Exploring Greenland’s ice, then uncovering its warnings about the climate

layer upon layer of snowfall compacted over thousands of years, scientists have succeeded in extracting ice cores going all the way down to the island’s bedrock — nearly two miles below the surface. Through detailed analysis of these ice samples as well as the air bubbles trapped in them, researchers have reconstructed the history of the Earth’s climate dating back some 120,000 years. Perhaps the most startling discovery from these studies has been that the planet’s climate changed dramatically over time periods spanning just decades at certain points in history — for instance, a temperature leap of 18 degrees Fahrenheit about 11,700 years ago. It has overturned the assumption that all climate change is gradual, alerting us to the possibility that catastrophic shifts might lie ahead. Gertner describes more recent studies of the ice sheet, including those facilitated by detailed measurements of the Earth’s gravity field from space — from which the mass of the sheet can be inferred. The findings point to a grim truth: The sheet is melting at a pace that seems to be quickening with each passing year. But Gertner wonders if all of this data, pointing to the inevitability of rising sea levels in the not-so-distant future, will be enough to compel governments and businesses to take adequate steps to curb greenhouse emissions. At the moment, it would appear that the glaciers are melting faster than our collective ability to absorb the implications of it. Gertner writes with verve and acuity, and his prose is at times lyrical, such as his description of the ice sheet looking “like handmade paper, the kind sometimes used for fine stationery, with visible fibers and textured imperfections.” But even though his narration of the expeditions is packed with absorbing detail, it’s hard to avoid an element of drudgery midway through the book’s first half, because by then, the dangers posed by the harsh environment start to seem less novel. There were times when I wished, for the book’s sake, that the English language had more words to describe ice. Fortunately, Gertner picks up the pace again in the second half, telling the scientific story without giving readers an excuse to stop reading — except perhaps to ponder the fate of the planet. The Ice at the End of the World An Epic Journey Into Greenland's Buried Past and Our Perilous Future By Jon Gertner Random House. 418 pp. $28


Theresa May packs her bags, her legacy dominated by failure

LONDON — Theresa May, failure. History may not be kind to the departing prime minister. She had one job to do: deliver Brexit. Yet, as Brits say, she bottled it, repeatedly, and in spectacular fashion. She was unable to deliver on her promise to see Britain leave the European Union, on time, in good order, with a sensible plan for future trade. And so on Wednesday afternoon, an armored Jaguar XJ will ferry May to Buckingham Palace to tender her resignation to the queen. She’s expected to be replaced by Mr. Brexit himself, her former foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who decried her compromise plan for leaving the continental bloc as a humiliation, a surrender, “an absolute stinker.” The near-universal condemnation of her premiership — not only from her rivals and the opposition party, but also from the Conservative press, party activists and the colleagues who shoved her from office — is as public as it is withering. “Mrs. May has many virtues, but I’m afraid leadership is not one of them,” said Andrew Mitchell, a Tory grandee. “She played a bad hand badly” is about as generous as most of her colleagues will go, on or off the record. Google the words “Theresa May” and “failure,” and the search engine offers more than 20 million results in 0.49 seconds. How did Theresa May not succeed? In so many ways. As Britain’s second female prime minister, she was hyped by her staff as the 21st-century reincarnation of the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher. “But it was rather quickly revealed that Theresa May seemed a bit out of her depth,” said Guardian sketch writer John Crace, who coined the descriptor “Maybot” after the prime minister gave a particularly robotic interview. Her deficits became obvious after she called a snap election for June 2017, hoping to solidify her power and strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations. Although May was more than 20 points ahead of the opposition going in, she staggered through the campaign. She dodged debates, gave mechanical stump speeches, and, in a gob-smack shocker of a finale, squandered her majority in Parliament. After that, she was constrained in her every move by the need to placate the Democratic Unionists from Northern Ireland, who formed a coalition with her, propping up her government. May pledged to “build a better Britain . . . a country that works not for a privileged few, but


Toys R Us is back from the dead, but its new stores are unrecognizable

A year after shutting all its U.S. stores, Toys R Us is making a comeback. The international chain, which filed for bankruptcy in 2017, is opening two mall stores this holiday season and bringing back its website. But don’t expect the Toys R Us you’re used to. For one, the new locations — at the Galleria in Houston and Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J. —will be much smaller than their predecessors. And instead of aisles overflowing with packaged toys, the focus will be on open play areas, interactive displays and spaces for special events and birthday parties. “We’re reinventing Toys R Us to make it fun and interactive for kids and parents,” said Richard Barry, a former Toys R Us executive who is leading the new venture. “This is a global brand that is absolutely beloved in the United States." The revamped Toys R Us is a joint venture between Tru Kids Brands — which acquired the Toys R Us brand in January — and b8ta, a chain of “experiential” consumer electronics stores. The new effort is being led by Barry and Phillip Raub, the founder of b8ta. For decades, Toys R Us was the nation’s preeminent toy seller. It had a flagship store in Times Square, a catchy jingle and an iconic mascot, Geoffrey the Giraffe. The company was founded in 1948 as a baby furniture shop in Northwest Washington, but quickly became a destination for toys of all kinds. In recent years, though, it had fallen into disarray and had billions in debt, much of it from a 2005 leveraged buyout. By the time it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017, Toys R Us had become a cautionary tale of private equity deals gone wrong. Its bankruptcy filing listed $7.9 billion in debt against $6.6 billion in assets. But there were other issues too: The company’s stores felt stale and crowded. They didn’t offer the convenience or low prices of online retailers, or the fun-filled experiences of specialty shops. “Toys R Us, which had basically devolved into a warehouse, did not have the vision or the money to give its customers a great experience,” Howard Davidowitz, a retail consultant who worked with Toys R Us in the 1980s and 1990s, told The Washington Post in 2017. “For a toy store to survive, they’ve got to create the kind of fun that Amazon can’t.” (Jeff Bezos,


A multitasking Montana mom ran a 3:11 marathon while pushing her three kids in a stroller

to Runner’s World calculations, and it wasn’t because she couldn’t find a sitter. Her thing is setting Guinness world records for running while pushing a three-person stroller, and last year she set the mark for the fastest-half marathon while pushing a three-person stroller at the Missoula Half Marathon. This year, she set her mind toward owning the record for the marathon as well and easily lowered the 4:06:33 record set in 2018 by Ann Marie Cody of Modesto, Calif., aided by shouts of “Go, mom!” “The crowd was amazingly supportive,” the 35-year-old Polson, Mont., runner told Runner’s World. “I was moved by how many people were cheering for me and knew what my goal was on race day. One woman called out: ‘I’ve been reading about you all year. Go, mom!’” Her kids napped, snacked and contentedly watch the world — and other runners — go by. “We live in rural Montana and see lots of wildlife on the bike path right out my door,” Arnold told Runner’s World. “I keep a pretty consistent routine and see some regular commuters each day, and the kids like saying hello to the cyclists.” Arnold knows her days as a stroller-pushing mom are numbered, with daughter Marguerite turning 7 later this summer, and she plans to run a marathon alone this fall. “It’s special because she’s spent her life in the stroller,” Arnold told the Missoulian last month. “It’s just one of those things with time you can’t do any more. Of course you want them to grow up, so it’s bittersweet.” Maybe the stroller should go in a hall of fame somewhere. “I was laughing with my husband about throwing the stroller into a ditch or off a cliff, you know, say goodbye to that heavy old thing,” she said, “but I would never really do that. I tear up when I think any day could be the last day my oldest daughter goes for a run in the stroller. She can ride her bike while I run now.” Read more from The Post: Colin Kaepernick’s Nike ad gets an Emmy nomination NFL analysis: As training camps open, here are eight burning questions Rory McIlroy’s first British Open tee shot could not have gone worse British Open best bets: Steer Clear of Tiger Woods, look to these golfers instead Tiger Woods still is getting over the Masters, more than three months later


Trump spoke repeatedly with Cohen, aides amid scramble to pay Stormy Daniels, court documents show

Oct. 7, 2016, that Trump was caught on an “Access Hollywood” recording referring to women in vulgar terms. The following day, Cohen received a call from Trump’s spokeswoman at the time, Hope Hicks. “Sixteen seconds into the call, Trump joined the call, and the call continued for over four minutes,” according to the document. When Hicks testified before the House Judiciary Committee last month, she said she was “never present” at a time when Cohen and Trump discussed Daniels. She also said she “had no knowledge of Stormy Daniels” during the campaign other than that she had heard her name mentioned as possibly “shopping stories around.” Asked by congressional investigators why she made statements during the campaign that the president had no relationship with Daniels, she replied, “I was relaying information from the reporter to the different parties involved, primarily Michael and Mr. Trump, and that was the response that was dictated to me. I didn’t ask about the nature of the relationships.” The House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Hicks lied to Congress, according to an official with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) wrote to Hicks late Thursday demanding that she appear again to clarify the discrepancies between her prior testimony and what was unsealed earlier in the day. A lawyer for Hicks declined to comment. The Cohen-Trump-Hicks call was followed by calls that evening among Cohen, National Enquirer executives and Hicks. “At 8:03 p.m., about three minutes after ending his call with Pecker, Cohen called Trump, and they spoke for nearly eight minutes,” the affidavit states. For days, Cohen negotiated with Daniels’s lawyer to craft a settlement that would buy her silence, according to the court documents. It ended up taking weeks to finalize, with Cohen creating a limited-liability company to make the payment. At one point, Cohen called Trump immediately after a phone call with Daniels’s lawyer, but the two apparently did not connect, according to the affidavit. Shortly before noon on Oct. 28, 2016, “Cohen spoke to Trump for approximately five minutes. Beginning at 1:21 p.m., Cohen attempted a series of phone calls” to Daniels’s lawyer, Pecker and others. Cohen arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels, and on Nov. 1, 2016, the day she received her money, Cohen tried to call Trump but was unsuccessful. According to the affidavit,


More than 50 major companies, from Google to Nintendo, pull production from China because of the trade war

Throughout the trade war, President Trump has frequently claimed the conflict would force companies to pull their production out of China and move it to the United States. More than a year into it, he’s been proved half-right. More than 50 multinational corporations have announced plans to move manufacturing out of China, or are considering to do so, according to reporting from the Nikkei Asian Review. Google, Nintendo and Dell, among others, are trying to avoid the import penalties on $250 billion in Chinese goods. But rather than move their operations to the United States, as Trump urged, many of these companies are aiming to rebuild their supply chains abroad, primarily in Southeast Asia. Nintendo, the Japanese video game giant, has diverted production of its popular Switch console out of China to Vietnam, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal. Google has shifted manufacturing of its Cloud motherboards and some Nest smart home products to Taiwan and Malaysia. Hewlett-Packard and Dell both plan to relocate chunks of their personal computer manufacturing to Southeast Asia. A July survey from the quality control and supply chain auditor QIMA showed that demand for China-based inspections from U.S. companies had fallen 13 percent in the first half of 2019. In the same window, overall demand for inspections in South Asia jumped 34 percent. The Nikkei report said Apple is evaluating the cost of moving 15 to 30 percent of its production out of China, which also is the company’s biggest international market, where it has anchored manufacturing for the past 20 years. It also cited an executive with knowledge of the situation who said that mounting manufacturing risks in China mean Apple will be shifting out of the country regardless of whether a trade agreement is reached. “A lower birthrate, higher labor costs and the risk of overly centralizing its production in one country. These adverse factors are not going anywhere,” the executive said, according to Nikkei. Foxconn, which assembles iPhones, iPads and Macs and is one of the world’s biggest contract manufacturing companies, said last month it could still meet demand from American consumers with its current manufacturing capacity outside China. As it looks to shift production, Apple is setting its sights on Southeast Asia, with India and Vietnam being the front-runners for iPhone production, Nikkei reported. The company will soon start trial production on AirPods in Vietnam, a precursor for mass


U.S. tech firms push Trump to allow sales to Huawei, set up White House meeting next week

of the United States.” U.S. officials have said Huawei has links to the Chinese government and that its telecom equipment could be used to disrupt or spy on American communications. Huawei denies these claims. The Chinese company is the world’s largest seller of telecom equipment, including for super-fast 5G wireless networks. It is also a major global seller of smartphones and a big consumer of U.S. chips and software. Huawei said it spent $11 billion on U.S. technology last year. Shortly after blacklisting the company, the White House issued a temporary reprieve that allowed some sales to continue for 90 days. That period expires Aug. 19, after which the full ban will take effect unless companies receive special licenses. In late June, as Trump was attempting to restart trade talks with China, he said the United States would allow some sales to Huawei, though he did not provide details. On July 9, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the agency would issue licenses “where there is no threat to U.S. national security,” saying the administration didn’t want U.S. companies to needlessly lose out on sales. He added there would be a “presumption of denial.” U.S. chipmakers hope the Commerce Department will treat consumer products like cellphones and laptops with more leniency than telecommunications equipment, according to people familiar with the chipmakers’ plans, who asked to speak anonymously to discuss government business. If that is the case, companies such as Xilinx, which make highly advanced and complex semiconductors used in 5G networks, might still be prevented from selling to Huawei. “Xilinx has and continues to comply with all government and legal requirements across our global operations. We continue to actively track the Huawei situation as it remains dynamic,” spokesman Brian Garabedian wrote in an emailed statement. Some U.S. chipmakers believe if their products are manufactured outside the country, they are not affected by Huawei’s addition to the trade blacklist, because the products are not American in origin. Some attorneys who focus on U.S. export law have disagreed with that interpretation, arguing the value in the chip comes not just from the physical manufacturing of the product, but also from the design, which happens largely in the United States. The Commerce Department has not indicated it would crack down on companies that continue to sell Huawei products manufactured outside the United States by American companies, according to the people familiar with chipmakers’ plans.


Protest against a billion-dollar telescope in Hawaii grows to 1,000 people, leading to brief arrests

The protest is growing against the construction of a billion-dollar telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Between 300 and 500 protesters came out on Monday — some chaining themselves to metal grates in the road. By Wednesday, that number ballooned to about 1,000 and brief arrests were made. Thirty-three Native Hawaiian elders and one caregiver were issued citations and then released, according to Dan Dennison, senior communications manager at the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Gov. David Ige (D) signed an emergency proclamation Wednesday expanding the authority of law enforcement at the site. Ongoing protests have interfered with construction, which was slated to begin Monday after years of deliberation and protest. To Native Hawaiians, Mauna Kea is a sacred place. But to astronomers, it is one of the best places on Earth to observe space. Mauna Kea was chosen in 2009 for the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope, named for the diameter of its mirror, because of its elevation and clear skies. The telescope will be 18 stories tall and will provide astronomers an opportunity to better observe planets and stars forming, galaxies and black holes. Peaceful protests began during a groundbreaking ceremony in 2014. In 2015, they prevented construction from beginning. The Hawaii Supreme Court later affirmed a decision by the state Board of Land and Natural Resources to grant a building permit. Then, in June 2019, the agency allowed the TMT to move further into construction, according to the TMT International Observatory. “We do not want this [telescope] on this mountain,” Walter Ritte, one of the activists, told Hawaii News Now. “This mountain represents more than just their building they want to build. This mountain represents the last thing they want to take that we will not give them.” Operations at the existing observatories on the Mauna Kea summit were suspended on Tuesday afternoon and they were still unoccupied as of Thursday. There are currently 13 telescopes at the site. The altitude of the summit, paired with “uncertain access to and from the facilities,” pose safety concerns for staff, Richard Matsuda, the chief of operations at the W.M. Keck Observatory, told reporters. Almost immediately after Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959, American scientists decided the summit of Mauna Kea was one of the best places on Earth to observe space. The mountain “is a deeply sacred place that is revered in Hawaiian traditions,” according to the


Five takeaways from the DEA’s pain pill database

ARCOS. 2. The companies flooded the nation with pills as the opioid epidemic raged. A Washington Post analysis of the database shows that America’s largest drug companies distributed 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodonepain pills across the country between 2006 and 2012 as the nation’s deadliest drug epidemic spun out of control. About two dozen companies are being sued in federal court in Cleveland by nearly 2,000 cities, towns and counties alleging that they conspired to flood the nation with opioids. The companies, in turn, have blamed the epidemic on overprescribing by doctors and pharmacies, and on customers who abused the drugs. The companies say they were working to supply the needs of patients with legitimate prescriptions desperate for pain relief. 3. A handful of companies manufactured and distributed most of the opioids. Just six companies distributed 75 percent of the pills — oxycodone and hydrocodone — during this period: McKesson Corp., Walgreens, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, CVS and Walmart, according to an analysis of the database by The Washington Post. Three companies manufactured about 88 percent of the opioids: SpecGx, a subsidiary of Mallinckrodt; Actavis Pharma; and Par Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Endo Pharmaceuticals. 4. The number of pills distributed skyrocketed over seven years. The volumes of the pills handled by the companies climbed as the epidemic surged, increasing 51 percent from 8.4 billion in 2006 to 12.6 billion in 2012. By contrast, doses of morphine, a well-known treatment for severe pain, averaged slightly more than 500 million a year during the same period. The numbers of pills the companies sold during the seven-year time frame are staggering, far exceeding what has been previously disclosed in limited court filings and news stories. The opioid epidemic began with prescription pills, spawned increased heroin use and then resulted in the current fentanyl crisis, which added more than 67,000 to the death toll from 2013 to 2017. 5. Some states and rural areas were saturated. The states that received the highest concentrations of pills per person per year were: West Virginia with 66.5, Kentucky with 63.3, South Carolina with 58, Tennessee with 57.7 and Nevada with 54.7. West Virginia also had the highest opioid death rate from 2006 through 2012. Rural areas with the greatest number of pills shipped per person per year were: Norton, Va., with 306; Martinsville, Va., with 242; Mingo County, W.Va., with 203; and Perry County, Ky., with 175. homepage@washingtonpost.com


Police identify 2 victims found shot in Trinidad area of Northeast D.C.

THE DISTRICT Trinidad shooting victims identified Police have identified the victims found Friday fatally shot inside a home in the Trinidad area of Northeast Washington. Police are treating the deaths of 17-year-old Ahkii Washington-Scruggs and 57-year-old Hugh Washington, both of Northeast, as homicides, Kristen Metzger, a D.C. police spokeswoman, said Saturday. Police said they responded around 6 p.m. Friday to a family member’s request to check the residence on the 1100 block of Queen Street NE. Police said they found an adult male victim and a juvenile male victim, unconscious and unresponsive, suffering from gunshot wounds. It was not clear how long the victims may have been dead in the house. Metzger said the relative had become concerned at least as early as Thursday. — Laurel Demkovich Fatal shooting on U Street NW Police are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred Saturday in the 1100 block of U Street NW. Police said they responded to a report of a shooting around 2:40 a.m. Police said they found 34-year-old Eric Byrd, of Southeast, D.C., suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. — Laurel Demkovich MARYLAND Man struck by car in December dies A Maryland man struck by a car in December died of his injuries this week. Anthony Butcher, 25, had been crossing Whitfield Chapel Road near Annapolis Road in Lanham about 5:50 p.m. on Dec. 7 when a southbound car hit him, Prince George’s County police said. The driver who struck Butcher was not hurt and stayed at the scene of the crash, police said. Butcher was taken to a hospital and treated. — Lynh Bui Baltimore police official robbed at gunpoint Police say one of Baltimore’s newest deputy police commissioners and his wife were robbed at gunpoint. The Baltimore Sun reports that Deputy Commissioner Daniel Murphy and his wife were approached by four men in an SUV at about 9 p.m. Friday near Patterson Park. Police say the men announced it was a robbery, showed a gun and fled with a wallet, a purse, cash and multiple cellphones. Police say no one was injured. — Associated Press


Man dead after Saturday morning shooting in Northwest D.C.

Police are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred early Saturday in the 1100 block of U Street in Northwest Washington. D.C. police said they responded to a report of a shooting about 2:42 a.m. Officers found 34-year-old Eric Byrd, of Southeast, with multiple gunshot wounds. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. laurel.demkovich@washpost.com


She was determined to save the world — one buzzing backyard beehive at a time

the email arrived, I had been reading about insects and the threats to them that sound so dire — habitat loss; climate change; air, water, and light pollution; disease; and others. The effects are real and all around us, with the Eastern monarch butterfly a good example. “The 2016 monarch count showed that over the past 22 years, these butterflies declined by 68 percent, with the population at 150 million butterflies,” according to the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. In January, the center reported that, although the monarch remained in need of protection, the numbers had increased somewhat, crediting “all the people who planted native milkweeds and switched to organic corn and soy products.” In June, the University of Maryland reported that U.S. beekeepers lost nearly 40 percent of their honey bee colonies last winter. This was the worst decline recorded over 13 years in a nationwide survey. Scientists who reviewed 73 historical reports on insects concluded in an analysis published in the journal Biological Conservation that 40 percent of the world’s insects are in such serious decline that they could become extinct. Worldwide, insects are going extinct eight times faster than mammals, birds and reptiles. Is that cause for alarm? Stuff is going extinct all the time. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,” Elizabeth Kolbert explains that this is the sixth time in world history that a large number of species have disappeared in rapid succession. Entomologists will tell you that what we’ve been experiencing with insects up to now has been extinction with a lowercase “e.” You’ll hear them talk about “functional” extinction. That’s when a species is no longer prevalent enough to support an ecosystem. Its absence causes hiccups. Animals that eat the missing insects, for example, have to eat something else. Or, leave the ecosystem. The more these connections are lost, the more unstable an ecosystem becomes. A 2013 paper in Nature found that if even 30 percent of a species is lost, the effects can be so devastating other species in that system can go extinct. “If insects were to vanish,” Harvard entomologist E.O. Wilson said, “the environment would collapse into chaos.” Insects make life possible for the rest of us. We can’t live without them. Many amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals chow down on insects as their sole food source. Even we eat them. Insects play a


stung, I feared they might all fly away. The box had been secured with copious amounts of tape. When I cut the tape, I felt a surge under the lid. That faint buzzing was now more like an agitated hum. Taking a deep breath, I lifted the lid. Bees — Italian honeybees — began spilling out. There were five frames inside the box. Each frame had hundreds of cells. Each cell was filled with an egg, larva or pupa, or some amount of pollen, nectar or capped honey. The frames were teeming with bees — workers, drones and one majestic queen. I reached my gloved hands into the box to lift out the first frame and transfer it to my hive. What followed was 15 minutes of awe and wonder. And maybe a little panic. Transferring the bees to their new home was only the beginning. A beekeeper’s spring and summer are filled with weekly tasks to monitor the health of the hive. You have to be vigilant. You can’t believe how much fresh water they need. A healthy hive can go through more than a gallon of water a day. You feed them sugar water when pollen sources run low. You make sure they have enough space in the hive, adding more space when they don’t. You battle small hive beetles, varroa mites and other pests that weaken the colony. At the same time, I’m hoping to learn more about grubs and maggots and butterflies and cockroaches. Not to mention skeeters, pill bugs, beetles, stink bugs, mantids and all manner of other creepy-crawlies. Why stop with bees? If we don’t know and understand our world, how can we preserve it? Insects are resilient. They reproduce quickly. We aren’t too late. We can turn things around. Becoming a beekeeper may not be for you. But no amount of change is too small. Simple things can make a huge difference: Put away the pesticides. Plant some flowers. Watch your carbon footprint. Volunteer to count fireflies or butterflies or ladybugs in your community. Support organizations that work specifically on conservation for insects. Maybe in some ways, I’m like the bee now. I’m not going to single-handedly save the planet with my hive. But if I’m lucky, my 10,000 bees will become a colony of 60,000 by summer’s end. That’s how we change the world — one tiny bee at a time. health-science@washpost.com


A Yazidi woman from Iraq told Trump that ISIS killed her family. ‘Where are they now?’ he asked.

When President Trump this week met human rights activist Nadia Murad, an Iraqi who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for speaking out about her agonizing torture and rape while in Islamic State captivity, he seemed unaware of her story and the plight of her Yazidi ethnic minority. For several minutes in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Murad stood beside a seated Trump, who mostly avoided eye contact with Murad, and implored the president to help her community return to Iraq. She explained that the Islamic State, or ISIS, may be gone but that Iraqis and Kurds are fighting for control over Yazidi lands. “If I cannot go to my home and live in a safe place and get my dignity back, this is not about ISIS,” she said, her voice breaking. “It’s about I’m in danger. My people cannot go back.” Murad, who lives in Germany, told Trump that she never wanted to be a refugee but that ISIS murdered her mother and six brothers. “Where are they now?” Trump asked. “They killed them,” she repeated. “They are in the mass grave in Sinjar, and I’m still fighting just to live in safety.” “I know the area very well that you’re talking about,” Trump responded. Trump’s meeting — which drew widespread criticism because of its awkward moments — included nearly two dozen foreigners who, like Murad, had suffered religious persecution in their home countries. They included a Jewish Holocaust survivor, a Tibetan from China and a Rohingya Muslim from Myanmar. Trump told Murad he would look into it “very strongly.” As she started to back away, Trump said: “And you had the Nobel Prize. That’s incredible. They gave it to you for what reason?” “For what reason?” Murad replied. “For, after all this happened to me, I didn’t give up. I made it clear to everyone that ISIS raped thousands of Yazidi women.” She told him she was the first woman to get out and speak publicly about what was happening. “Oh, really, is that right?” Trump said, his voice notably more upbeat. “So you escaped.” “I escaped, but I don’t have my freedom yet,” she said. Trump has said that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on Syria and North Korea and has lamented that President Barack Obama received the honor during his first year in office. In the same meeting, the president


‘Be More Chill’: The rare new musical you can see now on Broadway or on a small stage

as the modestly budgeted production opened last week: “Are you doing this legally?” “It’s unusual for most shows,” says Iconis, whose catchy songs have been Internet catnip since the album release that gradually blew up after the musical’s brief debut at New Jersey’s Two River Theater. “But I think for ‘Be More Chill,’ it’s in line with how the show has developed and operated from the beginning. The show is on Broadway because actual human beings loved it.” “Be More Chill” is based on the 2004 novel by Ned Vizzini (who took his life in 2013) and deals with an anxious outsider named Jeremy, made “chill” by taking a Japanese-engineered computer-pill called a Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor (SQUIP). The musical’s song “Michael in the Bathroom” was a highlight at last month’s Tony Awards, as host James Corden made an in-joke of nervously hiding in the bathroom and finding last year’s still-fretful hosts, Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban, in there, too. Two River commissioned and premiered the musical, then teamed up with Ghostlight Records to record the score. That was a first for the troupe, according to managing director Michael Hurst, who says the company produced the show and the album without “enhancement money” from commercial producers. (Ghostlight released the new Broadway cast album Friday.) “Michael in the Bathroom” was the song that came up on Mavrikes’s Spotify list two years ago, right after he told director Izzy Smelkinson that, no, he had never heard of a musical called “Be More Chill.” The tune caught his ear, and so did the kid-focused story and the accessible pop score. “We are interested in appealing to younger people than we’ve gotten before,” says Mavrikes, describing the company’s focus as “millennial theater, trickling down to Generation Z.” “And the show is about growing up and figuring yourself out.” Co-artistic director Michael Windsor liked that “Chill” is “genuinely” about teens — “about social anxiety and how to fit into this weird high school world.” The rights were becoming available. Iconis says that after a discouraging New York Times review of the Two River staging, “The show very much felt like it was dead in terms of any kind of commercial production.” But videos of two songs that Two River created from B-roll footage joined a growing throng of homemade “Be More Chill” performances online, and when Exit 82 staged the first amateur production late


Five myths about the moon

a few thousand hungry people to die for the lack of a few thousand dollars while they would contaminate the moon and its sterility for the sake of ‘progress’ and spend billions of dollars in the process,” said a 1969 editorial in the Los Angeles Sentinel. Throughout the 1960s, the Apollo program “wasn’t very popular,” says NASA chief historian Bill Barry. “It never really got above a 50 percent approval rating in public opinion polls, except during the week when we landed on the moon.” Myth No. 3 The moon missions had little scientific value. Today, only 64 percent of Americans say the space program is worth the cost. That number, at least, has grown since the question was first asked in 1979, when only 41 percent said it was worthwhile to have spent billions of dollars to, among other things, get a bunch of moon rocks. “In practical terms Apollo 11 was meaningless,” writes Matthew Walther, in an essay for the Week. “ . . . It was a voyage undertaken for no meaningful scientific purpose.” And historian Gerard DeGroot told the Guardian, “The great tragedy of the effort was that the best of American technology and billions of American dollars were devoted to a project of minuscule benefit to anyone.” Putting aside the technological advances made during the race to the moon (water purification systems, the Dustbuster, rechargeable hearing aids), those lunar rocks have told us an enormous amount about our planet’s evolution. The samples collected on the Apollo missions revealed striking similarities between the composition of moon matter and Earth matter, leading to the “giant impact hypothesis, ” which posits that the moon and Earth were once part of one larger planet before being blown apart by a cosmic collision. This discovery opened up fascinating new scientific questions and theories about the solar system. It has the potential to teach us about the conditions that support life on Earth — and the conditions that could make life elsewhere in the universe possible. Myth No. 4 The moon controls the tides on Earth. Humans have long attributed behaviors on Earth to the moon’s cosmic pull — lunacy and fertility among them. It’s also commonly thought that the moon controls the tides, a claim that shows up everywhere from Boating magazine to a Refinery 29 article about the astrological significance of this month’s solar eclipse. This is an oversimplification.


Team USA arrives early for world championships, hoping to avoid last year’s mistakes

along with my teammates to the right people and making sure that we have a solid plan in place for this year,” Ledecky said. It’s a big financial commitment — USA Swimming would not reveal actual numbers — but was deemed essential. Team officials explored their options but were quick to target Singapore. That’s where the U.S. team went before the 2008 Beijing Games, where American swimmers won 12 golds — twice as many as any other country and eight courtesy of Michael Phelps — and 31 medals overall. USA Swimming staged a trial run of sorts in Singapore before December’s short course world championships, which were in Hangzhou, China. The change wasn’t solely geared toward worlds. USA Swimming has major international meets scheduled in Asia through the 2021 world championships in Fukuoka, Japan. If Singapore works out, the Americans probably will return for training camps the next two summers. On July 8, the 45 U.S. swimmers who will be competing in Gwangju arrived in Singapore for a week-long camp. They trained every day at the OCBC Aquatic Centre, slowly adjusting to the time change. Then on Tuesday they left for South Korea — just a one-hour time difference — with the first races set for Sunday. While USA Swimming is hoping for a big week one year ahead of the Tokyo Games, Mintenko said holding a long training camp overseas isn’t always a no-brainer, and swimmers still face some challenges. “When you’re in a place for a long period of time before any competition, there can be some kind of fatigue,” said Mintenko, who won gold on the U.S. relay teams at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics swimming with her maiden name, Lindsay Benko. “Obviously, getting on the time zone will have a positive effect, but I also think there can be some negatives. Making sure the athletes don’t get stale, making sure they’re in an environment where they feel comfortable. That’s sometimes a hard thing to do. … It’s a very fine balance of too long to just right. It’s never perfect.” Read more on the Olympics: She’s 10 years old and loves to skateboard. She could be an Olympian next year. U.S. Olympic Committee changes name to recognize Paralympians Larry Nassar is in jail, but only one USOC official was fired? Yes, we need reform. Congresswoman says USOC ‘has failed,’ proposes bill that could initiate an overhaul


Hurrah for Apollo 11, but let’s leave the space travel to robots and privately funded adventurers

ventures bring a can-do Silicon Valley culture into a domain long dominated by NASA and a few aerospace conglomerates. They have developed the techniques to recover and reuse the main launch rocket, presaging real cost savings. In coming decades, the entire solar system — planets, moons and asteroids — will be explored by fleets of tiny automated probes, interacting with each other like a flock of birds. Plausible predictions include the construction of robotic fabricators that will then build, in space, solar-energy collectors and other giant structures. Perhaps most promising, the fabricators will be able to construct, under zero gravity in space, enormous lightweight telescopes. It’s realistic to hope that in 50 years or so, such telescopes, freed from the blurring and absorptive effects of Earth’s atmosphere, will discover a planet like our own, orbiting a distant star, that may harbor life. By then, thrill seekers may have established a fragile base on Mars. But don’t ever expect mass emigration from Earth. On this I disagree with Musk and with my late Cambridge colleague Stephen Hawking, in their enthusiasm for the rapid buildup of large Martian communities. Thinking that space offers an escape from Earth’s problems is a dangerous delusion. We must solve them here. Battling climate change may seem daunting, but it will be child’s play when compared with making Mars habitable. Ordinary risk-averse people will have no alternative. We must cherish our earthly home. Yet we and future generations should cheer on the brave space adventurers. Being ill-adapted to their new habitat, and beyond the reach of earthbound government regulators, they will have a pivotal role in what happens in the 22nd century and beyond as they use super-powerful genetic and cyborg technologies to reshape what it means to be human. But even from that cosmic perspective, the first steps taken on a surface other than the planet Earth were an epochal event — so it is right that we should remember and celebrate the Apollo 11 astronauts. Read more: George F. Will: Apollo 11’s achievement still dazzles David Von Drehle: 50 years after the moon landing, Apollo 11 remains a miracle Max Boot: Faith in government powered Apollo 11. We don’t have that anymore. Robert Zubrin and Homer Hickam: We have the technology to build a colony on the moon. Let’s do it. Buzz Aldrin: It’s time to focus on the great migration of humankind to Mars


Japan claims it’s restricting exports to South Korea because of ‘national security.’ Here’s the real reason why.

organized movements for postwar compensation. Prime Minister Abe has been a champion of free trade. A New York Times article that compared Japan’s trade restrictions to President Trump’s retaliatory use of tariffs has provoked ire in Tokyo. But Abe’s current policy approach is “weaponizing trade as a way of settling unrelated disputes,” as two political scientists recently argued, rather than upholding “a free, fair, and non-discriminatory” trade environment. The South Korean government, meanwhile, has also met with business leaders. Moon urged them to prepare to make do without Japan if necessary. The U.S. is beginning to get involved, perhaps too late. At first, it seemed likely that the U.S. government would sit out this round of Japan-South Korea tensions. Senior Japanese and South Korean officials flocked to Washington last week to push their cause, but Trump administration officials and diplomats in East Asia declared that they would not intervene. This week, however, saw NSC Asia Director Matt Pottinger and the top U.S. diplomat on Asia dispatched to the region. Both Korea and Japan have legitimate grievances. However, each is also partly responsible for the current deterioration in relations and any potential fallout. Bad relations are likely to harm both economies and make trilateral cooperation with the United States more difficult. The United States is likely worried that its strategic interests in the region will suffer, especially if the economic dispute spills over into security tensions. That possibility felt real last December, when a South Korean destroyer locked its fire control radar on a Japanese patrol aircraft. While U.S. mediation is no silver bullet, it may help the two resolve their conflict. In 2014 and 2015, after nearly three years of no meetings between the leaders of Korea and Japan, the Obama administration worked behind the scenes to encourage the talks that produced the historic but controversial deal on the comfort women issue. As Daniel Sneider has argued, the United States has unique leverage in Seoul and Tokyo. In Seoul, Washington is critical for any progress on North Korea, which is a key aspiration for Moon. Anticipated trade talks give Washington leverage in Tokyo. However, while there are calls on both sides for a diplomatic solution, the Moon and Abe administrations seem to lack the political will and are signaling continued intransigence. Don’t miss anything! Sign up to get TMC’s smart analysis in your inbox, three days a week. Celeste Arrington


Alex Ovechkin will travel to China as an NHL ambassador next month

will host the 2022 Winter Games, for a couple of years. “I think Alex realizes that unlocking and accelerating the international growth of the game is probably key to the future of it,” Abrutyn said in a phone interview. “Alex has always taken great pride in giving back to the game. In D.C., he spends an awful lot of time in the youth community and similarly back home [in Russia] during the summer from the time he first came into the league. There’s nothing like being able to give kids an experience to touch the game.” “It is a huge honor for me to be an ambassador for the entire Washington Capitals organization and the National Hockey League for this special trip to China,” Ovechkin said in a statement. “I think it is very important to spend time to help make people all over the world see how great a game hockey is. I can’t wait to spend time with all the hockey fans there, and I hope to meet young kids who will be future NHL players." Ovechkin’s visit is also an opportunity for the Capitals to increase their presence in China. The team has had a partnership with O.R.G. Packaging for three years and hosted 25 youth Beijing Hockey Association players in conjunction with the Beijing-based company in 2017. In April, Monumental Sports and Entertainment announced a deal with China-based Alibaba. “We’re honored to participate in this and be a part of it with Alex and the NHL,” Jim Van Stone, the president of business operations for Monumental Sports and Entertainment, said in a phone interview. “I think it really goes a long way toward helping us to grow our brand in China and Asia as a whole, and it allows us to build some connectivity with our fan base in China. ... I think we’re on the beginning of a long road to build the presence of hockey in Asia. The early returns are fantastic and there’s a really big opportunity to have a huge presence there." Read more from The Post: New NBCSW Wizards play-by-play man Justin Kutcher is a ‘big-time talent’ with big shoes to fill When Apollo 11 landed on the moon, major league baseball stood still Boswell: The Nats believed in Dave Martinez even when no one else did. Including me. Instead of tennis academies and junior tournaments, Maryland standout chose her backyard


The Washington Monument became a rocket for the Apollo 11 anniversary

A large image of the Saturn V rocket shone Tuesday evening on the Washington Monument as part of a week-long series of events in Washington to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The 363-foot projection of the rocket will also be flashed on the monument Wednesday and Thursday from 9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. It’s part of the Apollo 50 Festival, which includes performances, exhibits and speakers on the Mall. To see the rocket projection, viewers can go in front of the Smithsonian Castle between Ninth and 12th streets NW. For information, go to airandspace.si.edu/go-for-the-moon. On Friday and Saturday, a 17-minute show called “Apollo 50: Go for the Moon” will re-create the launch of Apollo 11. According to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the show will appear on the Washington Monument and screens, running at 9:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. both nights. The National Air and Space Museum is sponsoring many of the events to honor the Apollo 11 mission of July 20, 1969. Astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins were on the mission that took them from Earth on a Saturn V rocket. It culminated with Aldrin and Armstrong successfully landing on the moon.


The most stirring photo from the Apollo mission wasn’t of the moon. It was of the Earth.

images.) First it appears as a distant disc, pale and flat, ripe for fantasy and projection. Suddenly it is a recognizable shape, with markings, like a cuneiform tablet or perhaps a face, getting bigger and bigger until, magnified now, it fills the frame, a voluptuous, surprisingly textured figure with volumes, protuberances and hollows. That must have been what it was like for the global public in the 1960s as spacecraft captured images that took us closer and closer to the moon. There was something almost erotic about it: a lunar striptease. The Soviets had led the way. They had sent a dog into space, then a man, then a woman. All by 1963. Even before that, in September 1959, one of their probes, Luna 2, had become the first human-made object to touch the moon. Up until that point, no one had seen the dark side of the moon — the side that, because the moon rotates on its axis at the same rate that it orbits around the Earth, had always remained maddeningly invisible, like the back of your head in a world without mirrors. But about a month after Luna 2 struck the moon’s surface, the Soviets launched Luna 3. Equipped with a dual-lens 35mm camera and an onboard image-processing system, the probe produced 20 photographs that capture nearly three-quarters of the moon’s unmapped “dark side.” One of those images, released by the usually secretive Soviets, is in the Metropolitan Museum’s show and reprinted in the catalogue. Blurry and marked up with annotations, it marks, Fineman wrote, “a groundbreaking moment in the history of visual culture.” Also in the history of desire. It was almost 10 years (and 16 No. 1 hits by the Beatles) before Apollo 8 became the first crewed spacecraft to enter lunar orbit, allowing Anders to take “Earthrise.” Our desire for the moon was waxing at that point. Since then, inevitably, it has waned. “Earthrise” — despite being temporarily eclipsed by those extraordinary images (the foot print, the flag-planting) of the moon landing the following year — was the turning point. You can sense the change in the words of Anders and Borman, brave astronauts who, having almost reached their hearts’ desire, found themselves afflicted by “a torrent of nostalgia,” something almost like remorse. Said Anders: “Our Earth was quite colorful, pretty, and delicate compared to the very rough, rugged, beat-up, even boring lunar


NSO and NASA join to celebrate the moon landing on an orchestral scale

It was a nearly miraculous event, brought about by the behind-the-scenes work of a lot of partly uncredited people. That’s true of the Apollo 11 moon landing, but what I’m talking about is the commemoration of its 50th anniversary that the NSO Pops hosted at the Kennedy Center on Saturday night. The orchestra presented an amazing array of heavy hitters — from Herbie Hancock to Pharrell Williams — and, equally effectively, a wonderful stream of archival video footage, remarkably edited and consistently gripping. The whole evening was expert entertainment. I didn’t quite know they had it in them. Certainly, no expense was spared. The National Symphony Orchestra offered a cornucopia of luminaries, from TV personalities Meredith Vieira and Adam Savage (the show’s host) to the actor LeVar Burton, who resoundingly read excerpts from Arthur C. Clarke and John F. Kennedy. Neil Armstrong’s son Mark and granddaughter Kali came out and performed a song called “Flight of Fancy” before home videos of the family flying toy planes; the performance was thoroughly respectable and the videos touching, rather than hokey. The author Charles Fishman shared anecdotes from his book “One Giant Leap,” including a story about the Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972 jury-rigging a fender on the lunar rover using laminated maps and duct tape. Interwoven through all this was striking video footage, much of it provided by NASA, which included a segment about plans for the next lunar visit. All this revved up the audience so much that when Michael Collins, one of the three astronauts from the 1969 mission, took the stage, he was greeted with a storm of applause that visibly took him by surprise. “It’s nice to be here,” he said. “At age 88, it’s nice to be anywhere.” He then delivered afresh the remarks he had given to Congress in September 1969, which seemed no less relevant or poignant with 50 years’ distance. The astronauts in orbit “could look toward the moon, toward Mars, toward our future in space . . . or we could look back toward the Earth, our home, with its problems spawned over more than a millennium of human occupancy. We looked both ways. We saw both, and I think that is what our nation must do.” Strictly speaking, I was there not for any of this, but to review the music, specifically a new orchestral work by Michael Giacchino, “Advent,” commissioned for


stepped onto the moon’s surface. Giacchino, who began as a video-game and film composer, is an able craftsman, and he provided a big, colorful, showy work full of clear themes, intoned by a female soprano in high wordless vocalese, and underlined by the penetrating hum of prayer bowls, stationed not only on the stage but also in the aisles of the auditorium. His music is built on tune, not structure, and this piece built to the splendid climaxes that the evening called for, pulling away at the last minute to quieter passages — something also evident in another piece, “The Voyage,” which the orchestra played earlier in the evening, complete with a fine solo by Baltimore Symphony Orchestra harpist Sarah Fuller. For my money, though, the musical highlights lay elsewhere — with Pharrell Williams, for example, wholehearted and drawing the audience into the song “Freedom.” And while the orchestra hit some obligatory notes — such as “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” the quintessential space music since Stanley Kubrick’s movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” — where it really shone was in the Saint-Saens organ concerto, which was played along with video that was so expertly cut to it that it became a cosmic soundtrack. Duncan Copp and Todd Douglas Miller were given bios in the program as producer and film editor; their work here was outstanding. The musical direction lay in the hands of Emil de Cou; a former associate conductor with the NSO who still leads them at Wolf Trap, he also serves as musical consultant to NASA. With a light touch on the podium and an easy way with musicians and audiences, de Cou is a perfect conductor for this kind of program. (At one point, when the host Savage dropped the helmet of his space suit and it rolled across the stage, de Cou picked it up and put it on the concertmaster, Nurit Bar-Josef, who responded with a thumbs-up; if this was improvisation, it was letter-perfect.) At the very end of a night that had celebrated unity and national achievement, the orchestra played “America the Beautiful,” and de Cou turned to the audience and made sure everyone was singing along — another surprisingly moving and effective moment. Correction: An earlier version of this review misidentified the solo harpist in “The Voyage Piece.” It was the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s Sarah Fuller, not Adriana Horne. This review has been updated. anne.midgette@washpost.com


How Qatar’s cows show the growing resistance to a Saudi-led boycott

Saudi Arabia. The Baladna farm is the most prominent example of Qatar’s push for self-sufficiency. When the blockade was announced, Qatar was able to get milking machines delivered quickly by paying an Irish company that was also seeking to buy the equipment to step aside for a rush order. Then it airlifted cows from Europe using Russian cargo planes. Large numbers of those cows died of heat stress, but that was before the barns and cooling systems were completely constructed. The farm also has a 17-person veterinary team and hospital. Since then, cows have been imported from the United States and Canada. And 30 to 50 cows are being born here every day. To raise a hardy breed accustomed to relatively hot conditions, the newborns sleep on sand in open-air cages beneath high roofs and fans. They move to the barns after a year. There are disadvantages to raising cows in Qatar, where the summer heat routinely tops 115 degrees. They can’t be left outside to chew grass; there isn’t any. Hay comes from places such as the United States, Spain, France, Germany and Romania. 'Nothing is impossible for us' In addition, Baladna uses a lot of water in a country that relies heavily on desalinization plants. Each cow takes 185 gallons a day of water for misting, so the farm reuses as much as it can. The farm could use solar energy, but Kamel Abdallah, the Baladna chief executive, says it’s cheaper to use the subsidized 35 megawatts of gas-fired electricity on the grid. The company is planning to sell a majority of the shares in a public offering later this year. That will be a test. “Fifty percent of the job is to think past the blockade,” Abdallah said. He is trying to build brand loyalty “very quickly.” One tactic: Hosting visits by groups of students during the school year. “Now we have the market to ourselves,” he added. The dairy also hasn’t solved the economic problem of getting Qataris to work in Qatar. People of Qatari origin account for barely a tenth of the people here. The privately owned Baladna enterprise has created 1,800 jobs — but the company just hired its first native Qatari employee, Fadala. The rest come from around the world. The daughter of a diplomat, she studied life sciences in London, focusing on bacteria on fruits and flora. A few years ago, she


Ten years after her murder, we’re still seeking justice for Natalia Estemirova

Iran. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. Jody Williams is a 1997 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for her work on the banning of landmines. Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, social worker and women’s rights advocate. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Binalakshmi Nepram is a writer and women’s rights activist from Manipur in India who founded the Women Gun Survivors Network. She won the 2018 Anna Politkovskaya Award. Leila Alikarami, an Iranian lawyer and women’s rights advocate, is the author of the book “Women & Equality in Iran: Law, Society and Activism.“ She received the 2009 Anna Politkovskaya Award. Kholoud Helmi is a Syrian journalist and women’s rights advocate who founded the leading Syrian opposition newspaper. She was a recipient of the 2015 Anna Politkovskaya Award. Jineth Bedoya Lima is a Colombian journalist and peace campaigner who won the Anna Politkovskaya Award in 2016. She is the founder of “No es Hora de Callar“ (“Now Is Not the Time to Remain Silent”), a campaign to expose sexual violence against women and girls during the armed conflict in Colombia. Valentina Cherevatenko is a veteran of human rights and peace-building initiatives in conflicts in the Caucasus and, more recently, Ukraine. She was the winner of the special 2016 Anna Politkovskaya Award, which marked the 10th anniversary of Politkovskaya’s murder. Halima Bashir is a Sudanese doctor and author of “Tears of the Desert,“ a memoir about her experience of exposing sexual violence in the conflict in Darfur. She was the winner of the 2010 Anna Politkovskaya Award. Vian Dakhil is a former Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament who was the first to expose Islamic State atrocities against Yazidis (including sexual violence targeting women and girls). She received the 2014 Anna Politkovskaya Award. Saba Ismail is a Pakistani women’s rights and peace activist and co-founder of the group Aware Girls, aimed at the empowerment of young women. Her sister, Gulalai Ismail, received the 2017 Anna Politkovskaya Award. Read more: Letter to the Editor: Trump sure does want a Nobel Prize Max Boot: I may not agree with AOC’s squad, but they are better Americans than Trump Fareed Zakaria: Trump’s approach to foreign policy provokes an anti-American response Liao Yiwu: Liu Xiaobo died two years ago. To honor his memory, read his letters. George F. Will: An American Communist who paid too high a price


Forget new crewed missions in space. NASA should focus on saving Earth.

over diminished resources. In 2018, the National Academy of Sciences released its decadal survey for Earth science and declared that NASA should prioritize the study of the global hydrological cycle; distribution and movement of mass between oceans, ice sheets, ground water and atmosphere; and changes in surface biology and geology. Immediately developing these sensors and satellites while extending existing missions would increase the cadence of new, more precise measurements and contribute to critical, higher-fidelity climate models. NASA could also move beyond measurement and into action — focusing on solutions for communities at the front lines of drought, flooding and heat extremes. It could develop and disseminate standardized applications that provide actionable information to populations that are the most vulnerable. NASA could create a Climate Corps — modeled after the Peace Corps — in which scientists and engineers spend two years in local communities understanding the unique challenges they face, training local populations and connecting them with the data and science needed to support smart, local decision-making. The fragmented system of roles and responsibilities related to handing the massive amounts of Earth science data is severely hampering global efforts required to make significant progress. The U.S. government role in addressing this challenge is foundering without leadership. Standardizing data collection and coordinating its storage, analysis and distribution require experience working across disciplines, government agencies and universities as well as the private sector and international community. Only NASA has done this sort of thing before; only NASA has the credibility and expertise to do it again. Assigning NASA this task would require an Apollo-scale change — but could be accomplished within its existing mandate and by shifting funding priorities. The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 supports expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and phenomena in the atmosphere and directs the agency to develop and carry out a comprehensive program of research, technology and monitoring to understand and maintain the integrity of the Earth’s atmosphere. The act requires NASA to work with other federal agencies, academia and the private sector to make the necessary observations, disseminate their results and enlist the support and cooperation of appropriate scientists and engineers of other countries and international organizations. Apollo’s legacy should not be more meaningless new goals and arbitrary deadlines. Let’s not repeat the past. Let’s try to save our future. Besides, humanity’s intrinsic need to explore is driven by our need to survive.


He remade H Street and Logan Circle. Now D.C. developer takes on a country town.

It started 36 years ago, when a country boy with a taste for French cooking opened a restaurant in a former gas station on Middle Street in Washington, Va. The roast chicken with fresh tarragon and green beans went for $4.95 the first week. In the ensuing years, sometimes to the irritation of neighbors, Patrick O’Connell built an exquisite and unlikely culinary empire, the Inn at Little Washington. Senators, media moguls, business leaders and Hollywood stars came for a drive in the country and a $500 meal at O’Connell’s inn. Power brokers Alan Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell were married there in 1997, by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. D.C.’s elite began buying land, estates looking up at Shenandoah National Forest, 90 minutes from the capital. Big Washington had come to Little Washington, population 135, a place where there are no fast-food restaurants, chain hotels or stop lights but where you might find yourself at the gas station just outside of town standing behind a farmer and ahead of member of Congress. Then D.C. developer Jim Abdo arrived and plotted a vision for Little Washington that was unimaginable when O’Connell opened his kitchen. Having led the resurgence of Logan Circle and H Street Northeast, Abdo, with partners, has bought 10 buildings — paying $2.6 million for half of Main street — in this corner of Rappahannock County, opening an inn of his own and plotting new restaurants, shops and attractions to fill the seven-block downtown. After spending more than 20 years vacationing in the area, much of that time on an estate where friend and former D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams found solace sitting on a riding mower, cutting the property’s expansive lawn, Abdo said couldn’t understand why the Inn had been so successful but the tiny town “was literally going in the opposite direction.” “It was hollow, it was vacant, it was empty,” Abdo said. “There was no pulse. And I thought to myself, I’ve been going into corridors with bigger problems than this. And I’ve also gone into corridors that didn’t have a catalyst like the Inn at Little Washington. And why isn’t that properly being leveraged?” In the District, Abdo seized on neighborhoods earlier than others, asking skeptics to look past the crack vials, graffiti and prostitutes sashaying across the way. Now he is asking investors to look past collapsing barns from the 1800s and the occasional


What’s happening in Xinjiang is also happening in Tibet

Regarding the July 14 editorial “China’s concentration camps for children”: I recently returned from China and Tibet. What was written about Xinjiang is also happening in Tibet. Everywhere, there are armed guards, military trucks and tanks. Boarding schools are being built to educate the young only in Mandarin. The Chinese are trying, and have been for years, to destroy the Tibetan culture, which is rich in history, language, architecture and dress. There might not be another Dalai Lama, but he is revered there. Every home has to have a picture of Xi Jinping. If it doesn’t, people can be taken away, imprisoned, tortured and perhaps never heard from again. We need to pray for all these people. Katie Barney Read more letters to the editor.


Leaked documents reveal Huawei’s secret operations to build North Korea’s wireless network

to provide Panda with telecom items intended for North Korea and containing at least 10 percent U.S.-origin content without a license would be in violation of the export ban. Several experts, including the supply-chain analysis firm Interos, consider it to be likely that Huawei’s 3G equipment contained American components, though it is difficult to know whether it surpassed the 10-percent threshold outlined in export regulations. Huawei was placed on the same Commerce Huawei and Panda vacated their offices in Pyongyang during the first half of 2016, according to people familiar with the matter. In that period, efforts to impose more stringent U.S. and U.N. sanctions against North Korea were gaining momentum. Orascom obtained a U.N. waiver to operate the Koryolink joint venture in September 2018. Koryolink, according to a person familiar with the matter, operates today on aging equipment as Huawei no longer provides upgrades and maintenance. U.S. officials served Huawei with a subpoena in 2016, demanding information on the export of American technology to sanctioned countries, including North Korea. If Huawei was found to have violated U.S. sanctions against North Korea, it could face additional export-control sanctions, civil penalties, forfeitures or criminal prosecution. “North Korea is radioactive in the proliferation world because of international sanctions,” said James Mulvenon, an expert on Chinese economic espionage and general manager at the defense contractor SOS International. “Huawei wouldn’t want to be caught dealing directly with North Korea, so they work through other companies like Panda.” The website for Panda International boasts of the company’s long-standing partnership with Huawei, collaboration that dates to 2007, it says — around the time of the Koryolink launch — spanning “various countries and product sectors.” Panda also notes that it is licensed by the Chinese government to “distribute foreign aid.” A mobile telephone number listed on Panda’s website as its sales hotline was connected to a WeChat social media account selling Huawei products. The executive running the account, Andy Wang, declined to answer questions about its work in North Korea. Panda’s headquarters in Beijing appears to be a bare-bones operation based out of a dingy commercial tower with a basement karaoke bar and a low-end nightclub. When a Post reporter visited one afternoon in July, the office was largely empty. A Panda executive, who another employee said was responsible for media inquiries, refused to meet with the reporter and instead locked the office doors. ellen.nakashima@washpost.com gerry.shih@washpost.com john.hudson@washpost.com


After smashing vial, China’s Sun Yang brings scrutiny, controversy to swimming championships

want,” he said. “It’s a pretty simple request. … I think they owe that to these athletes who are working their tails off to have the competition be a level playing field when it comes to drugs and doping.” FINA’s decision to allow Sun to compete hasn’t inspired confidence across the pool deck. Few have been more outspoken than King, a two-time Olympic gold medalist. “I think all of us would say that we’re racing dopers at some point,” she told reporters before the meet began, “and we shouldn’t really have to say that.” Asked what FINA could do better, King didn’t mince words. “They could start with not letting people who have smashed blood vials in tests compete in their meets,” she said. “I mean, that’s really sketchy and pretty insane that that’s happening." King has a history of speaking out about doping issues. At the 2016 Olympics, she made headlines by saying that Russia’s Yuliya Efimova should have been barred from competing. Efimova had served a doping ban but was allowed to swim at the Rio Games following a favorable CAS ruling. WADA has its testers at these world championships, which means Sun and many others will have to submit fresh samples, both at the pool and at the athletes’ village. The swimmers know it’s essential to ensuring fair competition. Within an hour or so of arriving in Gwangju last week, in fact, several U.S. swimmers were immediately subjected to random drug testing. “Even if they show up at 11 at night or 6 in the morning, as annoying as it is, I have to welcome that because I know I’m doing it clean,” said Caeleb Dressel, who’s trying this week to match his seven titles won at the 2017 world championships. “And I think it’s good for the sport. … The sport has to be clean. There has to be an even playing field between everybody. If a drug tester shows up at my door at 3 a.m., I have to welcome that.” The issues aren’t new and aren’t limited to swimming. Even as they loom in the background of most major meets, the clock isn’t swayed by the whispers and rumors around the pool deck. Sun will post his times and win his medals, and CAS probably will have the final say on the matter. Everyone else competing at the world championships will try to focus


Produce growers get new ammunition in the battle against outbreaks

than 2,000 stores carry his apples. “Retailers are very excited about this [process] because it gives them a firewall between the field and the dinner plate,” Moyer said. “Until now, it’s been literally wishy-washy.” Warriner estimates that 99 percent of post-harvest produce treatment is a water wash. The 2016 Food Safety Modernization Act crafted the first science-based standards for post-harvest water quality, meant to reduce the potential for cross-contamination of the wash water. Although water washes are routine for bagged salad mix, it’s not standard on other products, such as cut heads of iceberg, romaine, celery or broccoli, which are packed in the field and unpacked in the final grocery store destination, said York. “Produce is a very complex industry,” hundreds of industries in one, said Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli, the executive director of the Center for Produce Safety based in Woodlands, Calif. Put simply, there is no one-size-fits-all sanitation solution. “Tender products, like berries and lettuce, don’t hold up under a lot of treatments,” she added. Farms are bigger, produce travels farther from the source than it used to and is touched by more hands than in the past. “All of those moving parts are added complexities and opportunities for failure. A final kill step before the consumer actually consumes makes a lot of sense,” said Anthony Green, chief executive of fresh-pressed juice company Greenhouse in Ontario. The Clean Works equipment recently arrived at his facility. He plans to use it as the final step before produce is juiced to make his products. Previously, he struggled to find a sanitation step that didn’t degrade the nutrients. “We want to make the healthiest types of plant-based beverages, including cold-pressed juices, so our raw materials have to be as fresh as possible,” he said. He gets as much fruit as possible locally, but after the summer, it comes mostly from California. “I think the industry has learned, sometimes the hard way, you can never have enough fail-safes in your system,” Green said. California citrus cooperative Sunkist Growers is also testing the advanced oxidative process, first on lemons. “While Sunkist has a strong post-harvest processes in place, this could add one more food safety solution to the mix,” said Sunkist communications director Christina Ward. Moyer said interest in the advanced oxidative process spans the food production system — from retailers to processors to growers. The industry has always been concerned about safety, but there


If you’re lactose- or gluten-intolerant, you’ll want to know about these ingredients

Now that vegetarian, gluten-free and lactose-free dishes have graduated from special requests to regular menu items, it follows that once-fringe ingredients that address these dietary concerns are also going mainstream. Two seasonings — coconut aminos and nutritional yeast — have come up repeatedly on my social media feeds recently. They are becoming more and more common — and available in many grocery stores — because they meet the needs of today’s eaters. Here is what you need to know to make the most of these unique ingredients: Coconut aminos Coconut aminos, a brown liquid seasoning made from the fermented sap of the coconut palm blossom, which is then seasoned with salt, doesn’t taste like coconut. Rather, it is very similar to soy sauce, but it’s lighter, less intense and somewhat sweet. Its spike in popularity is partly because it’s gluten- and soy-free, so it makes an excellent soy sauce substitute for people with celiac disease, gluten intolerance or soy allergies. It is also considerably lower in sodium than soy sauce, with 90 to 140 milligrams of sodium per teaspoon, depending on the brand, compared with about 290 milligrams for the same amount of regular soy sauce and 162 milligrams for low-sodium soy sauce. People are also buying into coconut aminos because they believe the many false and misleading claims they read about the ingredient online, and its popularity has risen with that of restrictive diets such as paleo and Whole30, which allow it but prohibit soy foods. Proponents contend the seasoning is bountiful in amino acids (the building blocks of protein) and other nutrients, and that it lowers the risk of heart disease, diabetes and colon cancer. None of these claims are fact-based. Though the ingredient contains the amino acid glutamate, which gives it its savory taste, it is not a nutritionally meaningful source of amino acids in general. One serving of coconut aminos (one teaspoon) provides zero grams of protein. As for other nutrients, though fresh coconut sap contains vitamins, minerals, fiber and antioxidants, scant — if any — are retained in the processing of the sap into coconut aminos, and there are no studies to back up any disease prevention benefits. Many laud coconut aminos for being MSG-free, but traditionally brewed soy sauce doesn’t have MSG either. And besides, though a small percent of people may be sensitive to the additive, its unhealthy reputation is largely unwarranted. Some


Trump slams Fed chair, questions climate change and threatens to cancel Putin meeting in wide-ranging interview with The Post

until its conclusion, Trump stopped short of making an explicit pledge. “This question has been asked about me now for almost two years,” he said, at which point counselor Kellyanne Conway chimed in, “A thousand times.” Trump continued: “And, in the meantime, he’s still there. He wouldn’t have to be, but he’s still there, so I have no intention of doing anything.” The president declined to discuss on the record the Mueller team’s accusation Monday that Paul Manafort had breached his plea agreement by lying repeatedly to investigators, or whether he would use presidential powers to help his former campaign chairman. “Let me go off the record because I don’t want to get in the middle of the whole thing,” he said. He added later: “At some point, I’ll talk on the record about it. But I’d rather not.” Trump also floated the idea of removing U.S. troops from the Middle East, citing the lower price of oil as a reason to withdraw. “Now, are we going to stay in that part of the world? One reason to is Israel,” Trump said. “Oil is becoming less and less of a reason because we’re producing more oil now than we’ve ever produced. So, you know, all of a sudden it gets to a point where you don’t have to stay there.” Trump also called the killing of three U.S. troops in a roadside explosion in Afghanistan this week “very sad.” He said he was continuing the military presence in Afghanistan only because “experts” told him the United States needed to keep fighting there. The president said he was considering visiting troops in the region soon, perhaps before Christmas. “At the right time I will,” he said of a war-zone visit, which would be his first as president. During the interview, In Twitter posts Tuesday, issued shortly after his interview with The Post, Trump blamed GM chief executive Mary Barra for the company’s plant closures and layoffs and threatened to strip away any government subsidies for the auto giant. Trump’s fury at GM and the Fed was similar to his outrage at Harley-Davidson this summer, after the Milwaukee-based motorcycle company announced it was moving some jobs overseas in part because it said it was caught in the midst of a trade war between the White House and foreign leaders. The stock market has tumbled in recent weeks, unnerving Trump, who in turn


Britain’s next prime minister: Boris Johnson, the ‘frat boy’ of Brexit

Post Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post. For your ears. Martine Powers is your host, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Listen online. What Boris Johnson spells for Brexit Britain’s Conservative Party has overwhelmingly selected Boris Johnson to become the country’s next prime minister, replacing – on a vote of merely 0.25 percent of Brits – the pragmatic Theresa May with an incendiary populist, former journalist and avid cyclist. May triggered the election two months ago by resigning, after her government repeatedly failed to deliver a Brexit compromise with the European Union that could also withstand parliamentary opposition. Her successor has just three months to broker a more palatable exit plan, having promised his supporters an executable Brexit deal by Oct. 31. London bureau chief William Booth says Johnson’s irreverence could alienate members of his own party. The majority of lawmakers in Parliament are opposed to a no-deal Brexit, signaling a showdown to come. More on this topic: Drug companies create a ‘public nuisance,’ alleges nation’s largest-ever civil trial Last week’s revelation that drug companies saturated the United States with 76 billion pain pills over a period of seven years showed that no corner of the country escaped the drug crisis – especially not Ohio’s Cuyahoga County. It and nearby Summit County will soon be at the center of the most important legal test of how much responsibility drug companies bear for the opioid epidemic. Barring a settlement, the two counties are scheduled to go to trial in October as the first case among the consolidated lawsuits brought by about 2,000 cities, counties, Native American tribes and other plaintiffs against the companies. As investigative reporter Aaron Davis explains, the class-action suit accuses the companies of breaking laws originally designed to combat organized crime. More on this topic: How not to talk about food Clean eating. Guilty pleasures. Cheat day. “When we use certain words on a regular basis, it starts to shape the way we think,” says nutritionist and food blogger Ellie Krieger. “What you choose to eat is not a moral judgement.” More on this topic:


Don’t lump Boris Johnson together with Donald Trump

projects. Newspaper reports suggest he might even now expand social insurance for old-age care. What perhaps marks him out most though is an inherent buoyant attitude about the future. After years of media and self-inflicted gloom associated with Brexit-induced uncertainty, he sees the many positives Britain has to build on. The working age employment rate is at record levels and inflation is at target. Real earnings are growing robustly and the public deficit has been mostly eliminated. If Johnson can deliver Brexit and move on, the foundations for economic prosperity and defeating Jeremy Corbyn are strong. Johnson is seen as the change agent to deliver. Why, then, do many consider him some unacceptable, hard-right populist demagogue? The simple answer is Brexit — the key dividing line in British politics. Johnson was a key part of the Leave campaign, and some cannot forgive what they consider a monumental national mistake. They are willing to ignore their own eyes and ears on his socially liberal record because they have convinced themselves that Brexit is necessarily a nationalist, xenophobic pursuit by definition. True, some of his detractors find his journalistic contributions intolerable too. Like Trump, his past comments about gay people or burqas making people “look like letterboxes” can offend. But Johnson was a key proponent of same-sex marriage legislation. His comments about burqas came within an article making the case against banning them, as Denmark had.J Johnson’s opponents might console themselves that his premiership could be short-lived. His willingness to leave the European Union without a deal is not supported by the House of Commons, and so October could see a parliamentary no-confidence vote, his defeat and a general election. Yet whatever your views on Brexit and the likelihood for his government and electoral success, it’s bizarre to consider him some right-wing zealot. In contrast to May, Johnson as prime minister is a firm move in a pro-freedom direction. Read more: The Post’s View: Boris Johnson is optimistic. How long will that last? Anne Applebaum: Boris Johnson’s victory proves it’s fiction, not fact, that Tories want to hear Toby Young: Boris Johnson will be an utter disaster — unless he turns out to be Britain’s savior Megan McArdle: Feeling bad about U.S. politics? Take a look at Britain. Nick Cohen: The quest for Brexit has killed Britain Anne Applebaum: Boris Johnson isn’t the cause of Britain’s unseriousness. He’s the product of it.


The largest bird in North America was nearly wiped out. Here’s how it fought its way back.

get reinvigorated,” Chris Parish, director of conservation at the Peregrine Fund, a partner in the recovery program, told The Washington Post. “We’ve put a lot of effort into this. A lot of dollars, a lot of years of research. We are closer to recovery, and our ultimate goal is a self-sustaining population.” Forty thousand years ago, condors prowled skies across North America, their nearly 10-foot wingspans cutting an impressive figure wherever the trail of mammoth and saber-toothed cat carcasses led them. Considered sacred by many Native American tribes in the west, the number of California condors began to dwindle as citizens of a young United States spread across the continent. Researchers began studying the vultures in earnest in the 1940s and even then, the population was imperiled, Parish said. By the 1980s, with fewer than two dozen remaining, experts began the slow process of capturing, breeding and reintroducing the birds back into the wild. The population has since grown to more than 500, with over half living outside of captivity. In 2016, the Los Angeles Times reported this progress represented “one of the most dramatic turnarounds ever for a species on the brink of extinction.” But the species remains critically endangered, and the raptors are now found mainly in California, Arizona, southern Utah and Baja California, Mexico. Experts have monitored the condors intensively, trying to determine what exactly leads to their demise. It’s not a lack of food, Parish said, and it doesn’t seem to be the always expanding human industrial complex, either, eliminating two of the most common species killers. Instead, scientists have found that the leading cause of California condor mortality — by far — is lead poisoning. The birds often feast on the carrion of animals shot and left behind by hunters, and they sometimes swallow lead pellets, fragments or whole bullets while picking at the flesh. Scientists understand this relationship, between lead and animals that become part of the food chain, in large part because they were so fastidious in their study of the California condor. It was among the research that prompted California’s ban on lead ammunition, which took effect this month and prohibits lead ammunition when shooting any wildlife anywhere in the state. But Parish and the North American Non-lead Partnership have avoided advocating bans and are instead pushing for increased education in the hunting community. Parish pointed to a pilot program in Northern


Boris Johnson’s rise could be a preamble to his fall

last tortured months of Prime Minister Theresa May’s tenure, Johnson drilled down on an emotive theme: Brexit at all costs. The country’s slow lurch out of the E.U. has paralyzed British politics and exasperated voters of all stripes. May couldn’t overcome the divisions within her own party about the way forward. Johnson, formerly a foreign secretary in May’s government, quit after it became clear May would not deliver the sweeping, clean break from Europe that he and his Brexiteer cohort had promised. For him, it was easier to bide his time and carp from the sidelines than own the mess of disentangling Britain from the continent. That cynicism was baked in from the start. In February 2016, before championing Brexit, Johnson is said to have drafted two separate columns for the Daily Telegraph, one extolling the merits of leaving the E.U. and another warning that the risks of Brexit were greater than its rewards. He eventually calculated that his political fortunes lay with the former and, as the mayor of London, became the face of the Leave campaign, deploying his wit, irascible enthusiasm and carefully cultivated bumbling affect ahead of a June 2016 referendum no one — including Johnson himself — expected to win. Now, under a Johnson government, Britain could crash out of the E.U. without a divorce deal in place this Halloween, unleashing untold horrors on the British economy. Westminster watchers puzzle over the profound impediments still facing Johnson in Parliament, the sharpening of knives by rivals within his own party and the probable humiliating concessions he may have to make to get European counterparts to consider renegotiating Britain’s terms of withdrawal. But the prime minister-in-waiting has been reading throughout from a different script Such absurd, if entertaining, commentary won’t translate easily into meaningful politics. “Johnson’s entire pitch for the Conservative Party leadership can be read, in fact, as an argument for the force of character,” wrote the Atlantic’s Tom McTague. “In his telling, after years of timidity under the dutiful but ineffective leadership of May, the country needs sheer will — not new technocratic fixes — to solve Britain’s ills . . . This is the Johnsonian view of the world: a romantic, egocentric belief in his personal power to do great things, to solve great puzzles, through the force of his personality.” In that sense, he’s hardly alone. “Boris Johnson, like [former Italian leader] Silvio Berlusconi,


Katie Ledecky withdraws from two races at FINA world championships, citing medical issues

GWANGJU, South Korea — Katie Ledecky’s ambitious program at the FINA world championships was upended Tuesday morning when the five-time Olympic champion pulled out of two races, citing medical issues, a surprising twist to what already had been a difficult week. USA Swimming officials announced about 90 minutes before Ledecky was scheduled to hit the pool for a 200-meter freestyle preliminary heat that she had been scratched. She withdrew from the evening’s 1,500-meter final later Tuesday morning, and uncertainty loomed over her remaining races at the year’s biggest swim meet. “I don’t necessarily want to put a percentage on it, but I’m hopeful we’re able to see her racing again this week,” said Greg Meehan, the U.S. women’s coach. “But all that is is a hope at this point.” Meehan said Ledecky was suffering from a physical ailment and was working with the team’s medical staff. He was not certain of her exact diagnosis, and team officials were still waiting on results from a number of tests. No decision had been made on whether Ledecky would compete in the other two events she had scheduled this week. “We hope that she rebounds quickly. She was feeling a little bit better [Monday] night. We were hopeful [Tuesday, but] she woke up [Tuesday] morning and was not feeling well at all,” Meehan said. “We’re just going to take it session by session and then day by day. If we can get her back in the meet at some point, that would be the ideal scenario.” The decision to withdraw from Tuesday’s races came two days after the biggest loss of Ledecky’s stellar career. On Sunday night, the 14-time world champion was upset in the 400-meter freestyle race by Ariarne Titmus, an 18-year-old Australian. Ledecky was visibly disappointed with the result but said after the race, “I felt great.” Asked at the time whether she had any physical issues, she shook her head and said “no” four times. But team officials had started to worry that something was amiss. Ledecky, a 22-year-old Bethesda, Md., native, won Olympic gold in the 200 at the Rio Games in 2016 but hasn’t dominated that event as much as she has other distances. She took silver at the 2017 world championships and bronze at the Pan Pacific championships last summer. She still entered the week as a favorite to reach the podium and was scheduled to swim


Boris Johnson is optimistic. How long will that last?

BRITISH POLITICS has been paralyzed for three years by division over whether and how the country should leave the European Union, so it’s tempting to invest hope in a new prime minister who promises that his “spirit of can-do” will end the impasse in little more than three months. Unfortunately, Boris Johnson, who on Wednesday is expected to supplant Theresa May at 10 Downing Street, hasn’t offered a plausible plan for how he will extract Britain from its prolonged funk — and his record of empty promises on the subject suggests his government, and the country, are headed for more turbulence. Mr. Johnson was one of the leaders of the pro-Brexit referendum campaign in 2016, offering wildly unrealistic forecasts of what Britain would gain from a break with Brussels. It was left to the stolid Ms. May to negotiate what turned out to be a far more costly and problematic deal with E.U. leaders, which Parliament has voted down three times. Mr. Johnson is promising to somehow revise the deal — though E.U. leaders insist they will not renegotiate — or lead Britain into a “no-deal” exit, which Parliament also has repeatedly voted against. Mr. Johnson maintains that he can overcome the problem that has caused the most unrest in his Conservative Party, which is Brussels’s insistence that Britain remain in the E.U. customs union unless and until a way can be found to establish a seamless border between British Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an E.U. member. But Ms. May’s government tried and failed to find such a fix, and Mr. Johnson doesn’t appear to have any fresh ideas, other than to declare that if the United States could find a way to place men on the moon 50 years ago, “we can solve the problem of frictionless trade at the Northern Irish border.” Such rhetoric is typical of Mr. Johnson, an intelligent and witty former journalist who is known for improvisation, inattention to detail and frequent false statements. In that, and in his populist appeals to older Britons who long for bygone days when the country was a world power, the incoming prime minister resembles President Trump. But Mr. Johnson has mostly avoided Mr. Trump’s hateful appeals to racism and ugly disparagement of opponents; instead, he offers an upbeat vision of a country that can rise again if only, as he put it Tuesday, “we .


Deadly fungal disease may be linked to climate change, study suggests

Three years ago, U.S. health officials warned hundreds of thousands of clinicians in hospitals around the country to be on the lookout for a new, quickly spreading and highly drug-resistant type of yeast that was causing potentially fatal infections in hospitalized patients around the world. Candida auris has become a serious global health threat since it was identified a decade ago, especially for patients with compromised immune systems. It has been reported in more than 30 countries and is probably more widespread than that because the organism is hard to identify without specialized laboratory methods. It is resistant to multiple antifungal drugs, and can spread between patients in hospitals and other health-care facilities and cause outbreaks. The fungus can lead to infections of the bloodstream, heart or brain, and early studies estimate that it is fatal in 30 to 60 percent of patients. Researchers have never been able to isolate the fungus from the natural environment or figure out how genetically distinct versions emerged independently at roughly the same time in India, South Africa and South America. Now researchers in the United States and the Netherlands have a new theory: They propose that global warming may have played a key role and suggest that this may be the first example of a new fungal disease emerging from climate change, according to a study published Tuesday in mBio, a journal of the American Society of Microbiology. Fungal infections in humans are rare. Mammals have more advanced immune systems than other organisms at risk of fungal infections, and most fungi in the environment cannot grow at the temperatures of the human body, said Arturo Casadevall, one of the authors of the new study, who is a microbiologist and immunologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. But as the climate has gotten warmer, the researchers say C. auris was able to adapt, which helped it replicate in the human body’s temperature of 37 degrees Celsius. Casadevall and colleagues from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute in Utrecht in the Netherlands compared C. auris to its most closely related species, and found that the deadly yeast was capable of growing at higher temperatures. “The most mysterious thing is that Candida auris appeared simultaneously in three different continents, and it’s very hard to explain that,” Casadevall said. Something happened to allow the organism to “bubble


Tofurky takes Arkansas to court over the word ‘meat’

violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the dormant Commerce Clause, which affects interstate commerce. The lawsuit is not the first of its kind. Several states, including Louisiana, Missouri and Mississippi, have adopted laws governing the use of language regarding plant-based products, and vegetarian meat companies have filed suit in the latter two states. Labeling laws aren’t just an American thing, either: In April, a committee in the European Parliament passed an amendment prohibiting plant-based products from being labeled as steak, sausage, escalope, burger or hamburger. The proposal will be put to a vote by the European Parliament in the fall. If states are worried about meat and dairy farmers losing ground to plant-based food companies, they have a good reason for concern: Nondairy milk sales increased 61 percent between 2012 and 2017. The investment firm UBS has projected that the market for plant-based meat will increase from $4.6 billion in 2018 to $85 billion in 2030. People aren’t choosing veggie burgers because they’re being tricked into thinking they’re meat, say plant-based protein companies. They’re choosing them precisely because they are not meat, and mandating less-precise labeling (“veggie discs,” anyone?) will just make it harder for consumers to understand the flavor profile of the plant-based meat alternative they’re buying. “Tofurky Co. cannot accurately and effectively describe its products without comparison to the conventional meat products whose flavor profiles they are designed to invoke,” the suit says, noting that all of the company’s products clearly state they are meatless, and comply with the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act’s labeling requirements. Nikhil Soman, the director of the Arkansas Bureau of Standards, was named as a defendant in the suit. He declined to comment to The Washington Post. “It’s absurdly patronizing that the government of Arkansas is asserting that the people of Arkansas can’t tell a ‘veggie burger’ from a ‘hamburger,’ or a ‘tofu dog’ from a ‘hot dog,’” ACLU attorney Brian Hauss said in a statement. “The government should focus on genuine consumer protection problems instead of playing word games to benefit special interests at the First Amendment’s expense.” More from Voraciously: What’s in a name? The battle over alternative meat, milk and rice labeling rages on. If Kraft dressing is ‘salad frosting,’ spaghetti is Twizzlers and parenting is a web of lies What’s the best hot dog in America? We tried 15 popular brands to find out.