Roadside zoo in Md. must prepare to give up endangered animals after PETA sues

Mbube the lion died months after fur began shedding from his mane and he became so emaciated his hips protruded from his golden body, animal rights activists argued. India the tiger died of sepsis, so ravaged by infection that an autopsy uncovered muscles and organs full of pus, activists said. And Bandit the lemur, according to court testimony, died after the chronic stress of filthy living conditions, social isolation and untreated illnesses prompted him to gnaw off a portion of his body. Since at least 2016, endangered animals at the Tri-State Zoological Park in Cumberland, Md., were disappearing one by one. What began as a group of nine lions, tigers and lemurs has dwindled to four survivors. Now the roadside zoo with a history of problems must prepare to give up its remaining animals, after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said she will rule that the facility violated the Endangered Species Act. The judge’s decision comes after People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sued the zoo, asserting that owner Robert Candy harmed and killed the animals by housing them in deplorable conditions without proper food, environmental stimulation or medical care. Xinis said that the animals that have survived at the zoo have been “really lucky” and that they will “meet the same or similar fate” as others that have died if they are not removed. Lion Peka and tigers Mowgli and Cheyenne remain at the zoo, while a surviving lemur named Alfredo has been moved to another facility. Candy and his attorney countered that the zoo took good care of the animals and that PETA lied about some of the conditions at the facility. “Any person of common sense knows that animals (and people) sometimes die despite the best of care,” Candy’s attorneys argued in court filings. After a six-day trial in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt last month, the judge said she expects to issue a written opinion in the case before Dec. 16, when the zoo and PETA are expected to return to court to discuss a plan that could relocate the surviving big cats to a different facility. PETA sued under the Endangered Species Act, a 1973 federal law designed to protect threatened plants and animals. The law bans the harm, harassment and killing of animals on the list and has a “citizen suit provision, which allows PETA to get into court directly when other law


Deanwood: Affordability, if not amenities, in a part of D.C. rich in history

around here, there are no stores,” Woods said. “If you want to go to the grocery store you have to jump on the bus or drive 20 minutes away.” Fellow Deanwood resident, Carlos Branch, 19, points to the scarcity of places to buy food. Deanwood has been designated an Opportunity Zone, which provides tax incentives for investments in new businesses and commercial projects. The Warrenton Group, a D.C.-based real estate firm, has four projects in the works, according to its website. These projects include two affordable housing residences and the renovation of the historic Strand Theater into a dining and entertainment venue. Branch grew up in Deanwood and appreciates how it fosters a strong sense of community. “It’s a good neighborhood because everyone helps,” he said. “Everyone helps everyone out in the best way they can.” However, he worries about safety. “Around here, it’s kind of dangerous. There’s always something going on,” he said. Woods says the neighborhood has lost too much to violence. “There are about five boys from around here, that I knew, that we’ve lost in the last couple of years,” he said. For Branch, the recreation center has become a safe space. “If I’m going outside, I’m coming here because I want to be somewhere positive,” Branch said. Living there: According to Bright MLS, 90 homes have sold in Deanwood in the past year. The median price was $346,000. The most expensive was a four-bedroom, four-bathroom house that sold for $612,000. The least expensive was a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house that sold for $150,000. There are 17 houses on the market. The most expensive home is a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house listed at $499,000. The least expensive is a one-bedroom, one-bathroom house listed at $180,000. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $1,324 last year. In 2017, Redfin named Deanwood one of the 10 hottest neighborhoods in America for home buyers because of its access to public transportation and affordability. Tony McConkey of Sell DC Real Estate says buyers are excited about the prospects in Deanwood. He says outside investors are coming into the neighborhood and buying older properties. “They’ve gone in and ripped out everything and started fresh,” McConkey said. “They’re like brand-new homes. That’s why you see the big [price] disparities between houses on the same block. One might sell for $180,000 while the house right next to it sells for $330,000.” Schools: Transit: haben.kelati@washpost.com


Saudi Arabia cracks down on writers challenging MBS and his narrow vision

A new crackdown against young writers and bloggers in Saudi Arabia provides more evidence that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is feeling more and more empowered to terrorize his own citizens thanks to the continued support of his Western partners, most notably the current U.S. administration. President Trump’s unfaltering patronage has given the Riyadh carte blanche not only to get away with the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi but also to detain activists and writers. It is unclear what the charges against the new detainees are, although they have one thing in common: crimes of omission. They are all independent writers who have failed to provide zealous support for the prince and his new initiatives. Most of them were enthusiastic about the 2011 Arab uprisings but since the prince came to power in 2017 have remained silent and refrained from criticizing his policies. Clearly this was not enough. The prince wants all to praise his plans and join the propaganda machine that his coterie of aides presides over. His cult of personality is pervasive and all-encompassing. It has become sacrosanct, above all criticism and in constant need of being worshiped by citizens. Those who fail to pay homage to the “Son King” commit a crime by omission. Among the detainees is popular journalist and author Badr al-Rashed, who had worked in state media but cherished his own independence. He published and contributed to several books. His writings reflect a revisionist approach to Arab nationalism. Like many other young intellectuals, he rejects the populist Arab nationalist ideologies of the 1960s such as Nasserism and Baathism, both associated with the authoritarian rule that has dominated the Arab world. Instead, Rashed and many other writers became known as neo-Arabists because of their efforts to decouple the idea of nationalism from the wretched ideologies that justified dictatorships. Their popular insights are troubling for MBS. Neo-Arabists such as Rashed find ways to combine local patriotism with commitment to regional Arab integration — and that competes with the crown prince’s “Saudi Arabia First” and “Saudi Arabia is Great” slogans, which echo the populist slogans of his patron, President Trump, in Washington. The prince’s new Saudi nationalism does not care about Arab regional economic integration but is focused on launching wars, for example in Yemen, and interfering in Arab uprisings to derail them from achieving democracy. “Saudi Arabia is Great” means that dictatorship and authoritarian rule


The Other Sackler: Inside a widow’s campaign to protect her husband’s name from the opioid addiction epidemic

to everyday anxieties. Ads were placed in medical journals. One for Librium in 1969 marketed it to doctors to treat young women experiencing the stress of going to college. An ad for Valium emphasized its benefits for educated women experiencing “psychic tension,’’ a phrase that does not appear in its Food and Drug Administration-approved label. Under Arthur Sackler’s marketing guidance, Valium became the most-often prescribed drug in the country during the 1970s. It also was blamed for abuse and popularized as “Mother’s Little Helper’’ in a Rolling Stones song. By 1980, the FDA announced a label change to Valium and other tranquilizers. Roche agreed to add a statement that the drugs were generally not intended for “the stress of everyday life.’’ Jillian Sackler said Arthur Sackler told her that Valium was a safe drug and that people who overdosed had mixed it with alcohol or cocaine. “He didn’t express sorrow or regret’’ about Valium or its overuse, she said. “Arthur was incredibly safety-conscious. His modus operandi with ads was to give people as much information as possible.’’ During his decades at the leading edge of the drug marketing business, Sackler forged tactics that are common in medical marketing today — including those Purdue Pharma used to market OxyContin, said Scott H. Podolsky, a physician at Harvard Medical School who studies the history of pharmaceutical promotion. These include personal physician visits by a sales force, free meals, free samples and advertising aimed at doctors. Sackler argued throughout his career, including in testimony before Congress in 1962, Podolsky added, that advertising was the most effective way for doctors to learn about the latest treatments. He also said that doctors were too savvy to be duped. Although Purdue Pharma sold OxyContin using the same tactics, Podolsky said, the same could be said for all modern drug marketing. “I have trouble laying OxyContin at Arthur Sackler’s feet, per se,’’ he said. But, he added, “the entire practice of medical marketing and its role in physician education bears directly from Sackler’s influence.’’ The idea that Purdue Pharma adopted Arthur Sackler’s marketing playbook to sell OxyContin is what animates protesters. Photographer Nan Goldin is a well-known artist and recovering opioid addict who has led public protests targeting institutions that have accepted many millions of dollars from Sackler family members, including Arthur Sackler. The protests have been highly effective at focusing public pressure. The Guggenheim and the


Private weather company ClimaCell to spin off nonprofit to tackle weather forecasting, early warnings in Africa

ClimaCell, the private weather forecasting company based in Boston that has pioneered “microweather” forecasting based on sensors in smartphones, vehicles and other sources, is spinning off a nonprofit arm that will seek to close the gap in weather and climate information between developing nations and the industrialized world. The company is tackling this because it sees a need for a new approach to scaling up weather observations and forecasting capabilities that could save lives in Africa and parts of Asia, and thinks that bringing the profit motive to bear on such an endeavor could harm the effort. In an exclusive interview with the Capital Weather Gang, Rei Goffer, ClimaCell co-founder and chief strategy officer, said too many for-profit companies and international organizations have tried to bring their technology to Africa to help farmers and others with critical weather needs, only to have the efforts end in failure. Even though ClimaCell is still in its infancy, having started in 2015, Goffer said now is the right time to address this challenge as the company seeks to develop computer modeling tools and observation systems that can be applied to a broad range of geographical settings. “You can always say, well, let’s tackle Africa or these other parts of the world later,” Goffer said. “We believe and have believed since day one this is an urgent problem and has to be tackled in a focused way,” he added, referring to the drastic disparity between the weather information available to citizens of industrialized countries and what residents of populous African nations can easily access. The company will seek to build capacity for weather monitoring and forecasting in African countries such as Uganda and Kenya, including through partnerships with national meteorological agencies. They’ll also seek to make sure data is accessible and useful for people on the ground, including farmers whose livelihoods depend on accurate weather information. The company has hired one staff member, Georgina Campbell, to lead the nonprofit effort, and will begin fundraising from foundations and other sources starting Tuesday. Campbell, who has a background in emerging markets and how businesses can tackle systemic poverty, will head up ClimaCell.org. She has been serving as director of business development for emerging markets at the company. “No one has actually looked at it as a systems challenge,” she said of many previous efforts to bring better weather and climate information to Africa, a continent of


Why China must send Michael Kovrig home

and visible role on the world stage. That, in turn, is creating anxieties, both in Asia and the West. In response, many have been advocating a far more aggressive approach toward China. We believe that this is the wrong approach. Each one of us, in our capacity as present or former presidents of Crisis Group, have argued for years that engaging with China is a far better path than ostracizing it. We have made the case that Beijing has a critical role to play not only in its own Asian neighborhood but elsewhere as well, including in preventing, mitigating and resolving deadly conflict — across the globe from Central Asia to the Korean Peninsula, from Afghanistan to Venezuela, from Sudan to Zimbabwe. Indeed, in his work for Crisis Group, that is precisely what Michael was researching and advocating. He spoke extensively to Chinese officials, seeking to better understand their position on these various crises, with his reports often suggesting ways for China to contribute to peace and stability worldwide. But when China violates the rights of a foreigner on its soil, and when it does so with such a thinly disguised ulterior motive, it inevitably has a chilling effect on all those who would like to engage Beijing, whether in diplomacy, business or other mutually beneficial interaction. It can only dissuade many such people from reaching out to China, out of worry that they, too, will wind up behind bars. It undermines the climate of trust that a policy of active engagement seeks to develop. China is, alas, not the first country to detain individuals for broader geopolitical reasons. And Michael is not the only person to become an innocent victim of interstate disputes. That does not make his detention any more excusable, or any less harmful to China’s global reputation. Michael Kovrig’s detention is unjust and inhumane. It should not have lasted one hour, let alone one year. China should set him free. Read more: The Post’s View: The Huawei indictment tells a story of deceit and corporate espionage Michelle Caruso-Cabrera: The Huawei case shows how China’s ambitions are on a collision course with the U.S. Michael Morell and David Kris: It’s not a trade war with China. It’s a tech war. David Moscrop: Trump’s recklessness trips up Canada in the Huawei case Zachary Karabell: Prosecuting the Chinese Huawei executive is an idiotic way to hold China in check


Shootings outside festival at National Zoo raise concerns about security

Firecrackers thrown at an annual winter festival at the National Zoo, followed by the shootings of two teens on the street outside, have renewed concerns about safety at the Woodley Park attraction. Security was increased after the Saturday incidents, and zoo officials said guards will conduct bag checks and use handheld metal detectors on some days at ZooLights, a display that runs through New Year’s Day and attracts thousands of visitors. In addition to the shootings and the firecrackers, police said youths on Saturday night entered FroZenYo yogurt shop, across Connecticut Avenue from the zoo’s main entrance, and may have assaulted an employee and taken items. Workers at two other businesses, open late to capitalize on the crowds, locked their doors to escape the frenzy. “I’m just frustrated because at this point I would just like to see a system put into place at the zoo where the visitors they attract every year are protected,” said Lee Brian Reba, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Woodley Park. Reba said the incidents “disturbed the community, disrupted an event, caused panic and shut down the main thoroughfare between Maryland and the District.” Authorities on Monday provided a more thorough account of how the mayhem unfolded Saturday night, starting with firecrackers that many people mistook as gunfire. Authorities said that was followed by an assault by a juvenile on a patron and a large crowd of young men and women at the entrance that prompted zoo officials to close the festival an hour early. As young people spilled onto Connecticut Avenue, police said someone shot a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old about three blocks south of the zoo entrance. The older youth was struck several times. The younger boy was shot once and found about 30 minutes later about a half-mile away on Calvert Street. The injuries to both were described as not life threatening. Police Chief Peter Newsham said detectives do not have a good description of a suspect in the shootings and no arrests have been made. He said police believe the wounded youths had been at the festival but do not know if the shooting was connected to anything that happened inside. “I think more than likely the zoo had an early closure of their event and kids that left got into some kind of confrontation when they made their way to the 2800 block of Connecticut Avenue,” Newsham said. The zoo


Local Digest: Man charged in connection with slaying in Southeast D.C.

THE DISTRICT Authorities have charged a man in connection with a killing in Southeast Washington. D.C. police said Devin Hill, 25, of Southeast, was arrested and charged Sunday with first-degree murder while armed and assault with a dangerous weapon. They said Hill fatally shot Michael Cunningham, 28, of Northeast Washington. The killing occurred about 10:50 a.m. Friday in the 3000 block of 30th St. Police said officers responded after hearing gunshots. When they arrived, they found a man — identified as Cunningham — and a woman suffering from gunshot wounds, according to a statement. The woman was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, police said. Cunningham died at the scene. Police said an initial investigation found that Hill, the suspect, was also shot and went to a fire station for help. — Dana Hedgpeth and Peter Hermann VIRGINIA An 18-year-old student at Virginia Military Institute was killed in a car crash in Stafford County, authorities said. Jamison Lane Clark, of Stafford, was killed shortly before 2 a.m. Saturday when the vehicle he was driving struck a tree, the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office said. The vehicle went out of control on Sanford Drive just south of Paul Lane and went off the road, the sheriff’s office said. A passenger suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, the sheriff’s office said. — Martin Weil THE REGION A Prince George’s County officer accused of breaking into an office building at Gallaudet University has been arrested and suspended, authorities said. Officer Robert Grimes was detained after someone patrolling the university heard breaking glass in the Dawes Building shortly before 3 a.m. on Nov. 24, charging documents said. The person patrolling went to investigate and found Grimes without a shirt on and injuries to his wrist, shoulder and stomach. Grimes was charged with second-degree burglary and destruction of property, both misdemeanors, Prince George’s County police said. Grimes has pleaded not guilty and has been released, online court records show. A public defender listed for Grimes could not be reached. Grimes works in patrol and has been with the department for three years, county police said. The department’s internal affairs division has launched an investigation. — Lynh Bui


Fabio and Maria Trabocchi — the couple behind a D.C. dining empire — have divorced

in Washington in the ’90s. Fabio’s expertise and pursuit of perfection paired with Maria’s natural style, beauty, and grace is a winning combination.” One friend of the couple said the split was amicable. “They are close friends and longtime business partners and that isn’t changing,” said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. “They are both hands-on parents as well.” After meeting at the now-shuttered restaurant Bice, the couple — she hails from Spain, he from Italy — wed in 2000. They soon made their mark on the Washington dining scene at the Ritz-Carlton in Tysons, Va., where Fabio won accolades for helming the restaurant Maestro, and Maria handled guest relations. Their first restaurant, Fiola, opened downtown in 2011 in the former Bice space, with Fabio in the kitchen and Maria acting as the de facto maitre d’. Casa Luca, another Italian spot named after the couple’s son, followed, as did the Georgetown waterfront location, Fiola Mare. Within the past five years, the couple opened Fiola locations in Miami and Venice, as well three Washington-area locations of Sfoglina, a more casual pasta concept (one replacing Casa Luca), and the elegant Spanish restaurant Del Mar at the Wharf. Fiola was given a Michelin star, and Fabio collected awards, including a James Beard. Meanwhile, Maria — a constant presence in the restaurants’ dining rooms in towering heels and designer clothes — made boldface patrons feel at home. The Obamas were frequent visitors. A visit to the flagship Fiola by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and his wife, Heidi, last year put the restaurateurs in the center of controversy, when protesters shouted at the lawmaker in the dining room. Fabio later told The Washington Post that they had received death threats following the incident. Most high-profile diners, though, have more low-key experiences. Out-of-town celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Aniston, have been spotted at their tables. “She’s an absolutely natural talent with people. She knows how to engage people, how to make people feel a certain way,” Fabio Trabocchi said of Maria in a 2015 Post profile. “The meal we provide is certainly important; it needs to live up to expectations. But more people go to restaurants for the complete experience. And nowadays, it’s harder to find a place where you are actually made to feel comfortable, made to feel special, almost at home.” emily.heil@washpost.com


The Health 202: ‘Tis the season to buy CBD products — thanks to Congress

boost by making consumers feel more confident in buying the products — especially from small businesses such as his own. The farm bill “is really what increased production,” Gadles said. “Once that bill started to protect the industry on a federal level, people got more comfortable ordering from small businesses.” The projections for CBD sales aren’t hard to believe after hitting the mall and surfing the Web for gift deals. The place where my husband gets his hair cut was even selling CBD hair serum (he didn’t purchase any). Just look at the number of Internet searches for CBD oil. The oil has gained such an enthusiastic fan base that people are making fun of it on Twitter: CBD oil is an essential part of marijuana, but it’s not the part that produces the “high.” It’s derived directly from hemp, which is a form of the cannabis plant. Until the past year, most hemp sold in the United States came from Canada, where growing industrial hemp has been legal since 1998. The popular oil has some clearly documented benefits — and a lot of unknowns. It has been shown to be highly effective in treating childhood epilepsy syndromes such as Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which are so severe they don’t typically respond to anti-seizure medications. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration approved Epidiolex as the first-ever marijuana-derived medicine, which is used to treat these conditions and contains CBD oil. Preliminary data from small clinical trials have also suggested that applying CBD oil to the skin could be effective for treating chronic pain — such as the pain from inflammation experienced by patients with arthritis — and may also help those with insomnia or anxiety. If you believe all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing, the oil can solve numerous other health problems. But take a pause before you buy it for everyone on your gift list. There’s much scientists don’t know about potential benefits from CBD oil. Because of a lack of research, there are still many questions about which conditions it might be most effective at treating and the optimal dosages. There are also some known, negative side effects, including nausea, fatigue and irritability. The FDA is taking a cautious approach (too cautious, The agency also released a consumer update about CBD, saying it cannot recognize the ingredient as safe or approve products that contain it


She survived a Chinese internment camp and made it to Virginia. Will the U.S. let her stay?

Over the next 24 hours, she was interrogated about calls to and from her cellphone and about bank transactions she had made, according to her account. After a day, she was moved — black hood over her head, still shackled — in a police van to a medical center and then on to a detention camp. She said she was forced to change into prison clothes in front of men. Eventually, she was taken to a cramped cell filled with so many women that they had to lie down in shifts, she said. By day, they were forced to recite propaganda and praise Chinese leader Xi. She was held for 62 days, a stay that might have been longer, she believes, had her husband not been pressing Pakistani diplomats for help to obtain her release. [ When she was let go, she was forced to sign documents agreeing not to practice her religion and not to tell anyone what had happened in the camp. After her detention, she was forced to pay a fine of more than $2,500 for breaking China’s family planning rules by having three, not two, children. She was then told the government was offering her a free, surgical sterilization — a procedure she did not want but was terrified to refuse lest she be detained again. On Oct. 22, 2018, a local official escorted her to the hospital, and she underwent surgery. Dawut wept recalling the operation and thinking of the fourth child she longed for but would never have. “They want the extinction of Uighurs,” she said. Stories like Dawut’s It is difficult for Uighurs to travel. Neighborhoods are blanketed with cameras. Checkpoints seal off towns. In recent years, many have been denied passports, and some have had to surrender their travel documents to police. Dawut’s family had passports, so they started pressing local officials for permission to travel to Pakistan to visit her husband’s father, who was ill. Eventually, local authorities gave them permission to exit the country — so long as they returned by Feb. 27, 2019. In late January, the family traveled to the airport in Urumqi, convinced they would be interrogated and turned back. Instead, they cleared security and boarded a flight to Islamabad. “Pinch me and let me feel if this is real,” Dawut recalled saying to her husband. In Pakistan, they were able to access websites, such as YouTube,


Street vendors are part of the fabric of city life. Why do cities make their work harder?

vending to surveil and marginalize people of color. The regulation of vendors in New York City has been a haphazard affair since the Revolutionary era, but the current framework began during the Depression in the 1930s under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s administration. Since the early 20th century, peddling fruit and household items from small carts had served as an easier way to start a business. Progressive reformers focused on the supposed health issues stemming from traditional pushcart vendors on the Lower East Side, many of whom were Jewish and Italian immigrants carrying on traditions from Europe. Reformers proposed, and La Guardia instituted, the creation of vendor markets, select locations where peddlers could sell their wares and begin the transition to brick-and-mortar stores, a more respectable site for commerce and one that would give vendor-owners a stake in maintaining property values. To push vendors into defined markets and clean up city streets, officials enacted restrictions on where and when vendors could sell. These time and place restrictions frequently fell during peak business hours and along major commercial arteries. However, enforcement was somewhat lax and fines low enough that many vendors considered them the cost of doing business in the city. Immigration restrictions coupled with post-World War II affluence led to a relative decline in the number of street vendors, so much so that opposition was limited and many, including future mayor Ed Koch, considered them a vital part of the city’s “street scene.” By the late 1960s, street vending was on the rise again as African Americans from the South, Puerto Ricans and people facing slowdowns at work turned to vending to make a living. The city’s Consumer Affairs Department proposed lifting time and place restrictions to entice more of these vendors to become licensed and raise city revenue. But powerful business interests disagreed, and they joined forces to protect what they called the “business climate” of the city. Business organizations lobbied city officials to clear vendors out of midtown and downtown Manhattan in an effort to stem the outflow of companies to the suburbs and beyond, fearing that the mere presence of vendors scared away Fortune 500 companies that would otherwise rent office space. One of the more vocal groups, the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association (DLMA), formed through the efforts of then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s brother David, who was the head of Chase Manhattan Bank. The DLMA and other organizations, like


Boris Johnson’s campaign rhetoric reveals why there’s a constitutional crisis over Brexit

forced to step down. In September, MPs overruled their new prime minister, Boris Johnson, by voting that Britain could not exit without a negotiated deal, an option Johnson insisted he must retain. And yet whatever objections Parliament may have had to individual Brexit plans, it could not reject it altogether. Those who supported leaving the E.U. argued that they wished to take back British sovereignty, Britain’s power over its own destiny. Paradoxically, in doing so, it was the British people, not the E.U., that constrained Parliament’s sovereignty. While the Brexit referendum was not legally binding, it was politically binding for MPs. Boris Johnson, man of the people? Johnson, the embodiment of the British establishment, has exploited the tension between people and Parliament. In September, he suspended — or “prorogued” — Parliament for five weeks. When the Supreme Court declared the prorogation unlawful, Johnson accused MPs of trying to “sabotage Brexit and surrender to Brussels.” Johnson has said he would rather “die in a ditch” than delay Brexit beyond Oct. 31, and he faulted Parliament for obliging him to seek an extension of the Oct. 31 deadline for leaving. Why does this matter? Most Brexit commentators have focused on the conflict between Britain and the E.U. — that is, between national and supranational sovereignty. But a joint research project of the University of Cambridge and the Université libre de Bruxelles in which I am involved shows that what’s most in play are competing notions of sovereignty within Britain. How we did our research In three separate surveys after the Brexit vote, “sovereignty” was the most frequently cited reason for voting “Leave.” But there has been surprisingly little research on what different political players mean when they talk about “sovereignty.” To understand this, I analyzed how sovereignty was discussed during the 2019 British prorogation controversy. To do this, I examined and hand-coded 65 newspaper articles mentioning “sovereignty” and “prorogation” collected from the 16 most influential British broadsheet and tabloid newspapers. I found that pro-Leave and pro-Remain media offered very different ideas of the relationship between national, parliamentary and popular sovereignty. Parliament vs. the people Liberal pro-Remain outlets interpreted the prorogation case in the Supreme Court as being “about whether we can have Britain free of tyranny,” as the Independent put it — meaning Johnson’s tyranny. Pro-Remain newspapers insisted that Johnson served as prime minister only with the consent of Parliament, that MPs


He thought he had an injured dog in his back seat. It was a coyote.

Eli Boroditsky was certain he’d hit someone’s large, fluffy dog. The Manitoba, Canada, resident was on his way to work last week when a flash of gray-brown fur suddenly materialized in front of his headlights. It was around 9:30 p.m. on Nov. 27 — Boroditsky works the overnight shift at a cheese factory — and he didn’t see the animal until it darted across the rural road. By then, it was too late to avoid a collision. Racked with guilt, the 68-year-old pulled over. He had been driving about 55 mph, and he found the bushy-tailed creature alive but unconscious on the shoulder of the road. Boroditsky scooped it up and placed it in the back seat of his Hyundai. Only later did he learn that his passenger was not a beloved household pet but a young female coyote — a mix-up that could have ended extremely badly. “Wild animals are not docile, especially when they’re scared,” Zoé Nakata, the executive director of Manitoba’s Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Center, told The Washington Post. “So we’re very lucky that everyone was safe.” Boroditsky told the Winnipeg Free Press that he worried a wild animal would kill the injured creature if he left it alone on the roadside. When he arrived at work on Nov. 27, he told a co-worker, who went out to his car, then immediately came rushing back to tell him that the “dog” calmly splayed out across the floor was no cuddly family pet. “I thought it was a German shepherd or a husky,” Boroditsky told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. “I didn’t think it was a wild animal.” Shocked, he tried to contact conservation officers but wasn’t able to reach anyone before morning. In the meantime, the coyote woke up and made itself at home in the Hyundai. Amazingly, it didn’t tear up the car or leave any messes, preferring to rest its long snout on the collection of road maps in the back seat. “I was petting it,” Boroditsky told the CBC. Nakata told The Post that conservation officers were eventually able to remove the coyote from the car and coax it into a kennel. The animal was “in a state of shock” and very lethargic, she said, which accounted for its unusual behavior. “The fact that it didn’t resist just goes to show it was pretty banged up,” she said. The coyote has been recuperating at Wildlife


We need to hold the Kremlin responsible for its 2018 cyberattack on the Olympics

On Feb. 9, 2018, hackers working in the service of Russia’s military intelligence agency known as the GRU carried out an appalling act of sabotage: a targeted cyberattack designed to digitally cripple the Olympics. The attack hit the Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, with exceptionally cruel timing: Just as the opening ceremony began in a stadium packed with 35,000 spectators, athletes and heads of state, the hackers’ virulent malware ripped through the Olympics’ computer network. The worm, which would later come to be known as “Olympic Destroyer,” tore down the IT back-end responsible for everything from WiFi to the official Olympics app to the games’ ticketing system. Desperate Korean administrators spent two panicked hours scrambling to bring those basic services back online before the end of the opening ceremony, and the rest of that sleepless night working to stabilize their entire network before the athletic events began at 8 a.m. the following morning. Amazingly, the administrators succeeded at isolating the malware, rebuilding their systems and saving the event from disaster with only hours to spare. Today, almost two years since that unprecedented sabotage attempt, the public response from the global community to hold the hackers responsible has been equally remarkable: There has been none. Russia has faced no new sanctions, no criminal charges, not so much as a strongly worded statement for carrying out the worst cyberattack that has hit the Olympics. That failure to respond has practically invited the Kremlin to strike again at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo — and it has further eroded any sense of the red lines that protect civilian organizations from state-sponsored cyberattacks. In the first weeks after Olympic Destroyer struck, to be fair, it was far from clear who was responsible. The malicious code that crippled the Olympics network included layers of false fingerprints, snippets of code designed to lead astray forensic investigators. Some digital detectives were fooled into blaming North Korea or China, while many more threw up their hands in confusion. Yet within two weeks of the Olympics cyberattack, U.S. intelligence officials, speaking anonymously to The Washington Post, named Russia as the culprit, though without providing any evidence to back up that claim. In my new book, “Sandworm,” I lay out the evidence that definitively proves the GRU’s responsibility publicly for the first time. Much of the evidence was assembled in 2018 by the private intelligence firm FireEye —


the Olympics as punishment for its organized doping program. Just last month, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recommended that Russia be banned from the 2020 Olympics, too. And even before that decision, the Kremlin was already showing every sign of preparing another Olympics attack. Microsoft warned in October that APT28, a different team of GRU hackers, began targeting WADA in September, after the agency’s announcement that it had found “inconsistencies” in Russia’s compliance with anti-doping rules. (The U.S. Justice Department indicted several GRU hackers last year for their role in similar hacking operations targeting WADA ahead of the 2018 Olympics — an act that makes the lack of response to Olympic Destroyer all the more inexplicable.) By keeping silent, the U.S. government may have sent an implicit signal to the Kremlin that its attempts to confuse the attribution of its 2018 attack somehow succeeded. Or, worse, that silence may suggest to Russia and other global powers that this sort of attack remains within the acceptable bounds of state-sponsored hacking — that the rules of that game have yet to be clearly written. Either way, America’s silence leaves the 2020 Olympics open to another cyberattack. This time, we’ll be lucky if that attack doesn’t have far more severe disruptive effects: permanent data destruction that leaves IT networks unrecoverable, repeated attacks throughout the games, or even attempts to trigger blackouts or other disruptive effects on physical infrastructure. But on a broader stage, the nonresponse to Olympic Destroyer also heralds a kind of digital anarchy, where a country such as Russia can launch indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure with impunity, and Western powers will look the other way. To see what that sort of anarchy might look like, look no further than the usual model for all of Russia’s escalating acts of cyberwar: Ukraine. Since its pro-Western revolution in 2014, the GRU has hacked Ukraine in every manner conceivable. It attempted to spoof the results of the country’s 2014 presidential election, presaging by two years Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The GRU then carried out not one but two cyberattacks disabling the Ukrainian power grid. Even after those quintessential acts of cyberwarfare against civilian critical infrastructure, the U.S. government remained silent about Russia’s digital torment of its smaller neighbor, treating that cyberwar as Ukraine’s problem alone. In June 2017, the Russian military accepted that unspoken invitation to escalate further. It


Right-wing group must stop building private border wall in South Texas, judge says in temporary order

his group set its sights on South Texas, where they again hired the North Dakota firm to erect a “water wall” on private land along the Rio Grande belonging to a sugar cane farmer. The U.S. Army Corps typically builds on higher ground along river levees, placing steel bollards far from the ever-shifting curves of a river that has been especially prone to flooding. (The butterfly center has sued the Trump administration over its plans to extend such construction into the protected area, and a circuit court is set to hear arguments later this week.) Unlike the federal government’s construction, Peña said Kolfage’s plans ignore the possibility of damage to neighboring properties. “Whether you’re for the wall or against the wall, they [the government] are cognizant of the dangers that construction could cause,” he said. “These guys are just going in there to stoke everyone’s anger and fear, raise money, and then move along to the next victim.” The International Boundary and Water Commission, a joint U.S.-Mexico agency that issues permits to build along the Rio Grande, asked the group to halt construction, submit an engineering study and remove heavy equipment from the levees, The Post’s Nick Miroff reported. The group appeared to ignore that request. During that time, Kolfage and the butterfly center erupted into an online flame war. Kolfage accused the center of assisting cartels and partaking in insect smuggling, calling them “left wing thugs with a sham butterfly agenda.” The center took its own jabs at Kolfage on social media, sometimes including the hashtag “#LiarLiarPantsOnFire.” Then, the butterfly center sued Kolfage and his group. Peña said the preserve’s leaders wanted to conduct a study of the fencing itself, but have been blocked from doing so until the court grants them access to the land being used by We Build the Wall. “They’re not stopping. They’re not planning on conducting studies. They’re not concerned with what damage it would do to neighboring properties,” he said. “They just want to build the wall.” The temporary restraining order will last at least until Dec. 17, at which point it can be extended for another two weeks and may then lead to a temporary injunction hearing. Should Kolfage and his group continue construction anyway, a judge could call them in for a hearing and consider sanctions ranging from monetary fines to jail time, Peña said. Reis Thebault contributed to this report.


Next week’s British elections will be a window into 2020

favor these left-wing populists and that affluent anti-populist former conservatives are scared by them. Fear of, and hope for, dramatic change will be important factors in both countries’ elections. The populist leaders’ character flaws are also election issues. Trump’s are well-known in both countries, but Americans are unfamiliar with just how out of the ordinary Johnson’s past is. Like Trump, Johnson is known for multiple marriages and many affairs. He is known to be petulant, brash and ingratiating. Johnson’s foes say he doesn’t have the sober temperament needed for the job, while his allies say his energy, charisma and out-of-the-box demeanor are exactly what the country needs. Sound familiar? Johnson’s Tories are also challenging free-market orthodoxy just as Trump’s populism is leading Republicans to rethink their economics. The Tory manifesto eschews cuts in personal or corporate income taxes in favor of cutting a payroll tax paid by all. It also unleashes a flurry of government spending on services and projects favored by formerly Labour-voting working-class voters. If Johnson wins with a stable majority, this visionary platform will likely become an inspiration for post-Trump Republican reformers. Threats to national unity are also increasing in both lands. In the United States, the threat comes from fears that increasing polarization and the vast gap in cultural attitudes between party partisans will irrevocably damage our democracy. In Britain, the threat is more direct: The United Kingdom is actually four countries — England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — and Brexit is raising the chances that Scotland and Northern Ireland will choose to leave. Polls earlier this year showed that Brexit supporters cared more about leaving the E.U. than maintaining British Union, and the Scottish Nationalist Party’s manifesto forthrightly plunks for another referendum on Scottish independence. I’ll be writing from London and Britain’s flyover country over the next week reporting on the election campaign and describing each of the trends in detail. Whatever happens will not only determine the future course of our closest ally but also give us a clear and perhaps unsettling look into our own future. Read more Sebastian Mallaby: Britain’s Brexit drama has achieved new highs of absurdity Henry Olsen: Boris Johnson is betting he can realign British politics. He may be right. The Post’s View: Britain has embraced the best route out of the Brexit crisis Nick Cohen: Boris Johnson claims he’s going to ‘get Brexit done.’ That’s a lie.


Transportation Department cements Trump administration’s deregulatory policies with a ‘rule on rules’

outsized economic effects will get needed scrutiny. “It makes it streamlined throughout all the agencies within the Department of Transportation,” said Ed Mortimer, a vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But consumer groups have faulted the administration’s approach. Amit Narang, a researcher at advocacy organization Public Citizen, said the new rules will hamper its work. “This new policy will largely prevent DOT from doing new safety rules,” he said. “It will also make it harder, not easier, for DOT to issue new regulations onboarding new technologies like drones and automated vehicles.” Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said his staff was reviewing the new rules and that he planned to follow up with Chao. “I am concerned about the safety and transparency implications of the final rule Secretary Chao is touting,” he said. The Transportation Department and its agencies have a sweeping set of responsibilities to ensure safety of the airways, roads, railroads and pipelines. It has been under scrutiny in recent months over its relationship with the private industries it oversees. The Federal Aviation Administration, for example, has faced questions about the extent to which it gave Boeing the authority to review the safety of its 737 Max jet before the plane was involved in two deadly crashes that killed a total of 346 people. And Consumer Reports concluded that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s rate of investigations into defective cars reached an all-time low in 2017, alarming road safety advocates. The new rules instruct the department’s investigators to be upfront with companies as they use their enforcement power, saying they “must not use these authorities as a game of ‘gotcha’ with regulated entities.” “DOT should promptly disclose to the affected parties the reasons for the investigative review and any compliance issues identified or findings made,” the rules read. NHTSA also has been closely involved in rolling back emission standards for cars and SUVs, one of Trump’s signature environmental moves. That effort has shown how business has not lined up uniformly behind the administration’s deregulatory stance, especially when changes could undermine investments companies have made based on assumptions about future standards. Several carmakers formed a pact with the state of California, saying they will abide by tougher emissions rules, while others sided with the federal government. When it comes to new technology, the department has largely backed away from imposing new


After Brexit, will Northern Ireland return to violence?

Brexit has revived fears that Northern Ireland will return to violence. After three decades of “The Troubles,” deadly warfare in which almost 3,500 people died, violence mostly ended after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement was signed. That peace deal relied in part on European Union membership, which enabled free trade and free movement between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. That satisfied both British unionists, who wanted Northern Ireland to remain part of the U.K., and Irish republicans, who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland. Many feared that Brexit threatened that truce. When the U.K. decided to leave the European Union, observers feared that introducing a “hard” border between Northern Ireland, still part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland, still part of the E.U., might undermine the peace and encourage militant Irish republicans to attack the border. The compromise that Boris Johnson negotiated involved what’s called “the Irish backstop,” a complex deal that keeps Northern Ireland within the U.K. customs union while it operates under E.U. rules. The goal was to enable goods and people to continue to pass freely between the two parts of Ireland. But even presuming that the next U.K. parliament enacts Johnson’s Brexit deal, as expected, post-Brexit violence in Northern Ireland still looms. In October, a spokesperson for the so-called New IRA republican paramilitary group told Channel 4 that any border infrastructure would be a “legitimate target for [an] attack.” Shortly afterwards, the political party Saoradh, thought to have links to the New IRA, slammed the deal: “The British border remained as an obstacle to the Irish people having real democracy and national self-determination.” Radical republicans aren’t the only threat, however. Northern Ireland’s unionists (who want to keep Northern Ireland in the U.K.) and loyalists (politically extreme unionists) have been angered by British concessions to the Republic of Ireland and Europe. Loyalists are hinting that they too might take up arms again. Here’s what’s happening. Northern Unionists don’t like the deal that Boris struck Boris Johnson’s Brexit proposal was designed to make it less likely that militant republicans would mobilize around the border. However, the compromise imposed trade barriers between the island of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, angering Northern Irish loyalists. Influential loyalist commentator Jamie Bryson, the editor of the “Unionist Voice,” summed loyalist sentiments up: “Republicans have been rewarded yet again for threatening peace with the constant stream of Brexit


Ukraine lawmaker seeking Biden probe meets with Giuliani in Kyiv

theories of corruption and impropriety around Biden, his son Hunter Biden and Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. The New York Times, which first reported Giuliani’s travels, said he had meetings in Budapest and Kyiv this week to meet current and former Ukrainian officials for a documentary. Derkach noted that their meeting was filmed by “some kind of American television company” but offered no further details. “Rudolph Giuliani has arrived in Kyiv. We met up immediately to discuss the establishment of the Friends of Ukraine STOP Corruption interparliamentary group,” Derkach said in a Facebook post. Derkach, an independent lawmaker who was formerly a member of a pro-Russian party in parliament, went to the Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB in Moscow. He is the son of a KGB officer who later served as head of Ukrainian intelligence. Derkach wrote that Giuliani could help bring experts, journalists and analysts to investigate corruption in Ukraine and “benefit strategic relations between Kyiv and the United States.” Derkach said he had sent letters Tuesday to key Republicans including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.) and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, seeking their participation. He said their involvement would help expose the ineffective use of U.S. tax dollars by Ukrainian authorities. “We sent our proposal. We’re waiting for a reaction, an answer. We’re waiting to see how much this is something that the congressmen and senators are in need of. If they want to work together, we’re ready,” Derkach said. Derkach said he handed Giuliani documents on allegations relating to inefficient expenditure of U.S. government money on projects in Ukraine and other matters. The documents do not mention the Bidens. But Derkach makes reference to the energy company Burisma, which had Hunter Biden as a board member. Right-wing network One America News announced Tuesday it was conducting a “special investigation” with Giuliani, flying three Ukrainian officials to the United States and “debunking Schiff’s impeachment narrative.” Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) chaired the Intelligence Committee that handed down a report concluding that Trump sought to undermine U.S. democracy and endangered national security. Derkach did not state whether the TV crew with Giuliani was from One America News. Derkach and another parliamentary deputy, Oleksandr Dubinsky, called a news conference in Kyiv last month announcing plans to launch an investigative committee of the Ukrainian parliament, claiming corruption by top Ukrainian political figures


Marathon man: A Twitch streamer spent nearly the entire month of November live on camera

2012, a courtesy to his viewers despite cutting off that revenue stream.) Because of limited amount of hours available in a month, Bodine minimized his sleep to beat the record, but that comes at the cost of health. Studies have shown that people with sleep restricted to 4 to 5 hours a night for up to two nights, including a weakened immune system, increased heart rate and blood pressure and slower response times, according to the National Sleep Foundation. “There are infinite ways both easier and healthier to grow a channel. It really is up to the broadcaster to discover or create these methods, ” Bodine told The Post in an interview. "Waking up at 4 a.m. every day is not an easy feat when you go to bed around 12:30. Waking up on time was always a concern on my mind.” Bodine took the record of most hours streamed in a month from Twitch user JayBigs, who streamed last summer for 569 hours, according to Kotaku, who first reported Bodine’s attempt. Twitch streamers often participate in marathons and challenges, posting times on their screen to be transparent to viewers eager to witness the next big record. Many streamers, including Bodine, have done these marathons for charity. This time, it was to topple the record. To allow himself to move away from his computer, Bodine rigged his house with several cameras, creating a “Truman Show”-like atmosphere, where people could see him in almost every room, particularly his kitchen, where he often cooked and ate his meals on camera. “I knew a good diet would be important, and a strange obstacle that I had to overcome was cooking all of my own food on stream," Bodine said. Bodine was very well aware of the health risks of his pursuit, and it was something he talked about often as he was live. Through it all, he didn’t experience any alarming health concerns, so a doctor’s visit wasn’t necessary. He now says he feels healthy, and after a single night’s of rest, he’s returned to feeling normal. As the streaming market gets more saturated by people looking to earn a living, streamers have to do more to stand out from the crowd. Bodine’s “Streamvember” marathon is just one of many he does throughout the year, but going for the record was an extreme circumstance he says he won’t be repeating next year. “Big


ICE may have impeded the search for truth at a construction site disaster

three people dead and dozens injured — federal investigators conducted three interviews with Delmer Joel Ramirez Palma, a worker who had registered his safety concerns repeatedly before the calamity. They had no trouble finding him; immigration officials detained Mr. Palma, an undocumented immigrant, two days after the collapse. Despite his obvious relevance to the investigations into the collapse by both federal and Louisiana authorities, he was deported late last month. Thus has the judgment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents been clouded by the administration’s appetite for enforcement at any cost. Mr. Palma, a 38-year-old metal worker, had lived nearly two decades in the United States, where he was married and had a 10-year-old son, who is a U.S. citizen. He is now back in his native Honduras, where it may be more difficult to draw on his apparently extensive knowledge of the problems that contributed to the collapse. It’s unclear whether the U.S. Labor Department, under whose auspices the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the collapse, asked ICE to hold off on deporting Mr. Palma. (Under a standing agreement, ICE will hold off on deporting workers who have complained about unsafe work conditions under investigation by the Labor Department.) However, the top official at the Louisiana Workforce Commission, which investigates workplace safety issues, had written to ICE specifically asking that he not be deported, saying he was a “crucial witness” in the state’s inquiry into the collapse, which would “undoubtedly suffer” in his absence. Mr. Palma’s status as a material witness to what may turn into a criminal investigation stems from complaints he raised about construction quality issues. Before the collapse, his concerns were dismissed by supervisors, according to his lawyers. Following the collapse, he joined a lawsuit accusing the project’s developers and construction firm of using substandard materials and other problems. There is no indication that Mr. Palma was detained or deported at the request of the hotel’s developer or construction contractor. Nonetheless, unauthorized immigrants, who constitute 15 percent of the country’s construction workers — and perhaps more in New Orleans — are uniquely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Frequently, they have no recourse, and no standing to push back. ICE had ample reason to accede to requests from lawyers, immigration advocates and state authorities not to deport Mr. Palma. By ignoring those concerns, it may have impeded the search for truth in a deadly incident.


The simplest of climate models run decades ago accurately projected global warming

now rolling out the next suite of models to inform the upcoming U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 6th Assessment Report, due out in 2022. “Climate models today aren’t perfect, they’re still being improved,” he says. While a figure (above) and calculations included in the study seems to show that many of the models had a slight warm bias over time, Hausfather says the study found “no detectable consistent overestimation or underestimation of future warming” in the models that were examined. On temperature, there’s considerable confidence that the current models are accurately capturing the planet’s response to record amounts of greenhouse gases in the air. However, there are many other aspects of a changing climate that contain bigger uncertainties, such as cloud formation and how small atmospheric particles known as aerosols could alter the types of clouds that form. This could either enhance or diminish warming. In addition, precipitation changes, particularly at a regional level, are still extremely difficult for modelers to capture, Hausfather says. “Temperature is easy, other climate variables like precipitation are a lot harder.” For the study, researchers evaluated climate models on how they performed regarding the amount of projected global mean temperature change compared to what actually took place over time. On this count, 10 out of the 17 models examined were virtually indistinguishable from observations, the study found — in other words a near-perfect match. They also looked at the relationship between a model’s temperature projection and the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, also known as external forcing. On this comparison, 14 out of the 17 models “were not differentiable from observations,” and two of the 14 showed more warming than actually occurred, with one showing less warming, Hausfather says. “We argue that second test is a more accurate one,” Hausfather says, because it allows scientists to control for the fact that models might get the amount of external forcing wrong, but the relationship between greenhouse gases and temperature change correct. “By looking at this relationship between temperature and forcing, we can evaluate the model’s performance on its physics and not on its crystal ball of future emissions,” Hausfather said. Researchers who were not involved in the new study said it employed relatively simple statistical analyses that may miss some key influences on global surface temperatures over time. For example, Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said


Prominent Japanese aid worker and associates killed in eastern Afghanistan

patients, he dug wells, and even drew a blueprint of waterways and drove heavy machines at the sites. He was really a rare doctor,” he said. The gunmen fled the scene, officials said, and no group has asserted responsibility for the attack. An investigation has been launched, said Attaullah Khogyani, the Nangahar governor’s spokesman. His death drew widespread condemnation from Afghans as well as Western diplomats. “The Afghan government strongly condemns the heinous and cowardice attack on Afghan’s greatest friend, Dr. Nakamura who has dedicated all his life to change the lives of Afghans, working on water management, dams and improving traditional agriculture in Afghanistan,” Sediq Seddiqi, President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman, wrote in a tweet. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul also denounced the “unjustifiable” attack. “Aid workers are not targets! Those responsible must be brought to justice,” the embassy said in a statement posted on Twitter. Both Taliban and Islamic State militants are active in the eastern province of Nangahar. The Afghan government said it defeated the Islamic State there two weeks ago after hundreds of the terrorist group’s fighters surrendered. The Taliban still controls large areas, however. The incident happened a week after a grenade attack on a U.N.-marked vehicle in Kabul. One employee of the organization was killed and two other U.N. employees were among five people wounded in that attack. There was an outpouring of support for Nakamura on social media in Japan, where he was a well-known and respected figure. In 2003, he won the Philippines’ Ramon Magsaysay Award, sometimes known as Asia’s Nobel Peace Prize. The citation recognized “his passionate commitment to ease the pain of war, disease, and calamity among refugees and the mountain poor of the Afghanistan-Pakistan borderlands.” Nakamura first came to Afghanistan to climb its mountains and then in 1984 volunteered at a hospital in Peshawar in Pakistan near the border, where he headed the leprosy unit. He later organized health centers as Afghan refugees flooded into Pakistan during the Soviet occupation. Afterward, in the 1990s, he founded and ran health clinics in remote parts of Nangahar province. More recently, his focus shifted to building water systems to combat widespread drought. “We choose not to go to places where everyone is willing to go, but rather to places where help is desperately needed and no one else is willing to go,” reads a quote from Nakamura on his organization’s website. sharif.hassan@washpost.com simon.denyer@washpost.com


If the U.S. had Samoa’s current level of measles cases, there would now be more than 7 million infected Americans

influencer, among others. “I’ll be here to mop up your mess. Enjoy your killing spree,” Tamasese reportedly wrote on social media in one instance, referring to the state’s immunization drive. Authorities have also complained about U.S.-based anti-vaxxers trying to interfere in the government’s crisis response, Radio France Internationale reported. Anti-vaxxers’ claims contradict scientific findings, as The Washington Post’s Ben Guarino, Neena Satija and Lena H. Sun have reported. Studies have disproved claims that vaccines — including those against measles, mumps and rubella — are connected to autism. A British physician who made such claims in a widely shared 1998 report was later struck off the medical register. Many factors play into why anti-vaccination movements resonate around the world, regardless of the scientific evidence to the contrary. One common factor is a distrust of government and public health systems, which activists from different countries and communities draw on to link their movements. In Pakistan, for example, the CIA tracked down Osama bin Laden in part by gaining information through an undercover polio vaccination team. That daring endeavor has subsequently fueled suspicion of anti-polio campaigns: Health workers running polio vaccinations have since been gunned down and kidnapped in Pakistan. Since bin Laden’s killing in 2011, there’s been a regional resurgence in polio, which at that time had been close to being eliminated, National Geographic reported. In late November, in war-torn and mineral-rich Congo, a militia group attacked health-care workers providing vaccines against the recently resurging Ebola disease. U.N. peacekeepers posted nearby, meanwhile, were unable to stop the violence, as The Post’s Max Bearak reported. In Congo, there’s a deep distrust of outsiders coming in to help the country, which is traumatized by decades of war and conflict over coveted resources. After many failed international interventions and responses, some have resorted to blaming foreigners for the country’s problems. That suspicion has made vaccination efforts for diseases such as Ebola and measles that much more dangerous and deadly, as there’s little public trust in those who say they’re there to help. Despite the dire factors impacting growing suspicion of vaccines in parts of the world, there was also some good news related to 2018, the WHO said Thursday. Compared with the beginning of the century, annual measles deaths have fallen significantly, from an estimated 535,600 in 2000 to 142,300 in 2018. There were also some new countries that had eliminated measles by the end


Boris Johnson breaks tradition by dodging interview with BBC’s top Rottweiler, Andrew Neil

LONDON — It is a tradition, and not a very pretty one, for candidates for high office in Britain to submit themselves to a grueling, often excruciating, one-on-one interview with BBC presenter Andrew Neil. It is a very British thing. Neil and his anxious quarry sit in facing chairs, the erudite, orotund-voiced, imposing BBC inquisitor holding in his fists sheafs of paper with lots and lots of uncomfortable facts. The 30-minute probes can be forensic, almost medical. They can also be a bit of a bear pit. But generally the interviews make for great telly, especially in the last days of an election. Now, bucking all precedent, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has canceled his appointment in the dentist chair with Neil. This has suddenly become a surprising, serious issue in the campaign. On Thursday night, Neil issued a remarkable, unprecedented on-air challenge to Johnson, and he did so on the state-supported BBC, where he suggested that Johnson might be a coward or a fabricator. “It is not too late,” Neil said in a monologue to the audience. “We have an interview prepared. Oven-ready, as Mr. Johnson likes to say.” In first debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, questions of trust dominate Eyeballing the camera, Neil pounced: “The theme running through our questions is trust — and why at so many times in his career, in politics and journalism, critics, and sometimes even those close to him, have deemed him to be untrustworthy.” Neil then ticked off a list of questions Johnson has miffed, from his dubious claims of how many hospitals his Conservative Party will build, to the impact of his Brexit deal on Northern Ireland, to fleshing out his fuzzy math on the hiring of 20,000 new police officers. Johnson, a former president of the Oxford Union debate society and no duffer himself in polysyllabic combat, fired back Friday, disparaging Neil as a real “Lord Buckethead,” a British satirical candidate fronting a frivolous political party. Johnson says he’s done plenty of press — what’s one more interview? And Johnson and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn did participate in a second and final face-to-face debate on the BBC on Friday night. This format allowed for the open-ended answers, stump-speeching and desultory follow-up typical of the forums. The two leaders broke little new ground. In one exchange, Corbyn said, “Socialism carried out in a democratic way in this country and


The Cybersecurity 202: Evil Corp indictments show cybercrime pays – for those at the top

and Matt Zapotosky reported. Among his many thousands of U.S. victims were numerous small to midsize businesses, included a dairy company in Ohio, a luggage store in New Mexico and an order of religious sisters, FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said during a news conference. Yakubets also routinely worked on the side for Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service, stealing classified material from overseas targets, U.S. Treasury officials said. That’s a common occurrence in Russia where the line between cybercriminals and government-backed hackers is notoriously thin. The Justice Department is offering a $5 million reward for information that leads to Yakubets’s capture — the largest such offering ever for a cybercriminal. Yakubets and an associate who was also indicted, Igor Turashev, are unlikely to end up in a U.S. prison, Justice Department officials acknowledged. That’s because Russia does not extradite its citizens in response to U.S. indictments. However, the indictment will still make life more difficult for the men, Taddeo told me, because they won’t be able to travel outside Russia. And Yakubets’s showy displays of wealth will make him an easy target for other cybercriminals who want to bully or extort him, or to compel his help in their own schemes. “Russia’s like a prison with 11 time zones,” Taddeo told me. “It’s not easy to be a known successful criminal in Russia because you often pay a price for that with other criminals asking you for all or part of your ill-gotten gains.” You are reading The Cybersecurity 202 , our must-read newsletter on cybersecurity policy news. PINGED: President Trump has routinely spoken with his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and other associates on cellphones vulnerable to spying by Russia and other foreign adversaries, That’s particularly concerning because of phone records released this week by the House Intelligence Committee that show officials discussed Trump’s campaign to pressure Ukraine to clamp down on adversaries in the 2020 election on unencrypted lines. Spying on the calls could have allowed Russia to enlist operatives in Ukraine to feed Giuliani false information and further baseless claims such as that Ukraine helped hack the Democratic National Committee in the 2016 U.S. election, my colleagues reported. Trump is not identified by name in the phone records, but House investigators suspect he may be the identity behind a blocked number listed as “-1” in the files. Trump has continues to use his personal


Website tackles an all-too-common problem with rare diseases: A shortage of information

Achondrogenesis More people have a rare disease than you might think. According to the National Institutes of Health, up to 30 million people in the United States — nearly 1 in 10 — live with rare diseases, and there could be as many as 7,000 of the conditions. Rare diseases present real challenges to patients and medical professionals. One reason is a lack of data: An absence of surveillance for most of the conditions means statistical information can be scant. So can treatments, which are often held up by a lack of research interest and a dearth of dollars. Since there’s relatively little demand from patients, drugmakers can abandon or never pursue therapies. More than 90 percent of rare diseases lack a Food and Drug Administration approved treatment. “Our knowledge of most rare diseases is so insufficient that they are also known as orphan diseases because of their failure to attract the interest of researchers, medical specialists, drug makers, and policy makers,” researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention write. But there’s hope for people with rare conditions, and a quick browse of the National Organization for Rare Disorders’ Rare Disease Database proves it. The database contains reports on more than 1,200 of the disorders, from Aarskog syndrome, a rare genetic condition that produces facial, skeletal and genital abnormalities, to Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, which causes tumors that stimulate the production of stomach acid. It covers just about everything, such as symptoms, affected populations, diagnoses and known therapies. Most important, the database identifies clinical trials and member organizations where patients can find more information and support. NORD also offers educational videos, advocacy information and a patient registry. With rare conditions, there is strength in numbers — and more information out there than you might think. Curious about rare diseases? Visit the NORD at rarediseases.org to explore the database.


We need new research hubs — but not on the coasts. Here’s how we get them.

Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson are professors at MIT, in the Economics Department and Sloan School of Management, respectively; and co-authors of “Jump-Starting America: How Breakthrough Science Can Revive Economic Growth and the American Dream.” This is the third in a series of On Common Ground essays, a partnership between the Niskanen Center, a moderate think tank in Washington, and the Post Opinions section. Read Part 1 and Part 2. Our geographic opportunity gap is stark and growing wider by the day. At one extreme are large West and East coast megacities, which have become world-leading hubs for technology development. At the other extreme are small towns and more rural areas with demographic decline — by one estimate, 80 percent of counties experienced a fall in working-age population between 2007 and 2017. This pattern is a direct result of how we have chosen, commercially, socially and geographically, to develop technology. The best way to resist the underlying centrifugal force is simple: invent much more technology, as a top national priority. The United States needed to ramp up its technology-creation machinery with great urgency once before. At the start of World War II, the U.S. government funded massive breakthroughs — including radar, pharmaceuticals, aircraft, computers and atomic energy — which became enormous private industries. This investment continued during the Cold War, and by the mid-1960s, taxpayer spending on research and development reached nearly 2 percent of gross domestic product. Today, we spend less than 0.7 percent of GDP for public support of science. As a result, innovation (and growth) has slowed in the United States. Children of rich parents living in successful tech hubs still do well, but everyone else struggles to acquire the technical and managerial skills necessary for prosperity. Consequently, our national innovation machinery continues to slip relative to our increasingly well-trained international competitors. To boost economic growth, we should strengthen scientific fields where breakthroughs are imminent and where any other country — China in particular — threatens to forge ahead. But just throwing money at the problem is not enough. We need to think strategically about where exactly we have people able to learn skills, work on innovation and consequently increase our national scientific efforts. Fortunately, America’s got talent — and, what’s more, incredible amounts of underutilized technical talent. Our research has identified more than 100 places across 36 states with 80 million residents that are plausible next-generation


Another shutdown hovers. Should federal employees have to work without pay?

Two weeks ahead of a deadline to prevent another shutdown, the government has asked a federal court to dismiss a suit against its policies of keeping some federal employees at work without pay when an agency has no authority to spend money. The case is moot because no one currently is affected by those policies and continuing it would require too much speculation about who would be affected by any future lapse, Justice Department attorney Daniel Schwei told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday. But Paras N. Shah, representing the National Treasury Employees Union, said that “we’re staring down the barrel” of a funding lapse affecting all agencies and that even if one doesn’t occur after the Dec. 20 deadline “it’s reasonable to expect” that there will be another in the future and that at least some employees will again be compelled to work without pay. The case was brought during the month-long partial shutdown that started last Dec. 22 when spending authority lapsed for nine Cabinet departments and numerous smaller agencies. They collectively employ about 800,000 federal employees out of a total workforce of 2.1 million. About half of the 800,000 initially were sent home on unpaid furloughs while the rest remained at work without pay. But as the shutdown dragged on, agencies called tens of thousands of furloughed employees back to the job, although still unpaid. All eventually received back pay regardless of their working status. Currently, no federal agencies have regular appropriations in place for the fiscal year that started in October, threatening the type of government-wide shutdown that last occurred over two weeks in 2013. President Trump signed a bill Nov. 21 that extends government funding through Dec. 20, setting up a fight over money for his border wall that could happen around the same time the House is voting on articles of impeachment against the president. The suit argues that by keeping employees at work and creating an obligation to pay them, agencies violate the Anti-Deficiency Act. In general, that law bars agencies from making an obligation to spend money unless Congress has appropriated it. The government relies on an exception in that law allowing it to continue functions that protect safety or property. Individual agencies decide which positions fall under that exception under guidance from the Office of Management and Budget. The suit contends that the exception violates Congress’s


Michael Tilson Thomas was once the ‘bad boy of classical music.’ Now, at 74, he still conducts with childlike delight.

with sound. On a recent October day, Chad Goodman, the orchestra’s current conducting fellow, was rehearsing the orchestra in Schumann’s overture to “The Bride of Messina” while MTT sat at a keyboard and kibitzed. “And the main problem with this is . . . ?” Thomas quizzed Goodman at the end of one passage, looking over his glasses. Goodman stumbled for the right answer: “Balance-wise, it’s . . . ” But Thomas was already exuberantly cutting him off: “It’s too f---ing loud.” Later, Goodman waxed enthusiastic about getting direct feedback from a major conductor. “This kind of opportunity,” he said, “doesn’t exist anywhere else.” The New World Symphony is one of the orchestra world’s success stories. It was born as a result of Thomas’s realization, at Tanglewood, of just how uncertain life was for young musicians. There must be a more productive way for them to spend their time, he thought, than working at Domino’s to pay for lessons between auditions. Eventually, he was introduced to the Miami-based owner of a cruise ship line, Ted Arison, and the dream became a reality. The New World Symphony is an educational institution, where musicians come for three-year fellowships, honing their skills as musicians, teachers and communicators while taking auditions for orchestra jobs. Fellowships are often cut short if a musician lands a permanent position before the three-year term is over. The organization is a concrete expression of some of Thomas’s central interests. Working with young musicians sustains him, he says. And disseminating music through technology — videos or audio, the YouTube symphony or the Internet — has been a theme of his career. The New World Center, with its state-of-the-art technology, makes both of these things possible on a grand scale, archiving every performance and master class in the building, newly equipped to record and broadcast everything in 4K HD. “Doing it here as opposed to doing it in New York has turned out to be an enormous advantage in many ways,” Thomas says. “In New York, it would be one of many different activities and gigs that the fellows would do. Here, it’s much more focused that they’re here to learn and accomplish, and they’re getting a lot of very individual coaching inspiration. [If] you go to a major music school, you get very intensely the perspective of that school and the teacher you’re working with. When you come here, within


Here’s what a split-second combat decision looks like. I didn’t need to murder.

the car skidded to a halt, most likely having seen the turret tracking its every move. Four or five Iraqis jumped out. My scouts quickly restrained them and sent them for questioning. It turned out they were a father and his sons cutting through the base with perhaps the world’s worst timing. To be clear, I could have fired. The rules of engagement at that time were permissive. I chose not to. And I do not have to carry those deaths with me. I mention this experience not to say that I was an exceptional leader or morally superior. Most people would probably have made the same choice. I mention it because even in the heat of the moment, with adrenaline flowing and some degree of fear, we often do have time to make decisions that safeguard noncombatant lives. This is not the position of President Trump and those who do his bidding. For him, our military professionals are simply “killing machines.” In a White House news release on Nov. 15, Trump said that his recent pardons of war criminals were done in part because “I want to give them the confidence to fight.” In reality, he appears to be giving them the confidence to commit further war crimes because, in his mind, “warfighters” should not be handicapped by the laws of war and ethics. Both on the campaign trail and after his election he expressed approval of (and belief in) an apocryphal story of the murder of prisoners of war by Gen. John J. Pershing after the Spanish-American War. For Trump, supporting the troops means excusing any aberrant behavior as long as it gets the job done. He and the war criminals he has helped elude justice — Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, Army Maj. Mathew Golsteyn and Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna — are selling a false narrative to the American public that implies these men are being second-guessed for difficult decisions under fire. It’s not the first time a president or others have argued that the Law of Armed Conflict, or LOAC, is outdated and handcuffs the military for no good reason. President Richard Nixon seriously considered pardoning William Calley, perhaps the most infamous of American War criminals, for the murder of 22 civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai. He did intervene to make Calley’s incarceration more comfortable. Nixon falsely blamed


Yasuhiro Nakasone, Japanese prime minister in the 1980s, dies at 101

war-renouncing Article 9 and urging a military buildup. He was a key figure behind providing government funding for nuclear research in 1954, less than a decade after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing as many as 200,000 people in the last days of the war. In 1955, he helped pass legislation designed to promote nuclear power. In a 2006 speech marking the 50th anniversary of Japan’s first nuclear institute, Mr. Nakasone said he was intrigued by nuclear power as he tried to figure out why Japan lost the war. “My conclusion was that one of the biggest reasons was [the lack of] science and technology,” he said. “I felt strongly that Japan would end up being a lowly farming nation forever unless we take a bold step to develop science and technology.” After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, there was a public backlash against nuclear energy, but Mr. Nakasone said it remained indispensable to maintain Japan’s industrial growth. As prime minister from 1982 to 1987, Mr. Nakasone broke the mold of the Japanese politician, with an outspokenness that appealed to voters. His tongue sometimes got him in trouble, and he sparked outrage in 1986 by suggesting Japan was an economic success because it did not have minorities with lower intellectual levels. He was the first Japanese prime minister to visit South Korea, a country with bitter memories of its colonization by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Mr. Nakasone was also staunchly committed to Japan’s alliance with the United States, exhibited by his friendship with Reagan. His premiership coincided with a period of major trade disputes with the West. Responding to U.S. complaints, Mr. Nakasone initiated efforts to reduce tariffs and other import barriers. He also privatized the sprawling Japanese railroad system, as well as the state telephone and tobacco companies. In 1985, Mr. Nakasone was the first postwar prime minister to visit Yasukuni Shrine, which honors the war dead, including Japan’s convicted war criminals. His visit fueled disputes with China and South Korea over World War II history that persist to this day. Mr. Nakasone overcame opposition from Japan’s strong pacifist forces to boost defense budgets and excluded military technology cooperation with the United States from Japan’s ban on arms exports. He spoke of how Japan “cowered under the [postwar U.S.] occupation and occupation policies” but said the country should endeavor to stay away from


In first debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, questions of trust dominate

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his challenger, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, staged their first debate of the election campaign on Tuesday night — and what was most notable were the sharp, aggressive questions from the audience, which expressed open mistrust, even disgust, for both candidates. The debate on ITV showcased a dozen ordinary voters allowed to ask their questions. First up: “Both of you say Brexit will be resolved in the next few months. But there have been so many broken promises. Can you assure me we won’t be talking about it forever?” Johnson promised he had a Brexit deal ready to pop into the oven, heat and serve. Corbyn said it was “nonsense” to say Johnson could complete Brexit by January. He said a trade deal with the European Union would take seven years to negotiate. Later in the one-hour debate, another voter asked: “How can we trust you?” The question got a round of applause. The questioner continued: “The debate has become toxic, with an appalling level of lies. How can we trust you to bring this country together?” Johnson answered that the problem was that Parliament has blocked Brexit. The way to restore trust is to get Brexit done, he said. Moderator Julie Etchingham asked, “Does the truth matter in this election?” Johnson replied, “I think it does.” The audience laughed. During the debate, the Conservative Party rebranded its Twitter account to read “FactCheckUK” and then proceeded to tweet messages such as: “@BorisJohnson is the clear winner in tonight’s LeadersDebate.” Full Fact, an actual fact-checking outlet, tweeted that the Conservative Party messages were “inappropriate and misleading” and advised its followers against mistaking the source “for an independent fact checking service.” Etchingham pressed Johnson on his broken pledge to have delivered Brexit by Halloween. “You promised 40 times that we would be out of the E.U. on October 31,” she said. “One of your staff once said you had betrayed everyone who worked with you.” She then turned to Corbyn, asking him: “Can you take responsibility for anti-Semitism in your party?” The Labour Party has been dogged for years by accusations of anti-Semitism, and a BBC documentary that aired over the summer accused the party’s leadership of undermining efforts to address it. Corbyn called anti-Semitism a “scourge” and said his party had worked hard to root it out. Johnson said he would get Brexit done —


Britain sets December date for an election in which Brexit will dominate

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday finally won lawmakers’ support for an early election, setting up a Dec. 12 ballot that will be dominated by Brexit, Brexit and more Brexit. Parliament will dissolve next week, and the parties will go into overdrive on their five-week campaigns. This will be the United Kingdom’s first election in dark and dreary December since 1923 — a time of year when Britons prefer Christmas parties to political party hustings. Voters will be offered some stark choices on Brexit, alongside the usual overenthusiastic promises, scary scenarios, misrepresentations and foggy numbers. Will the British double down on wanting to leave the European Union? Or will they change their minds and decide to stay in the largest trading club on the planet? The Conservative Party under Johnson will run as 100 percent for Brexit, under the banner “Get Brexit done.” The prime minister is planning to campaign against the establishment: the devious opposition, overreaching jurists and other elites who he says have conspired to deny the country its freedom from the European Union. Never mind that Johnson is a scion of privilege — a diplomat’s son, schooled at Eton and Oxford, who went on to become a celebrity journalist and politician with a country home. “There is only one way to get Brexit done in the face of this unrelenting parliamentary obstructionism, this endless, willful, fingers-crossed, ‘not me, guv’ refusal to deliver on the mandate of the people,” Johnson said Tuesday, “and that is to refresh this Parliament.” He hopes that an election will allow his party to regain its parliamentary majority and give him a mandate to do Brexit his way, according to the terms of the withdrawal deal he negotiated with E.U. leaders. The new Brexit Party, led by talk show host Nigel Farage, will be 200 percent for Brexit, arguing: Why even talk to the Europeans anymore? Let’s crash out. The Liberal Democrats will campaign to stop Brexit. And have a second referendum. The Scottish National Party will push to remain in the European Union — and, by the way, promote Scottish independence. And then there’s Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, now the main opposition. Labour has said it will seek a 21st-century socialist agenda, aiming to take back control of utilities and transport, pursue a radical Green New Deal to curb climate change, and put workers on corporate boards. It will campaign


Shooting at Florida base prompts questions about screening of foreign military students

A shooting at a U.S. military base in Florida by a Saudi military student has prompted questions about how the U.S. government scrutinizes candidates for military exchange programs as the Pentagon highlighted the layers of screening already in place. Officials say the gunman opened fire at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Friday, killing three people and injuring several others before he was shot and killed by authorities. After the attack, Sen. Rick Scott (R.-Fla.) called for a “full review” of U.S. military programs that train foreign service members on American soil. Scott said in a statement that he was “extremely concerned by the reports that this shooter was a foreign national training on a U.S. military base” and that the United States must remain vigilant against such attacks. “There is no reason we should be providing state-of-the-art military training to people who wish us harm,” he said. “And most importantly, there is no reason to risk the safety and security of our American men and women in uniform. If not for the bravery displayed by the military personnel on the ground and local law enforcement, today’s tragedy could have been much worse.” Sen. Marco Rubio (R.-Fla.), meanwhile, indicated in tweets Friday evening that he has questions about possible gaps in the “extensive security & suitability vetting” that is required for foreign officers who undergo training in the United States. “Today’s tragic attack has exposed some serious flaw in that process which must be discovered & corrected,” Rubio tweeted. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R.-Fla.), whose district includes Pensacola, said in a video released Friday that he will be working with the Defense and State departments to ensure that the United States has “extreme vetting” for foreign service members who train in the United States. The shooting, he said, “demonstrates a serious failure in the vetting process and in the way in which we invite these people to our community.” But Gaetz acknowledged there are benefits to the training, including ensuring that military partners abroad are familiar with American systems and officers. “Saudi Arabia has long sent people to northwest Florida for this purpose,” he said. “Many of them have gone on to work right alongside our warfighters in the Middle East and around the world.” Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called for a review of on-base weapons policies. “At some point, President Trump and


Police investigating fatal shooting near Anacostia Metro station

arrested a man in connection with the shooting of three people at an apartment in Northeast Washington early Saturday. Vaughn Alexander Kosh, 48, of Northeast Washington, has been charged with first-degree murder while armed and assault with intent to kill, police said. Officers responded at 5:14 a.m. to a report of a shooting at 1716 Capitol Ave. NE, a two-story, four-unit apartment complex. Upon arriving, they found 38-year-old Alayna Dawnielle Howard, of Northeast Washington, dead from multiple gunshot wounds. Police also found another woman, conscious and breathing, with gunshot wounds, and a man, conscious and breathing, with gunshot and stab wounds. Both were taken to a hospital for treatment. The shootings took place inside the apartment building. Further information on the condition of the surviving victims, whom police have not identified, was not immediately available. Further information on the condition of the victims was not immediately available. — Peter Jamison MARYLAND One person is dead and three people were injured after a Jeep Wrangler traveling against traffic collided head-on into a Hyundai Elantra early Saturday, according to Maryland State Police. The crash occurred about 12:45 a.m. Saturday in the northbound lanes of Crain Highway in Faulkner, police said. Police said the Jeep Wrangler was traveling southbound in the northbound lanes of Crain Highway when it crashed into the Hyundai Elantra. The driver of the Jeep was killed, police said. There were two other passengers; one is in critical condition and the other is in stable condition. The driver of the Hyundai Elantra is in critical condition with “life-threatening injuries,” according to police. All were transported to local hospitals. Police said the crash is still under investigation. — Teddy Amenabar VIRGINIA An information technology specialist at the Internal Revenue Service stole identities to open credit card accounts and then used them to run up tens of thousands of dollars in charges, according to federal prosecutors. Kwashie Zilevu, 35, was arraigned in Alexandria federal court on Friday. A jury trial is set for February. An attorney for Zilevu said the alleged crime had no connection to his work at the IRS, and prosecutors have not said otherwise. Zilevu used the names of three victims to buy $69,000 in home goods, international vacations and jewelry between 2016 and 2018, according to court documents. A spokesperson for the Treasury Department did not return a request for comment on Zilevu’s employment status. — Rachel Weiner


Southeast man shot to death near Anacostia Metro station

Police are investigating the fatal shooting of a 30-year-old man in Southeast Washington Friday night. D.C. police officers responded to a report of a shooting at about 7:26 p.m., in the 2500 block of Sheridan Road SE — not far from the Anacostia Metro station. They found Taboris Johnson, a District resident, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Johnson was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Anyone with information about the killing can call police at (202) 727-9099. D.C. police offers rewards of up to $25,000 to those who provide information that leads to the arrest and conviction of suspects in homicide cases. peter.jamison@washpost.com