The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize is about helping the survivors of sexual violence

On Dec. 10, Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad received the Nobel Prize for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. The award is significant but, as Mukwege notes, it “will have real meaning only if it helps mobilize people to change the situation of victims in areas of armed conflict.” Our recent research in eastern Congo shows that this change does not come easily for survivors of sexual violence. Support programs can help survivors economically, but the biggest hurdle they face is social stigma. Survivors of sexual violence in war are shaped by those experiences long after the initial assault. Without community involvement and support, this barrier cannot be overcome. Congo is a dangerous place for women Mukwege’s home country is one of the world’s most dangerous places to be a woman, according to some reports. Since 1999, Mukwege has led Panzi Hospital in eastern Congo, where he has treated thousands of victims of the horrific violence that the ongoing conflict has brought upon civilian populations. Sexual and gender-based violence constitute a massive challenge, particularly in the eastern provinces. Some of this violence is perpetrated by armed groups, but there also are significant levels of violence committed by civilians, as well as domestic violence. To this day, sexual violence is one of the many dangers facing women, children and also men in eastern Congo. As many as 7,500 cases of sexual and gender-based violence were reported during a nine-month period in 2009 in North and South Kivu in eastern Congo. How does Panzi support survivors? A number of local initiatives aim to support survivors of sexual violence by including them in the community and helping improve their livelihoods, as well as empowering women and girls to improve their lives. Panzi Hospital has earned a global reputation for treating survivors of sexual violence and complex gynecological injuries. A holistic model of care provides services that meet the full spectrum of survivor needs: physical recovery, psychosocial and emotional support, community reintegration and legal assistance. But when survivors return home, where the crime happened, reintegrating into their communities can be an enduring challenge. Economically, many survivors must start from scratch and support themselves and their children through small-scale farming, often with limited technical skills and poor access to information and training. A number of follow-up support programs under the auspices of the Panzi


Trump administration resists global climate efforts at home and overseas

The United States joined a controversial proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia this weekend to weaken a reference to a key report on the severity of global warming, sharpening battle lines at the global climate summit in Poland aimed at gaining consensus over how to combat rising temperatures. Arguments erupted Saturday night before a United Nations working group focused on science and technology, where the United States teamed with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to challenge language that would have welcomed the findings of the landmark report, which said that the world has barely 10 years to cut carbon emissions by nearly half to avoid catastrophic warming. “There was going to be an agreement to welcome the . . . report,” said Jake Schmidt, the managing director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s international program, who is in Poland. “The U.S. wanted to ‘note’ it, which is saying in essence that we know it’s out there but we have no comment.” The U.S. position lines up with the views of the Trump administration, which is plowing ahead with a raft of aggressive policies on coal power and oil exploration that are likely to worsen the effects of climate change — steamrolling over dire environmental warnings issued by the administration’s own team of experts in a major report just two weeks ago. “The United States was willing to note the report and express appreciation to the scientists who developed it, but not to welcome it, as that would denote endorsement of the report,” a State Department spokesman said. “As we have made clear in the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other bodies, the United States has not endorsed the findings of the report.” In 2015, as countries of the world negotiated the Paris climate agreement, they asked the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to produce a report in 2018 “on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways.” It’s this report, integral to the negotiations in Katowice, Poland, and specifically timed for them, that has now become a flash point at the talks. Delegates from other nations were surprised when the United States rejected a move to welcome the report and proposed only to “note” it. “The fact that nations are spending this much time on minor wording issues while the science finds increasing risk of catastrophe has to be


The ‘pissing fly’ urinates faster than cheetahs run, teaching scientists about new forms of speed

Gunfire. A rocket launch. Saad Bhamla, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and an expert in “extreme biophysics," knows these are the activities that come to mind when he asks: What moves quickly? Primarily things driven by detonation or combustion — events that involve destruction. But he’s interested in a different sort of speed, so he refines the question: What are fast movements in nature? Here, too, he knows there are obvious answers. For humans, it’s Usain Bolt crossing a finish line. In the animal kingdom, a cheetah’s pursuit or the flight of a falcon. These are good guesses, Bhamla acknowledged, but they come up short. He has found a much faster activity, by investigating a phenomenon that, he said bashfully, “not a lot of serious engineers and biologist want to explore." That phenomenon is the way insects pee. He has discovered that certain pesky critters fling their urine far faster than cheetahs run, and he thinks the discovery might illuminate nondestructive solutions for difficult engineering dilemmas. The starting point was Bhamla’s fascination with the way liquid waste rains down from trees and plants populated by sharpshooters, sap-sucking pests native to the Southeast United States and northeastern Mexico that have also made significant inroads elsewhere. They threaten California’s wine industry and wreak havoc on citrus fruit in Florida by spreading bacteria from infected vegetation. Studying the way these tiny beasts urinate, Bhamla said, yields important lessons about the dynamics of speed, all the more urgent given the “global challenge of insect decline.” “First, we need to learn from nature how she does it, before we, as engineers, can build it,” he said. The seemingly commonplace insects — they are to plants what mosquitoes are to humans, Bhamla explained — push the limits of what we ordinarily expect of biology and physics. The stream from a tree infested with sharpshooters is so vigorous that it can douse passersby. The effect is known as “leafhopper rain," and it has earned the pest the nickname "pissing fly.” “It’s crazy when you see it,” Bhamla said. “It’s one of those puzzling things you notice, and then you keep thinking about." He wondered: Why do these tiny insects emit so much liquid, and how do they do it so quickly? There was no satisfying data on how insects relieved themselves. So as he prepared to move from California, where


Scouts’ recruitment war raises questions about what it means to be a girl or a boyThis is a developing story. It will be updated.


D.C.-area forecast: Today may be brightest of the next few as clouds build ahead of gathering stormThis is a developing story. It will be updated.


We study the climate. We chose not to fly to D.C. for a conference on it.

year to flying less than 30,000, and one of us has not flown in years. In our personal commitments to fly less, we are bucking cultural norms in Earth science, and in academia more generally. When one of us recently chose not to fly across the country to receive an award for climate research, the decision generated mixed reactions among fellow climate scientists. In other instances, invited talks were rescinded when we requested to present remotely to save carbon emissions. We have chosen to bear the professional costs of reduced networking opportunities and less visibility for our work, and, in many cases, the personal costs of missed family vacations to far-flung destinations. We know that these individual choices to fly less will not “save the planet.” To address climate change on the rapid time scale outlined in the recent climate assessments, collective steps such as adopting a carbon fee at the federal level and enhancing renewable portfolio standards at the state level, among others, will be essential. However, collective action requires collective urgency. Although we fly less primarily to reduce our emissions, we also recognize that individual action shifts norms and can catalyze collective action, including institutional change at our universities and professional societies. We envision a future in which scientists can attend conferences remotely, engaging with their colleagues during online presentations and grabbing a virtual coffee with that long-lost mentor. While there will certainly be growing pains, we see this as an opportunity to create more inclusive collaborative meeting models, allowing those without travel funding or with family-care responsibilities to participate, for example. With thoughtful design and iteration, zero-carbon 21st-century meeting models could increase connectivity and productivity for scientists and nonscientists alike. Each year, as climate impacts worsen and the timeline for action shrinks, a growing number of Earth scientists and other academics are choosing to fly less. We encourage our universities and professional societies to invest in the technical infrastructure and to develop the online meeting models that will accelerate our shift away from frequent flying as a professional necessity. In the meantime, we are content to go by ground — or not at all. Read more: This is what happens when climate change forces an entire country to relocate America is the worst polluter in the history of the world. We should resettle climate refugees here. Hurricanes like Michael show why we can’t ignore climate change anymore


Saudi Arabia’s brutal treatment of female reformers should have woken us up long ago

after their arrests should also have been telling: Whereas female detainees in Saudi Arabia had traditionally been dealt with quietly, these women were subject to an unprecedented campaign of public defamation. The government circulated lurid reports linking them to foreign espionage and Qatari plots, and accusing them of dishonoring the reputation of the Saudi state. The government also published photographs of many of the women, a shocking move in a still-conservative society. As one human rights expert working in the region told me, “We’ve never seen women’s faces plastered on the front pages in this way — it’s an attack on their honor, and their family’s honor, that could be very dangerous for them all.” (Notably, the 18 Saudis arrested by the state in connection to Khashoggi’s killing have not been named publicly.) In these moments, the crown prince revealed he did not feel bound even by the traditional standards of his own culture or state. By failing to recognize the unprecedented viciousness of his attack on the women prisoners, the international community missed several important chances to chastise the crown prince — chastisement which would have come months before Khashoggi’s death. Instead, the collective dismissal of the women’s mistreatment signaled to Mohammed to proceed in his march toward unilateral control of both hard and soft power in the kingdom. It was this single-minded mission that motivated Mohammed to tighten his censorship on the Saudi press even as he spent millions marketing himself as a liberalizing reformer. This censorship is what drove Khashoggi to flee the kingdom, and what motivated him to speak out against the royal family, whom he once supported. Khashoggi saw the signs, and he paid dearly for his decision to bring them to light. If there was ever a time to doubt the nature of the crown prince’s rule, it has long since past. As the grisly reports of torture remind us, many still paying an enormous price for our misplaced credulity. And while most of us will never see the inside of a Saudi jail, the danger of an unrepentant Mohammed is a global one. Should the crown prince remain convinced that he will face no meaningful consequences for his brutality, we can expect more blood to be spilled — in Saudi Arabia, in Yemen and even elsewhere. Read more: The Post’s View: Oppression in the Middle East is worse than ever — and Trump


May delays vote on Brexit deal, says it faced rejectionThis is a developing story. It will be updated.


The cultural anxiety fueling France’s protests, Brexit and Trump

subsidize; toward both legal and undocumented immigrants who they see as upending the mores and language of their hometowns; toward those minorities who, in their minds, benefit unfairly from affirmative action; and toward distant elites in the cities who project disdain for them and their way of life.” The 2016 vote for Brexit echoed a similar set of grievances and suspicions among Britons — in particular, resentment of the “distant elites” holding sway over their lives. Macron, now viewed by his critics as an aloof, technocratic would-be monarch, came to power as an outsider bent on shaking up France’s political establishment. But his efforts toward reform have mostly fanned the flames of public discontent. Experts fear a similar backlash as Britain stumbles toward a potentially calamitous crisis over Brexit. “The 2016 Brexit vote, like the election of Macron and the protests against him now, represented a rejection of the established political order and a burbling dissatisfaction with the status quo,” wrote Bloomberg View’s Therese Raphael. The unrest in France underscores an atmosphere of uncertainty and crisis looming over Western societies “The terms of our social and republican compromise was generated throughout fifty years of our history,” Danielle Tartakowsky, a historian at Paris 8 University, told French daily Le Figaro. “But there is not much left of it now. A new social compromise remains to be born. In my opinion, the yellow vests are a serious symptom … of a problem whose outcome nobody seems to be able to control.” Instead, as the leftist former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis recently put it, the West seems to be teetering into “a post-modern 1930s,” where right-wing populists stir a toxic cocktail of cultural fear and rage, while others seek the wholesale dismantling of the establishment. Critics fear they are circling the edge of a volcano. “What unites Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon with France’s rioting gilets jaunes and the UK’s fiercest Brexiters is not just their will to upturn the existing order. It is their belief that transient economic strife is the worst that could possibly happen,” wrote Janan Ganesh of the Financial Times. “None of these people actively desires civilizational meltdown. They just under-rate the prospect of it happening as an inadvertent result of their actions.” Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know?


Cooking with cannabis classes are teaching Marylanders how to make their own marijuana edibles

relief,” added Gwenelle Parks, 34. “It takes longer to digest.” While Maryland patients can’t purchase edibles, they can, under a gray area of the law, legally buy tinctures, tablets, powders and drinks alongside machines they can use to make cannabis-infused oils. Dispensary sales in Maryland have topped $68 million since last year and are expected to reach as much as $100 million by the end of 2018, blowing by projections from one of the cannabis industry’s leading market research firms. By April, 22,437 people were certified as patients by the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission. By November, that number had more than doubled. Will Parks said their classes attract patients of all ages, ethnicities and backgrounds who don’t enjoy the sensation of smoking cannabis or the smell it emits. Kiara Walker, who attended one of the November classes at the Baltimore School of Food in the Broadway East neighborhood, said she wanted to learn how to make her own edibles so she could conveniently and discreetly carry around the only medicine she’s found that treats her gastroparesis, which limits her ability to digest. “I used to vomit for days, but since I got my card, I’ve had none of that nausea,” said Walker, 25. She said she looked forward to making gummy bears, chocolates and other sweets with her medicine. Will Parks said people stigmatize edibles as recreational vehicles for “stoners who sit on the couch” rather than agents for long-lasting pain relief and comfort for people with debilitating conditions. “You can abuse anything — food, alcohol, whatever it may be,” he said. “Dosing is the most important thing, and one of the most important things we get at in classes.” Food infused with too much of the drug can lead to side effects ranging from forgetfulness to anxiety and hallucinations, according to Poison Control. Psychotic episodes and other complications are rare. It requires a bit of math, but the Parkses explain to attendees how to evenly infuse the drug into a host of foods such as chocolate fudge brownies, “canna gummies,” smoothies and even savory meats, breads and salad dressings. The recipes generally require substituting cannabis-infused butter or oil for regular butters and oils. At a class before Thanksgiving, the couple demonstrated how to infuse cannabis into a holiday-themed spread, which included corn-bread muffins (made with “canna butter” instead of real butter), turkey meatballs and gravy (also made by substituting


Russians interacted with at least 14 Trump associates during the campaign and transition

have ties to Russian intelligence and met with Manafort twice during the campaign. Details about those alleged falsehoods were redacted from the filing. The Post has previously reported that Manafort asked Kilimnik to extend an offer of “private briefings” about the campaign to Oleg Deripaska, a top Russian businessman who is close to Putin. Deripaska’s spokeswoman has said no such briefings took place. Some outreach came directly from the Russian government. Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak met several Trump advisers, including then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), at the Republican National Convention. Trump aide Carter Page has said he was greeted by Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich after delivering a speech in Moscow in July 2016. People close to Trump were twice offered damaging information about Clinton, a particular foe of Putin whom he blamed for fomenting protests against his regime while she was secretary of state. In June 2016, Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer, who he was told would provide dirt on Clinton. The meeting was arranged by billionaire Moscow developer Aras Agalarov and his pop star son Emin. The attendees of the Trump Tower gathering, which also included Manafort and Kushner, said lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya offered nothing helpful. But several attendees described to congressional investigators Trump Jr.’s eagerness for the Russian’s assistance, according to transcripts of their testimony. In addition, Russians repeatedly suggested a meeting between Trump and Putin might be a good idea. Months after people familiar with the approach say the Russian weightlifter broached the idea of such a summit with Cohen, Ivan Timofeev, a director of a Moscow think tank with ties to the Russian foreign ministry, discussed a Trump-Putin meeting with George Papadopoulos, a Trump foreign policy adviser. A London-based professor also connected Papadopoulos to a Russian woman who the Trump adviser believed was Putin’s niece. Some of the interactions between Trump associates and Russians were low-level, speculative discussions. “The kind of people we are talking about are not the kind of people you talk to about U.S.-Russia relations, the future of the START treaty and so on,” McFaul said, referring to a landmark nuclear-weapons pact. But he said the Russians would have taken note of the willingness of Trump aides to engage. “I think the Russians would nurture those contacts and see them as a way to establish relationships that could be useful for Putin and his government,” he said. rosalind.helderman@washpost.com tom.hamburger@washpost.com carol.leonnig@washpost.com


The sad truth about Russian election interference

thought it was important to discuss why they were released in the first place. “Experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, and other experts are now saying that the Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose of actually helping Donald Trump,” I told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “The Lead.” I wasn’t offering my opinion; I was stating what cybersecurity experts had determined. Weeks before the emails’ release, the Russian connection was already clear: The Post article that on June 14 broke the news of the DNC hack said in its headline that “Russian government hackers” were the culprits. Vice News’s Motherboard reported two days later that some of the technology used to process the stolen documents employed Russian language settings, and one username referred to the first head of Soviet intelligence. The affinity between Trump and the Russian government by that point was already so apparent that Politico Magazine’s May/June issue had run a lengthy article referring to him as “The Kremlin’s Candidate.” Also in May, Trump had named Paul Manafort as his campaign chairman. Manafort had been a lobbyist and consultant for pro-Vladimir Putin Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, before Yanukovych’s ouster in a 2014 coup, and an adviser to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. At the Republican National Convention in mid-July, the Trump campaign, seemingly out of the blue, had twisted arms to make the GOP platform more Putin-friendly. Unusually, the convention was attended by the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Earlier that month, Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page had given a speech in Moscow criticizing the United States for its “often hypocritical focus on democratization” and praising the Putin regime. We knew all of this at the Democratic National Convention. And yet when I and other members of the campaign repeated that Russia was responsible for the hack and was doing this to help Donald Trump, many in the press seemed skeptical, treating the assertion as mere spin. A lot of people appeared to believe that the idea of Russia helping Trump was far-fetched. Even some of our staunchest supporters seemed to think I might have lost my marbles. Election Day was long gone before Russia’s interference in the campaign — and the possibility of the Kremlin’s coordination with agents of the Trump campaign — was widely accepted. Even today, some people still muse about whether


Democrats should investigate the Kushner-MBS connection

We should all be so lucky to have one friend in our lives as loyal as Jared Kushner is to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It’s no secret that the pair have been in regular contact since the beginning of the Trump administration. But while many inside and outside of the U.S. government have turned against the crown prince since the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the president’s son-in-law has remained steadfast in his friendship. The New York Times reported Saturday that, since Khashoggi’s murder, Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman “have continued to chat informally.” Kushner “has offered the crown prince advice about how to weather the storm, urging him to resolve his conflicts around the region and avoid further embarrassments.” It’s a relationship the incoming Democratic House majority can and should investigate. That Kushner is showing such loyalty is hardly surprising, given that Mohammed bin Salman, also known as MBS, and his advisers have worked on cultivating Kushner going back to just after the 2016 election. Documents reviewed by the Times suggest that Kushner was targeted because, as the Times put it, of his “scant knowledge about the region, a transactional mind-set and an intense focus on reaching a deal with the Palestinians that met Israel’s demands.” In other words, MBS and company sought to exploit Kushner’s lack of expertise — an alarming prospect for anyone concerned about U.S. foreign policy. Mohammed bin Salman has done well from the relationship. Both his ouster of his older cousin as crown prince last May and his detention of 200 wealthy Saudis were preceded by Kushner visits to Riyadh. (Both of MBS’s moves were followed with praise from President Trump.) As the evidence tying bin Salman to Khashoggi’s murder increased, Kushner “became the prince’s most important defender inside the White House,” according to the Times. Meanwhile, it seems Kushner has little to show on his end. For example, “after proposing to marshal up to $100 billion in investments in American infrastructure, the Saudis have announced an investment of only $20 billion.” Without accomplishments to point to, Kushner has resorted to creating them: As my colleague Karen Attiah (Khashoggi’s editor) points out, Kushner pushed Defense and State Department officials to inflate the value of a U.S.-Saudi arms deal to $110 billion, even though they told Kushner that “realistically they had about $15 billion worth of deals in works.” All of


Oversight of U.S. military’s food suppliers called into question after fraud indictment

Executives from a company responsible for providing food and water for deployed U.S. troops in Afghanistan have been charged with defrauding the government and creating a fake construction site to overstate progress on an $8 billion contract, the Justice Department said in a recently filed indictment. The allegations came four years after the company’s predecessor pleaded guilty to criminal charges that it inflated prices for basic items that it sold to the U.S. military. Both cases emphasize how the U.S. military has struggled to curb abuses of U.S. defense spending in America’s longest-running foreign war as the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan enters its 17th year, analysts said. On Nov. 27, the Justice Department charged Abdul Huda Farouki, Mazen Farouki and Salah Maarouf — three Virginia residents who worked with a Dubai-based company called Anham Fzco — with defrauding the U.S. military under an estimated $8 billion military supply contract. The Justice Department also accused them of laundering money, violating U.S. sanctions while shipping products through Iran, and photographing a fake construction scene to mislead contracting. The individuals pleaded not guilty. The lawsuit revived long-standing concerns over Anham’s stewardship of taxpayer dollars. It also raised questions about the government’s oversight of the subsistence prime vendor, which has a contract known as an SPV-A. . The contract is seen as important to the U.S. military’s presence in Afghanistan because it ensures deployed U.S. troops have access to food, water and basic provisions. Servicing it is immensely challenging, however, because the contractor is required to build and maintain a distribution network in the middle of a war zone. Before Anham took over that work, a privately held Swiss company called Supreme Foodservice Gmbh, pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2014 and paid $288.36 million in criminal fines following a congressional inquiry. Scott Amey, general counsel with the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, described the Pentagon’s oversight of the food and water supply contract as a game of “catch me if you can,” in which the government is losing. “Uncle Sam spends over $500 billion annually on contracts, so contractor responsibility and oversight of contracts are essential to prevent waste, fraud, abuse and corruption. Unfortunately, oversight often takes a back seat,” Amey said of the indictment. “The allegations of fraud against Anham are even more disturbing because other food service contractors in Afghanistan have pleaded guilty to similar charges in the past.” Patrick


The Technology 202: Microsoft’s Brad Smith says other tech companies need to get behind a facial recognition law, too

taken against the technology industry at large. To be sure, Microsoft also has a strong business incentive to ensure other companies buy into its principles. “It would be used in a way where the risk of error would be too high,” Smith said. Microsoft has also passed on deals where the technology would be used for domestic surveillance in other countries. “In that kind of situation, we just did not feel comfortable about the human rights dynamics involved.” Microsoft believes industry buy-in is needed to avoid a “race to the bottom,” but other companies who have not taken such a public stance may still be in the running for those contracts. Amazon works with law enforcement on facial recognition, and it has marketed its system to police departments as a way to identify criminals. It is deployed for officers’ use in Oregon and Florida, my colleague Drew Harwell reported earlier this year, and the company pitched its system to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials earlier this year. Amazon’s technology has prompted a slew of backlash from privacy advocates -- and some lawmakers such as those in the Congressional Black Caucus who fear the software could misidentify people of color and have “profound negative unintended consequences... for African Americans, undocumented immigrants, and protesters.” Amazon has defended the work it does with law enforcement. “[M]achine learning is a very valuable tool to help law enforcement agencies, and while being concerned it’s applied correctly, we should not throw away the oven because the temperature could be set wrong and burn the pizza,” the company wrote in a blog post this summer. Microsoft came under fire over the summer as employees raised the concern that its own technology could be used by ICE per a cloud computing agreement the company has with the agency, Drew also reported. But the company later said it doesn't work with ICE on facial recognition. Microsoft took that stance as it first unveiled its push for facial recognition legislation this summer. BITS: Tech executives took a step toward mending their tense relationship with the Trump administration at a White House meeting yesterday, where they discussed tightening collaboration with the government on artificial intelligence and addressed other issues such as 5G technology and quantum computing Pichai, who is set to testify before the House Judiciary Committee next week, said in a statement that the discussion was “productive and engaging,” NIBBLES:


Why it’s a real mistake to count on a cellphone when you go hiking

for other location-based services, up from 74 percent in 2013. That heavy reliance on devices can give people a false sense of security. In October 2015, a surveyor found the remains of Geraldine Largay, 66, who was hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail alone in the summer of 2013, stepped off the path and apparently became disoriented. She tried to use her cellphone to text for help, possibly causing further disorientation, especially if she was moving around while looking at her device instead of her surroundings. But she was in the dense woods of Maine, and she couldn’t get a signal. She survived almost a month before dying of exposure and starvation. Nobody knows how many U.S. hikers get lost each year, according to Robert J. Koester, an instructor for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management and the chief executive of dbS Productions, which conducts search-and-rescue training and publishes related information. While a database that Koester created shows 24,000 formal search-and-rescue efforts a year, it’s imprecise, he said, given that many hikers get lost for only a short time. “Many are able to eventually reorient themselves, or are lucky enough to stumble across someone else,” he said. But for some hikers, the wrong turn proves deadly. Preventing such tragedies is one reason that Stacy Boone teaches land navigation classes through her company, Step Outdoors, which works in southwest Colorado and northern New Mexico. Boone, who says she is a relative by marriage of the 18th-century explorer Daniel Boone, organizes wilderness trips to teach inexperienced hikers and backpackers how to use a map and compass. She has earned the Triple Crown of Hiking, an award given to people who have completed the Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail. She says that knowing how to follow a map while traversing a trail, how to orient a map north and how to set a bearing are critical skills that have helped her in forests, mountains, canyons, fields and deserts, no matter how many twists and turns she has taken. People tend to panic when they’re lost or think they’re lost, Boone said. And panic leads to irrational behavior. Her first rule? Just stop. Drink water. Eat a snack. Doing so will help you calm down. It will also help you slow down. “The classic behavior when you get lost is to speed up,” said Jamie O’Donnell, a


U.S. military abandons search for five missing Marines after crash near Japan

TOKYO — The U.S. military has ended search operations for five missing Marines involved in an accident off the coast of Japan five days ago, declaring all of them dead. Two Marines were rescued from the ocean after an F/A 18 Hornet fighter jet and a KC-130 refueling plane collided at 2 a.m. local time Thursday. One of the Marines was subsequently declared dead. The latest news brings the death toll from the accident to six. “Every possible effort was made to recover our crew and I hope the families of these selfless Americans will find comfort in the incredible efforts made by U.S., Japanese, and Australian forces during the search,” Lt. Gen. Eric Smith, commander of the III Marine Expeditionary Force, said in a statement. The U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force and its coast guard were among the forces that rushed to the scene of the crash off the Japanese coast. Next of kin have been informed, and the identities of the Marines will be revealed 24 hours after their families are told. The incident has heightened concerns about air accidents involving the U.S. military in Japan, where some 54,000 troops are stationed. It has also added to a growing list of accidents involving U.S. military planes all over the world, raising concerns that budget cuts, 17 years of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, and the cost of maintaining a fleet of aging aircraft have fatally undermined safety. The Marine Corps said the circumstances of this latest “mishap” remain under investigation. “The aircraft were conducting regularly scheduled training. It is not confirmed that aerial refueling was ongoing when the mishap occurred,” it said in a statement. “The Marine Corps rigorously investigates all aviation mishaps to identify the causes, learn from them, and mitigate future incidents.” The two Marines from the Hornet fighter were found in the ocean, but one had spent more than 10 hours in the water and was later declared dead. He was named last week as Capt. Jahmar F. Resilard, 28, a pilot with the Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 242, known as the Bats, stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in southern Japan. Resilard was from Miramar, Fla. His decorations include the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and National Defense Service Medal, the Marines said last week. “The Bats are deeply saddened


Mexico’s new president must address the epidemic of mass graves

Marcela Turati, Alejandra Guillén and Mago Torres are Mexican journalists and the coordinators of the investigation From 2006 to 2016, almost 2,000 mass graves used by criminals to disappear people were discovered in Mexico, according to official records. This barbaric practice took place in 24 states, affecting 1 in 7 municipalities. These are some of the results of a year-and-a-half-long investigation led by a group of journalists concerned about the systematic and widespread practice of disappearing people. During the past two administrations, 37,000 have gone missing. Our investigation — which discovered 1,978 clandestine graves, the municipalities where they were located and the number of bodies and remains extracted — shows more than double the highest number of graves reported during the same period by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), a federal government agency. Our figures were taken from documents obtained from state prosecutors via requests for public information. We constantly had to cross-examine and try to interpret the documents because each state has its own criteria for classifying findings, if any. An interactive map shows the number of mass-grave sites increased significantly in the past two Mexican presidential administrations, during the “war against the narco.” In 2006, the first year of Felipe Calderón’s government, only two graves were registered in one state; in 2010, the annual figure rose to 105 graves in 14 states; in 2011, the number jumped to 375 in 20 states, equivalent on average to one grave per day. Since 2012, when Enrique Peña Nieto assumed the presidency and prolonged the militarized strategy, the yearly statistics on clandestine burials have not fallen below 245. And we were being conservative: We removed the figures we had doubts about and those that could be duplicated. We also did not include figures such as those from the Attorney General’s Office, because they used a different methodology. The map is incomplete because eight states in the country — a quarter of the national territory — responded that they could not find graves in their records. The Yucatán is the only state where there is no evidence of official figures or news reports regarding graves. Last month we launched the #MéxicoPaísdeFosas (#MexicoCountryofGraves) investigation with various media outlets. People with missing relatives attended the public presentation, among them the mother of an agent from the Office of the Federal Attorney General who worked to combat kidnapping and who has been missing since


AMLO hereda la responsabilidad de ofrecer justicia para los desaparecidos

Marcela Turati, Alejandra Guillén y Mago Torres son periodistas mexicanas y coordinadoras de la investigación “ Desde 2006 a 2016, fueron descubiertos en México, según registros oficiales, casi dos mil fosas clandestinas donde criminales desaparecieron personas. La barbarie abarca 24 estados del país y uno de cada siete municipios. Estos fueron algunos de los resultados de la investigación que durante más de año y medio realizamos un grupo de periodistas preocupados por la práctica sistemática y masiva de desaparecer personas que, en los últimos dos sexenios presidenciales, arrasó con por lo menos 37,000 personas que siguen sin ser localizadas. El hallazgo de 1978 entierros clandestinos, los municipios donde se ubicaron, el número de cuerpos y restos extraídos, y el mapa que lo acompaña revela más del doble de la cifra más alta de fosas reportadas en ese mismo periodo por la Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH), un organismo gubernamental federal. Las cifras provienen de documentos de fiscalías estatales que obtuvimos mediante un burocrático camino vía solicitudes de información pública a las que constantemente hubo que repreguntar y tratar de interpretar porque cada estado tiene sus propios criterios para clasificar hallazgos, si es que los tiene. El mapa interactivo de la evolución de las fosas es un espejo horroroso y a la vez revelador sobre el desbordamiento de las fosas en los dos sexenios en los que se utilizó la estrategia de seguridad bautizada como “la guerra contra las drogas”. En el mapa se nota cómo la desaparición por medio de entierros ilícitos creció a niveles de catástrofe: el primer año, en 2006, cuando empieza el gobierno de Felipe Calderón, registró solo 2 fosas en un estado; en 2010 la cifra anual subió a 105 fosas, en 14 estados; en 2011 saltó a 375 en 20 estados, equivalente en promedio a una fosa por día. A partir de 2012 –cuando Enrique Peña Nieto asumió la presidencia y prolongó la estrategia militarizada– los hallazgos de entierros clandestinos, por año, no han bajado de 245. Fuimos conservadoras: retiramos las cifras sobre las que tuvimos dudas y aquellas que podrían ser duplicadas, y no sumamos las de otras dependencias como la Procuraduría General de la República, porque tiene distinta metodología. El paisaje está incompleto porque ocho estados del país, una cuarta parte del territorio nacional, respondieron que no encuentran fosas en sus registros, aunque Yucatán es el único donde no existe evidencia


‘Truth isn’t truth’: Rudy Giuliani’s flub tops 2018’s quotes of the year

“I didn’t —” Todd: Truth isn’t truth? Mr. Mayor, do you realize, what, I, I, I Giuliani: No, no, no Todd: This is going to be a bad meme. Giuliani: Don’t do, don’t do this to me. Todd: Don’t do ‘truth isn’t truth’ to me. Giuliani later sought to clarify his comments, saying he was referring to instances in which two people make contradictory statements, “the classic ‘he said, she said’ puzzle,” he said. But those comments, like White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” — which topped Shapiro’s list last year — are bound to never be forgotten. Shapiro said he usually tries to diversify the list by drawing from popular culture, sports and business. But this year’s list, he said, is mostly focused on politics. Nearly all the quotes that made the list either touched on hot-button issues or were uttered in a partisan context. Some quotes were said, others tweeted; some were made in moments of eloquence, others in moments of blunder. And all reflect “the deplorable state of our culture,” Shapiro said. “I may choose quotes because they have negative characteristics, or because they have positive characteristics, or just because they are striking or revealing,” he said. No. 2 on the list: “I liked beer. I still like beer.” Brett M. Kavanaugh said this repeatedly during a Senate hearing about a sexual assault accusation lodged by Christine Blasey Ford, who said that Kavanaugh — whose nomination to the Supreme Court was being considered — drunkenly tried to rape her during a house party more than 30 years ago. “The Kavanaugh quote came in a very serious context of a nomination hearing revolving around a possible scandalous behavior, but I think this quote about beer was widely regarded as strikingly colorful,” Shapiro said. “The fact that he repeatedly talked about beer, of all things, in a Supreme Court nomination hearing [when] there were very real questions as to whether he was falsifying his history of drinking made it a very compelling quote.” Here’s the complete list, as published Tuesday by the Associated Press: Elise Viebeck contributed to this article. Read more: Kellyanne Conway says Donald Trump’s team has ‘alternative facts.’ Which pretty much says it all. ‘There was no Plan B’: Trump scrambles to find chief of staff after top candidate turns him down Kavanaugh likes beer — but Trump is a teetotaler: ‘He doesn’t like drinkers.’


Is it time to scrap Brexit?

Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? British Prime Minister Theresa May snatched defeat from the jaws of defeat Monday A day before a scheduled parliamentary vote on her Brexit plan — that is, on the terms of Britain’s divorce with Europe — May opted to delay taking her deal to the floor, knowing she faced near-certain ignominious rejection from her peers. For weeks, May’s plan looked dead in the water. Die-hard Brexiteers within her Conservative Party said the agreement was far too soft, as it kept Britain within the continental bloc’s customs union, limiting its ability to shape laws and rules. The withdrawal agreement’s provisions regarding an open border between Northern Ireland and Ireland was a non-starter for some in May’s camp, who feared an erosion of British sovereignty. And the opposition, composed largely of politicians who want to remain within the European Union, was never going to rubber-stamp May’s muddled compromise. Even so, the prime minister’s decision to delay only darkened the clouds looming over Westminster: A parliamentary vote, even one that ended in failure for May, would have moved the procedural needle further along as the country lurches toward its break with the European Union — slated for the end of March. Instead, the enfeebled prime minister must once more go to Europe later this week to seek some way out of the impasse. It’s unlikely the gathered dignitaries in Brussels will give her all that much — Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, warned Monday that there would be no renegotiation of the agreement. And, at home, the prime minister’s time may be running out. May’s political career will probably never shake the foul odor of two years of tortured dealings over Brexit Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon decried the “pathetic cowardice by a PM and government that have run out of road and now need to get out of the way.” Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn warned that “bringing back the same botched deal, either next week or in January … will not change its fundamental flaws.” Steve Baker, a member of Parliament from May’s own party, offered a matter-of-fact conclusion: “This isn’t the mark of a stable government or a strong plan.” Most of the right-wing populists and political opportunists who lit the fire for Brexit


The Finance 202: China sends warning to U.S. businesses with iPhone ban

only U.S. company similarly reliant on the country as an assembly shop. “Cisco Systems Inc. routers, Dell Inc. computers, and wiring harnesses for Ford Motor Co. are sourced from China,” Bloomberg columnist Tim Culpan writes. “Even the servers deployed by Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. can be traced back to the country’s deep supply chain… Despite the rhetoric from both sides, cooler heads have so far prevailed: Americans are still getting their iPhones, and Chinese can buy Qualcomm Inc. chips. But increasingly, foreign components are being replaced by local versions. The same cannot be said for U.S. hopes to replace Chinese labor, factories and supply chains.” Bank of America analyst David Woo — who earned credibility as a forecaster in September 2016 when he said investors were underweighting the possibility of a Trump win, and predicted if he did, the economy would surge on fiscal stimulus — says prospects are fading for a lasting U.S.-China peace. Woo said in an interview on Bloomberg TV on Monday he just returned from China, and his biggest takeaway is that “we may be this close to sort of a nationalistic, anti-American backlash in China, which so far hasn’t happened by the way… This Huawei news has been widely circulated within China over the last 24 hours.” — May scrambles for new Brexit deal. FT's George Parker and Laura Hughes: “A humiliated Theresa May will embark on a tour of European capitals on Tuesday to plead for a better Brexit deal, after the British prime minister was forced at the eleventh hour to abort a crunch House of Commons vote on her plan. Mrs May admitted she was facing defeat by a ‘significant margin’ in the vote scheduled for Tuesday, but there were ominous signs from Brussels that the EU was not going to cut her an improved deal. “Donald Tusk, European Council president, said the EU was ‘ready to discuss how to facilitate the UK ratification,’ but warned there could be no renegotiation of the Brexit deal or the controversial Irish backstop. Mrs May’s Brexit deal and her premiership now hang by a thread. Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the Conservative pro-Brexit European Research Group, said chaos had descended. ‘It’s not really governing, it’s an awful muddle,’ he said.” — Powell widens charm offensive.Bloomberg's Craig Torres: “Jerome Powell is ramping up Federal Reserve communication to build public trust and help insulate it


The Energy 202: Trump’s border wall would hurt Texas wildlife, government experts warned

THE LIGHTBULB Career officials at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, like many biologists who have studied wildlife along the U.S.-Mexico border, were concerned last year about the construction of President Trump’s border wall. They worried it could harm animals there that know no human-drawn boundaries. Federal wildlife biologists and managers were concerned about animals falling into large holes dug for fence posts, dying in floods when trapped against the wall and otherwise having their habitats severed by the man-made barrier. But a number of those concerns did not always make it to border officials considering the wall’s construction. Interior Department officials stripped from a key letter to U.S. Customs and Border Protection a number of warnings by career staffers about the potential impacts of the border wall on the area’s rare cats and other animals, The deletions from a Fish and Wildlife letter ultimately sent in 2017, revealed in documents released under the Freedom of Information Act to the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife, are the latest example of the Trump administration brushing aside career wildlife officials’ recommendations when their conclusions clash with political priorities. In emails months before the letter was crafted, a key Interior Department official made it clear to Fish and Wildlife Service officials that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “has indicated we are to support the border security mission.” When reached for comment, the Interior Department, which houses the Service, declined to answer questions about the letter. The construction of a wall along the entire southern border ranks among Trump’s highest priorities. But the Trump administration has been preparing to build the border wall since well before securing all the money for it. In August 2017, CBP asked the Fish and Wildlife Service for its input on how animals would be affected by the construction of 60 miles of levee and bollard wall in Hidalgo and Starr counties, near the southern tip of Texas, the documents show. By September, wildlife biologists and managers at Fish and Wildlife penned a draft letter of “informal comments” on the possible impacts. The staffers' conclusion in the draft letter: “In general, the Service recommends considering technology, additional Border Patrol agents and other mechanisms, when possible, instead of installation of levee or bollard walls.” This is not the first time Trump administration goals have taken priority over the recommendations of Fish and Wildlife Service staffers since Trump took office. In an


it clear to Fish and Wildlife Service officials that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke “has indicated we are to support the border security mission.” When reached for comment, the Interior Department, which houses the Service, declined to answer questions about the letter. The construction of a wall along the entire southern border ranks among Trump’s highest priorities. But the Trump administration has been preparing to build the border wall since well before securing all the money for it. In August 2017, CBP asked the Fish and Wildlife Service for its input on how animals would be affected by the construction of 60 miles of levee and bollard wall in Hidalgo and Starr counties, near the southern tip of Texas, the documents show. By September, wildlife biologists and managers at Fish and Wildlife penned a draft letter of “informal comments” on the possible impacts. The staffers' conclusion in the draft letter: “In general, the Service recommends considering technology, additional Border Patrol agents and other mechanisms, when possible, instead of installation of levee or bollard walls.” This is not the first time Trump administration goals have taken priority over the recommendations of Fish and Wildlife Service staffers since Trump took office. In an interview earlier this year with Alaska Public Media, Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Joe Balash said he and other appointees had experienced a “really difficult management challenge” with Fish and Wildlife Service employees when it came to carrying out the administration’s plans to expand drilling in the Arctic refuge. “You could just tell from all of the nonverbal communication going on in the room that they were not happy to see us, they were not happy to talk about this, they still weren’t necessarily prepared to accept this new reality,” Balash said. Read the whole story here: — WHAT'S HAPPENING IN POLAND: Here is what’s happening at the conference, per Mooney: — Climate scientists count human-driven extreme weather events: “This is the second consecutive year that scientists have identified an event that could not have happened without human-induced warming,” she adds. “Scientists have traditionally been wary of blaming any individual event on climate change… But thanks to improved data collection and increasingly sophisticated climate models, researchers can see the influence of climate change on specific disasters, such as six days of rain over northeast Bangladesh.” — Climate protesters storm Pelosi's office — again: The group is pushing


Capital Gazette staff among ‘the Guardians’ named Time’s Person of the Year

The staff of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis has been named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, along with four other individual journalists. The magazine called this year’s winners “the Guardians” and noted the winners’ work for “speaking out” to expose “the manipulation and the abuse of truth” around the world. The Capital Gazette staff was attacked in their newsroom in June. Five staff members were fatally shot. On Twitter, the Capital Gazette wrote, “Our staff is among those honored as @TIME’s Person of the Year.” Paul W. Gillespie, a photographer at the Capital Gazette, tweeted that he was “humbled” to be a part of those honored, and he thanked Time. He went on: “Now I am crying thinking about all the things that happened that day. . . . How I wish none of it happened and my five @capgaznews family members were still here with us.” On Tuesday, a memorial dedication ceremony is planned for the slain Gazette employees at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, at the University of Maryland at College Park. Others recognized by Time include Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist who was killed at the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul in October; Maria Ressa, who runs an online news site in the Philippines; and Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were arrested in Myanmar. The magazine honors a person or group of people who it believes most influenced the world and the news during the previous year. Those killed in the shooting at the Capital Gazette were Rob Hiaasen and Gerald Fischman, who were columnists and editors; John McNamara, a sports reporter; Rebecca Smith, a sales assistant; and Wendi Winters, a community reporter. The suspect, Jarrod W. Ramos, 38, was captured by police and faces charges of first-degree murder. A few hours after the shooting at the Capital Gazette, reporter Chase Cook said: “I can tell you this. We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.” The message was widely shared on social media. The Gazette is owned by Tronc through a subsidiary of the Baltimore Sun Media Group. dana.hedgpeth@washpost.com Read more about the honorees ●Maria Ressa: The warning offered by a Filipina journalist targeted by her country’s president ●Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo: Two journalists exposed a massacre in Myanmar. Now they’ll be awarded for their work — from prison ●Jamal Khashoggi’s last column: What the


Sanders and Warren are challenging the post-Cold War foreign policy establishment

for a fundamental change in corporate trade policies that, in Warren’s words, “delivered one punch in the gut after another to workers and the unions that fight for them.” They have also argued for a crackdown on corruption, monopolies, and on tax havens and global tax avoidance, ending, in Sanders’s words, “the absurdity of the rich and multinational corporations stashing over $21 trillion in offshore bank accounts.” Sanders has joined with former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to issue a more sweeping call for a new progressive international movement. It would work to unite progressives around the globe and to redefine global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the International Labor Organization and the United Nations to further shared prosperity rather than enforce austerity, and to address the “massive global inequality that exists, not only in wealth but in political power.” Both Sanders and Warren elevate catastrophic climate change as a national security priority. “The threat is real and it is existential,” Warren concludes. Oddly, neither treats the matter with the priority that reality would require. Warren calls for leveraging access to U.S. markets to insist on “meaningful environmental protections.” Sanders calls for “American leadership” to foster “strong international cooperation.” There are differences between the two. Warren stakes out a more traditional view of Russia and China as power rivals posing a “threat” to Europe and to Asia. Sanders lumps Russia and China into the “authoritarian axis,” but says little about how to address them. Neither questions directly the wrongheaded National Defense Strategy that elevates Beijing and Moscow to the status of primary threats facing the United States. Neither details how to forge the essential balance between necessary cooperation — on global warming and nuclear disarmament — and potential confrontation — against the push for spheres of influence, or China’s economic mercantilism. Both admit that far more creative thinking is needed to define the world that we need to build. As with domestic policy, when it comes to the United States’ foreign policy, defeating Trump in 2020 is not enough. The United States needs dramatic changes in its policies and the institutions that enforce them. It is time to think anew. Foreign policy is likely to be at the center of the political debate heading into 2020. Warren and Sanders have opened that debate. Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s archive or follow her on Twitter.


The Arctic Ocean has lost 95 percent of its oldest ice — a startling sign of what’s to come

of future ice, which is why the process feeds upon itself. The open ocean absorbs about twice as much sunlight as floating sea ice, explained Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a climate expert at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who was the discoverer of the role of chlorofluorocarbons (or CFCs) in not only destroying the ozone layer but also amplifying global warming. Because of this, Arctic sea ice loss has already increased the warming of the planet as a whole. Ramanathan said the impact is equivalent to the warming effect of 250 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, or about six years of global emissions. Ramanathan fears that entirely ice-free summers, if they began to occur regularly, could add another half- degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming on top of whatever else the planet has experienced by that time. “If that were to happen, I would think of it as an unmitigated disaster,” said Ramanathan of consistently ice-free Arctic summers. “It will quickly pump in this half a degree warming.” That extra warming, he said, in turn could trigger a world with multiple other cascading effects, such as increasing losses of carbon from northern permafrost soil, or major damage to the Amazon rain forest. The additional heat would also melt snow cover over land in the Arctic, further driving up global temperatures as the darker land surface absorbs more incoming radiation. Some consider the Arctic situation so dire that it calls for an emergency intervention. A group called Ice911, founded by inventor and Stanford lecturer Leslie Fields, is proposing a strategic “geoengineering” project that would involve spreading reflective silica particles across young sea ice in key areas, to bounce back more sunlight and help the fledgling ice get through its first summer. “If and when there is a decision to pursue an intervention in the Arctic, or somewhere else, we want to be out there with all of our field testing, climate modeling, and testing complete to say, here is a viable, safe solution for restoring ice that can mitigate some of these extreme impacts,” said Roman Decca, a strategist with the group. We’re still far from a world in which such a radical step is under serious consideration. But the concern of Arctic researchers is hard to ignore. “I would think of the summer ice disappearing as the true tipping point we’ve all been afraid of with climate change,” Ramanathan said.


I will eat healthier — and this time I mean it

— with both hands tied behind my back if necessary. I will win this food fight. During the past year, I have learned much about the benefits of eating a plant-based diet. I’ve attended classes at the GreenFare Organic Cafe in Herndon, where owner Gwyn Whittaker and her staff show you how to shop for healthy foods and use them to prepare nutritious and tasty meals. I’ve also learned that knowing how to eat healthy is different from eating healthy. But those who walk the walk are reaping astounding rewards. Cecilia Hayes is one. She is in her 70s and lives in Northern Virginia. She was suffering from congenital heart failure when she began taking the monthly “Kickstart” classes at GreenFare just over a year ago. She switched from fatty, sugary foods to plant-based, minimally processed meals. It didn’t take long for her body to respond. “What happened was, after three months, I went to my heart doctor, and she said my condition had improved significantly,” Hayes told me recently. “My blood sugar was down, and I had lost weight. The other thing, which is hereditary — women in our family get swelling in the lower legs. I’d been fighting that for years. Now the swelling is gone, and I can wear shoes that I hadn’t been able to get into for years.” My taste buds recoil at the thought of choosing, say, tofu over cheese. But Hayes’s results should make that choice a no-brainer. I also spoke with James Loomis about the benefits he got from switching to a plant-based diet. Loomis is director of the Barnard Medical Center in the District, which puts emphasis on nutrition in the prevention and treatment of disease. He has served as team internist for the St. Louis Rams football team and the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, as well as tour physician for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra. Before going on a plant-based diet in 2011, he was overweight, suffering from asthma and a knee injury. Then he happened to read a book, “Forks Over Knives,” that spurred his dietary change. Today, he is 60 pounds lighter and no longer has asthma. The knee is working fine, too. “I’m 60 years old, and I’m training for the Ironman triathlon,” Loomis said. “It’s amazing that I can contemplate that at my age.” Loomis added that going plant-based changed him not only personally but


Britain’s May is seeking Brexit concessions, but Europe is not playing along

BRUSSELS — British Prime Minister Theresa May made a whirlwind tour Tuesday of European capitals to try to win further concessions on her deal to pull Britain from the European Union, a day after her plan’s unpopularity led her to cancel a key parliamentary vote. But the issue that has made the Brexit deal politically toxic in Britain is nonnegotiable on the European side, and it was unclear whether May could gain anything to improve her political math as she bounced from The Hague to Berlin to Brussels. Reflecting rising European fears that Britain could crash out of the E.U. without a deal, the chief E.U. Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, urged colleagues to speed their preparations for the humanitarian and economic crisis that would ensue. Leaders offered kind words to May and said they would do everything they could to help her sell the deal to the British Parliament, but they refused to back down from an ironclad backup plan to ensure there will never be a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. “There is no room whatsoever for renegotiation,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday. “Ireland will never be left alone.” Declaring himself “astonished” at May’s inability to master her domestic politics, Juncker said that Europeans could give “further clarifications and further interpretations” to help ease the British debate — diplomatic code for declarations that could be politically symbolic but ultimately will not be substantive or binding. E.U. leaders plan to discuss Brexit on Thursday during a previously scheduled summit in Brussels. European ministers who gathered ahead of that meeting said, one after another, that they could imagine no change in the fundamentals of the deal. “We have done a lot to help the U.K. in its withdrawal agreement,” French Minister for European Affairs Nathalie Loiseau said. “It is the only possible agreement. And we have done a lot of concessions to reach it.” She said France had begun to brace for Britain’s leaving the E.U. in March without any deal, a situation that could halt travel and trade. France will “take all necessary measures” to prepare for a crisis, she said. German officials offered similarly no-nonsense warnings. Asked whether the E.U. could do anything to help May, German Minister of State for Europe Michael Roth said “it’s always good to talk to each other.” But on Tuesday,


USA Gymnastics has fallen. Now it’s using bankruptcy to avoid justice.

Scarcely a month ago, the U.S. gymnastics team returned from the 2018 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, covered in medals. Watching the team members smile from the first-place podium, it was easy to forget that they also stood atop the smoking ruins of USA Gymnastics. Their sport’s governing body has spent the better part of the past two years embroiled in scandals: the resignation of its entire board of directors in January, the abrupt departure of almost every major coach or coordinator on the elite national team over the summer and the arrest and indictment of former CEO Steve Penny. In November, the U.S. Olympic Committee decided to start proceedings to strip USAG of its governing-body status. The move was drastic, if unsurprising: It would leave the 200,000 gymnasts, coaches, clubs and judges who operate under its banner with no viable alternative entity to administer or sponsor the vast majority of competitions in the United States, whether low-level or elite. (Smaller, less-competitive leagues lack the infrastructure to do this.) But the organization does not plan to relinquish its status anytime soon. Last week, before reactions could really take hold — Hooray! Wait, what’s going to happen at the 2020 Olympics? What about my niece in Level 9? — USAG filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. On the surface, this may seem like the death knell of an irredeemably diseased entity. In actuality, it is the opposite: a shrewd and deeply cynical restructuring move that would allow the USAG to retain power. The organization will neither liquidate nor cease operations. Instead, the bankruptcy claim just happens to halt its decertification by the Olympic Committee and — even more crucially — stays all pending litigation: a staggering 100 lawsuits by 350 plaintiffs, calling for an estimated $150 million in damages. These plaintiffs are all victims of the central figure in nearly every aforementioned controversy: former national team physician Larry Nassar, who in January was found guilty of multiple sex crimes — which he committed for decades under the guise of medical treatment — and sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. The suits, whose plaintiffs include Olympians Kyla Ross, Aly Raisman, Jordyn Wieber and McKayla Maroney, argue that USAG failed to protect gymnasts from Nassar’s abuse despite being informed of his behavior for years. USAG claims that the bankruptcy filing will hasten its ability to compensate Nassar’s survivors with insurance. It


Back-to-back fireballs bolted through Washington’s sky Monday evening

If you looked up at the right times Monday evening, you may have seen something out of this world. Not one, but two, bright fireballs lit up the skies Monday evening, widely visible from D.C. to New York. The first occurred about 4:56 p.m., 10 minutes after sunset in Washington. It illuminated the twilight eastern horizon, burning vibrant shades of green, blue and white as it exploded in our atmosphere. It lasted about five to seven seconds as it fell, fragmenting into a number of smaller shards like a doomed firework. The fireball “looked like an airplane going super fast but then disappeared about as quickly as I saw it,” commented Samantha Tungul, a Capital Weather Gang Facebook follower who witnessed the event in Prince William County. Other eyewitnesses described it A fireball is a meteor that is larger than normal. The American Meteor Society received four dozen reports of the spectacle, from Richmond to Providence, R.I. The group synthesized each account, drawing upon information about the meteor’s apparent motion, color, bearing and speed. They concluded that the meteor likely entered Earth’s atmosphere off the southeastern shores of the Delmarva Peninsula, south of Ocean City, before either disintegrating and burning up or crashing into the water somewhere 100 miles to the east-northeast. One lucky observer in Baileys Crossroads recorded the meteor as being a minus-10 for “apparent magnitude.” Astronomers rank how bright an object shines in our sky on a logarithmic scale. The more negative the number, the brighter the object. A minus-10 would mean the meteor was nearly as bright as a full moon! Others farther north claim it was even brighter. Before anyone could catch their breath, yet another fireball took the plunge into our skies, this time along Maryland’s northwestern border with Pennsylvania. This one was seen by fewer people around 6:42 p.m., lasting three or four seconds as it burned even more brilliantly than its predecessor. Preliminary data suggest that this one did not break up but, rather, was small enough to burn up fully. Eyewitness Joe Schumer watched it from Annandale, Va., in the northern sky, and said the streak was “clearly visible even with streetlights.” Neither meteor was accompanied by any sound. Noises tend to result only if a meteor explodes. In the case of the first meteor, there probably was sound reminiscent of a sonic boom, but it was too far over the


Stephen Curry says the U.S. never landed on the moon. NASA cries foul.

to say that Mr. Sibrel had aggressively poked Mr. Aldrin with the Bible” before the septuagenarian landed the punch. Curry’s lunar-landing take eclipsed any other Curry talk on social media. The world cared little that Curry, recently returned from a groin injury, put up 38 points and made seven three-pointers Monday night — or that he set a new NBA mark for free-throw shooting, or that he’s now shooting 50 percent from beyond the arc this season. And, of course, word reached NASA. “We’d love for Mr. Curry to tour the lunar lab at our Johnson Space Center in Houston, perhaps the next time the Warriors are in town to play the Rockets,” a NASA spokesman, Allard Beutel, told the New York Times. “We have hundreds of pounds of moon rocks stored there, and the Apollo mission control. “During his visit, he can see firsthand what we did 50 years ago, as well as what we’re doing now to go back to the moon in the coming years, but this time to stay.” According to Popular Science Still, NASA has been dealing with moon landing deniers for half a century. That the moon landing was a hoax was, as Elizabeth Svoboda wrote for The Post in July, “among the first conspiracy theories to gain traction with the American public.” Doubters argue that the flag Armstrong and Aldrin planted seems to flutter in the wind, which should be impossible on a windless moon. They also have said that there appear to be multiple lighting sources in official photos. Curry could not immediately be reached for comment, so it was unclear whether he’d heard NASA’s reaction or would take the scientists up on their offer to view rocks. The Warriors next play in Houston on March 13, with several days of buffer between games if Curry wants to take the NASA tram tour, or perhaps snap a selfie in front of the Lunar Roving Vehicle trainer. If Curry does make the trip, it’s probably best to not let Buzz Aldrin know. Read more: An ex-NFL player claims he inspired a ‘Gears of War’ character — and he wants a cut Raccoons drunk on crab apples cause false rabies scare in West Virginia The government admits it studies UFOs. So about those Area 51 conspiracy theories … Pilots saw a ‘very bright’ UFO streaking over Ireland. If it wasn’t aliens, what was it?


When it comes to helping our soldiers, talk is cheap

if Adm. William McRaven shares my political views or not. But I do know that few Americans have sacrificed or risked more than he has to protect America & the freedoms we enjoy. His military career exemplified honor & excellence. I am grateful for his service.” Many of the mainstream news stories about Trump’s comments cited the five draft deferments that the president received during Vietnam. The stories often referenced this information without elaboration, as if its meaning and relevance were self-evident: Trump was a coward who had no right to criticize McRaven, because McRaven served and he had not. But there is something specious about this popular reverence for the military. While the vast majority of Americans view all branches of the military favorably, they have little interest in enlisting. A recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations revealed that only 0.5 percent of the population (1.29 million people) are active-duty military, down from roughly 1 percent (2.2 million) in 1973. With the exception of a small uptick after September 11, the size of the active duty-military has been steadily decreasing for the last 45 years, and this year the Army fell short of its recruiting goal of 80,000 new enlistees. The disconnect between our regard for the military and our disinterest (my own included) in actually serving deepens the already sharp division between civilian and military populations. Paradoxically, venerating military personnel, even with good intentions, may exacerbate it further. Setting military personnel apart as special and glorifying their combat experiences makes it easier to ignore the costs of war and the deeply uneven ways that they are distributed, both domestically and abroad. Instead of this reckoning, civilians who shoulder few of those burdens can feel as if they've contributed, merely by professing their support and gratitude to the troops. In this way, it becomes easier and easier to consent to militarism and so to guarantee that the same people will be called on to fight again and again. At the same time, the slow-motion crisis at the VA, the recent spike in suicides among young veterans, the ongoing epidemic of untreated mental health issues among military personnel and the financial hardships that many military families encounter all reveal the shallowness of the gratitude that we are compelled to profess. Chastising the president for yet another boorish attack does nothing to solve these problems. Instead, we’d be far


Live from the Oval Office, it’s Tuesday afternoon!

Post Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post. For your ears. Martine Powers is your host, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Listen on the A tense shutdown fight on national television. President Trump, Vice President Pence, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) met in the Oval Office today to discuss a compromise for the spending bill that has brought Washington close to a government shutdown. But that discussion quickly devolved into a televised shouting match on border security, election results and the spending bill. White House reporter Josh Dawsey and Martine Powers discuss what’s at risk with a government shutdown and how productive a tense chat like today’s ended up. More on this topic: Gender pay equity makes noise in Boston Symphony Orchestra. The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s principal flute player, Elizabeth Rowe, makes far less than the orchestra’s principal oboe player, who sits beside her. The big difference? He’s a man. Now Rowe is suing the BSO for equal pay in a lawsuit that illuminates issues that exist far beyond the world of classical music. Geoff Edgers More on this topic: Arctic ice is facing the steady effects of global warming. The oldest Arctic ice is almost 95 percent gone. That’s according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Environment reporter Chris Mooney says this can only worsen the imminent effects of climate change. More on this topic:


‘I can’t breathe’: The power and tragedy of Jamal Khashoggi’s last words

Jamal Khashoggi’s last op-ed, published in The Post after his murder, was a clarion call for media freedom in the Arab world. In his essay, he cited the hope of the Arab Spring, how people were “brimming with the expectations of a bright and free Arab society” but that those “expectations were quickly shattered.” On Oct. 2, Khashoggi reportedly uttered only three tragically powerful words as he was strangled to death by his fellow Saudi countrymen inside the consulate in Istanbul: “I can’t breathe.” If Khashoggi’s last op-ed was a call for breathing space for his fellow Arabs, his final, desperate words before he was killed represent the devastating cruelty with which lives and dreams have been asphyxiated by repression and state-sanctioned violence with impunity. Four years ago, “I can’t breathe” were the same last words that Eric Garner uttered when he was placed in a choke hold by New York Police and died. #ICantBreathe soon became a part of the #BlackLivesMatter rallying cry against American racism and police brutality. Last month, after news broke about Khashoggi’s last moments, #ICantBreathe became a hashtag in Arabic Twitter, with users sharing stories about living under the weight of dictatorships and censorship in the Middle East. In many ways, Garner could not have been more different than Khashoggi. Garner was a 43-year-old black man who worked for New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation. Khashoggi was a Saudi royal insider, with access and privileges in the kingdom. Even in exile, Khashoggi moved in elite networks of Ivy League academics, think tankers and media personalities. Garner was a victim of excessive police force, while Khashoggi was the target of an international assassination plot, likely ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The horror in how both men met their cruel fate lies in part due to the banality of the errands they were carrying out: Garner was just selling loose cigarettes on the corner. Khashoggi went to the consulate for what he imagined would be a quick appointment to pick up marriage papers. In both cases despair set in after watching their killers face few consequences, despite video evidence in Garner’s case — or with Khashoggi, CIA assessments determining the culpability of the Saudi crown prince. In both cases, the men sometimes have been blamed for their own deaths at the hands of people in power: Why did Garner resist the police


and not comply? Why did Jamal Khashoggi go into the consulate of a country that he knew wanted to silence him? After Khashoggi’s murder, much analysis and many opinion takes have focused on the high-level geopolitics in the Middle East, the havoc wreaked by wealthy, powerful princes or the rancor over the United States’ embrace of Saudi Arabia. But we cannot lose sight of the man. In his last year of life, Jamal Khashoggi wanted to make the lives of ordinary people better. We must not forget Khashoggi’s true message in his work: Arab lives matter. By demanding that “Saudis deserve better” than Mohammed bin Salman’s repression, Khashoggi was saying that Saudi lives matter. By writing against the jailing of female reformers, he was saying that women’s lives matter. By pleading for the end to the devastating war in Yemen, he was telling us that Yemeni lives matter. Is the world listening? That Time magazine honored him as one of the “Guardians of Truth” for its Person of the Year issue is an amazing testament to Jamal Khashoggi’s work and mission. But for every Jamal Khashoggi, there are hundreds more people in the Arab world whose lives have been destroyed, whose names we will likely never know. Will we continue to accept murder, torture and disappearances of innocent people as the cost of doing business with governments such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates? Will we tolerate our own leaders helping repressive and corrupt governments to cover up the murders of journalists and the jailings of female activists? Should human lives really be weighed against the cost of arms sales or oil barrels? Will policymakers, institutions and the media continue to ignore the voices and perspectives of Arab people when shaping their views and policies on the region? Or will we lift them up and put them at the center of their own stories? Jamal Khashoggi met the cruelest of fates on Oct. 2. But his mission — to break the stranglehold of repression in Arab societies — will live on. Black, brown and Arab lives all matter. Read more: Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression Read Jamal Khashoggi’s columns for The Washington Post The Post’s View: Oppression in the Middle East is worse than ever — and Trump is encouraging more Abdullah Alaoudh: Saudi Arabia’s investigation of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder is a


Interior Dept. officials downplayed federal wildlife experts' concerns about Trump’s border wall, documents show

The construction of a wall along the entire southern border ranks among Trump’s highest priorities, dating to his 2016 campaign. The president is threatening to partially shut down the federal government before Christmas in a bid to extract more funding from Democrats for the wall. House and Senate Democratic leaders are set to sit down with Trump on Tuesday to discuss border wall funding and the federal budget. But the Trump administration has been preparing to build the border wall well before securing all the money. In August 2017, CBP asked the Fish and Wildlife Service for its input on how animals would be affected by the construction of 60 miles of levee and bollard wall in Hidalgo and Starr counties, near the southern tip of Texas, the documents show. Construction on an eight-mile section of the wall there is set to begin in February. Jonathan Andrew, a borderlands coordinator at the Interior Department, had previously told Fish and Wildlife officials that the department should be backing Trump’s border wall effort, according to the documents. “The Secretary has indicated we are to support the border security mission so make sure you get any correspondence on this topic cleared up the food chain,” he wrote in a March 2017 email. Months later, by September, wildlife biologists and managers at Fish and Wildlife, which is part of the Interior Department, penned a list of “informal comments” on the possible impacts. In a draft letter prepared that month, career wildlife employees wrote that they were concerned the border wall would reduce “habitat connectivity” for rare ocelots and jaguarundi that roam the Santa Ana and Lower Rio Grande Valley national wildlife refuges. While some fencing already exists in the two Texas counties, officials wrote that erecting more border wall in the region may limit animals’ access to drinking water and the intermingling within the cats' populations. If the cats' choice of mates narrowed, it could raise the risk of inbreeding. These experts voiced concerns about the wall “leaving terrestrial wildlife trapped behind the levee wall to drown or starve” during floods. Fish and Wildlife suggested constructing berms south of the levee to give animals a path to flee from the flood-prone river valley. Wildlife officials also suggested in the draft letter that CBP cap large holes dug for fencing posts, so wildlife would not get trapped in them. They also warned that an expanded


The Health 202: Trump administration poised to crack down on health providers that are trying to lower costs

first four years. “The time has come to put real ‘accountability’ in Accountable Care Organizations,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma wrote in a piece published by Health Affairs in August. But according to Gaus, providers already have plenty at stake without making the system even harder on them. Gaus met yesterday with staff for Joe Grogan, who handles health-care policy at OMB (The Health 202 profiled Grogan a year ago.) Shortly before Thanksgiving, Gaus said, he met with Verma. Also present at that meeting were representatives from the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, which also oppose the stricter rules. “We’re on pins and needles as to whether we’re going to have a compromise,” Gaus told me. Gaus’s group also plans to release a report Wednesday morning to counter estimates that its members have cost Medicare dollars There are a few things in the potential new rules the ACOs do like. The administration is proposing to extend contracts with the organizations from three years to five years and has suggested implementing a small risk-adjustment program, which can help protect ACOs from large losses. But there’s much more they don’t like. “Two years is too short, and 25 percent of savings is a nonstarter,” Gaus said. AHH: The Supreme Court announced it would not review lower-court decisions blocking efforts by Kansas and Louisiana to end public funding for Planned Parenthood, a move that “showed a split among the panel’s conservatives and might indicate a reluctance by the majority to take on controversial cases at a time when the Supreme Court is in the political spotlight,” our Post colleague Robert Barnes reports. Three justices who wanted to take up the case cited the issue of abortion as the reason their colleagues opposed getting involved. Two justices nominated by Republican presidents, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined the four liberal justices in declining to review the two cases. OOF: There have been a record number of cases of the rare polio-like illness acute flaccid myelitis this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There are now 158 confirmed cases of AFM, up from 149 cases in 2016 and 120 cases in 2014. “It’s still not clear what’s causing the kids to lose the ability to move their face, neck, back, arms or legs,” the Associated Press’s Mike Stobbe reports. “The symptoms tend to occur about a


Stepped up disinfecting of UMd dorm rooms is announced to combat viruses

A total of 30 cases of adenovirus have been confirmed at the University of Maryland, and university officials announced plans to intensify its dormitory cleaning program to help prevent additional infections. An announcement made last week by the university’s department of resident life gave the updated adenovirus infection numbers. Of the 30 confirmed cases, eight of the students have been hospitalized. It said four cases have been confirmed of adenovirus 7, a particularly virulent strain of the virus. One Maryland student has died of what were reported to be adenovirus-related causes. In announcing the disinfecting program, the resident life department said it would go beyond normal winter-break practices, and extend inside rooms to surfaces that are frequently touched inside rooms. Such surfaces include doorknobs, furniture tops, light switches, faucets and bedframes, the department said. The program is to be conducted from January 7 to January 18, the department said. According to the announcement, the aim is to support UMd’s broader effort to prevent the spread of a variety of viruses, “including adenovirus.” The university’s health center said adenoviruses can cause typical cold and flu symptoms. But the center emphasized that it is particularly important that these symptoms not be ignored by those with lowered immune systems. Such persons should see a physician within 48 hours of developing symptoms, the health center said. Martin.Weil@washpost.com


The major climate-change solution hiding in plain sight: Nature

The Dec. 8 front-page article “Off course, on a warming planet” rightly pointed out that we need to tackle climate change on many fronts, including wind and solar energy, electric vehicles, nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage. Right now, these efforts aren’t adding up. Effective government policy is the most important tool for taking these solutions to scale. But the article overlooked another major solution hiding in plain sight: nature. The science is clear. Globally, nature can deliver more than one-third of the emissions reductions needed by 2030 to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius. Natural climate solutions are proven ways of storing and reducing carbon emissions in the world’s forests, grasslands and wetlands. In the United States alone, one-fifth of carbon emissions could be prevented or sequestered by harnessing the power of nature — roughly the equivalent of removing the emissions from all U.S. cars and trucks from the road. Time is not on our side, and we have a lot of work to do. Transitioning to zero-carbon energy solutions remains crucial, but natural climate solutions are available today, relatively affordable and backed by science. Let’s get to work. Mark Tercek The writer is chief executive of the Nature Conservancy.


The CIA persuaded senators of Saudi prince’s guilt. Kushner says no conclusion has been reached.

Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the leader of the United States, appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program on Monday where he offered an indirect defense of his reported friend Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Asked by Hannity whether the effort to contain Iran has been hurt by the slaying of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of people close to Mohammed, Kushner suggested the government would get to the bottom of the issue. "I think our intelligence agencies are making their assessments,” Kushner said, “and we’re hoping to make sure that there’s justice brought where that should be.” Kushner then segued into a discussion of his effort to achieve peace in the Middle East. Hannity, of course, framed his question in terms favorable to the point he knew Kushner would want to make, emphasizing the United States had already sanctioned a number of Saudis for Khashoggi’s slaying. That group overlaps with the people identified as responsible by Saudi government — in a transparent effort to shift guilt away from Mohammed. Since shortly after Khashoggi went missing in early October, the White House, including President Trump, has relied on that argument offered by Kushner to deflect guilt from Mohammed: We do not yet have all the details. Day after day, as new information about the killing was reported, the line was the same: We do not yet know. Kushner and Hannity were speaking hours after CNN reported on a transcript of audio from the killing that included Khashoggi’s last words — “I can’t breathe” — undercutting to some extent the idea there was still a lot of mystery about what occurred. But still: gotta wait and see. More to the point, Hannity and Kushner were talking about a week after senators were given a classified briefing by the head of the CIA — one of those still-assessing intelligence agencies — in which they were presented with evidence sufficiently clear enough about Mohammed’s culpability that they competed to express to reporters how obvious the evidence was. There was a “smoking saw,” Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said, evoking the bone saw reported to have been brought to the scene of the crime by Saudi assassins. “If the crown prince went in front of a jury, he would be convicted in 30 minutes,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). While Corker’s long been a critic of Trump,


The Washington Post among the 2019 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award winners

Columbia Journalism School’s 2019 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards honored The Washington Post and CBS News “60 Minutes” for the joint investigation uncovering corruption in the DEA and the pharmaceutical industry. The two-part report, “The Whistleblower” and “Too Big to Prosecute” was given the Silver Baton award, which honors outstanding audiovisual reporting in the public interest. The winners will be celebrated at Columbia University’s Low Memorial Library on Tuesday, Jan. 22.


Police arrest suspect in killing of man along dangerous stretch of Benning Road

D.C. police have arrested a suspect in the September shooting of a young man who was killed along a dangerous stretch of Benning Road in Northeast Washington. Rickie Collier, 25, of Northwest, was charged with second-degree murder while armed. Police had posted surveillance video of the suspect shortly after the shooting the night of Sept. 24 in the 1800 block of Benning Road NE. Collier is charged with shooting Marquiawn Williams, 25, of Northeast. Police said he was shot about 7:30 p.m. in front of a line of storefronts that includes a liquor store and a carryout food store. He died later at a hospital. An arrest affidavit says Collier and Williams were outside the food store and that Collier apparently became nervous over the way Williams kept looking at him. The two argued, and the affidavit says Collier then shot him. One witness told police it appeared that Collier felt Williams owed him, quoting him saying, “I want my money.” Collier was ordered detained Tuesday until a preliminary hearing Dec. 19. Williams — whose 46-year-old uncle, Paul Williams Jr., was shot and killed in July in Shaw — was one of several people killed or wounded along several blocks of Benning Road west of the H Street entertainment area, a street that splits the neighborhoods of Carver-Langston and Kingman Park. Three days before Marquiawn Williams was killed, four people were shot and wounded in the same block. Police said the two shooting incidents were not related. Concerned residents held a community walk after the quadruple shooting and were three blocks away when Williams was killed. The anti-crime walk ended at the active crime scene. Police have charged several suspects in connection with violent incidents, including the quadruple shooting. Police have said the suspect in that shooting case had recently threatened someone in the area with a gun. On Nov. 26, D.C. police were back on the 1800 block of Benning Road, this time after Randall Jaquan Francis, 25, was fatally shot in front of a child-care center shortly before 2 p.m. No arrest has been made in that case. peter.hermann@washpost.com


Brexit looks more and more like a bad joke

Even if you’re not a fan of British humor, it’s hard not to laugh a little at Brexit. Sure, there have been bigger disasters in history, but it’s rare to find dumber ones. The whole idea, after all, behind Britain leaving the free-trade zone that is the European Union was for it to “take back control” from the bureaucrats in Brussels so that it could ... make its own free-trade deal with the European Union? Well, that and keep immigrants out. The problem, though, is that the E.U. links the free movement of goods to the free movement of people. It won’t give you one without the other. So the only way Brexit wouldn’t be a worse deal than the one Britain already has would be if the deal wasn’t really Brexit in any meaningful sense of the word. Which is to say if it was just a fig leaf that kept Britain’s current relationship with the E.U. more or less intact while giving it a new name. But then what would the point of all this be? Well, that’s the joke. (I told you, it’s British humor.) Now, in case all of this wasn’t already absurd enough, there’s another layer to it: Northern Ireland. It’s the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with an E.U. country, and the fact that you can’t tell that — there are no checkpoints or barriers between the two — is one of the great achievements of the peace process of the past 25 years. Why does that matter? Well, a “hard” Brexit that pulled Britain out of the E.U.'s customs union would end all that. Everything that moved between Ireland and Northern Ireland would suddenly need to be inspected to make sure that it complied with the other’s different rules and regulations. Which, of course, is a nonstarter for the Northern Irish, whose votes British Prime Minister Theresa May needs to maintain her slim parliamentary majority. So if economic pragmatism wasn’t enough of a reason to prefer a “soft” Brexit that changed very little, political expedience would seem to be more than one. And it has been. Indeed, the May government has agreed to what’s known as an “Irish backstop” that would keep all of Britain in the E.U.'s customs union for an indefinite period of time. The idea being that Northern Ireland needs to remain in to