip of something Kitty calls a Korean yogurt smoothie and says, “Wow, this is really good.” While the majority of the audience might not have recognized the red top of the bottle, I knew exactly what it was. “Duh, Peter!” I yelled at the screen. “Of course it tastes good!” And while the scene lasts less than a minute, the inclusion of yakult, a popular probiotic milk drink, and other Korean food items in “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” made me realize how much I compartmentalize my love for Asian snack foods and more hearty and traditional Korean food. Sure, I like American potato chips, and I dabble in pretzels, but give me saewoo-kkang, ojing-eochib and yakult any day. My first memories of a Korean grocery store are from growing up in Northern Virginia in the 1990s and drinking the Lotte brand yakult. After perusing the snack aisle and unsuccessfully trying to persuade my mom to buy me one more box of Pepero (Korea’s answer to Japan’s Pocky), I knew that at the very least she would always buy me yakult, which I nicknamed “yoggi” based on the Korean pronunciation “yoguruttu.” My older sister would happily carry our go-to drinks into the kitchen, where we would poke holes in the lids with chopsticks. I would drink one in the car on the way to kindergarten and another right when I came home from school. At the height of my yakult craze, my sister and I had a timed race to see who could drink 10 the fastest. The only rule: You had to use the chopstick method instead of taking off the red foil. Even though I lost in the end — if you ask me, my sister cheated by poking bigger holes with her finger and, no, I’m not bitter about it — I remember being on the verge of a stomach ache, but happy I could trick my parents into letting me drink more than two yakults at a time. Over the years I slowly stopped drinking yakult, and my lunches included less Korean food (with my favorite side dishes,


Aung San Suu Kyi once championed free expression. Now she’s silent as journalists are jailed.

DURING THE 15 years she spent under house arrest, the cause of Aung San Suu Kyi was championed by Western journalists — including, in many instances, this page. She was seen to embody the struggle for freedom against the thuggish military dictatorship in Myanmar, also known as Burma. In 1991, she won the Nobel Peace Prize “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.” Eight years after her release, and three years after her party won power in an election, Aung San Suu Kyi has given the Nobel judges and her other supporters reason to conclude that their belief in her was misplaced. On Thursday, after again minimizing the genocidal campaign carried out by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya minority, she added insult to injury by defending the jailing of two journalists who covered one atrocity. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who work for the Reuters news agency, are dedicated to the same truth-telling mission as the writers who once sneaked into Myanmar at personal risk to interview Aung San Suu Kyi or describe her unjust confinement. Yet now the two young reporters are sentenced to seven years imprisonment with the Nobel laureate’s blessing. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo reported on a particularly grisly massacre in the village of Inn Din, where 10 Rohingya men and boys were slaughtered and dumped into a mass grave. Authorities acknowledged that the killings took place — but they also set out to punish the two journalists. A police official invited them to a restaurant in Yangon and, as they left, handed them rolled-up documents. Before they could even look at the papers, they were arrested. They were later charged with violating Myanmar’s colonial-era Official Secrets Act. During an appearance in Hanoi, Aung San Suu Kyi underlined the secrecy act charge in claiming the two men were not “jailed because they were journalists.” She claimed that critics of the case had not “bothered to read” the court judgment. That begs the question of whether Aung San Suu Kyi troubled herself to become familiar with the testimony at the trial, during which one police official said he had been ordered by a superior to entrap one of the journalists — a confession that cost him a one-year prison sentence — and another admitted that there was nothing secret in the documents the journalists were handed. When the campaign against the Rohingya


Nearly half of America has missed out on ‘one of the most unloved bull markets in history’

Gauging the winners and losers from the financial crisis isn’t rocket science: If you were in the more than one-half of American households that owned stocks in public companies over the past decade, all you had to do was close your eyes and hold on. As of Thursday, the S&P 500, a measure of the biggest companies in the stock market, is up 329 percent, not including dividends, since the bear market low on March 9, 2009. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 300 percent during the same period. And the Nasdaq Composite, loaded with tech stocks, has rocketed 530 percent since the dark days. For those who had significant money in the stock market, “you have seen your wealth soar,” said Chris Brightman, chief investment officer of Research Affiliates, which has more than $200 billion under management. Then there are those who didn’t. The Americans who don’t own any or much stock missed out on one of the greatest decades of wealth creation in stock market history. The wealth disparity in the United States means that relatively few Americans have reaped the lion’s share of the stock gains. “We have a large percentage of the population for whom the system is not working,” said billionaire investor Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and author of a new book titled “Big Debt Crises.” “The central banks’ policy pushed up financial assets, which is stocks, and that benefited the people with financial assets. Poor people don’t have much in the way of financial assets,” said Dalio, whose firm invests $150 billion on behalf of clients worldwide. Edward N. Wolff, an economist at New York University, said, “We have to spread out stock ownership, as that is one of the great sources of economic gain.” Americans are still scared. According to a May 2018 Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans households owning stocks has declined from as high as 65 percent in the pre-crisis year of 2007 to 55 percent now. The number is worse for Americans younger than 35, with 52 percent owning stocks in the pre-crisis years of 2001 through 2007, and only 38 percent of Americans those ages owning stocks from 2008 to 2018. “Psychological scars from the crisis make this one of the most unloved bull markets in history,” said Jason Thomas, chief economist with the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. “You had all these naysayers,


Former Cisco CEO John Chambers wants to make America a start-up nation again

now is looking at how do we get West Virginia to be a start-up state, in partnership with West Virginia University. How do you begin to create that environment with business and government and education and citizens working together? We’re going to pilot it with similar concepts to what we’ve seen work in France, other parts of the U.S. and India. My view is: How do we get all 50 states acting like start-up states? What do you think of President Trump’s promises and efforts to revive the coal industry? I’m very much a progressive in terms of the future of the state. I think to focus on what you can do — in areas such as effective utilization of coal and clean coal and doing that in an environmentally sound way — is doable. But I’m more interested in what will be the next jobs because there used to be 125,000 people with coal jobs in West Virginia, mining jobs. The number’s a fraction of that now. We’ve got to get to where the market is going and where the job creation is going. It won’t be these large companies anymore. It will be start-ups. You have a pretty searing critique of Silicon Valley in the book, saying it “seems a little more inbred and out of touch with the average person in America” and that it’s “becoming less a magnet for top talent.” Many people in the U.S. now view technology with hesitation — that it’s more likely perhaps to destroy their jobs than to create jobs for them. When Silicon Valley says to somebody in Indiana or Ohio or West Virginia or North Carolina that we’ll give you a stipend if you lose your job [because the job is displaced], they don’t understand how much Americans want a job. They want a job they can be proud of and make a difference in. Solving these big audacious problems — that’s what the Valley does, and I think it’s important we do it once again. I’m now focused on start-ups not just in Silicon Valley or New York but across the nation. The U.S. isn’t even in the top 10 in innovation in the world, country-wise. I’m surprised the alarm bells aren’t going off everywhere. Why aren’t we number 1? Why are we number 11 in the Bloomberg index? You were a co-chair in 2008 of John McCain’s


The Daily 202: New York primary results challenge the crystallizing 2018 narrative

that he met with European and Iranian diplomats but insisted the talks were not aimed at undermining Trump’s agenda.) Obama’s former ethics czar mocked Trump’s tweet about Kerry: A Democratic senator proposed this: The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee accused appropriators of bowing to the influence of pharmaceutical companies: A Post reporter highlighted this quote from a Democratic senator: A former top aide to Hillary Clinton replied, with a reference to Coons’s 2010 GOP opponent Christine O’Donnell: The new cover of Time magazine focused on teachers’ low pay: Actress Amy Schumer flip-flopped back to supporting Cynthia Nixon in New York’s gubernatorial primary: And Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) issued a request for donations as one of her aides faces cancer: GOOD READS: -- New York Times, “The Great Recession Knocked Them Down. Only Some Got Up Again,” by Ben Casselman, Patricia Cohen and Doris Burke -- Politico Magazine, “How Obama Made It Easier for Trump to Launch a Nuke,” by Marc Ambinder: -- “Buried under bodies: Even with murder rates falling, big-city detectives face daunting caseloads,” by Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery and Steven Rich: “ DAYBOOK: Trump NEWS YOU CAN USE IF YOU LIVE IN D.C.: -- Washingtonians may see showers or a possible storm today, but rain chances have decreased for the rest of the weekend. -- The Nationals lost to the Cubs 4-3 in 10 innings. -- D.C. household incomes increased dramatically last year, but the benefits were unevenly distributed among racial groups. -- Metro has proposed charging rush-hour prices during major events to help offset the cost of heightened service. -- The Inn at Little Washington became the first restaurant in the D.C. region to earn a rare third Michelin star. VIDEOS OF THE DAY: Stephen Colbert expressed shock at Trump’s tweet about Hurricane Maria: The Weather Channel captured the fierce winds Hurricane Florence is unleashing on the Carolinas: A Democratic congressional candidate in Michigan highlighted her mother’s battle with cancer in a new campaign ad: (I wrote about Democratic candidates’ focus on guaranteeing protections for those with preexisting conditions in yesterday’s 202.) Democrat Andrew Gillum’s gubernatorial campaign in Florida is launching a seven-figure television ad buy today: Wisconsin’s GOP slammed the Democratic lieutenant governor nominee over his comments about Obama-Trump voters: And The Post captured the moment when chef Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington learned he had earned his coveted third Michelin star:


Washington’s Michelin stars feted at the French Embassy

More than a dozen of Washington’s top chefs gathered on the dramatic staircase of the French ambassador’s residence on Thursday night, their chef whites traded for stylish suits, clutching fresh-off-the-presses copies of the red-jacketed Michelin guide in which each of them had earned a star or two. Though the party, hosted by Ambassador Gérard Araud, was ostensibly a celebration of all of them, there was a definite sense in the room — even among the honorees — that this was Patrick O’Connell’s party and they were all just there to enjoy it. O’Connell, the proprietor of the Inn at Little Washington, had just earned a rare third star in the famed French gastronomic guidebook, a first since Michelin debuted its Washington edition three years ago and a distinction that launched O’Connell, who has made no secret over the years of his star-lust, into an ultra-prestigious club. He was beaming, of course, amid well-heeled well-wishers, including International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde and what seemed like half of the city’s culinary world. And though everyone wanted to make the night all about him, he was quick to turn the credit to the team that works with him at the Inn, which just celebrated its 40th anniversary, and to his loyal clientele. “It’s an extended family that now goes back generations,” he said. “This is theirs.” Our conversation with O’Connell was interrupted several times by champagne-flute-toting partygoers who just had to stop by, shake his hand, and tell him about some memorable meal or another they’d had at the Inn. Anniversaries and birthdays were recounted in rapturous detail. Among the fans queuing up? Oh, look, it’s Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), who hesitated before telling us about his favorite night enjoying O’Connell’s hospitality. Yes, he got engaged there, he said, “but everyone gets engaged there!” His best story was hardly cliche: After his last day as governor in 2006, after handing over the keys to the governor’s mansion to his successor (that was now-Sen. Tim Kaine), per Virginia tradition, an outgoing governor gets one last trip anywhere in the commonwealth, provided by the state police. With the option of heading anywhere, Warner had the uniformed guys drop him off — you guessed it — at the Inn, where he and his wife joined six other couples for dinner. “We stayed up way too late talking,” Warner remembered. “And I made you an


Scientists warned of rising sea levels in North Carolina. Republican lawmakers shelved their recommendations.

projection should guide “policy development and planning purposes,” advised the 2010 report, whose authors were mainly scientists and engineers at the state’s leading research universities, as well as state and federal regulators. The historical record, wrote the experts, offered “undisputable evidence that sea level has been steadily rising in North Carolina,” while “multiple indicators” suggest that the rate would accelerate because the “global climate is warming.” The 2010 election brought a shift in power in Raleigh, however, as both chambers of the General Assembly changed hands from the Democrats to the Republicans. The majority began rolling back environmental regulations and clearing the way for more coastal development. By 2012, the panel’s report had been caught in the crosshairs. Lawmakers barred state agencies from basing policy on the prediction of intensifying sea-level rise, at least until 2016, essentially shelving the scientific recommendations. “The science panel used one model, the most extreme in the world,” said Republican state Rep. Pat McElraft, the bill’s House sponsor, whose district includes coastal counties, according to a 2012 Reuters article. “They need to use some science that we can all trust when we start making laws in North Carolina that affect property values on the coast.” The measure drew national attention, including ridicule from some observers, as The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery reported. Stephen Colbert, in a segment on “The Colbert Report,” observed that the “bold action on climate change” gave the state two options: “Sink or swim.” “If your science gives you a result you don’t like, pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved,” Colbert said. But the change, of course, is no laughing matter, said Riggs, who was watching weather reports this week from his home in Greenville, N.C., an inland college town still vulnerable to flash flooding. “We’ve seen a catastrophic destruction of all the rules and regulations that this state was known for,” he said. “And now we’re sitting out there with this incredible economic presence, an entire coast barrier island system dependent on engineered structures. Beaches are collapsing and have to be re-nourished over and over again with new sand. All that sand will be gone after today or tomorrow. We’ll have to do it all over again.” He blamed “greed” and a mentality that sees “no limits to growth.” “The state is now blowing the whistle, but it has not protected human life,” Riggs said. “We shouldn’t


John Bolton attacked the ICC. Cooperating with it might be a better way to protect U.S. interests.

approved by the U.N. Security Council — and because the United States is a permanent Security Council member, it would surely veto the investigation. Bolton claimed that the “ICC has authority to prosecute genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression. It claims ‘automatic jurisdiction,’ meaning that it can prosecute individuals even if their own governments have not recognized, signed, or ratified the treaty.” But he’s wrong. The ICC cannot prosecute nonmembers for the crime of aggression. If an investigation uncovered enough evidence to move forward with charges, those would probably be “war crimes” or “crimes against humanity.” Second, the ICC operates by the “complementarity principle.” That means the court can investigate only when a nation’s own authorities are “unable or unwilling” to do so. That makes it legally difficult to target the personnel or citizens of democratic countries with well-established rules of law, such as the U.S. legal system or the Uniform Military Code of Justice. Third, the United States has what are called Article 98 agreements with many countries, including Afghanistan, that prohibit the country from handing over U.S. personnel to the ICC. In 2002, Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, which required that countries receiving deployments of U.S. troops sign Article 98 agreements. Could the court still investigate and bring charges against U.S. personnel, ignoring the strength of U.S. judicial institutions? Would Article 98 agreements protect U.S. nationals from all court actions? That’s difficult to say. If the ICC did move ahead on such an investigation, the United States could use treaty law to dispute the ICC’s jurisdiction. And the United States could wield its considerable power to influence countries to uphold their treaty commitments. Is the ICC ineffective? Whether the ICC is effective is also an open debate. Some argue that simply by joining the Rome Statute, countries make a credible commitment to respect human rights. According to this thinking, the ICC’s existence therefore deters atrocities and human rights violations, even though it has no independent power to arrest. Others doubt that signing onto the ICC is indeed a credible commitment to respect human rights. Some even suggest the ICC can prolong civil conflicts if it indicts leaders who then, instead of pursuing peace, try to avoid being captured. But here’s what is certain: The ICC relies on states’ cooperation for conducting investigations and arresting indicted suspects. Without that cooperation, it can’t be


Mary Daly named to lead San Francisco Fed

have not bounced back as many had expected and of the necessity of making sure all Americans who want to work can work and the need to increase the labor force participation rates to boost growth in the long run. — Reuters LABOR Meatpacker settles with Muslim workers A big U.S. meatpacker has agreed to pay $1.5 million to 138 Somali-American Muslim workers who were fired from their jobs at a Colorado plant after they were refused prayer breaks, a federal anti-discrimination agency said Friday. Cargill Meat Solutions, a division of Cargill Corp., agreed to train managers and hourly workers in accommodating Muslim employees’ prayer breaks at its Fort Morgan beef processing plant, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said. Cargill denies wrongdoing but agreed to settle to avoid further litigation, the federal agency said. The dispute dates back to the firings of the workers in late 2016 after management rescinded policies allowing Muslim employees to take short breaks for prayer. In a related announcement, a Teamsters union local that was supposed to represent the workers will pay them $153,000 to settle discrimination complaints. The federal agency said it determined that Teamsters Local Union No. 455 failed to advocate for the Muslim workers in their dispute with Cargill and harassed them because of their race, religion and national origin. The workers were dues-paying union members. Union officials denied wrongdoing. — Associated Press SPACE INDUSTRY SpaceX changes plans for first moon flight SpaceX said Friday that it has signed its first private moon traveler, with some changes to its original game plan. The big reveal on who it is — and when the moon flight will happen — will be announced Monday at the company’s California headquarters. It’s not the same mission that SpaceX founder Elon Musk outlined last year. That plan called for two paying passengers to fly around the moon this year using a Falcon Heavy rocket and Dragon crew capsule. The new strategy is still to fly around the moon but using a bigger SpaceX rocket still in development that has its own dedicated passenger ship. And now, it appears there will be only one person aboard. SpaceX put out the teaser via Twitter late Thursday, and Musk also tweeted out the news. Company representatives declined to offer more details. — Associated Press Also in Business U.S. retail sales U.S. industrial production Venture investor — From news services


Missouri has a new law defining ‘meat.’ That’s just the latest round in the battles over your food.

On Aug. 28, a law went into effect in Missouri that makes it a crime to use the term “meat” to describe any product that does not come from a “livestock or poultry carcass or part thereof.” The same day, a number of plaintiffs — including Tofurky, a maker of plant-based meat alternatives; the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri; the Good Food Institute, a recently formed lobby group; and the Animal Legal Defense Fund — filed a lawsuit alleging that the statute violates the First Amendment. Clearly, both sides understand that regulation serves two purposes: to protect consumers and to prevent entry into a market. This isn’t an isolated incident. This food fight is part of a growing battle over the future of American food. Two lines of political inquiry — one concerned with the politics of regulation and the other with the American meat industry’s political strategies — can help explain. As meat alternatives have gotten more popular, the meat industry has turned to regulators In the past few years, “alternative” food products such as soy milk, tofu and plant-based burgers have expanded their share of the market exponentially, with even KFC working on faux chicken. That’s in part because the products’ verisimilitude has increased significantly. For instance, the Food and Drug Administration recently approved one company’s product additive that mimics heme, which gives meat its unique metallic tinge. The animal products industry has responded by turning to regulators. It has petitioned the FDA to enforce its definitions of mayo. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) has introduced a bill that would make it illegal for nondairy products to be called milk. The stakes will get higher soon, as new lab-grown meat comes to market But there’s another factor, as well. Some consumers object to killing animals or treating them cruelly before slaughter. In response, some start-ups and venture capitalists have been developing in vitro meat technology that would grow meat from stem cells, bypassing living animals entirely. Early versions already appear to be virtually identical to conventional meat in taste and genetic makeup. Boosters argue that the new meat will transform U.S. food production, eliminating conventional meat’s ill effects on the environment and animals — without altering what Americans eat. Consumers may be ready: Recent survey research suggests that 95 percent of Americans care about animal welfare. What’s more, a stunning 49 percent and 47 percent, respectively, think factory


How much would you pay for one more day, one more month with someone you love?

If someone you love is dying, how much are you willing to pay for just one more day with them? Doing the math, Melany Knott figured it cost about $1,100 a day. That got them 21 months. “No regrets,” Knott said. “I wouldn’t change a thing. And I won’t wonder about anything.” The Knott family auctioned off chain saws, goats and guns to raise some of the $695,000 they spent. They raided their savings, college funds, maxed credit cards and doubled down on the double shifts. They did fundraisers at the county fair and ran online tote bag sales to pay for untested treatments offered at a medical clinic in Mexico. This was not the battle for a cure to their 13-year-old daughter’s monstrous, fatal brain cancer. The doctors behind the mystery treatment have published zero studies on their findings and won’t even disclose the ingredients of the custom chemotherapy cocktails. But the Knotts were willing to gamble. One more day. One more month with their child. Maybe, one more year, even? This began 21 months ago, when the youngest of their four daughters, Kaisy, was having severe headaches. She was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPG), an aggressive, inoperable, incurable, 100 percent lethal brain cancer. “It felt like I was being stabbed in the head,” Kaisy explained to me at the airport last summer, on her way to one of her $33,000 treatments in Monterrey, Mexico. And then, the pain stopped. For a while, Kaisy was hailed as the Miracle of Monterrey. She went from being unable to raise her right arm or walk to swimming in the ocean, kayaking, riding roller coasters and showing her hog and steer at 4-H competitions. Other families started flying to the Mexico clinic from around the world — Norway, London, Italy, Australia — to take in the experimental and controversial cocktail of drugs that doctors injected into the children’s arteries. “There she is! It’s Kaisy!” they would say when they saw her in the halls of the Mexico clinic, Knott said. And medical technicians had to act like bodyguards to shield Kaisy from the crowds. Her Facebook page, Kick Butt KK, attracted thousands of followers. All this lasted 21 months. Kaisy died on Monday. “Mom, I can’t do this anymore,” she told Knott, in their Mount Airy home Sunday night. She went from showing animals at a fair last month to


The Inn at Little Washington earns its third Michelin star, a first for the D.C. region

There’s an old French adage about the Michelin Guide, the famed little red restaurant rating book: “It takes three generations to get three stars,” the guide’s top rating. It used to be that top European restaurants would be handed down through families, each descendant improving on his father’s work. In the case of chef Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington, it took only three years to get three stars. The Michelin Guide announced Thursday that it added a coveted third star to the Inn’s previous designation, making it the first restaurant in the Washington area to earn three stars. “That a kid from South Capitol Street, via Clinton, Maryland, who worked in a Mr. H hamburgers … can teach himself to cook and measure his progress every year against the greatest restaurants in the world, realizing that if he kept at it and [was] committed and willing to sacrifice, [he] could make an achievement like this, it’s like being in the midst of a fairy tale,” O’Connell said. José Andrés’s Minibar and Aaron Silverman’s Pineapple and Pearls kept their two-star ratings. There were two new additions to the one-star list: Chef Ryan Ratino’s Bresca and Robert Wiedmaier’s Siren, the latter with a kitchen led by executive chef and partner Brian McBride. They are the first Michelin stars for all three chefs. Bresca and Siren joined the previous list of one-star restaurants, all of which maintained their stars: Komi, Métier, Blue Duck Tavern, the Dabney, Fiola, Kinship, Masseria, Plume, Rose’s Luxury, Sushi Taro and Tail Up Goat. The Michelin Guide’s arrival in Washington three years ago cemented the city’s status as a serious food destination. But with its first three-star restaurant, “it’s clear that Washington now has joined the ranks of the great gastronomic capitals of the world,” said Michael Ellis, the outgoing international director for the Michelin Guides. The Inn, a restaurant and hotel modeled on the three-star inns of France, was elevated in the ratings this year after many visits, Ellis said, from “both the U.S. team as well as the international team. I had lot of French inspectors there.” Inspectors praised “the attention to detail on the plate,” Ellis said. “Also, he really has elevated the execution of his sauces to a degree that was just amazing.” O’Connell’s third star coincides with the Inn’s 40th anniversary, an event the chef has feted throughout the year. Anniversaries


Metro’s brutalist downtown building is up for sale. What should replace it?

parking, which would limit the property’s value for some would-be developers. Even so, potential uses for the property are plentiful. Evans has one idea: a huge event space. Maybe even an extension of Capital One Arena that could straddle Sixth Street with traffic passing underneath, similar to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “We don’t want to be in the position of saying 20 years from now, ‘God, I wish we could have used this for the arena,’ ” Evans said. Boe, of Monumental Sports and Entertainment, appeared interested in some kind of relationship between the two buildings. “We would certainly want to consider a potential annex for the arena in the WMATA building,” Boe said. “It’s not hard to imagine a great space for sports, entertainment spaces to watch games, creative concessions or restaurants. We think this space could be used to really expand entertainment options right in the heart of D.C.” Other options will be possible if Metro succeeds in getting the property rezoned. According to an application filed earlier this year, Metro is seeking to rezone it to a category that would allow greater flexibility for a mixed-use residential and commercial space and would expand the maximum height of the building to 120 feet from 90. The application also requests that the property be subject to inclusionary zoning, which means that a share of any residential construction on the property would be set aside as affordable housing. The rezoning decision will likely factor into how much money Metro could make from the sale. In a 2016 assessment, it was determined that the sale value of the building would be $56.2 million to $80 million if it needed to remain as-is, but it could be worth up to $132 million if the property is rezoned and the building demolished. In documents filed with the Zoning Commission, Metro argues that an aggressive rebuilding project would be the most beneficial option for the community, too. “As a result of the application of poorly conceived midcentury planning and design principles, the existing [building] detracts from the quality of the public space along adjacent streets,” Metro wrote. The opportunity for a do-over, they argued, would be valuable to the building’s neighbors. There are the defenders of the existing building. Among them, Schrag, the historian, who said its humdrum geometric facade serves as an important, and effective, backdrop to “the jewel of Judiciary