the ethical boundary of free speech and offends human conscience,” the statement read, adding that the cartoonist Niels Bo Bojesen and the paper should “reproach themselves for their mistake and publicly apologize to the Chinese people.” The paper stood by the cartoon on Tuesday, with its editor in chief Jacob Nybroe saying that “there is no mockery or scorn in the drawing.” “We can’t apologize for something we don’t think is wrong,” Nybroe added, according to the paper’s own coverage of the controversy. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen defended the country’s freedom of expression and satire, even though she did not directly comment on the cartoon in question itself. By: Rick Noack 6:00 AM: Philippines restricts visas for Chinese nationals MANILA — In the Philippines, immigration authorities temporarily suspended the issuance of visas upon arrival for Chinese nationals. Immigration commissioner Jaime Morente said that this was “to slow down the influx of group tours,” and possibly prevent the entry of the virus. China is one of the country’s top sources of tourists, accounting for over a million visits in 2018. The country is hoping to record 9.2 million international arrivals this year. Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo Puyat said that her department did not find it necessary to adjust tourism targets just yet. “We remain optimistic that the tourism industry will be resilient,” said Puyat. “Nevertheless, we continue to monitor the situation. Our primary concern is the safety of visitors and locals.” Political analyst Antonio La Viña says that these countries’ precautionary measures are expected to have economic impacts, but he cautioned against these actions possibly taking on racist tones. “Countries have no choice but to take such an approach as there is no alternative,” he said. “What would be temporary economic impacts could have long term consequences if that happens and not corrected.” By: Regine Cabato 5:30 AM: Infected German man came into contact with Chinese visitor, authorities say BERLIN — German authorities have confirmed the first coronavirus case in the country. The 33-year-old male patient in southern Bavaria has been isolated and is being monitored, officials said in a news conference on Tuesday. He is in a “medically good state,” according to the regional health ministry. The patient was most likely infected by a Chinese business visitor from Shanghai, who entered Germany on Jan. 19 and did not display symptoms caused by the virus during her stay in southern


U.S. seeks to send expert team to China to combat coronavirus outbreak; Xi defends response

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on his website Tuesday that monitoring of hotels and popular tourist sites has been heightened. “If any alarming signals are identified, medical brigades will be dispatched to these sites immediately to carry out all-round checks,” he said. Russia is also blocking organized tour groups from China, according to Tass, which cited Russia’s travel industry union. Meanwhile, Russia’s embassy in China has contacted 158 citizens in the Hubei province, including 113 in the city of Wuhan, which is on lockdown in an effort to contain the spread of the disease. By: Isabelle Khurshudyan 4:55 AM: Japan announces first coronavirus case for someone not from Wuhan epicenter TOKYO — Japan on Tuesday recorded its first case of coronavirus in someone who had not visited the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, but had come into contact with tourists from there. The Japanese man, a tour bus driver in his 60s, drove two groups of Chinese tourists from Wuhan earlier this month, Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said. Kato told a news conference the man had worn a mask when he was working. He was one of two new cases of coronavirus confirmed on Tuesday, bringing the total of cases in Japan to six. The other cases involved four Chinese tourists from Wuhan, and a Chinese national living in Japan who returned home after visiting Wuhan. By: Simon Denyer 4:10 AM: Hong Kong leader restricts flow of mainland Chinese into city over virus fears HONG KONG — Facing public pressure across the political aisle, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday announced dramatic measures to stem the flow of mainland Chinese into the territory, including the closure of railways, ferries and cross-border tour buses. Flights to mainland China will be slashed by half, and the Hong Kong government will stop issuing individual travel visas to mainland Chinese, starting from Thursday. The decision, Lam said, was made along with authorities in Beijing. All in all, about half of Hong Kong’s border checkpoints with mainland China will be closed. “The flow of people between the two places needs to be drastically reduced,” Lam said. By: Shibani Mahtani 3:45 AM: North Korea imposes one-month quarantine on recent arrivals TOKYO — North Korea, which already banned foreign tourists from entering the country, has now imposed a one-month quarantine on any foreigners who come in, including diplomats and aid workers.


A New York Times journalist was targeted by spyware linked to Saudi Arabia, according to report

“We will stay focused on our mission to seek the truth and help people understand the world.” In June 2018, Hubbard received a text message that read, “Ben Hubbard and the story of the Saudi royal family,” with a link for a website, Arabnews365.com. That was a month after the malware was sent to Bezos’s phone. In an article in the Times on Tuesday According to Hubbard, “An examination of my phone turned up no indications that it had been compromised.” He noted that Citizen Lab researchers concluded he was “targeted with powerful software sold by NSO Group . . . and deployed by hackers working for Saudi Arabia.” At the time the text message was sent to Hubbard, the Arabnews365 website was active and was housed on a server known to deploy Pegasus software, and that server was used by an operator the researchers dubbed “Kingdom,” the report said. Citizen Lab has concluded through earlier investigations that Kingdom is linked to Saudi Arabia. Citizen Lab revealed in October 2018 that the cellphone of Saudi dissident Omar Abdulaziz, who lives in asylum in Canada, was hacked with Pegasus spyware. The tool is powerful, giving access to the victim’s phone camera, text messages, emails and location information. The day after the report was issued, Khashoggi was killed. Abdulaziz was working on several sensitive projects with Khashoggi, including one to build an online “army” called “the bees” inside Saudi Arabia to challenge pro-government trolls on the Internet, The Post reported at the time. Abdulaziz suspected that the Saudis used access to his phone to learn about these activities. “They had everything,” he told The Post. “They saw the messages between us. They listened to the calls.” Abdulaziz is among several individuals and organizations that have sued NSO Group. Abdulaziz charges that the company allowed its product to be used to spy on him. Amnesty International filed suit in Israel asking the defense ministry to halt the sale of NSO spyware. Another Saudi dissident targeted with Pegasus, Ghanem al-Masarir, has also sued. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, sued the firm in October, alleging the company violated federal anti-hacking law when its malware was deployed on more than 1,400 cellphones last year. Citizen Lab, which helped WhatsApp in its analysis, found that of the devices targeted, at least 100 belonged to human rights advocates, journalists and other members of civil society around the world. ellen.nakashima@washpost.com


VIDEO | Where to get the best carbonara in Rome

When Roman chef Luciano Monosilio was 26, he started to cook carbonara at the restaurant where he would go on to earn his first Michelin star, Pipero al Rex. Approaching the traditional dish with the precision of a fine-dining chef, Monosilio acquired the unofficial title of king of carbonara. Today, at his own restaurant, Luciano Cucina in Rome, Monosilio remains deeply focused on the world of pasta, so much so that he built his own production facility to make it fresh and dry. At Luciano Cucina, his carbonara doesn’t have any secrets, but it has two peculiarities: its use of pasteurized eggs and guanciale (or cured pork jowl) with a cinnamon aftertaste. Read more: A local’s guide to Rome This sister-owned bookstore is a haven for fans of romance Yes, solid toothpaste is a thing and we tried it so you don’t have to


Adieu, E.U.: British reps pack their bags as European Parliament approves Brexit

BRUSSELS — Molly Scott Cato's rail ticket for her final trip back to London is printed and ready on her office desk. Her mementos from her past six years as a member of the European Parliament have been removed from the walls. One of the last things to go in a cardboard box will be her "Brexit: not my cup of tea" mug, which is still serving duty this week. “It’s a very weird thing, isn’t it? Shutting the whole thing down. Switching off the light,” she said. She’s bracing for the stroke of midnight as Friday turns to Saturday, when Britain will leave the European Union and, a bit like Cinderella, she’ll shed her status as a lawmaker and turn back into a civilian. Brexit has involved a rather drawn-out goodbye. Not only have 3½ years passed since Britain voted in favor of a departure, but this week’s formal exit will be followed by an 11-month transition period. Ordinary citizens and businesses won’t see a difference until the end of the year, at the earliest. But one of the few immediate impacts of Brexit is that Britain’s 73 representatives in the European Parliament will lose their jobs. No longer will they play a role in shaping Europe’s future or setting regulations for its 500 million residents. The British lawmakers here in the E.U. capital were each issued 15 cardboard boxes to pack up their offices. The departing lawmakers include people who, like Scott Cato, fervently believe in the E.U. project and describe what they’re experiencing this week as “very much like a grieving process.” “It’s that horrible thing where you wake up in the morning and you forget it, and then you remember,” said Scott Cato, a Green Party lawmaker. Also leaving, though, are the boisterous Brexiteers, who made up the majority of the U.K. delegation in recent years and have used it as a platform to mock their fellow lawmakers and the E.U. more broadly. On Wednesday, they got a final chance to stick their fingers in the eyes of their pro-E.U. colleagues. “You all thought it was terribly funny. You stopped laughing in 2016,” said Nigel Farage, who pushed for the Brexit referendum that year. Farage has been a vocally Euroskeptic member of the European Parliament since 1999. Although he has failed repeatedly to win election to the British House of Commons, he has finally triumphed on


New cases in China surpass SARS epidemic as infections grow abroad; WHO calls for emergency committee meeting

said in an interview with Radio New Zealand on Wednesday that he is “looking at the quarantine options within New Zealand already.” Discussing the evacuation Tuesday, Morrison said that they are planning “assisted departures for isolated and vulnerable Australians in Wuhan and the Hubei province.” He said Australians included in the evacuation will be required to pay for some or all of the costs. A Sri Lankan family of four who are facing deportation from Australia are currently the only detainees being held in the Christmas Island center. Their case has sparked controversy in Australia, where Morrison has overseen a tough crackdown on migration. Carina Ford, a lawyer for the family, told Australia’s SBS News that they had not been formally informed of the plan to move travelers into the center where they are staying and that “it’s not appropriate for them to remain on Christmas Island if you’re quarantining people near them for the purpose of keeping them away from everyone else.” “There are two children, and it’s quite well-publicized that such viruses can have a bigger impact on children and the elderly,” she said. By: Siobhán O’Grady 4:30 PM: Google closing China, Taiwan offices amid outbreak WASHINGTON — Google has shut down its offices in China and Taiwan due to the coronavirus outbreak, company spokesman Michael Appel said Wednesday. The closures will continue according to government guidance, the tech company said, and follow many other firms’ decisions to temporarily shutter locations in China. Officials there have extended the Lunar New Year holiday — originally set to end Jan. 30 — into early February as they try to combat the virus. Google is also restricting employees’ travel and telling staff who leave China or have family returning from the country to work from home for at least 14 days after their departure. Google lists offices in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei, Taiwan. Its offices in these areas focus on sales and engineering for Google’s advertising business, the company spokesman said. Google says it has contributed $250,000 to the Chinese Red Cross and raised $500,000 with an internal campaign for relief efforts. By: Hannah Knowles 4:00 PM: Air Canada suspends all flights to Beijing, Shanghai TORONTO — Air Canada said Wednesday that it would be suspending all flights to Beijing and Shanghai after the Canadian government urged against non-essential travel to mainland China. The suspension will begin tomorrow


it was during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak that also emerged from that country, U.S. officials are still getting their information through press briefings rather than from direct transfer of scientific data, a top U.S. health official said Monday. WHO officials are assembling a team of international experts to collaborate with the Chinese on the ground but declined to say what countries the experts would come from and whether they would include scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By: Lena H. Sun 2:10 PM: Coronavirus spread raises concern for Uighurs incarcerated in western China WASHINGTON — Thirteen cases of coronavirus have been confirmed thus far in China’s western region of Xinjiang, where at least 1 million Uighur Muslims are being detained and subjected to political indoctrination programs. China calls the detention centers reeducation camps meant to counteract extremism, but human rights groups say they are intended to stamp out Uighur culture and Islam. What the outbreak means for people in Xinjiang remains an open question. The cramped and unhygienic camp conditions are ripe for an outbreak: Uighurs interned in Xinjiang have reported sleeping many to a room, eating inadequate and nonnutritious food, living with poor sanitation and being subjected to other stresses that can weaken immune systems, along with cases of torture, rape and forced sterilization. That people are locked up could, for now, also limit their exposure to the outbreak. “If you’re in a prison or a detention center, I’m assuming you have pretty good control over who comes in and out,” said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the global health policy center and senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They are in a much better place to control the outbreak” should one occur, Morrison added. “If you are in a region that’s not been affected much, they’ve had time to put in screening and testing. All of those things have been missing or overwhelmed in the hot zone areas of Hubei.” Leaked classified Chinese government documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists include a telegram from the Communist Party commission in charge of Xinjiang security that lists preventing “food safety incidents and outbreaks” as a top priority. The document goes on to specifically list “influenzas, typhoid, tuberculosis and other epidemic diseases” as potential problems to watch out for — raising the question about why there is a fear


of such dangerous diseases in the camps to begin with if conditions are as pristine as Chinese authorities have claimed. Analysts have also predicted that if the virus were to spread among the Uighur population, China, which has sought to restrict any information coming out about conditions in Xinjiang, would not be forthcoming, further raising the risk. By: Miriam Berger 2:00 PM: Malaysia detains four more people for allegedly spreading false information about coronavirus WASHINGTON — Malaysian authorities said Wednesday that they have detained four more people suspected of “spreading false news” about coronavirus, one day after arresting a man on similar allegations. Officials alleged that a 49-year-old part-time tutor and a 24-year-old student spread false information about the virus on Facebook and Twitter, respectively. Two pharmacy assistants between the ages of 25 and 30 were also detained “to assist in investigations” connected to fake news on Facebook, said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. Four smartphones were confiscated along with SIM cards and memory cards during raids, according to the commission, which vowed to “step up enforcement.” The latest suspects face a maximum fine of more than $12,000 and up to a year’s imprisonment. The fine could increase if they are found to continue their offenses after conviction. Malaysia’s prime minister has denounced misinformation about the virus as stoking both fear and racism, amid concerns about anti-Chinese sentiment in the country. “The government will take action on those spreading fake news to instill fear among Malaysians and incite hatred among the races in Malaysia,” Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said, according to the South China Morning Post. By: Hannah Knowles 1:45 PM: Coronavirus concerns threaten to alter esports league’s ambitious plans WASHINGTON — Esports leagues are among the sports organizations affected by the outbreak. The Overwatch League, a 20-team, international competitive video-gaming league built around the team-based shooter game Overwatch, is assessing early-season matches scheduled to be held in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hangzhou. A Feb. 15 match in Shanghai, about 500 miles from Wuhan, is scheduled to be the international debut for the league, which had previously held all its matches in the United States. According to several people familiar with the league’s planning, as of Tuesday afternoon, league executives and teams were holding discussions on how to deal with the situation, which complicates the league’s designs on several levels. An announcement from the league is


expected this week, potentially as early as Wednesday. The league features teams based in the Chinese cities of Guangzhou, Chengdu and Hangzhou, in addition to Shanghai. Guangzhou was set to host competitions the weekend of Feb. 22, followed by matches in Hangzhou the weekend of Feb. 29. It is not known whether those competitions would be relocated to other cities or rescheduled. The Overwatch League declined to comment on the status of its planning when contacted Wednesday by The Washington Post. Read more here. By: Mike Hume and Teddy Amenabar 1:30 PM: Google searches for ‘Corona beer virus’ spike amid outbreak WASHINGTON — A subset of people are curious to find out whether there’s a connection between the coronavirus and the Mexico-produced Corona beer. To be clear, there is none. Google searches for “beer virus” and “corona beer virus” have dramatically increased in the past few days, according to Google Trends. Overall, Google Trends reported Tuesday a 1,050 percent increase in searches worldwide for “coronavirus symptoms” as the pneumonia-like disease continued to spread in China and elsewhere. The House on Hood bar in New Zealand has even tried to capitalize on the linguistic similarity by offering reduced-price Coronas for the duration of the outbreak. “Virus or no virus, we still think Coronas are pretty great, so while the pandemic lasts, we’re selling Coronas for just $6.50, all day, every day,” reads a Facebook post from Tuesday. The advertisement includes a picture of two people dressed in white protective gear and face masks and holding a Corona beer below the words “Catch some Corona at House this summer.” Some Facebook users laughed in response. Others were appalled. “While NZ might not be directly affected at present, these people are literally suffering and its honestly shameful to use their deaths as a marketing strategy,” one user wrote. “It’s not funny at all.” By: Miriam Berger 1:15 PM: Plane carrying U.S. evacuees from Wuhan lands in California WASHINGTON — An airplane carrying about 200 American evacuees from Wuhan landed at a California Air Force reserve base Wednesday, according to footage released by Reuters. Those on board included State Department employees, their families and other U.S. citizens. They will be housed on the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, Defense Department spokesman Chris Mitchell said. He said they will stay there for three to 14 days. During that time, the evacuees will not


first plane brought out 206 people on Wednesday morning, 12 of whom have now been hospitalized after showing symptoms of illness, Japanese officials told reporters. Five who had coughs or fever were sent to the hospital straight away, traveling from Haneda airport in separate ambulances. The remaining number went to different hospitals for tests, and seven of that group were later admitted to the hospital. But even those not showing symptoms are still not in the clear. Most will stay in a hotel for two weeks where they will be monitored regularly, but three of the group asked to go home, where their health will also be regularly checked. Japan also announced an eighth case of coronavirus on Wednesday after a tour guide who had traveled with a group of Chinese tourists contracted the illness. On Tuesday, the health ministry announced the tour bus driver had contracted the disease but now says a guide also fell ill. She is a woman in her 40s from the city of Osaka. Officials said on Tuesday that around 650 Japanese nationals staying in the central province of Hubei had asked to be evacuated but said on Thursday that more people had contacted the government since then asking to leave. The second flight is due to land in Tokyo on Thursday morning, and arrangements are already being made for a third charter flight. By: Simon Denyer and Akiko Kashiwagi 7:25 AM: Kazakhstan cutting travel links with China over virus fears MOSCOW — Kazakhstan, which shares a long border with China, will suspend all flights to its eastern neighbor on Monday amid concerns over the coronavirus outbreak, the Kazakh government’s press service said in a statement. Passenger transportation by bus between Kazakhstan and China was suspended Wednesday, and passenger trains between the two countries will be suspended starting Saturday. The issuance of visas to Chinese citizens is also being put on hold. “The Kazakh government’s interagency commission has taken a number of extra protective measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus around Kazakhstan’s territory,” the statement said. No cases of coronavirus have been registered in Kazakhstan yet; however, Kazakh chief public health official Zhandarbek Bekshin told reporters at a news conference Wednesday that 35 people returning from China have been quarantined since Jan. 6. Four of them were diagnosed with the flu, 22 with acute respiratory infections and one with a mixed infection of


head of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies has warned that it will take at least a year to develop a vaccine for the new coronavirus that has already killed more than 130 people in just a few weeks. Vas Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, told CNBC that his company’s operations in China were continuing unhindered and that the key to combating the disease will be to study its patterns and how it develops. “We have to keep understanding the epidemiology of the virus,” he said. “The reality is it will take over a year in my expectation to really find a new vaccine for this.” The multinational based in Basel, Switzerland, is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world by sales and market capital. By: Paul Schemm 5:38 AM: Sporting events canceled, postponed or held elsewhere, as virus spreads BERLIN — The coronavirus has resulted in the cancellation or postponement of numerous sporting events in China, as concerns mount that the virus could also impact the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. On Wednesday, the International Ski Federation (FIS) canceled several men’s races in Yanqing that were set to take place in mid-February, scheduled in preparation for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. “Although the risk level in Yanqing is low, the health and welfare of the athletes and all participants must take priority,” FIS President Gian Franco Kasper was quoted as saying in a release. On Tuesday, the International Hockey Federation decided to postpone two Pro League women’s matches in Changzhou, China, that were set to take place there between Feb. 8 and Feb. 9. The federation cited “the outbreak of the coronavirus” as the reason for the postponement. Several qualifiers for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo that were scheduled for February are now set to take place outside China. Among the affected sports are boxing, basketball and soccer. Several other major sporting events are at risk of being impacted by the spread of the coronavirus, including Shanghai’s Formula One Grand Prix in April. By: Rick Noack 5:25 AM: India asks people to refrain from China travel NEW DELHI — India on Wednesday joined a growing list of countries that have issued advisories against travel to China as the deadly coronavirus spreads. The Ministry of Health in a brief statement asked Indians to “refrain” from traveling to China in view of the spurt in coronavirus cases. IndiGo, the


Cases in China continue to multiply, and 5 million residents of Wuhan, where the virus originated, have left the city, some of them surely carrying the disease. But so far, the mortality rate is less than the rate of other severe respiratory coronaviruses. In China, where 5,974 people are infected, 132 have died through Tuesday. That is a high rate, but far less than the fatality rate of SARS and MERS. And countries like the United States that quickly began screening travelers, isolating sick people and tracing their contacts have just a handful of cases. There have been no fatalities outside China. Public health officials said Tuesday that they are grappling with a long list of unknowns that will determine how successful they are in limiting the toll of the widening outbreak. Those questions include how lethal the virus may be, how contagious it is, whether it is transmitted by people who are infected but show no symptoms, and whether it can be largely contained in its country of origin. Some experts are encouraged that no case outside China seems to be severe, and that no fatalities have been recorded outside China so far. Read more about the outbreak’s unknowns and public health officials’ response here. By: Lena H. Sun and Lenny Bernstein 8:45 PM: Two college basketball games postponed after Miami (Ohio) students tested for coronavirus WASHINGTON — Officials at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, have called off two college basketball games after administrators announced two students who had recently traveled to China were being tested for coronavirus. One of the students visited the campus health center on Monday and exhibited flulike symptoms, prompting staff to test him and his travel companion, a university statement said. The two students are now isolated in their off-campus residences while they await their test results from the CDC. The school’s men’s and women’s basketball teams were set to face Central Michigan and Western Michigan, respectively, over the next two days, but the athletic department announced on Tuesday that those games would be postponed. The statement “The health and safety of our student-athletes is always a top priority and, out of abundance of caution, it was decided to cancel tonight’s men’s basketball game,” Alford said in a statement. “I appreciate the diligence that the staff at Miami have shown and this serves as a reminder of how serious these issues are.” One of


Overwatch League cancels China matches for February, March due to coronavirus

weekends of March 14 and March 21. “We have decided to cancel our February and March matches in China in order to protect the health and safety of our players, fans and staff,” the league wrote Wednesday night, noting that more information about the canceled matches would be forthcoming. Two of the teams based in China, the Guangzhou Charge and Shanghai Dragons, had earlier announced on Twitter that they would temporarily relocate to South Korea. The Guangzhou Charge specifically noted that they would be relocating for the remainder of pre-season training. The Shanghai Dragons wrote early Wednesday that all players and coaches are relocating to South Korea “effective immediately," with no specific timeline set for their return. The Chengdu Hunters will remain in China for the start of the season, according to a statement posted by the team on Twitter. The Hunters are the only Overwatch League team with an entire roster and coaching staff from China. “We will strictly order our team members to follow the prevention procedures,” the statement reads. “We will check both player and staff members’ body temperature and full sanitize them.” Given the unpredictable situation and the potential for future travel restrictions on flights out of China, departing the country now may be the only way to assure that the Chinese teams can participate in any of the league’s upcoming contests, as countries have begun taking measures to restrict the admittance of passengers on flights and other means of travel originating from China. Though it does not have an Overwatch team, Hong Kong has already announced measures to restrict people coming from the mainland, closing two railways, ferries and cross-border tour buses and reducing by half its flights to China. Individual visas to Chinese will no longer be issued by Hong Kong starting Thursday. Several sporting organizations had already canceled previously scheduled events in China out of an abundance of caution. Wednesday morning, the International Ski Federation canceled its World Cup alpine skiing events scheduled to be held in Yanqing on Feb. 15 and 16. Earlier this week the country’s League of Legends competitions scheduled for the coming weekend were postponed, as were WESG’s Asia-Pacific finals, a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event scheduled to be held in Macao. The league’s decision to cancel the events comes less than two weeks before the opening of an ambitious, 27-week season with 20 teams preparing to compete in cities


of China, departing the country now may be the only way to assure that the Chinese teams can participate in any of the league’s upcoming contests, as countries have begun taking measures to restrict the admittance of passengers on flights and other means of travel originating from China. Though it does not have an Overwatch team, Hong Kong has already announced measures to restrict people coming from the mainland, closing two railways, ferries and cross-border tour buses and reducing by half its flights to China. Individual visas to Chinese will no longer be issued by Hong Kong starting Thursday. Several sporting organizations had already canceled previously scheduled events in China out of an abundance of caution. Wednesday morning, the International Ski Federation canceled its World Cup alpine skiing events scheduled to be held in Yanqing on Feb. 15 and 16. Earlier this week the country’s League of Legends competitions scheduled for the coming weekend were postponed, as were WESG’s Asia-Pacific finals, a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event scheduled to be held in Macao. The league’s decision to cancel the events comes less than two weeks before the opening of an ambitious, 27-week season with 20 teams preparing to compete in cities across three continents for the first time in league history. The 2020 season is seen as a pivotal one for the league, as it is the first in which its teams were scheduled to host live competitions from all 19 of the league’s markets, which span Asia, North America and Europe. Previously all but a handful of the league’s matches had been held in Burbank, California. The vision of the league’s parent company, Activision Blizzard, is to create an international esports league that resembles the National Football League, tapping into both global and localized sponsorship dollars and developing loyalty among regional fans, much like traditional sports. Front offices across the league have been preparing for the international travel — flights, visas and hotels — all while coordinating with vendors to host matches in their home regions. Even before the threat of the coronavirus, the logistics of such a design had already proven challenging to the point of requiring compromise. The OWL’s Paris-based franchise, the Eternal, will make its 2020 home in New Jersey to better accommodate the team’s practice needs and a challenging travel schedule. The team’s home matches will still be held in Paris. Any aspirations for meeting Activision


Several Tokyo 2020 qualifying events rescheduled because of coronavirus concerns

With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics less than six months away, the fast-spreading coronavirus is wreaking havoc with preparations for the Summer Games, prompting several sports to relocate or cancel events originally scheduled for China. On Wednesday, the Feb. 12-13 World Indoor Track and Field Championships in Nanjing were postponed until 2021 out of concern over the coronavirus. The decision was made by World Athletics, track and field’s international governing body, which issued a statement that read, in part: “The advice from our medical team, who are in contact with the World Health Organization, is that the spread of the Coronavirus both within China and outside the country is still at a concerning level and no one should be going ahead with any major gathering that can be postponed.” The unchecked coronavirus has killed 132 and infected more than 6,100, including residents of more than a dozen countries. With the death toll growing and no vaccine on the horizon, the World Health Organization on Wednesday voiced “grave concern” and is weighing whether to declare “a global health emergency.” On Monday, the United States’ leading public-health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommended that travelers avoid all “nonessential” travel to China. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee was said to be studying the CDC recommendation with an eye toward its athletes’ travel. But the organization did not respond to a request to comment about what it is doing to monitor the situation or mitigate danger to its athletes. Han Xiao, chair of the USOPC’s Athletes’ Advisory Council, said there had been little conversation with prospective U.S. Olympians about coronavirus safeguards. After canvassing several fellow athletes, Han wrote in an email exchange that they would favor any rescheduling that would safeguard their health. “We are in favor of moving or rescheduling events in order to protect the health of athletes, as long as there is communication to the athletes and the athletes are included in the decision-making process,” wrote Han, a table tennis athlete. Tokyo, the site of the 2020 Summer Olympics, is nearly 1,600 miles from Wuhan, the central China metropolis that’s the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. But grave concern over the virus’s spread, both within central China and now overseas, is being felt around the world, particularly since health officials have confirmed it can be transmitted human-to-human rather than simply contracted at the point of origin. USA Pentathlon


Proportion of drivers in fatal crashes who tested positive for THC doubled in Washington after marijuana’s legalization, study finds

MADD doesn’t take a position on the legalization of recreational marijuana, we do strongly take a position on driving after using marijuana or alcohol, or any drug, simply because it kills people.” The AAA Foundation found that the percentage of Washington state drivers in fatal crashes who tested positive for THC increased from about 9 percent in the five-year period before legalization to about 18 percent in the five years afterward. About 1 in 5 drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2017 tested positive for THC, which stands for tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Initiative 502 legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use in Washington as of December 2012. The law also set a legal threshold for marijuana use for drivers that is similar to the blood alcohol limits of 0.08 percent in most states. It prohibits driving at 5 or more nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood, AAA says. There is zero tolerance, however, for drivers under the age of 21. The AAA study, relying on 10 years of Washington state traffic data, expands on a previous look at the possible effects on traffic safety there after marijuana became legal for recreational use. There were 6,721 drivers involved in fatal crashes in the state over the 10-year period, and nearly 90 percent of them died. AAA says the study accounts for variations in the percentage of victims who were tested for drugs and alcohol, and further variations as to whether authorities conducted blood or urine tests. By 2017, 89 percent of all those who died were subjected to blood tests, the study says. Other studies have provided evidence that legalizing marijuana for recreational use has increased the dangers of driving. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reported in 2018 that, on the basis of collision claims, the crash rates in Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and Washington rose by as much as 6 percent since the first of those states legalized marijuana in 2012, compared with neighboring states that had not legalized it. And yet Washington state’s fatal crash rate per miles traveled has been lower than the national average and generally has followed the same downward trend since 1980, according to annual collision data from the Washington State Transportation Department. There were 480 fatal crashes in 2008, compared with 403 in 2012. Meanwhile, developing a consistent method of testing for and assessing a person’s level


The next pandemic is coming. We’re not prepared for it.

Tom Frieden As the coronavirus spreads beyond China, the world is asking, “Are we on the verge of our next global pandemic?” We can be sure the virus will continue to spread, but we can’t predict how far or for how long or how bad the impact will be. Here’s what we know for certain: We are living the consequences of being underprepared for the next big global epidemic. If we act now, we can prevent or blunt future epidemics and save millions of lives. The question isn’t if another pandemic will emerge, but when. We have successfully addressed serious public-health challenges. After the United States realized it was falling behind in biomedical research in 1998, we doubled the budget of the National Institutes of Health. When the world faced the unprecedented devastation of HIV, we created the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and helped turn the tide on the disease, building bridges with governments and communities around the world. But when it comes to avoidable health crises such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Ebola and drug-resistant organisms, the U.S. and global response has been slow, haphazard and far too limited. This coronavirus outbreak reminds us that humanity shares a common enemy: dangerous microbes. When Ebola struck between 2014 and 2016, Congress ultimately allocated $5.4 billion to control an epidemic — but the epidemic could have been nipped in the bud at almost no cost had basic systems been in place. The world needs a massive investment to protect against the next health threat. Where billions of dollars are needed to protect against future health threats, just a small fraction has been provided. Where thousands of staff are needed, far too few are deployed. And where long-term investments in new tools to diagnose, treat and prevent diseases are called for, investments are short-term and too small. Investing in outbreak preparedness should be a no-brainer. China’s economy has already taken a big hit, with global ramifications, and its government has already committed billions of dollars to fight the outbreak. A global influenza pandemic could kill tens of millions of people and devastate the global economy. Countries with the least resources are most at risk. Places without systems to detect and respond to outbreaks are like rooms that lack smoke alarms and sprinkler systems. We’re all connected by the air we breathe, the food we eat and the planes


The Finance 202: Big Democratic turnout would sink Trump in 2020 election even in a strong economy, says a new study

public health officials and business leaders on edge. “’We expect moderate economic growth to continue,’ Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell told reporters Wednesday. But ‘uncertainties about the outlook remain, including those posed by the new coronavirus.’ Powell said it was too early to tell what the impact of the coronavirus would be on China’s economy or any other part of the world.” He signaled a possible dovish shift “The strong words -- combined with a minor, yet telling tweak in the Fed’s post-meeting statement -- suggested that the central bank is moving toward a major change in how it interprets its price-stability mandate as it completes a review of its policy framework by mid-year.” — Corporate giants scramble to respond to coronavirus. Starbucks temporarily closed more than half of its stores — or more than 2,000 locations — in China, its largest market outside the United States. Google said it closed its five offices in mainland China, Hong Kong and self-governing Taiwan... The White House has told airline executives that it is considering suspending all flights between the United States and China... “McDonald’s, KFC and Apple have also announced closures, which will probably dent their financial results. Walt Disney said it would temporarily close its Disneyland and Disneytown parks in Shanghai. Ikea said it would close nearly half of its 30 Chinese locations.” Boeing is also raising concerns An updated look at the global spread of the disease, which has now infected 7,700 people in China with 170 deaths there and 100 people beyond it: Stocks are slumping on renewed virus fears TRADE FLY-AROUND: — Trump signs USMCA: “Trump signed a revamped trade agreement with Canada and Mexico into law, fulfilling his pledge to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement even as he contends with the Senate impeachment trial,” my colleague Jeff Stein reports. “The revised treaty, called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), creates new environmental and labor standards for the countries, while also giving farmers greater access to Canadian markets and ensuring car companies have to use a higher share of North American parts in their production, among other changes. Mexico has ratified the deal, and Canada is expected to formally approve it soon.” — Q4 trade deficit widens: “The U.S. goods trade deficit rose sharply in December as imports rebounded and businesses became more cautious on accumulating inventory, prompting some economists to cut their fourth quarter economic growth


On Brexit Day, Britain’s ‘remainers’ to host sad dinner parties, while ‘leavers’ celebrate in Parliament Square

not the “beginning of the end.” That might be wishful thinking, but he said he reckoned that Friday’s exit could be the “high point of Brexit” and everything to come will be downhill, because so far “we’ve committed the action without any consequences.” And now come the consequences. “Most of us who opposed Brexit haven’t changed our minds,” Adonis said, adding that while he accepted Brexit was happening, he still didn’t regard the decision as “fully legitimate.” “I don’t think this issue has been democratically resolved,” he said. “If all the fears turn out to be realized, in the future I and many of my associates in the remain campaign will return to call for another referendum.” Since the 2016 Brexit vote, with its 52 percent to 48 percent result favoring “leave,” polls show a slight shift in favor of “remain.” A survey this month found 52 percent of people would opt to stay in the E.U., and 48 percent would vote to leave. Pollsters say this is more about changing demographics than about people changing their minds. Some older leavers have died, and younger people (the future) are overwhelming pro-E.U. Doire Finn, 24, managed the Northern Ireland branch of the Our Future Our Choice campaign, a countrywide movement for a second referendum. “I am upset we are leaving on Friday as we, particularly young people in Northern Ireland, will lose out on so much,” Finn said. “We need to keep momentum with young people who are engaged and encourage them to actively participate,” she said. “In the transition period, we need to make sure our rights aren’t eroded. So that’s where the energy is going now.” Those who voted against Brexit in 2016 did not go gently into that good night. There were huge anti-Brexit rallies last year, with a million people in the streets of London, demanding a fresh public vote. These were some of the biggest protests in Britain’s history. The resistance showed itself in various forms. There were groups like Led By Donkeys: Four dads in their 40s who began sneaking out in the middle of the night with buckets of wallpaper paste to plaster quotes demonstrating what they saw as hypocrisy by leading Brexiteers onto giant billboards. Pictures of their work — on buildings but also playing fields, beaches, projected onto the British Parliament — went viral. “It showed a real hunger for that accountability,”


The Trump-Boris honeymoon is over

Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday, along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions? Friday marks “Brexit Day,” the moment when Britain finally leaves the European Union So, get ready to pop the corks of your English sparkling wine — but don’t celebrate too much. As The Washington Post’s William Booth and Karla Adam point out, not much will change at first: The toughest work on Brexit is still to come, including matters as diverse as negotiating fishing rights and printing passports. But perhaps the most difficult challenge ahead is one many Brexiteers had hoped would be the easiest: Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the United States. Britons have long cherished the “special relationship” between London and Washington, and many pro-Brexit voices, including campaigner Nigel Farage and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have suggested that leaving the E.U. will help strengthen transatlantic ties with “Mr. Brexit” himself, President Trump. The reality, however, may be trickier. When Britain leaves the E.U., one of its first tasks will be to negotiate a bilateral trade deal with the United States. Trump has promised a “massive” deal, but experts suggest that he will continue his hard-nosed, winner-takes-all approach. “Trump is not going to be doing Johnson any favors,” Amanda Sloat, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution in Washington, told Reuters this week. “He’s not going to give him a trade deal without major concessions.” And it’s improbable that Johnson will offer any favors in return. The British government announced on Tuesday that it would allow the Chinese tech giant Huawei’s equipment to be used in 5G telecommunications networks in the country, marking a major split with the United States, which had pushed allies to refuse to work with the company. Huawei is the world’s leading provider of 5G equipment and is often able to offer its services at highly competitive prices, but the United States warns that it is too closely linked to the Chinese government, and Washington has called for a boycott of the company. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab played down the decision, suggesting in a statement that Britain would “never take decisions that threaten our national security or the security of our Five Eyes partners,” a reference to intelligence sharing among Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the United States. Huawei was barred from the “core” of Britain’s mobile networks and strategically important sites,


Homero Gómez González, Mexico’s monarch butterfly defender, found dead

MEXICO CITY — Homero Gómez González, a former logger who became one of central Mexico's most prominent defenders of the region's monarch butterfly population, was found dead Wednesday. Gómez González disappeared Jan. 13, sending a shock wave through communities of environmental conservationists in the United States and Mexico. Local authorities created search teams, and the state attorney general launched an investigation. Almost immediately, his fellow activists suspected loggers and criminal groups whom Gómez González might have upset in his conservation efforts. Gómez González was found floating in a well near the butterfly sanctuary he had spent decades working to preserve, according to Miguel Angel Cruz, who succeeded Gómez González as commissioner of the community of El Rosario. The cause of death is not yet known. In an interview with The Washington Post last month at El Rosario Monarch Butterfly Preserve, Gómez González spoke about his efforts — and the challenges he faced as he tried to protect the migrating butterflies. “It’s been a fight to maintain it,” he said. “And it hasn’t been easy.” For as long as anyone can remember, millions of monarch butterflies have spent their winters on a few remote hilltops in the Mexican state of Michoacán. But logging in the region nearly destroyed their habitat, a convergence of geography and landscape that might have been impossible to replicate. The Mexican government eventually outlawed logging in the area, giving new life to the monarch butterflies, but the restriction created enormous tension between local loggers and conservationists. Between 2005 and 2006, 461 hectares in the region were lost to illegal logging. Gómez González spoke openly about growing up in a logging family that was initially skeptical about the idea of conservation, even as they marveled at the yearly arrival of the butterflies. “We were afraid that if we had to stop logging, it would send us all into poverty,” he told The Post. But he came around to the idea of the sanctuary, in part as he saw the potential for tourism. He began working with conservationists from the World Wildlife Fund and scientists from around the world. He created a Twitter account where he posted videos of himself in a cloud of monarchs, encouraging visitors to witness the magic. He posted the last one hours before he disappeared. After he vanished, his family received calls from people claiming to have kidnapped him, demanding ransom payments. More than


The actual danger of coronavirus

On Dec. 31, medical personnel in the Chinese city of Wuhan identified a new strain of coronavirus, a viral family that infects the respiratory system. Since then, 6,000 people in China have been confirmed infected and at least 130 have died. By Jan. 23, 11 million people in Wuhan were quarantined and with other travel networks and large gatherings restricted, the lives and livelihoods of about 25 million people in China were constrained. As #CoronavirusOutbreak tops Twitter’s trending topics, sensationalized videos of East Asian people eating live rats, bats and frogs populate social media feeds alongside images of long lines and conflict in Chinese hospitals. Echoing the public discourse of recent Ebola virus outbreaks in West Africa, a sense of chaos, fear and even disgust permeates Western discussions of coronavirus. While addressing the outbreak will take a global public health effort, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has declared the current risk to the American public is low. If 21st-century outbreaks like SARS, MERS and Ebola virus are any indication, it is likely American fear of contracting coronavirus — and the xenophobic, racist assumptions that drive it — carries a risk far greater to most people in this country than the virus itself. Historically, infectious disease has generated racist discourse that blames victim populations for the perceived threat, justifying political responses that threatened human rights. Discourses about disease, contagion and otherness go back centuries, and have often been motivated by the mobility of people and goods between settlements, states and continents. They have a prominent history in the United States, where, for example, officials began using public health to excuse the protracted detainment of Hispanic people at the southern border in the 1840s. In another case, Civil War-era federal officials argued that an outbreak of smallpox among freed people was a direct consequence of emancipation, a logic they used to excuse their failure to respond with any public health effort. In another smallpox epidemic that hit North America in 1898, all indigenous people in Oklahoma were banned from boarding trains or leaving their reservations based on the unfounded belief that they were responsible for the disease’s spread. But Chinese and Chinese American people have served as scapegoats for infectious disease outbreaks and sanitation failures in the United States and around the world to particularly alarming effect. In late-19th and early-20th-century California, for example, political cartoons depicting Chinese Americans


The Cybersecurity 202: There’s a new cross-country effort to train election and campaign pros on digital security

also said she would consider sanctions against countries that engage in election interference through disinformation. “Disinformation erodes our democracy, and Democrats must have a plan to address it,” the senator from Massachusetts wrote. “The stakes of this election are too high — we need to fight the spread of false information that disempowers voters and undermines democracy,” PATCHED: The Interior Department ordered the grounding of all non-emergency drones to assess whether the department's Chinese-made unmanned aircraft are too vulnerable to spying by Beijing, The order doesn’t mention China by name, but it formalizes and expands the department’s decision to ground nearly 800 Chinese-made drones in the fall. The military has already largely banned Chinese-made drones, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers has pushed for legislation that would bar all federal agencies from buying them. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security first raised warning flags about the issue in 2017 when it accused Chinese drone manufacturer DJI of vying for government contracts to exploit U.S. data. DJI has denied those claims and called yesterday’s order “politically motivated.” PWNED: The European Union declined to recommend that any of its members ban Huawei from their next-generation 5G telecom networks, dealing yet another blow to the United States’s efforts to persuade foreign allies that the Chinese telecom giant creates an outsize risk of spying. The decision comes just one day after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the U.K. would allow Huawei to build some portions of its 5G network. The E.U. advised members to limit “high-risk” vendors but did not single out any companies. The decision doesn’t bar E.U. member states from implementing their own bans. A German newspaper reported yesterday that the German government, which is still weighing a ban, had received intelligence from U.S. officials allegedly providing evidence of Huawei’s spying. Huawei denied the claims, Reuters reports. — —A newly leaked internal report revealed that skilled hackers compromised dozens of servers at the United Nations, — More cybersecurity news from the public sector: --Two of the nation's most advanced cybersecurity organizations are planning to team up on sharing digital threat intelligence and responding to hacks, CTA is a coalition of top technology and cybersecurity companies and the FS-ISAC works as a conduit to share threat intelligence between the government and the financial sector. — More cybersecurity news from the private sector: — Cybersecurity news from abroad: — Today —Coming up:


World Digest: Jan. 29, 2020

CRIMEA The Trump administration on Wednesday placed sanctions on leading Russia-backed officials in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was part of Ukraine before Russia claimed it in 2014 and set off the biggest East-West confrontation since the Cold War. The sanctions targeting seven officials — including the “so-called Prime Minister of the so-called Republic of Crimea” — and a railway firm connecting Russia with Crimea were issued by the Treasury Department two days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to meet with officials in Ukraine. The United States has never recognized Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which became part of Ukraine after the Soviet Union fell in 1991. Most of the officials facing sanctions represent the port city of Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet for centuries. Many residents are retired Russian navy officers who settled and stayed even when the peninsula became part of Ukraine. Crimeans voted to become part of Russia in 2014. Ukraine remains at war with Russia-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country. The European Union imposed sanctions on many of the same Crimean officials this week as punishment for their involvement in Russian local elections held in Crimea in September. The E.U. considers Crimea to be illegally annexed. — Carol Morello MEXICO Homero Gómez González, a former logger who became one of central Mexico’s most prominent defenders of the region’s monarch butterfly population, was found dead Wednesday. Gómez González disappeared Jan. 13, sending a shock wave through communities of environmental conservationists in the United States and Mexico. Local authorities created search teams, and the attorney general of Michoacan state launched an investigation. Almost immediately, his fellow activists suspected loggers and criminal groups whom Gómez González might have upset in his conservation efforts. Gómez González was found floating in a well near the butterfly sanctuary he had spent decades working to preserve, according to Miguel Ángel Cruz, who succeeded Gómez González as commissioner of the community of El Rosario. The cause of death was not yet known. After Gómez González vanished, his family received calls from people claiming to have kidnapped him, demanding ransom payments. — Kevin Sieff YEMEN Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebel movement said Wednesday that it had fired rocket and drone strikes at Saudi targets including Aramco oil facilities, its first claim of such attacks since it offered to halt them four months ago. There was no immediate


Brexit is arriving at the beginning of the end

and more complex issues can hardly be separated from the package. On trade in services, Britain has a profound interest in as much free access to the European markets as possible, and fishing rights is always an issue filled with emotions beyond any rationality. A somewhat philosophical point is the extent to which the British government wants to deviate from E.U. standards in the years to come. But for all practical purposes, the E.U. needs to set up the border controls and procedures as if this was going to happen, whether or not it does. In the annals of trade negotiations, these will be truly unique. Normally, one negotiates about taking down barriers to trade. In this case, it will be a negotiation in which barriers go up. But for both the E.U. and Britain, it will have to be an exercise in damage limitation. Damage there will be. Economists are discussing the numbers, but the analysis published by the British government itself estimates that over time, the British economy per capita under a raw free trade agreement will be 5 percent smaller than it otherwise would have been. That adds up to billions of pounds. In the Brexit mythology, this will all be compensated by fabulous new trade agreements that Britain will be able to conclude all over the world. These agreements have to be truly fantastic to make up for the worse conditions over the nearly 50 percent of its exports that go to the E.U. The E.U. has approximately 600 agreements of different sorts on all sorts of issues all over the world, and these will suddenly cease to apply to Britain when the real Brexit occurs. With Norway alone, there are no less than 38 different agreements. Even if some of these can just be rolled over into bilateral agreements, this doesn’t apply to them all. It will be a herculean task for Britain to negotiate deals just to take things back to the starting point of Brexit. And trade is just part of the immense network of relations and interdependence that have developed over nearly half a century of common endeavor across the economies and societies. Rules governing data transfers must be sorted out, as well as how to manage cooperation in the critically important areas of justice and home affairs. There is good will on both sides — but also significant hurdles to overcome.


Here are the 20 U.S. airports where health officials are screening for coronavirus

more than 8,100 confirmed cases of infection as of Thursday evening local time — an increase of more than 1,900 from the previous day. (The figures include nine cases on the self-governing island of Taiwan.) The CDC began screening at Los Angeles International, John F. Kennedy International and San Francisco International airports earlier this month as concerns about the new coronavirus began to increase. Last week, the agency began enhanced screening of passengers at two additional airports, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson and Chicago O’Hare International. CDC officials said the five airports were chosen because roughly 90 percent of the passengers arriving from Wuhan either on direct or connecting flights flew through them. But efforts to ensure all arriving passengers came through those airports proved difficult. Expanding screening to 15 additional airports where the CDC has quarantine stations in place poses less of a logistical challenge and will enable officials to reach 95 percent of travelers coming from China, officials said. The screenings, which focus on travelers from Wuhan, involve having them fill out a form detailing their travel and contacts while in Wuhan and whether they are experiencing any symptoms. They also have their temperatures taken. Here are the 20 airports where travelers will undergo additional screening: In addition to expanding screening, Messonnier said health officials would distribute 350,000 cards to travelers arriving from China with information about the coronavirus and where to call if they think they may have symptoms of the virus. The cards were already being distributed to passengers who arrived at airports that did not have enhanced screening in place. The flow of passengers coming from Wuhan and other parts of China has slowed dramatically. Officials in Wuhan closed the city’s international airport, and many airlines have canceled flights to and from China. Israel’s El Al, Scandinavian Airlines, EgyptAir and Turkish Airlines announced suspensions Thursday in flights to Chinese hubs, joining other major carriers such as American, United Airlines, British Airways and Germany’s Lufthansa in reducing or suspending service. El Al suspended all direct flights to China until March 25. Turkish Airlines is reducing the frequency of flights to four Chinese cities beginning next week. After Thursday, Scandinavian Airlines is stopping all service to Shanghai and Beijing until at least Feb. 29. Here is a list of airlines that have suspended or reduced service to China. Passengers should contact their airline for information about rebooking or refund options.


Catalan secessionists ladle a soup of fiction and paranoia

BARCELONA — Beneath the sleek surface of this sparkling Mediterranean metropolis boil passions generated by Spain’s version of identity politics. The passions are aroused by demagogues who hope to shatter a nation. The turmoil in Catalonia — the northeastern of Spain’s 17 regions, which exercise considerable autonomy (over police, health care, education, etc.) — is the toll taken by lies used to manufacture grievances. This is pertinent to the United (for now) Kingdom, and wherever populist resentment-mongers stoke feelings of victimization. The illegal 2017 referendum staged by Catalan secessionists (some are in jail or in exile to avoid trial) yielded a muddy result: The organizers claimed that 90 percent voted for independence, but turnout was only 43 percent. Many boycotted the voting because of its illegality. Nevertheless, 26 days later, the Catalan parliament declared independence. However, on Nov. 10, 2019, in the fourth national election in four years, only 42.5 percent of Catalans supported pro-independence parties. Nevertheless, secessionist leaders will continue to feed to the gullible fictions such as these: Catalans have more “genetic proximity” to the French than to Spaniards. Madrid is “ripping off” and “strangling” Catalonia. Every year, every Catalan family sends to Madrid enough money to buy a car. (Catalonia, which contributes 19 percent to Spain’s gross domestic product and 19 percent of national revenue, has 16 percent of the nation’s population, and receives about 15 percent of disbursed national revenue.) Madrid elites despise Catalans. (A banner on a balcony here: “Independence means dignity.”) Having five Catalans among the 11 starters in Spain’s 2010 World Cup-winning soccer team was a plot to subvert Catalan independence by inspiring national sentiment. And so on. What makes secessionists think a soup of fictions and paranoia will be swallowed? In Britain, the most potent factoid in the 2016 Brexit campaign that won 52 percent approval was that Britain sends to the European Union 350 million pounds ($455 million) a week that otherwise could go to the National Health Service. This propelled Boris Johnson, who has always been parsimonious with truth, into office as the queen’s first minister. In Scotland, where a 62 percent majority opposed Brexit, a large minority feels, as Catalonia’s secessionists do, that they are a nation without a state. In a referendum two years before Brexit, 45 percent of Scots favored independence. That might not have been the last such referendum. Catalan secessionists bowdlerize history in order to


Before the new coronavirus, travel aided the spread of other diseases. Here’s a look back at 5 notable cases.

the virus caused a scare in the United States due to its effects on pregnant women. In 2016, the WHO issued a travel advisory for Zika-impacted countries where the disease was linked to miscarriages, stillbirths and a birth defect called microcephaly. The outcomes of microcephaly in infants include intellectual disabilities, serious speech problems and motor problems, which led the WHO to declare a global health emergency to prevent the spread of the virus. The United States has seen about 20 cases of the Zika virus, and in the 88 countries where the disease has been reported, hundreds of thousands have been infected, with nearly 2,200 babies born with microcephaly. Another disease that warranted the WHO’s highest level of alert was the H1N1 swine flu epidemic in 2009 that is reported to have infected as many as 200 million people across the world. The swine flu pandemic, which originated as a respiratory illness in pigs, killed 358 children in the United States. It prompted travel restrictions in nearly a quarter of the countries in the world, and many imposed pork bans targeting NAFTA-affiliated countries. At the height of the outbreak, a number of countries imposed travel restrictions on flights in and out of Mexico, which resulted in a 40 percent decrease in traffic volume. A vaccine has been developed for H1N1, but due to the cyclical nature of flu season, new strains pop up — e.g., H7N9 — which has caused a spike in flu-related deaths as recently as 2018. The spread of inaccurate information became a central conflict amid the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome that was identified in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. Worries over MERS (a strain of the coronavirus) began after the world’s slow response to the Ebola outbreak had the international community questioning the leaders of Saudi Arabia about the effects of the disease and the adequacy of Saudi health facilities. MERS killed at least 13 people, infected more than 100 and was brought to South Korea by a passenger who had traveled from Saudi Arabia in 2015, which tested the WHO’s rapid-response apparatus in controlling the disease’s spread. MERS led to two deaths in South Korea, the closing of 500 schools and more than 1,300 people quarantined. Lauren Tierney, Tim Meko, Joe Fox, Simon Denyer, Lena H. Sun, Miriam Berger, Adam Taylor, Elanah Uretsky, Ishaan Tharoor, Lenny Bernstein, Bonnie Berkowitz, Laris Karklis, Shelly Tan, Denise


intellectual disabilities, serious speech problems and motor problems, which led the WHO to declare a global health emergency to prevent the spread of the virus. The United States has seen about 20 cases of the Zika virus, and in the 88 countries where the disease has been reported, hundreds of thousands have been infected, with nearly 2,200 babies born with microcephaly. Another disease that warranted the WHO’s highest level of alert was the H1N1 swine flu epidemic in 2009 that is reported to have infected as many as 200 million people across the world. The swine flu pandemic, which originated as a respiratory illness in pigs, killed 358 children in the United States. It prompted travel restrictions in nearly a quarter of the countries in the world, and many imposed pork bans targeting NAFTA-affiliated countries. At the height of the outbreak, a number of countries imposed travel restrictions on flights in and out of Mexico, which resulted in a 40 percent decrease in traffic volume. A vaccine has been developed for H1N1, but due to the cyclical nature of flu season, new strains pop up — e.g., H7N9 — which has caused a spike in flu-related deaths as recently as 2018. The spread of inaccurate information became a central conflict amid the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome that was identified in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. Worries over MERS (a strain of the coronavirus) began after the world’s slow response to the Ebola outbreak had the international community questioning the leaders of Saudi Arabia about the effects of the disease and the adequacy of Saudi health facilities. MERS killed at least 13 people, infected more than 100 and was brought to South Korea by a passenger who had traveled from Saudi Arabia in 2015, which tested the WHO’s rapid-response apparatus in controlling the disease’s spread. MERS led to two deaths in South Korea, the closing of 500 schools and more than 1,300 people quarantined. Lauren Tierney, Tim Meko, Joe Fox, Simon Denyer, Lena H. Sun, Miriam Berger, Adam Taylor, Elanah Uretsky, Ishaan Tharoor, Lenny Bernstein, Bonnie Berkowitz, Laris Karklis, Shelly Tan, Denise Lu, Patterson Clark, Lena H. Sun and Anna Fifield contributed to this report. Read more: Coronavirus vaccine research is moving at record speed Can the coronavirus be contained? Unknowns complicate response. In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, here’s what you need to know about travel to China


D.C. jail closed to visitors for ‘security inspection’

Relatives and friends of inmates at the D.C. jail have gone on Twitter and other social media seeking information behind the jail’s decision to temporarily bar visitors. Jail spokeswoman Keena Blackmon confirmed that the jail has been closed to visitors since Monday, citing a randomly scheduled “security inspection.” Blackmon said both buildings at the jail, the Central Treatment Facility and the Central Detention Facility, were closed to visitors. In addition to general visits, educational classes that are held at the facilities were also suspended. Blackmon said that though many people have described the procedure as a “lockdown,” that was not correct. Instead, Blackmon said, the procedure was a “standard” security inspection. She said that there was no specific cause for the inspection and that she could not say when it would be completed and the jail reopened to visitors. keith.alexander@washpost.com


How the coronavirus is feeding our xenophobia

Discussions of the spread of a new strain of the coronavirus seem to emphasize inherent xenophobic sentiments. While the virus is a growing concern, the current rhetoric centers the conversation on the international travel of Chinese citizens. Like MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome), naming a virus after a location strengthens national stereotypes that specific places or people are toxic. The World Health Organization notes how these location-based naming conventions for diseases produce violence, restrictive policies on travel and barriers on trade/commerce. The Jan. 29 front-page article “Many unknowns complicate response to virus,” an analysis of the virus’s spread, focused on policies produced by China and miscommunications between foreign parties. Instead of expanding the issue as a global issue, the disease remains China’s problem. If the disease is not contained, the blame will rest on China’s inability to control its citizens. We need to find ways of discussing emerging diseases without fixing their origin to a culture or location. The coronavirus does not care about national borders or citizenship. Walker Brewer Read more letters to the editor.


A top European music school suspended students from East Asia over coronavirus concerns, amid rising discrimination

ROME — The prestigious Santa Cecilia music school in Rome on Wednesday singled out students from East Asia, barring them from class over coronavirus concerns. The students learned of the move in a message from the conservatory’s director, Roberto Giuliani, sent to faculty members, who forwarded it by email and WhatsApp to those affected. The message — which used the term Oriental, an adjective considered derogatory when used to describe people — asked East Asian students not to show up for at least a week “due to the well-known events related to the Chinese epidemic” and to undergo medical examinations before readmittance. The announcement caught many students by surprise. Authorities had yet to confirm a single case of the virus in Italy. For 25-year-old South Korean voice student Yoonseo Kim, the only possible explanation for the suspensions was racism. “My friends don’t want to leave their homes because they’re afraid — of racism, of stares, of bad words,” she added. “It’s normal now.” Shortly after the announcement, discriminatory comments appeared online, according to social media posts reviewed by The Washington Post. The school asked affected students to leave classes shortly after the announcement went out, and staffers later stopped them in the lobby to bar them from entering the building, said one student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Several students described being mocked as they left the building by non-Asian students, who covered their faces in imitation of face masks and laughed. “I was frozen. I couldn’t talk,” said 23-year-old South Korean student Sumin Hwang. Giuliani said in an interview Friday that he never meant to discriminate and that students found to have used racially motivated insults would be punished. The school, he said, was inherently international and dedicated to students from abroad. He had in hand a message from a Chinese student who appeared to support the suspension order. The required medical checkup, which the school would provide, he said, was supposed to help those without full access to the public health system. Despite the controversy, the suspensions have not been lifted. The episode underlined concerns East Asian communities around the world have expressed in recent weeks as misinformation about the new coronavirus spreads, fueling stereotypes and discrimination. In one instance, widely circulated footage of a woman drinking bat soup provided supposed evidence that Chinese eating habits had allowed the virus to spread.


Brexit is finally happening. Now the hard part begins.

Friday is Brexit Day. Those who have long sought the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union will be celebrating when the clock strikes 11 p.m. and Britain formally leaves. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson surely knows this is not the end; to quote his idol, Winston Churchill, it is merely “the end of the beginning.” Brexit means sovereignty. Britain will now be free to chart its own course in the global economy. It can — and will — set its own immigration rules, ending the free movement of E.U. citizens that brought millions of people to Britain and helped depress wages for the lesser-skilled native-born. It will also stop sending billions of pounds a year to the E.U., money that can now be used to finance the prime minister’s plans to increase funding for the National Health Service, education and police. Those acts alone will help keep the promises made to Britons during the 2016 referendum campaign. The harder questions, however, have yet to be settled. The E.U. withdrawal agreement gives Britain until the end of the year to determine its new trading relationship with its former partners. Establishing that will not be easy, especially because the E.U. is demanding that Britain align its rules on a host of matters with the rest of Europe if Britain is to maintain relatively easy access to E.U. markets. That would stymie Britain’s ability to forge its own trade deals with other nations, so Johnson and his team are unlikely to agree to the terms. This, in turn, will likely have serious short- and medium-term effects on the British economy. Predictions made by the Remain cohorts of impending disaster were so dire that Brexiteers gave them a name: “Project Fear.” None of those overly gloomy projections have come to pass, but that doesn’t mean Britain wouldn’t suffer if trading relations with the E.U. were dramatically changed going forward. British businesses have developed supply chains and markets in the E.U., and they can’t be unwound or replaced overnight. If Britain follows through on its intention to de-align its economic rules and regulations from the E.U.’s, it is natural to expect some degree of contraction as businesses adjust to the new state of play. Sovereignty, you see, has consequences. A fully sovereign nation has greater opportunities but also greater risks. Britons embraced the opportunity when they withstood heavy pressure from British industry, the media


Trump under growing pressure on U.S. response to growing coronavirus threat

President Trump, a leading critic of the Obama White House’s handling of the Ebola outbreak in 2014, is under increasing political pressure to mount a coordinated federal response to the threat of the new strain of coronavirus — amid fears of a global health crisis with economic ramifications in an election year. The White House has sought to tamp down criticism from Democrats in recent days by projecting an air of confidence and competence, with Trump presiding late Wednesday over an interagency briefing in the Situation Room. He also announced a new task force of senior aides to lead the government’s response, including screenings at 20 U.S. airports, the repatriation of U.S. citizens from China and efforts to develop a potential vaccine to treat the novel virus. The disease, dubbed a “public health emergency” by the World Health Organization, has left more than 200 dead and infected more than 9,000 people in China and Taiwan, along with about 100 confirmed cases outside that country, including six people in the United States. “This is no cause for urgent panic in any way in the United States,” Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of health, told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “This is currently under control. But really, this is a dynamic and rapidly changing event, and the news can change at any moment. But the resources are deployed, the government is mobilized and we feel confident — we know the right steps to take to contain it.” Yet the vast uncertainty over the contagiousness and lethality of the coronavirus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and the complicated geopolitics given Beijing’s poor record of transparency in handling infectious diseases, have increased the stakes for the Trump administration. So has the president’s interest in an election year of restoring more normal trade relations with China after years of tariff battles. Democrats, including 2020 presidential candidates Joe Biden, the former vice president, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), have warned that the president’s policies have made the United States more vulnerable to an infectious disease crisis. They pointed to the dismantling of a global health security team in 2018 during a reorganization of the White House’s National Security Council. And in an op-ed published in USA Today on Monday, Biden called Trump the “worst possible leader” to oversee the government’s response, citing his call for then-President Barack Obama to implement a


With Brexit, Britain is finally at the wheel of its own destiny

will remain unchanged. Regulations won’t be altered. Free movement of people will, by and large, continue. But in another sense, everything has changed: The U.K. and E.U. will now negotiate their future free-trade and security partnerships as governmental entities with no overt power-sharing ties. The Britain for the first time in almost five decades, has ceased to be a whining backseat driver in a bigger political club, and instead is at the wheel of its own destiny. In the immediate term, much focus will be on how the U.K. uses its newly repatriated trade powers in decisions over the shape of the E.U. free-trade agreement. Hand-wringing about the specific loss of access or new regulatory or tariff barriers to certain markets will result. It may even be that the time frame through December is too short to negotiate the sort of deal both sides want, in which case a transition extension (which must be pre-agreed by July 1) will kick in. Expect, if this occurs, "remainers" to ape Brexiteer language and talk of loss of sovereignty — being bound by rules over which Britain has no say. But Jan. 31 is not about the immediate consequences, or policy decisions made, but where ultimate political authority resides. Formal exit overcomes a necessary hurdle in moving toward a new U.K.-E.U. economic settlement, yes. And the shape of that relationship has become clearer given Johnson’s thumping electoral victory, and his desire for Britain to exit the E.U.’s single market and customs union. But it’s about much more than that. The key implication of leaving the E.U. is confirmation that a range of policy powers, for good or ill, will ultimately be returned to Britain, including on trade, immigration, economic regulation, state aid and competition, agriculture and fishing. After being entangled with the E.U. for so long, and with the U.K. government occupied by the process of leaving, Britain’s near-term future will unlikely be characterized by radical policy change, even after the transition ends. But the Britain’s political system will obtain more degrees of freedom — greater domestic powers to independently navigate the shocks that afflict economies and to pursue regulatory objectives regarding new technologies, and devise new laws in an environment more directly answerable to the public. Brexit was a bet that the U.K.’s institutions — not least its accountable, flexible parliamentary democracy — would, on net, deliver better outcomes in a changing


The Daily 202: Trump doesn’t necessarily think Biden is his biggest 2020 threat. At least, not anymore.

an extensive interview of the IRS whistleblower who alleged improper political interference in the audit of the president or the vice president. -- E. Jean Carroll, the New York writer who last summer accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s, requested that the president submit a DNA sample to determine whether his genetic material is on the black dress she said she was wearing during the alleged assault. NEW WORLD ORDER: -- Health officials confirmed the first U.S. case of person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus is in Chicago, and the World Health Organization finally declared it a public health emergency. “State and federal officials said the sixth infected person in the United States is married to the Chicago-area woman who contracted the virus when she traveled to Wuhan, China,” Lenny Bernstein, Lena Sun, Siobhán O'Grady and Yasmeen Abutaleb report. “The unidentified man, who is in his 60s, has been isolated in the same suburban hospital as his wife since Tuesday, when he began exhibiting symptoms consistent with the early stages of the virus, including fever, coughing and shortness of breath … In Chicago, Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady said the new U.S. patient was placed in isolation Tuesday, the same day he exhibited symptoms. The man, who has underlying health conditions, is in stable condition at a medical center in Hoffman Estates, a suburb of Chicago, where his wife is also hospitalized ... “Officials warned a jittery public, however, to expect additional cases and perhaps more person-to-person transmissions of the virus. ‘Moving forward, we can expect to see more cases, and more cases means the potential for more person-to-person spread,’ said Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nonetheless, the overall risk to people in the United States is still considered quite low, officials said. They advised U.S. residents to take the kinds of precautions they would to guard against seasonal flu — which already has killed at least 8,200 people in late 2019 and early 2020 — including frequent hand-washing and staying home when they are sick. There is no need for face masks in the United States, Messonnier said.” “Around the globe, however, and particularly in China, the respiratory illness caused by the newly identified virus continued on a widening, destructive path … The virus had killed 213 people — all of them


Goodbye cabernet sauvignon. How climate change will end wine as we know it.

The prospect of hotter summers, warmer winters, drought and violent weather events have caused experts to warn of coming wine shortages and price increases, changing varietal character and, in some dire predictions, the extinction of some wines altogether. Maybe there’s a fix, says a research paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The scientists’ computer models show that if we do nothing, global warming of 2 degrees Celsius would wipe out 56 percent of current wine-growing land; increase that to 4 degrees and an estimated 85 percent of grapes won’t be viable. This team of researchers investigated whether using more heat-tolerant grapes would allow vineyards to adapt. They found that by reshuffling where certain grape varieties are grown, potential losses at 2 degrees of warming could be halved, and cut by a third if warming reached 4 degrees. The researchers, led by Ignacio Morales-Castilla at the University of Alcalá in Spain and Elizabeth Wolkovich at the University of British Columbia at Vancouver, focused on 11 varieties of wine grapes including cabernet sauvignon, chardonnay, merlot, pinot noir, riesling, sauvignon blanc and syrah, as well as lesser-known varieties chasselas, grenache, monastrell (also known as mourvedre) and ugni blanc. Together, these account for a third of the total area planted to wine grapes and represent important parts of the wine industry in France, Australia, New Zealand and Chile. The team used vintner and researcher archives to build a model for when each would bud, flower and ripen in wine-growing regions around the world under three different warming scenarios. Then it used climate change projections to see where those varieties would be viable in the future. “Each variety has a different sensitivity to the climate,” says Ben Cook, one of the study’s authors and a professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “Basically, replacing varieties with more climatically suitable varieties, called cultivar turnover, increases resilience to climate change. It’s a story of mitigation and adaptation.” In the study’s modeling, the biggest losses are in Spain, Italy and parts of California that are already quite warm. But there are winners in warming scenarios: In Germany, northern Europe and the Pacific Northwest of the United States, where in some years they struggle to get enough sun hours to facilitate budding, fruit set and ripening, a warming trend might produce dramatically better wines. Cook says


A controversial Trump legal opinion weakened a law to protect birds. Now it might be made permanent.

The Trump administration is working to cement new standards weakening enforcement of the century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Interior Department officials said Thursday that they will propose regulations clarifying that individuals and industrial operators, such as oil, gas and wind companies, will not be penalized if they accidentally kill birds — even on a massive scale. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Aurelia Skipwith said the new regulatory language is needed so that private industries “can operate without the fear and uncertainty that the unintentional consequences of their actions may be prosecuted” when birds are killed. Officials said they will rely on companies to voluntarily protect birds. Skipwith noted that her agency’s mission centered on protecting the nation’s wildlife and plant species. “Migratory bird conservation is an integral part of that mission, and we are fully committed to it,” she said, adding that the administration also wants to reduce regulatory obstacles. Since guidelines under the administration’s interpretation of the law were issued in April 2018, hundreds of ducks, geese, herons and migrating birds have perished in oil pits, on utility lines and in other operations without penalty, according to documents compiled by conservation groups. Birds, including hawks, owls and songbirds, are drawn to oil skim pits that resemble ponds from the air. They often swoop in to prey on bats, reptiles, insects and small game that are also attracted and fall into the pits, and struggle in the sticky oil. Oil pits alone are estimated to kill between 500,000 and 1 million birds each year, according to a 2010 report by the environmental management division of Fish and Wildlife. Reid Porter, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, said in an email that oil and gas companies routinely take precautions to protect birds and other wildlife near their operations. He noted that federal data shows other factors — including habitat loss, collisions with building glass, communication towers and wind and solar projects, and cats — pose a greater threat to birds than oil pits. In the wake of the administration’s more lax enforcement of environmental protections, two major reports have flagged the perils facing wildlife. In May, a U.N. report found that 1 million plant and animal species are on the verge of extinction as a result of human activity. Four months later, a report by top ornithologists and government agencies found that nearly 3 billion birds across hundreds of


IBM’s Ginni Rometty is stepping down as CEO

IBM said Thursday that Ginni Rometty will step down as chief executive in April, capping an eight-year run at the helm during which the technology giant struggled with growth. She will be succeeded by Arvind Krishna, currently the company’s senior vice president for cloud and cognitive software. Rometty, who has been with the company for 40 years, will continue as executive chairman through the end of the year, when she will retire. In a statement, IBM said Krishna was the company’s chief architect of its acquisition of open-source-software company Red Hat, the largest acquisition in IBM’s history. It also said James Whitehurst, senior vice president and chief executive of Red Hat, would become IBM’s president. Krishna was also elected to IBM’s board of directors. “Arvind is the right CEO for the next era at IBM,” Rometty said in a statement. “He is a brilliant technologist who has played a significant role in developing our key technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud, quantum computing and blockchain.” IBM called the transition the “outcome of a thorough succession planning process,” ticking through Rometty’s milestones as chief executive, such as acquiring 65 companies, building a $21 billion hybrid cloud business and transitioning the company’s portfolio toward higher-value businesses, divesting nearly $9 billion in annual revenue. Rometty’s departure marks another exit from the ranks of female CEOs at the largest publicly traded companies. As of Jan. 15, the research and advocacy group Catalyst counted only 29 women, including Rometty, heading S&P 500 companies. That is less than 6 percent of CEO positions at those companies. IBM shares rose nearly 5 percent in after-hours trading following the announcement. The company’s most recent quarterly earnings report on Jan. 21 reported a slight increase in quarterly revenue, snapping a streak of falling sales, and beat analysts’ earnings expectations. It also issued a 2020 outlook that was above analysts’ forecasts, and headlines suggested IBM was showing signs of a turnaround. Rometty was often described as inheriting a company in transition, one trailing rivals such as Microsoft and Amazon in the area of cloud computing. Craig Lowery, a vice president with Gartner Research, said that like many companies with a “heritage of traditional IT,” IBM was facing disruption when Rometty took the helm. “Her tenure was largely marked by the need to overcome that — to figure out how to set IBM’s strategy to remain relevant in the changing market,”


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On Japan’s Kyushu Island, an untouristed gem

bullet train that connected to a slow-moving (though beautiful) rickety train ride along the coast. . Back then, few outsiders, or “gaijin,” managed to make their way there. All that changed in 2011, when the high-speed bullet train was extended directly to Kagoshima. Now trains leave every hour. And, in recent years, with more competition from domestic low-cost airlines, travelers can find a relatively cheap flight from Tokyo and be there in under two hours. So Tessa and I did both — took the train south and flew back to Tokyo to catch our international flight home. When we arrived at the train station in Kagoshima, I didn’t recognize anything. Gone were the squat, 1950s-era wooden buildings where I’d hung out drinking shochu, the local sweet potato alcohol, with my Aikido teachers. Instead, the station was part of a gleaming new mall, with a plaza, a Ferris wheel and modern shops and restaurants. Though, I did thankfully, recognize my former student, Yasuko, who picked us up. She took us to the Shiroyama Hotel, which sits high atop a hill overlooking the city and across Kinko Bay to the volcano Sakurajima, which smoked and chuffed against the evening sky. Years ago, on hot summer evenings, living in a dorm with students and no air conditioning, I would ride the ferry back and forth across the bay just to catch a breeze. This night, Tessa and I made our way to the hotel’s large gleaming onsen and sat outside in the swirling pool of water under the stars, lost in our thoughts, watching the brightly lit ferries crisscross the bay far below. Kyushu and the scattering of islands to the south have always been a place apart in Japan. Legend, myth, history and war run deep — the sun goddess was said to have taken refuge in a cave for a time in Miyazaki, along the island’s east coast, until a bawdy dance lured her out. The dialect, Kagomaben, is incomprehensible to many Japanese farther north. Even at the Paris World’s Fair in 1867, Satsuma Province — which encompasses much of present-day Kagoshima prefecture — exhibited its own pavilion, separate from the then-all powerful Tokugawa shogunate, leading many confused Europeans to think there were two countries in Japan. That internal tension that would later erupt when Satsuma’s last samurai, Saigo Takamori, helped overthrow the shogunate, and a few years later, revolted against