In Saudi Arabia, few signs of a crisis as Pompeo and Saudi officials exchange pleasantries

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo came to Saudi Arabia to highlight U.S. concern over the fate of Jamal Khashoggi, the missing journalist whose name Pompeo did not utter in public after arriving in the kingdom. Pompeo’s talks with three officials, including the king and crown prince, were “direct and frank” about the need to investigate what happened to Khashoggi, said State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert. But the cameras that recorded the officials’ small talk ahead of the private meetings captured smiles and pleasantries, giving no hint that relations between the two countries are in crisis over Khashoggi’s disappearance. “We are strong and old allies,” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Pompeo before reporters were ushered out. “We face our challenges together — the past, the day of, tomorrow.” Pompeo replied with enthusiasm, “Absolutely.” And when King Salman welcomed Pompeo, saying, “I hope you are comfortable here,” Pompeo replied that he was and added, “Thank you for accepting my visit on behalf of President Trump.” The exchanges underscored the administration’s dilemma in deciding how to respond if anyone in Saudi Arabia’s ruling family is determined to have approved harm to Khashoggi, who has written critically of his native country as a contributing columnist for The Washington Post. He has not been seen since Oct. 2, when he went to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to attain documents he needed to remarry. After Turkey accused Saudi Arabia of sending a squad of 15 people to lure Khashoggi to the consulate, torturing him and eventually killing him, Congress has threatened to impose sanctions against the kingdom’s leaders. Trump has promised “severe punishment” against anyone found responsible. But he also has touted military arms deals with Saudi Arabia and the jobs they bring. Saudi Arabia, which has denied hurting Khashoggi, has promised to retaliate against any sanctions. In Saudi Arabia, the local news media in recent days has played up the positive elements of the case for the kingdom, including “congratulations” for Riyadh’s offer to cooperate in a joint investigation with Turkey. There is little sense of urgency over its rapidly deteriorating relationship with the United States, or the reputational damage being played out in an international investors conference from which many prominent executives have pulled out over the Khashoggi case. On Sunday night, Trump ordered Pompeo to head to Saudi Arabia to talk face-to-face with Saudi leaders about the


What Jamal Khashoggi and Edward Snowden have in common

The 10 days since Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi disappeared into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul have been discomfiting for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS. Op-ed columnists and seasoned foreign policy observers in the United States have been scathing in their appraisal of the Saudi government. Businesses are pulling out of the Future Investment Initiative, MBS’s attempt at a “Davos in the Desert.” The mainstream media are running stories about MBS, underscoring “a dark and bullying side of a young man in a hurry, one who has absolute power and does not tolerate dissent.” The Saudi government has handled this very, very badly. It has offered no plausible explanation for where Khashoggi could be other than dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Over the weekend, it reacted to the negative reports with the maturity of a 3-year old. According to The Washington Post’s Loveday Morris, Souad Mekhennet and Kareem Fahim: An al-Arabiya column by its general manager, Turki Aldakhil, was even more bellicose than the state news agency, suggesting that the Saudi government was preparing “more than 30 potential measures to be taken against the imposition of sanctions on Riyadh,” including the prospect of $400-a-barrel oil. Aldakhil concluded: “The truth is that if Washington imposes sanctions on Riyadh, it will stab its own economy to death, even though it thinks that it is stabbing only Riyadh!” The Saudi Embassy in the United States, however, has tried to walk back the rhetoric quite a bit. And a senior adviser to the Saudi Embassy said that Aldakhil’s column “in no way reflects the thinking of the Saudi leadership.” So it is safe to say that Saudi Arabia is feeling the heat from Washington, and that has taken Riyadh by surprise. What’s interesting is the degree to which the media firestorm also has taken the kingdom’s critics by surprise. There is little love for the Saudi government on either the left or the right in the United States. The outcry over Khashoggi’s disappearance, however, seems to have rankled longtime critics of the U.S.-Saudi alliance: Walt isn’t entirely wrong here. The Saudis have been prosecuting a misbegotten war in Yemen and puzzling sanctions against both Qatar and Canada. Congressional attitudes toward Saudi Arabia have soured slowly over the past year, but Khashoggi’s disappearance has accelerated matters. The Trump White House has refrained


Turkish investigators search Saudi Consulate where journalist was last seen

ISTANBUL — Turkish investigators were permitted to search Saudi Arabia’s consulate on Monday, 13 days after journalist Jamal Khashoggi vanished while visiting the mission, as President Trump dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the case with King Salman, the Saudi ruler. As pressure mounted on Saudi Arabia to disclose what it knows about Khashoggi’s fate, U.S. officials began predicting over the weekend that the Saudis would inevitably admit complicity in the death of Khashoggi and claim a “botched operation,” said one person familiar with the discussions. Over the past few days, Saudi officials have discussed issuing a statement that, in part, would mention a botched operation and call for the punishment of culpable officials, according to another person with knowledge of the discussions. The statement would be issued only after Saudi Arabia reached an agreement with Turkey on how to proceed with the investigation, the person said. Speaking to reporters, Trump said Monday that he had talked for about 20 minutes with the king and that Salman had firmly denied the kingdom’s involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance. “I don’t want to get into his mind, but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers,” Trump added. “Who knows? We’re going to try getting to the bottom of it very soon, but his was a flat denial.” It was not clear whether Trump’s mention of “rogue killers” was his own speculation, a theory he had heard from the king or an intended confirmation that Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, as Turkish investigators have concluded. Saudi Arabia has strenuously denied any knowledge of Khashoggi’s whereabouts, saying — without providing evidence — that he walked out of the consulate soon after entering Oct. 2. Trump said Pompeo has license to travel wherever necessary, including Turkey, to investigate what happened. The president first announced Pompeo’s trip in a tweet in which he said that Saudi Arabia is “working closely with Turkey to find answer.” Trump said he stressed the importance of the case to Salman. “The world is watching. The world is talking. And this is very important to get to the bottom of it. And I think he understands that very well,” Trump said. “He did say, very strongly, that he’s dealing with Turkey; that they’ve come to an agreement, that they’re investigating it together. And I think that’s a good thing.” Khashoggi’s family issued a statement


Turkey agrees to Saudi request to jointly investigate Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance

ISTANBUL — Turkey said Thursday it has agreed to a request by Saudi Arabia to form a joint committee to probe the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who Turkish investigators believe was killed in the Saudi Consulate here by agents of the Saudi government, according to people familiar with the investigation. The Saudi request to cooperate with Turkey, which was announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top adviser Thursday, was a possible sign that the Saudi leadership may be searching for an exit from the crisis as it faces growing international pressure to explain Khashoggi’s fate. The Saudi journalist went missing Oct. 2, shortly after he entered the consulate to obtain paperwork related to his upcoming wedding. Saudi Arabia said he left the consulate on his own, but it has provided no evidence — such as video footage that would show him leaving. Before the announcement about a joint probe, Erdogan mocked Saudi claims that the consulate’s cameras were not recording, saying that the Saudis possess “advanced” surveillance equipment that would have captured Khashoggi’s movements in and around the facility, according to a report published Thursday in Turkey’s daily Sabah newspaper. “Is it possible not to have camera systems at the consulate or an embassy? Is it possible that camera systems didn’t exist at the Saudi Consulate, where the incident took place?” Erdogan said to reporters accompanying him on a trip to Hungary, according to Sabah. The Saudis could “catch a bird or a mosquito with the advanced systems they have,” Erdogan added. His comments were the latest sign of the outrage at Saudi Arabia that has been building steadily over the past nine days as graphic and disturbing details of Khashoggi’s fate have emerged. Turkey has released no official findings into Khashoggi’s disappearance, but people familiar with the Turkish investigation have said it concludes that he was killed inside the consulate soon after he entered. Afterward, his body was dismembered to conceal the killing, they said the probe found. Human rights groups and press freedom advocates have demanded that Saudi Arabia reveal the whereabouts of Khashoggi, who had written articles criticizing the Saudi leadership over the past year. That outcry in turn has put pressure on the Trump administration and Britain, two of Saudi Arabia’s most committed Western allies, to press their Saudi counterparts for answers. In a sign of the backlash, the New York Times


The Health 202: It’s triple trouble for Republicans on health care

the children coming across the border are being smuggled illegally and that the United States is being taken advantage of,” they write. “The president’s welling anger has left him pushing once more for a reinstatement of a family-separation policy in some form, which he believes is the only thing that has worked, despite the controversy it triggered.” "The number of 'unaccompanied alien children' and single adults apprehended remained essentially unchanged last month, another indication that more migrants who might have traveled alone in the past are now bringing children with them," they add. OUCH: At least 92 people across 29 states have been infected with a strain of drug-resistant salmonella as a result of raw chicken products, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No deaths have been reported so far, and the CDC said 21 people had been hospitalized as of yesterday, CNN’s Jen Christensen reports. The particular salmonella strain is resistant to multiple antibiotics. “The source of the raw chicken is unclear from lab tests, and no single common supplier has been identified,” Jen reports. “The strain has shown up in samples from a variety of raw chicken products including pet food, chicken pieces, ground pieces and whole chickens. The bacteria have also been found in live chickens.” The CDC is investigating the outbreak, which is also being monitored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. — The World Health Organization decided not to declare the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo a public health emergency of international concern. “We do have some optimism that this outbreak, just like the one in May, will be brought under control in reasonable time,” said Robert Steffen chairman of the WHO International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, CNN’s Debra Goldschmidt and Susan Scutti report. “If an emergency had been declared, it might have negatively affected travel and trade, which in turn might have hindered the response team efforts,” they write. Since the beginning of the latest outbreak in August, there have been 216 cases of Ebola, including 139 deaths and 57 people who have recovered from the illness, they write. — The CDC and the Alzheimer’s Association today are launching a guide for the next five years that outlines strategies for addressing Alzheimer’s disease as a public health crisis. — Drug manufacturing giant Pfizer plans to cut 2 percent of its global workforce


Trump’s lies and financial ties to Saudi Arabia

Read more from Ann Telnaes: Money trumps all Trump’s ‘rogue killers’ defense for Saudi Arabia The Trump family laundry


In North Carolina, hurricanes did what scientists could not: Convince Republicans that climate change is real

as the reason it needed to build a wall to protect his Ireland golf resort from erosion.) Many other GOP politicians, too, remain wary of bringing up climate change as a campaign issue. All 12 Republicans representing North Carolina in Congress, including Rep. David Rouzer, whose district includes Wilmington, have expressed doubts about global warming or its causes. Rouzer was among the Republicans who, in 2012, attacked climate science to kill a state report warning of the dangers of climate change. Instead of planning for the ocean rising by three feet by the end of the century, as scientists predicted in the report, Republicans came up with a new 30-year forecast that predicted sea levels rising by a maximum of eight inches. They said that the longer outlook would erode property values and hinder development along the state’s coastline. Maverick Doane, co-founder and president of the Republican student club at Cape Fear Community College, has interned for Rouzer and plans to vote for him in November. But he would like to see Rouzer and other Republican politicians acknowledge that climate change is real. “Basically, I find it quite ludicrous that people just ignore the facts,” the 18-year-old said. “I would like to see some initiative in at least addressing it.” More than a dozen moderate Republicans in Congress from other states have pushed for confronting the risks of climate change through “economically viable solutions” such as clean energy. Shifting public opinion was also evident in Phil Garwood’s geology class at the community college campus in downtown Wilmington. The school reopened last week after being closed for a month following Florence, and Garwood was using recent weather events to teach about climate change. He had taped a map tracking Michael to the blackboard, on which he’d written in chalk evidence for global warming. “Students used to say this is bull,” said Garwood, recalling that a former student had written a letter to the dean complaining that he was teaching about “God’s domain.” But the topic has become more interesting to recent students, he said, “because it’s not abstract anymore.” Take Seth Eure, a 24-year-old aspiring agriculture lawyer who comes from a family of chicken and soybean farmers and who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian, “hardcore Republican” home. In high school, he said, “I didn’t want to admit climate change was a thing. I was the same with evolution.” Now Eure,


Secret recordings give insight into Saudi attempt to silence critics

life and the projects we are going to do. . . . Jamal was a father, a friend.” “The bee army” was Abdulaziz’s idea, but he said Khashoggi liked it. As he criticized the Saudi leadership as a contributing columnist to The Post, Khashoggi had encountered the pro-government Twitter accounts that Saudi activists refer to as “the flies.” “Jamal was insulted so much by the Saudi bots,” Abdulaziz said. “They were focusing on Jamal as he was the voice in the Western media.” Abdulaziz said he suggested an online countermovement. He just needed some cash to get it off the ground. “We call them ‘the fly army,’ ” he said. “We call ourselves ‘the bee army.’ ” The plan, he recounted, was to buy SIM cards with Canadian and American numbers that Saudis inside the kingdom could use. Twitter accounts must be verified with a phone number, and activists in Saudi Arabia are scared of linking their Saudi numbers to their Twitter accounts, fearful they could be traced and arrested for being critical of the government, he said. They’d already allocated 200 SIM cards to people. Khashoggi had also asked Abdulaziz to help on a short film showing how the Saudi leadership was dividing the country, he said. And Khashoggi had asked for help designing a logo for a new foundation he was forming — Democracy for Arab World Now. Abdulaziz was also helping him design a website to track human rights issues. But Khashoggi was particularly apprehensive about the SIM card project. “He told me this project is too dangerous,” Abdulaziz said. “He told me to be careful. . . . Twitter is the only platform we have, we don’t have a parliament.” In a June 21 message, Khashoggi wrote to Abdulaziz: “I will try to get the money. . . . We should do something. You know sometimes I’m [affected] by their attacks.” Two days later, Abdulaziz placed an order on Amazon. He clicked a link sent to his phone to track a parcel delivery. He suspects that the action infected his phone. The Citizen Lab, a University of Toronto project that investigates digital espionage against civil society, warned him in August that his phone may have been hacked. Two weeks ago, the group concluded with a “high degree of confidence” that his cellphone had been targeted. The group said it believed the operator is linked to “Saudi


If Trump helps cover up Khashoggi’s alleged murder, that will also come out

Horrifying new details are leaking out about the reported murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi: According to a Turkish official who described audio of the killing, Saudi agents beat and tortured Khashoggi to death, then dismembered him and cut off his fingers. Unbearably, it’s not clear whether the latter came after the finality of the former. At the same time, there is mounting evidence that President Trump is, shall we say, less than eager to determine the full truth. As The Post’s Shane Harris reports: An agreeable explanation? Is that really what we should be searching for? We don’t know yet know what direction the Trump administration’s handling of the alleged killing of Khashoggi, a Post contributor, will take. But if the administration falls short in demanding a full accounting from the Saudis, or, worse, goes along with a sham Saudi accounting, either of those will in itself be another truth that won’t remain buried forever. That’s because it will be an appropriate topic for congressional scrutiny. Several experts and congressional aides I spoke with suggested that a Democratic-controlled House would be very likely to take a hard look at multiple aspects of the Trump administration’s response to the matter, one that looks at the broader Trump-Saudi relationship and even Trump’s personal profiting off of Saudi money. “This is exactly the kind of issue that Congress should get into,” Joel Rubin, who was the State Department’s senior liaison to the House of Representatives in 2014 and 2015, told me today. “We’ve got a specific issue where the White House’s comments are changing and confused. The primary liaison to the Saudis, Jared Kushner, is hidden from public view. This is a slam dunk issue for oversight.” In a series of private conversations, Trump has reportedly been looking for ways to continue protecting the Saudi-U.S. relationship, fretting about the Saudi investment in U.S. arms, the future flow of Saudi oil and the implications of alienating a country that could help counter Iran’s influence. And so, Trump has publicly suggested that “rogue killers” might be behind the alleged murder. Trump also tweeted that the crown prince has begun “a full and complete investigation into this matter.” Trump, then, appears prepared, or even eager, to accept the results of this investigation. Indeed, Trump compared this situation with that of Supreme Court justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, complaining, “here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty


Biden knocks Trump for ‘coddling’ Saudi leaders after Khashoggi’s disappearance

Former vice president Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast Thursday that President Trump “seems to have a love affair with autocrats,” criticizing his posture toward Saudi leaders following the disappearance of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. “He’s already making excuses before the facts are known,” Biden said of Trump during an interview with “CBS This Morning.” “It hurts us internationally.” Trump has continued to press for patience with an inquiry into the suspected torture and murder of Khashoggi in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul and stressed denials of involvement by the Saudi king and crown prince. “I just don’t know why this administration seems to feel the need to coddle autocrats and dictators from Putin to Kim Jong Un to . . . Duterte,” Biden said, referring to the leaders of Russia, North Korea and the Philippines. “I don’t understand it.” Asked by co-host Norah O’Donnell to explain Trump’s behavior, Biden said: “I don’t want to speculate on my worst fears. But either he doesn’t know what he is doing or he has an absolutely convoluted notion of what allows America to lead the world.” Biden, who is weighing a 2020 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, said doubts he has harbored about the leadership of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have been confirmed in the past few weeks. “My doubts are that there’s very little sense of rule of law, respect for human rights, dignity,” Biden said in the interview, which was taped Wednesday. “The allegations that are made so far . . . are not inconsistent with the way the kingdom would act.” As the crisis over Khashoggi’s disappearance has deepened, Trump has emphasized positive aspects of the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia and rebuffed calls to respond by cutting off arms sales to the kingdom. John.Wagner@washpost.com


Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin pulls out of Saudi investment conference amid outcry over missing journalist

Mnuchin’s absence is seen as the Trump administration’s first public rebuke of the Saudis over the disappearance of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who Turkish investigators believe was killed inside a diplomatic compound in Istanbul. Nearly a dozen executives from the technology, media and entertainment industries have backed out of the Future Investment Initiative conference, nicknamed “Davos in the Desert.”This is a developing story. It will be updated.


Treasury Secretary Mnuchin pulls out of investment conference, rebuking Saudi regime

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday that he would not attend the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia next week, delivering the Trump administration’s first formal rebuke of Saudi’s royal family following the suspected killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside a Saudi compound in Turkey. Mnuchin made his announcement on Twitter, saying he had met with President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but he did not explain the reasoning for the decision. “Just met with @realDonaldTrump and @SecPompeo and we have decided, I will not be participating in the Future Investment Initiative summit in Saudi Arabia,” he wrote. Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and a columnist for The Washington Post, disappeared after entering a Saudi consulate in Turkey earlier this month. Turkish officials have said that Khashoggi was killed inside the consulate by Saudi Arabian agents. Mounting evidence suggests the Saudi government has knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — one of Trump’s closest allies in the region — is connected to Khashoggi’s disappearance. Last week, even after reports surfaced about a possible link between the alleged killing and the Saudi royal family, Mnuchin signaled that he would still attend the conference. Multiple financial executives and media outlets, however, have announced in recent days that they would not participate. The event, one of the biggest international financial summits in the world, is seen as a major opportunity for Saudi officials to showcase their economy. Trump has been less critical of Saudi Arabia’s response to Khashoggi’s disappearance than have other U.S. officials. He has defended the regime as an ally and said the public should wait for more information before forming a judgment. With the administration facing an outcry about Khashoggi’s disappearance, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Saudi Arabia several days ago, but he said he came back with no answers about what had happened to the Saudi journalist. That turned the focus to Mnuchin, who is seen as very close to Trump and unwilling to buck the White House. The decision for Mnuchin to withdraw is “a sign that pressures from [Capitol] Hill and the media are making an impact,” said Bruce Riedel, director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution, who spent 30 years at the CIA. “After Pompeo’s failure to get any action from the Saudis, another Cabinet-level meeting with the Crown Prince would be foolish and embarrassing.”


Saudi conference scrambling after Mnuchin, media pullouts

As a rule, international conferences bask in publicity, the better to boost attendance and prestige. The sort of publicity that has fallen on the Saudi Future Investment Initiative (FII), though, hasn’t helped. The Oct. 23-25 event, “powered” by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), has become the target of worldwide disgust with mounting evidence that Saudi officials bear responsibility for the disappearance and alleged brutal murder of Saudi journalist and Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, who entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and hasn’t surfaced since. CNN, the Financial Times, CNBC, Nikkei and the New York Times are just several of the organizations that have withdrawn as media partners over the alleged murder of Khashoggi. Now Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has announced he won’t participate. In symbolic terms, the withdrawals remove the gloss from the conference — a well-deserved coming-down for the kingdom. In practical terms, the withdrawals leave conference organizers scrambling to pair a dwindling crowd of panelists with a dwindling crew of moderators. Piloting the panel discussions now falls to Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned news outlet, and various international business types. The conference program on the FII website is stingy with details on who’s paneling and who’s moderating. The presentation includes times, titles of the panels and a description of the content. But no moderators or panelists: The Erik Wemple Blog has contacted the event sponsor as well as a number of people who are still on board to participate. Response has been minimal. The barren roster of notables places pressure on Fox Business Network and its star host, Maria Bartiromo. At last year’s conference, Bartiromo interviewed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), a high-profile moment that would please any cable-news executive. As Western media outlets have bolted from the 2018 event, however, Fox Business has kept the matter under review for the past week, though Bartiromo spoke in pessimistic terms earlier this week about the prospect. Without Bartiromo, the conference would move from troubled to desperate. According to an informed source, conference officials at one point proposed that Bartiromo interview a high-powered panel of regional leaders: MBS, United Arab Emirates vice president and prime minister Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi and King Abdullah II of Jordan. The topic of the panel was “visionary leadership” and its role in converting the Arab world into an economic powerhouse. Was Fox Business


Morning Bits: The soul-crushing Trump presidency

Saudis are accused of ordering an operation that ended with an innocent man’s murder,’ [Fox News’ Shepard] Smith said. ‘Now the Saudis are going to investigate themselves. And that’s fine with the United States.’ ” Surely there must have been a brave soul to warn against outsourcing our Middle East policy to Saudi Arabia: “The [Jamal] Khashoggi murder, beyond obliterating red lines of immorality, also points to the fundamental unreliability of Saudi Arabia under [Mohammed bin Salman] as a strategic partner. What happened in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul echoes words once used to describe Napoleon’s elimination of an opponent: ‘It’s worse than a crime. It’s a mistake.’ One might add, a strategic mistake.” Read the whole thing. Does a single soul outside the White House think Mohammed bin Salman wasn’t involved? “One of the suspects identified by Turkey in the disappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. . . . Three others are linked by witnesses and other records to the Saudi crown prince’s security detail. A fifth is a forensic doctor who holds senior positions in the Saudi Interior Ministry and medical establishment, a figure of such stature that he could be directed only by a high-ranking Saudi authority.” Hitting back doesn’t mean you’ve sold your soul: “In the immigration ad, [Rep. Beto] O’Rourke attacked [Sen. Ted] Cruz as wanting to ‘deport every single Dreamer.’. . . O’Rourke’s new ad campaign follows an aggressive debate performance Tuesday night. He accused Cruz of refusing to ‘stand up to President Trump, someone who apologizes for Russia, defends that country.’ ” Well, for one thing, O’Rourke’s pretty much got Cruz pegged. Which brave soul at the next news conference will ask whether his border policy isn’t less effective than President Barack Obama’s? “Having campaigned on a promise to stop illegal immigration and build a border wall, Trump now faces a spiraling enforcement challenge with no ready solutions. The soaring arrest numbers — and a new caravan of Central American migrants heading north — have left him in a furious state, White House aides say.” Oops. The plan to get every single, solitary soul to vote early might just pay off. “Taylor Swift and Jennifer Lawrence reach out to Tennessee voters as early voting starts.” When Jennifer Lawrence is cutting ads for Memphis municipal referendums, you know this is a serious effort.


Fox Business Network bags Saudi conference

Fox Business on Thursday announced its withdrawal from the Future Investment Initiative (FII), the Saudi business conference that has come under scrutiny in the aftermath of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance. “FOX Business Network has canceled its sponsorship and participation in the Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia. We continue to seek an interview with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman,” the network announced. That’s a move that other major U.S. news organizations have made recently. For at least the past week, evidence that Saudi Arabia bore responsibility for Khashoggi’s fate has been plentiful, considering that he entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2 and hasn’t surfaced since. News reports and Turkish investigators have pointed culpability squarely at a crew of Saudis who reportedly interrogated, killed and even dismembered the Saudi journalist. Official timing doesn’t do much to advance Fox Business’s standing as a news organization that operates with full independence of the Trump White House. Just hours before the network sent out its statement, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced his own withdrawal from the event, following a slew of companies, business eminences and media organizations. Did Fox Business await a nod from the White House? A network source says no — that the announcement would have surfaced sooner, but the network was trying to arrange a news interview with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, widely known as MBS. Maria Bartiromo continues pursuing an “unrestricted” session with MBS and won’t attend the conference unless she succeeds in doing so, according to the source. It would be another historic “get” for the Fox family. Fox Business previously swatted down a proposal from conference organizers to moderate a panel with MBS and other Middle East heads of state. Whatever the sequence or motivation, the result is proper: The U.S. government and all U.S. media partners have left an official Saudi event floundering for good reasons. As reported earlier in this space, conference organizers are relying on a Saudi-owned media outlet — Al Arabiya — and a handful of un-famous business types to moderate sessions that once had prominent nameplates in the moderator’s seat. A source informed of the conference’s proceedings tells the Erik Wemple Blog that organizers are readying to fold certain segments and consolidate them with other portions of the schedule.


What we know about the 15 Saudis said by Turkey to have played a role in Khashoggi’s disappearance

11 of the 15 Saudi men Turkish officials say played a role in Khashoggi’s disappearance have links to Saudi security services, according to their posts on social media, emails, previous reports in local media and other material reviewed by The Post.


Thank you for keeping this story front and center

Regarding the Oct. 15 news article “Riyadh rejects ‘threats’ over missing journalist”: Thanks for keeping the Jamal Khashoggi story front and center. And thanks for helping us to know him. Please keep it up. I, for one, will keep reading. Joan Cramer


Power Up: The Khashoggi crisis is only deepening. Here’s what to watch in Washington.

Good morning, Power people. We're back. Tips, recipes, comments? Reach out and sign up. Thanks for waking up with us and see you tomorrow. JAMAL'S FINAL OP-ED: WHAT THE ARAB WORLD NEEDS MOST IS FREE EXPRESSION Details about Khashoggi's death are trickling out: 'MUTUALLY AGREEABLE': WHAT THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY IS TALKING ABOUT: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's maneuverings around the Khashoggi situation are part of a broader strategy to counter MBS's regional influence. REALPOLITIK: Here's the problem: SPEAKING OF KAVANAUGH C.R.E.A.M. [Cash Rules Everything Around Me]: CHARM OFFENSIVE: SWAMPY: WILL HE STAY OR WILL HE GO?: A STARTLING STATISTIC: RETIRED MARINE AWARDED THE MEDAL OF HONOR


Orionid meteor shower, featuring debris from Halley’s comet, peaks Friday night

head-on and subsequently appear to have shorter, dimmer tails. The ones that leave the best, longest strip of colors are those that skip through the atmosphere at an angle. The secret is finding a dark area away from city lights and giving yourself long enough for your eyes to adjust. Meteor showers result when Earth passes through a stream of debris left behind by a comet, asteroid or other piece of junk flying around in space. When our planet plows through them, they become trapped in our gravitational field and burn in the upper atmosphere. It’s just like bugs spattering off the windshield of your car on a warm summer day — they leave a streak of color where they hit. When it comes to a shooting star, that trail of light is courtesy of metallic compounds in the space rock being vaporized. The friction the meteor encounters because of air drag high in the sky generates an enormous amount of heat, and POOF! The debris disappears, combusting in a colorful burst of light. But where does this debris come from? In the case of the Orionids, the answer might have you thinking back to 1986: Halley’s comet. Returning every 76 years, Halley’s comet made its last appearance when Reagan was in the White House, the average cost of a new home was $89,430, and Oprah Winfrey was debuting the first episode of her soon-to-be hit show. The comet won’t be back until 2061. But even though Halley’s comet is gone, it certainly isn’t forgotten. We’re reminded of it every spring and fall, when rice-grain-size bits of material from the seven-mile-wide ball of ice and dust light up the skies. That clustering of interstellar pebbles contributes to the Eta Aquarid meteor shower every spring and is the main source that touches off the Orionids every fall. Every meteor shower has its own character, and the Orionids are no exception. Blink and you’ll miss it, because this shower’s shooting stars are fast — traveling more than 40 miles per second! While they won’t last more than a split second, their speed will boost their brightness. A luminous trail of excited gas and smoky dust may linger in the wake of a meteor for a few seconds. And if you miss this one, don’t fret! A much more prolific meteor shower — the Geminids — is coming the second week of December.


جمال خاشقجي: أَمَسُّ ما يحتاجه العالم العربي هو حرية التعبير

في الصحافة السعودية. مع الأسف، إنه الآن يقضي عقوبة سجن غير مبررة لمدة 5 سنوات بسبب تعليقات مزعومة تعارضت مع الخط العام للحكومة السعودية. لم يعد استيلاء الحكومة المصرية على صحيفة “المصري اليوم” يُغضِب الزملاء أو يثير ردة فعل منهم. هذه الإجراءات لم تعد تحمل عواقب رد فعل عنيف من المجتمع الدولي. بدلًا من ذلك، قد تؤدي هذه الإجراءات إلى إدانة يتبعها صمت سريع. ونتيجة لذلك، فقد مُنِحت الحكومات العربية حرية مواصلة إسكات الإعلام بمعدل متزايد. كان هناك زمن اعتقد فيه الصحفيون أنّ الإنترنت سيحرر المعلومات من الرقابة والسيطرة المرتبطَين بوسائل الإعلام المطبوعة. لكن هذه الحكومات التي يعتمد بقاؤها الفعليّ على السيطرة على المعلومات أعاقت الإنترنت بشدة. كما اعتقلوا المراسلين المحليين وحظروا الإعلانات للإضرار بعائدات وسائل إعلام معينة. هنالك عدد قليل من الواحات التي لا تزال تجسد روح الربيع العربي. تواصل حكومة قطر دعم التغطية الإخبارية الدولية مقارنةً مع تمويل دول الجوار تجذير سيطرة النظام العربي القديم على المعلومات. في حين أنّ المنافذ الإعلامية في تونس والكويت حرّة، إلّا أنّها تركز على القضايا المحلية وليس على القضايا التي يواجهها العالم العربي الكبير. وهم يترددون في توفير منصة للصحفيين من السعودية ومصر واليمن. حتى لبنان، جوهرة التاج العربي عندما يتعلق الأمر بالصحافة الحرّة، سقط ضحية استقطاب ونفوذ حزب الله الموالي لإيران. يواجه العالم العربي نسخته الخاصة من الستار الحديدي التي لا تفرضها جهات خارجية ولكن من خلال القوى المحلية المتنافسة على السلطة. خلال الحرب الباردة، لعبت “إذاعة أوروبا الحرّة” التي نمت على مر السنين إلى مؤسسة حاسمة دورًا هامًا في تعزيز وإدامة الأمل في الحرية. العرب بحاجة إلى شيء مماثل. في عام 1967، وافقت صحيفتا “نيويورك تايمز” و”واشنطن بوست” على نشر صحيفة عالمية مشتركة، وهي صحيفة “إنترناشيونال هيرالد تريبيون” التي أصبحت بمثابة منصة للأصوات العالمية. لقد اتخذَت مطبوعتي “واشنطن بوست” مبادرة لترجمة العديد من المقالات الخاصة بي ونشرها باللغة العربية وأنا ممتن لذلك. يحتاج العرب إلى القراءة بلغتهم الخاصة حتى يتمكنوا من فهم ومناقشة مختلف جوانب ومضاعفات الديموقراطية في أمريكا والغرب. إذا قرأ أحد المصريين مقالًا يكشف التكلفة الفعلية لمشروع بناء في واشنطن، فسيستطيع فهم الآثار المترتبة على مشاريع مماثلة في مجتمعه بشكل أفضل. العالم العربي بحاجة ماسّة إلى نسخة حديثة من هذه المبادرة حتى يتمكن المواطنون من الاطلاع على الأحداث العالمية. وما هو أهم من ذلك، نحن بحاجة إلى توفير منصة للأصوات العربية. نحن نعاني من الفقر وسوء الإدارة وسوء التعليم. إنّ إنشاء منتدى دولي مستقل ومعزول عن تأثير الحكومات القومية التي تنشر الكراهية من خلال الدعاية سيمكِّن الناس العاديون في العالم العربي من معالجة المشاكل البنيوية التي تواجهها مجتمعاتهم.


On a trip to the Himalayas, I learned about altitude sickness the hard way

awful we felt. What is altitude sickness? Put simply, it’s the body’s reaction to decreased oxygen levels. We lose 3 percent of inhaled oxygen molecules for every 1,000 vertical feet traveled, according to altitude researchers. To compensate for the lack, travelers inhale more frequently and can feel out of breath. With additional symptoms including headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and fatigue, altitude sickness can mimic a really bad hangover. There are three types of altitude-induced illness. Fortunately, only the mildest type struck some in our 11-member group: acute mountain sickness (AMS), commonly called altitude sickness. Two related and potentially fatal ailments can occur when lower air pressure and higher altitudes cause capillaries to leak: high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE), a buildup of fluids in the lungs; and high altitude cerebral edema (HACE), a buildup of fluid in the brain. In extreme cases, AMS can become HAPE or HACE, or the illnesses can develop on their own without being preceded by the milder one. Regardless of age, sex, body type and fitness level, one or more of these maladies can hit anyone at any high-altitude location — including Antarctica — according to medical experts. Two years ago, former astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, then a hale 86, had to be airlifted from an elevation of 9,300 feet in the South Pole. Congested lungs kept him in a New Zealand hospital for a week. If you’re planning a high-altitude adventure, a bit of prevention could save your vacation — if not your life. Discomfort can set in as low as 3,000 feet for those with lung disease; for others, problems won’t appear until around 8,000 feet. For context, Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak, rises to 29,029 feet; Alaska’s Denali, the highest U.S. peak, hits 20,310 feet; and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania stops at 19,341 feet. The best strategy, as Road Scholar noted, is to acclimate the body at lower elevations before heading skyward. A pair of hiker friends recently learned the hard way what results from a steep ascent, rather than gradual one. Marketing executive Linda Roth and her lawyer husband, Jonathan Kahan, flew from their home in the Washington area (410 feet) to Dallas (430 feet) to Montrose, Colo., (5,807 feet), then drove two hours to Telluride (8,750 feet), where they went on a gondola ride that took them higher. Roth successfully treated her initial dizziness with extra water and a massage


Why is Trump so keen to protect the Saudis?

Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know? As the evidence mounts that Saudi officials ordered the abduction and possible murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo conducted a lightning tour of the Middle East this week, flying to the Saudi and Turkish capitals. He echoed Saudi denials of culpability and backed Riyadh’s ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Khashoggi, who has not been seen since entering the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. In private, Turkish, U.S. and even Saudi-linked sources have all said they believe Khashoggi was killed there, though no government has publicly confirmed it. The grisly details of what Saudi agents allegedly did to Khashoggi, a dissident-in-exile and contributing columnist to The Washington Post, get worse by the day. On Wednesday, the New York Times, citing a senior Turkish official, reported that Khashoggi was beaten and gruesomely tortured, his fingers cut off and his body eventually beheaded and dismembered. Both The Washington Post and the Times confirmed the identities of at least some of the members of a Saudi team reportedly dispatched to Istanbul to apprehend Khashoggi. Some were members of Saudi security services, and at least one has been photographed in close proximity to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler and the man who potentially ordered the operation against Khashoggi. The Saudi version of events — which has yet to officially come out — probably will own up to Khashoggi’s death but blame the lurid mess on “rogue” elements within the court. “The emerging Saudi narrative appears to be that the palace authorized Khashoggi’s arrest and interrogation but not his murder,” wrote The Post’s David Ignatius. He described the crown prince alternating “between dark brooding and rampaging anger” in the aftermath of Khashoggi’s death. Trump has himself already voiced Trump likened the surge in anger toward the Saudis to the furor around Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault during his contentious confirmation process. “Here we go again with, you know, you’re guilty until proven innocent,” said Trump — a comparison Kavanaugh may not appreciate. Critics in Washington are baffled by the administration’s willingness to give the benefit of the doubt to the Saudis. Both lawmakers and analysts have argued that the lucrative


A perfect example of why Republicans should lose

into his finances and thereby avoid accountability. As a result, the American people — and the rest of the world — are left to ponder if Trump’s bizarrely muted reaction to the apparent grotesque murder of Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi is the result of stupid policy or financial self-interest (or both). Needless to say, no Republican is demanding any transparency from Trump or from his son-in-law Jared Kushner. As they have been from day one of this presidency, they shield the president from inquiry, utterly failing to live up to their obligations to the Constitution and their constituents. On Sunday, during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was asked if Trump’s financial ties played a part in his reaction to Khashoggi’s disappearance. Rubio blithely declared that “I don’t have any reason to believe” this was the case. That is because he and other Republicans have never bothered to inquire, and never insisted that Trump disclose and then divest himself. Rubio’s response conveys a complete lack of concern for performing his constitutional oversight duties — even when a constitutional violation and human rights atrocity are at issue. Rubio is not alone; he’s symptomatic of the passivity of his fellow Republicans. Trump told Fox Business Network on Wednesday: “We’re not going to walk away from Saudi Arabia. I don’t want to do that.” Is that because he foolishly built a Middle East policy based on a misreading of Saudi Arabia, or is it because he hates to walk away from Saudi money? In any event, he’s already signaling he doesn’t want to find out if Saudi leaders knew something. (“I hope that the king and the crown prince didn’t know about it. That’s a big factor in my eyes.”) Gosh, if he found out the unvarnished truth, he might have to react appropriately. If voters want answers to whether Trump is making money from the Saudis and, more importantly, want to force him to sever financial ties, they better not leave Republicans in charge. They’ve already told us they don’t give a darn if he violates the Constitution or is influenced by his own financial considerations. Read more: Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression Max Boot: Trump has given every despot on the planet a license to kill Greg Sargent: If Trump helps cover up Khashoggi’s murder, that will also come out


Brexit will weigh heavily on European security. Here’s why.

Over the coming months, the British government will almost certainly lead its country out of the European Union. A lot has been written about the economic consequences of Brexit. However, its security implications are equally important. Contrary to official British assurances, Brexit is likely to have serious consequences for European security, transatlantic cooperation and the ability of the E.U. and NATO to coordinate. Britain has played a key role in E.U. security institutions Nonspecialists might not know very much about the E.U.’s role in international security. Britain’s Labour government, together with France, pushed for the creation of an E.U. security institution. Since then, the E.U. has formulated two security strategies and intervened abroad in more than 25 civil and military operations, including in Kosovo, the Aegean Sea, Congo, the Gulf of Aden and Afghanistan. Although Britain did not provide many troops for these operations, it did a lot to build the E.U.’s role, providing strategic guidance, personnel, expertise, intelligence and equipment. As the country with the largest military capabilities and defense budget in the E.U., it also added to the E.U.’s international credibility on security issues. Britain will no longer be able to act as a go-between In a recent article, I show that while the E.U.’s security policy and NATO are formally distinct, they are deeply intertwined. However, the E.U.’s security activities sometimes make an uneasy fit with NATO obligations. Both ask national armed forces for commitments and troops, but their goals may sometimes clash. The British government played an important role in managing these relations. It acted as a broker, negotiating across both organizations to help reach solutions. States such as Turkey, the United States and Cyprus have sometimes held military cooperation between the E.U. and NATO hostage to their own national interests. Turkey in particular has used its veto liberally to express its displeasure with Cyprus, which is an E.U. member but which Turkey does not recognize as a state. This has hampered communication and coordination between the two organizations on the ground in places such as Kosovo, the Aegean Sea, the Gulf of Aden and Afghanistan. The British government helped the E.U. and NATO overcome such impasses by, for example, providing the same military headquarters for both E.U. and NATO maritime operations so they could informally coordinate on operations in the Gulf of Aden. Since triggering Brexit, the British government has all but abandoned its efforts


What keeps Native Americans from voting – and what could change this

Last Tuesday, the Supreme Court allowed a lower court ruling to stand, allowing North Dakota to require voters to provide identification that shows a residential address rather than a post office box number. Many Native American advocacy groups have argued that this decision violates tribal sovereignty and systematically disenfranchises voters. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s (D-N.D.) reelection may be at stake. The reason: Many Native Americans living on rural reservations do not have traditional street addresses, and receive mail at P.O. boxes rather than at home. But that’s not the only issue that keeps Native Americans from voting. Native Americans on reservations have long voted at very low rates, facing barriers to voting that include long travel distances to the polls, high poverty rates, and low high school graduation rates. When native voters need to travel to reservation border towns to cast ballots, the well-documented and long-standing mistrust between Native American communities and non-native populations likely discourages voting in those areas. But what, exactly, are the factors that limit turnout in rural areas? What policies might improve turnout for native voters living on reservations? Here’s how we did our research In the summer of 2016, a large team of researchers from Claremont Graduate University (CGU), funded by the Native American Voting Rights Council, conducted more than 1,500 field surveys on reservations in South Dakota and Nevada to understand native attitudes toward government and voting. We found that long travel distances, administrative difficulties, and distrust of the voting process kept voters home. Our collaborative research with CGU PhD students Aaron Berg, Joseph Dietrich, and Savannah Johnston also examined whether enabling Native Americans to vote on their reservations might improve turnout. We did that by investigating a “natural experiment.” On Oct. 3, 2016, Judge Miranda Du of the U.S. District Court of Nevada issued an emergency injunction establishing satellite centers for early voting on the Pyramid Lake Paiute and Walker River Paiute reservations. Du ruled that Nevada had violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by failing to provide the reservations with equal access to the vote. Before the injunction, anyone living on the reservation had to drive 96 miles round trip from Pyramid Lake or 68 miles round trip from Walker River to vote in person. The ruling argued that individuals on the reservations faced an “abridgement” of their voting rights given that travel distance, especially considering that 25 to


The Washington Post to publish a special edition Op-Ed page with new column by Jamal Khashoggi

On Thursday, October 18th, The Washington Post will publish an Opinions page dedicated to Post Global Opinions contributor Jamal Khashoggi. The special page will feature a never before published column by Khashoggi, filed just before he disappeared, in which he discusses the need for a free press in the Mideast. The uniquely designed op-ed page will also include an Editor’s note explaining why this is appearing now. A new piece from the Editorial Board will be printed on the opposite page. Khashoggi’s latest column will publish online tonight at 8pm EST and will appear in both English and Arabic. MEDIA: Please contact the PR department with interview requests.


Saudi Arabia transfers $100 million to U.S. amid crisis over Khashoggi

The United States received a payment of $100 million from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Riyadh to discuss the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a State Department official confirmed Wednesday amid global calls for answers in the case. Saudi Arabia publicly pledged the payment to support U.S. stabilization efforts in northeastern Syria in August, but questions persisted about when and if Saudi officials would come through with the money. The timing of the transfer, first reported by the New York Times, raised questions about a potential payoff as Riyadh seeks to manage the blowback over allegations that Saudi agents were responsible for Khashoggi's disappearance. The State Department denied any connection between the payment and Pompeo's discussions with Saudi officials about Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist. “We always expected the contribution to be finalized in the fall time frame,” Brett McGurk, the State Department's envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, said in a statement. “The specific transfer of funds has been long in process and has nothing to do with other events or the secretary’s visit.” Saudi Arabia, an oil-rich monarchy and staunch U.S. ally, has long relied on its financial largesse to persuade partners to support its foreign policy objectives. Western diplomats suspect that the kingdom will also compensate Turkey for its willingness to launch a joint investigation on Khashoggi’s disappearance — a payback that could come in the form of large-scale debt relief, strategic buyouts or other arrangements that boost Turkey’s ailing economy. Khashoggi’s disappearance has hurt the reputation of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, whose close relationship with President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, has put him at the center of the administration’s Middle East policy. Turkish authorities say Khashoggi was killed Oct. 2 during a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul to obtain a document required to get married. Trump initially promised “severe punishment” for Saudi Arabia if the United States determined that Saudi agents killed Khashoggi. But the president has since floated an alternative theory involving “rogue killers” and compared the case to the sexual assault allegations against recently confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “Here we go again with, you know, you're guilty until proven innocent,” Trump told the Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. During Pompeo’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the top diplomat and the crown prince smiled


Pompeo hears Turkey’s accusations against Saudi Arabia in Khashoggi case

ANKARA, Turkey — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo received a firsthand briefing Wednesday on Turkey’s claims that Jamal Khashoggi was killed by Saudi agents, but he did not listen to an audio recording that Turkey says offers a gruesome rendering of the journalist’s last moments alive. Pompeo’s trip to hear both sides of the Khashoggi case — Saudi denials in Riyadh and Turkish accusations in Ankara — did not appear to offer any deeper clarity into how the Trump administration is dealing with the conflicting accounts from two major allies. But Pompeo suggested any possible U.S. response would weigh the country’s “important relations” with Saudi Arabia — a point made often by President Trump that has raised speculation the United States may be unwilling to jeopardize business and security ties with the kingdom. Speaking to the Fox Business Network on Wednesday, Trump again cited counterterrorism cooperation with Saudi Arabia and the kingdom’s contracts with U.S. defense contractors. “We’ll get down to the bottom of it,” Trump said. “I hope that the [Saudi] king and the crown prince didn’t know about it. That’s the big factor in my eyes, and I hope they haven’t.” Yet the Saudi system is built to be directed from the very top. Lower-level officials and others in the kingdom typically must clear any significant plan with King Salman and his top princes, including the current de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Pompeo told reporters that the United States wants to give the Saudis “space” to come up with their reckonings into what occurred Oct. 2 after Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Pompeo did not listen to a key piece of Turkey’s evidence — an audio recording that Turkey claims captures Khashoggi’s struggle and death inside the consulate. It was unclear whether Turkey offered Pompeo a chance to listen to the recording Turkish officials say they have. Turkish authorities have not divulged how they obtained the audio, but they claim it offers proof that Khashoggi was killed and probably dismembered. Hours after Pompeo left Turkey, however, Trump sent possible mixed signals. He said U.S. officials want to review any audio and video from Turkey relating to Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist and U.S. resident. “We have asked for [audio and video] if it exists,” Trump told reporters. He was then asked whether he believes Turkey has


Theresa May tries to keep Brexit talks alive with a skeptical Europe

LONDON — Brexit is seriously stuck. Nobody really wants Britain to crash out of the European Union without a withdrawal deal, but time is running out and the sides have bogged down over the contentious issue of how to manage the Irish border. Prime Minister Theresa May traveled to Brussels on Wednesday and was given 30 minutes behind closed doors to make another appeal to her European counterparts. What the Europeans wanted to hear was more compromise. Many of them suspect the British leader is pursuing a strategy of delay designed to push negotiations to the brink, at which point Europe would yield and the hardcore Brexiteers in the British Parliament would be hard-pressed not to accept May’s version of withdrawal, even if they despise it as a capitulation. “The longer she leaves it, the easier it is for her to ram it through Parliament and say, ‘it’s my deal or no deal and you all know no deal will be catastrophic,’ ” said Catherine Barnard, professor of E.U. law at Cambridge University. Upon her arrival at the E.U. summit, May told reporters: “We have solved most of the issues in the withdrawal agreement. There is still the question of the Northern Irish backstop.” The “backstop” refers to a commitment from both sides that even if Britain exits without a comprehensive deal, there will never be a hard border between Northern Ireland, which would leave as part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, which will remain part of the E.U. To ensure an open border — a stipulation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought an end to 30 years of sectarian violence — European negotiators have proposed that Northern Ireland continue to trade as a member of Europe’s customs union. Such an arrangement is anathema to unionists in Belfast and to May, who says it would cut Northern Ireland off from the United Kingdom. May has proposed instead that the whole of the United Kingdom remain aligned with the customs union for a limited time. But that idea has been shot down by Europe’s chief negotiator, Ireland’s prime minister and members of her own party, who want the ability to do trade deals with the rest of the world. The Tory’s chief whip told May on Tuesday that Parliament would vote it down. Nonetheless, when May addressed Parliament on Wednesday, she insisted that her compromise


Maryland football investigation is complete, but decision on DJ Durkin is not imminent

The independent commission charged with investigating the culture of Maryland football has completed its review of the program, but any decision on Coach DJ Durkin’s future could still be a week or more away. The commission plans to submit its findings Friday to the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, which is gathering in Hagerstown for a long-scheduled meeting. But the topic of Maryland football is not expected to be discussed in detail until next week. The board will be briefed by the commission during a closed session, and regents are expected to hold a special meeting Tuesday at which they will discuss the commission’s findings at length and begin plotting a course of action for Maryland football. It is doubtful they will make any immediate personnel decisions at that subsequent meeting, though it is possible they could take action in the days that follow. The university system, which is composed of the state’s 12 public colleges including its flagship campus in College Park, released a statement Wednesday saying that within one week of next Tuesday’s meeting it intends to make the commission findings public and “to announce any initial decisions and/or recommendations from the board.” “We have said from the beginning that, if true, the allegations related to the culture of the football program at the University of Maryland, College Park are unacceptable,” James T. Brady, the board chair, said in a statement. “We have also said we are determined to get all the facts possible before acting. While the final stage of that process begins on October 19th, members of the board will need appropriate time to study the findings, ask follow-up questions, come to conclusions, and consider any potential outcomes. “As public servants, we have an obligation to take the time necessary to get this right,” he said. "Once the board has had the time it needs to review the findings, the information will be shared with people of Maryland in a fully transparent fashion.” The board had previously indicated that it would wait until the completion of three independent investigations before making any decisions regarding the embattled football program. The review of the workout that resulted in the death of 19-year old football player Jordan McNair was concluded and presented to the board Sept. 21. The state attorney general’s office is also looking into the events surrounding McNair’s death, but it’s not clear when that


news reports about abuse and bullying within the program. Loh appointed two retired federal judges and a Baltimore attorney to the commission before the board of regents took control of the commission and added five more members, including Washington Redskins vice president of player personnel Doug Williams; former Maryland governor Robert Ehrlich; former U.S. congressman and Maryland basketball star Tom McMillen; and sports broadcaster Bonnie Bernstein. Loh had instructed the original commission members in an email to conduct interviews “in order to make an assessment on whether the relatively few (but deeply troubling) cases of alleged ‘abuse,’ reported anonymously in the media, indicate the existence of a widespread ‘toxic culture’ . . . or, do these reported cases represent only a small portion of the population of football players, present and past.” Over the course of eight weeks, much of the investigative work was headed up by attorney Charles Scheeler, who was appointed to the commission by Loh, and associates at the law firm DLA Piper. While investigators have been tight-lipped about their work, The Washington Post reported last month that several former players and parents have described to investigators incidents of abuse, bullying and humiliation from their or their sons' time in the Maryland program. Others said they told commission members they found tactics employed by football staffers to be motivational in nature, not abusive. Following a report in The Post, the school shared with the commission a letter it received from an anonymous parent in December 2016 — 1½ years before McNair’s death — warning about a unhealthy and hostile culture within the College Park program. “Are any of you aware or do you even care about the number of student athletes suffering from severe emotional distress because of the abusive actions of Coach Durkin?” the parent asked. “His actions are extreme and outrageous; intentional and reckless, and the sole cause of the emotional distress.” Durkin has been on administrative leave since Aug. 11. Under interim coach Matt Canada, the 4-2 Terps will play their seventh game of the season Saturday at No. 19 Iowa and then host Illinois on Oct. 27. Read more: Barry Svrluga: Mark Turgeon likes his basketball team, and Maryland fans sure need something to believe in Maryland football booster banned from flight to Michigan still supports team, DJ Durkin Terps hold hapless Rutgers to eight passing yards, pick off five passes in rout


Saudi Arabia’s information war to bury news of Jamal Khashoggi

the Saudi government has fine-tuned a sophisticated information policy, one that bears a distinct resemblance to the sort used in other states that have also learned to use social media for social control. As in Russia — where these things were first pioneered on a grand scale — the Saudi government understands that it is useless to silence the entire Internet. Instead, the regime floods the Twittersphere with patriotic messages designed to drown out critical or credible information. As in Turkey, pro-regime trolls also gang up and organize online attacks against anyone who disagrees. Saud al-Qahtani, a media adviser to the crown prince with more than a million followers, encourages fellow citizens to add the names of dissidents to an online blacklist. Individual snooping also takes place on Facebook, where requests from “friends” may really be from the state’s online spies, eager to get access to your information and your posts. The Saudis aren’t quite as good as the Russians at manipulating the Internet in other countries, though they are beginning to try. Qahtani has played around with pumping up anti-government sentiment in Qatar, Saudi Arabia’s rival. Over the past few days, Saudi accounts have also tried to spread smears against Khashoggi written in English, sometimes by pro-Trump writers and “conservative” American websites. They haven’t managed to capture the story yet, but there is still time. None of this is secret, not in Saudi Arabia, and not anywhere else. Censorship, in its 21st-century form, isn’t carried out by old men in hidden offices, marking up newspaper articles with red ink. It is carried out by young men with mobile phones, working in the open, whose “patriotic” assaults on the “unpatriotic” are there for everyone to see. It’s also evolving constantly, as regimes observe one another’s methods. On Wednesday, Twitter released data on thousands of recently banned Russian and Iranian accounts; according to the analyst Ben Nimmo, it appears that the latter were learning from the former. The question is why Twitter isn’t interested in their Saudi equivalent. Or, more to the point, why fake accounts and false identities are tolerated at all. We aren’t that far away from a time when it will become too dangerous for many people to risk the use of social media — and we’ve already reached the point where social media reveals very little of what people really think and believe. Maybe tens of thousands


Crown prince under scrutiny in journalist’s disappearance even as Saudis search for exculpatory explanation

The Trump administration and the Saudi royal family are searching for a mutually agreeable explanation for the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi — one that will avoid implicating Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is among the president’s closest foreign allies, according to analysts and officials in multiple countries. But it will be difficult for the young ruler to escape scrutiny, as mounting evidence points not only to the Saudi government’s knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate, but also to a connection by Mohammed to his disappearance. U.S. intelligence reports, accounts from Khashoggi’s friends, passport records and social media profiles paint a picture of a brutal killing that at least had its roots in Mohammed’s desire to silence Khashoggi, a former palace insider turned critic of the government and the prince in particular. The analysts and officials said it was inconceivable that such a brazen operation as the one alleged by Turkish officials, involving a team of 15 agents sent to Istanbul, who then killed and dismembered Khashoggi, could have been pulled off by a group of “rogue killers,” as President Trump speculated this week, moments after a phone call with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman. Even one of the president’s closest advisers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said many senior members of the administration concluded more than a week ago that the Saudis had killed Khashoggi. “The only question is, was it directed from the crown prince or the king — or was it a group that was trying to please him?” Giuliani said in an interview. Before Khashoggi ever set foot in the consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, Mohammed was trying to get his hands on him. In recent months, the crown prince, known by his initials, MBS, ordered an operation to lure Khashoggi back to Saudi Arabia from his home in Virginia, according to U.S. intelligence intercepts of Saudi officials discussing the plan. In September, a high-ranking Saudi official close to the prince, Saud al-Qahtani, called Khashoggi and promised him safety and the prospect of an important job working for Mohammed if he returned home, said Khaled Saffuri, an Arab American political activist and friend of Khashoggi’s. “He said: ‘Are you kidding? I don’t trust them one bit,’ ” Saffuri said of Khashoggi’s response. Other friends of Khashoggi’s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns, told similar stories of calls from Riyadh on the crown prince’s behalf.


Amid global outrage over Khashoggi, Trump takes soft stance toward Saudis

his hotels while he has been president. A group of Democratic senators on Wednesday called for a full disclosure of Trump-Saudi transactions and for freezing all business during the Khashoggi investigation. With pressure mounting to punish Riyadh, the president is exercising an uncharacteristic amount of caution. And for Trump, the Saudi arms purchases are top of mind. “The president is trying to introduce a little calm into this, to wait and see who’s directly responsible,” said Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s private attorney. “While he makes clear he doesn’t approve of what has happened, it’s complicated because this isn’t a pure enemy he’s dealing with, like if Iran did it. . . . He sees those contracts out there with Saudi Arabia as not just money, but jobs.” Giuliani said that Trump is not naive about Mohammed’s authoritarian moves to consolidate power inside his kingdom, recalling that the president privately expressed concern about the crown prince’s methods after he jailed a number of critics and royal family members last November. “I know the bloom is off the rose with the crown prince,” Giuliani said. “The president way back then started to have a more complex view of him.” In floating the notion of “rogue killers” and defending Saudi monarchs this week, Trump broke with key U.S. allies who have been united in emphasizing grave concerns about the missing journalist and calling on the Saudi regime to provide clear answers. “European leaders were clear in their joint call for journalistic freedom, a credible investigation and accountability for any wrongdoing,” said Amanda Sloat, a Europe scholar at the Brookings Institution. “In stark contrast, the American president chose to parrot Saudi denials and pitch an unsubstantiated and improbable explanation.” Trump’s openness to accepting a rogue-killing theory threatens to solidify suspicions that the president would accept far-flung conspiracy theories if they prove convenient. “Europeans see President Trump as willing to brazenly bend the truth to accomplish his objectives, without any sense of shame or fear of discovery,” said Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Gingrich said Trump is trying to find a balance. “Trump is good enough reading this to know you can’t have people going around the planet cutting people up,” he said. “But the U.S. almost certainly won’t go through self-flagellation like some in Congress want us to because it’s not in our self-interest.” robert.costa@washpost.com josh.dawsey@washpost.com philip.rucker@washpost.com


Jamal Khashoggi’s final appeal

JAMAL KHASHOGGI’S last column for The Post, written shortly before his Oct. 2 disappearance and published today on the opposite page, espouses the cause that animated most of his life: free expression in the Arab world. The absence of that freedom, he wrote, means that Arabs “are either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives.” Mr. Khashoggi made it his mission to fill that gap. To speak freely, he left Saudi Arabia, where he held comfortable positions in the ruling establishment, and moved to Washington, where he began contributing columns to The Post. He was planning ways to create space for other uncensored Arab voices that could advocate for democratic reforms. His final column calls for “the creation of an independent international forum, isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda.” Mr. Khashoggi, who would have turned 60 this past weekend, held numerous positions during his career, including as an adviser to a Saudi ambassador to the United States. But he was first and foremost a journalist — one who relentlessly tried to push the boundaries of free speech. He was twice fired as the editor of the most progressive Saudi newspaper, Al Watan, in one case for publishing sharp critiques of Islamist extremists. A television news network he helped to found in Bahrain in 2012 was taken off the air after one day, after it broadcast an interview with a critic of that country’s authoritarian regime. A turning point for Mr. Khashoggi came in 2016, when he warned the regime of King Salman and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, about “an overly enthusiastic embrace of then-President-elect Donald Trump,” as he later described it in The Post. His column with the Saudi-owned international Arabic daily Al Hayat was canceled, and he was forced off Twitter. “I spent six months silent, reflecting on the state of my country and the stark choices before me,” he wrote in his first Post column, published 13 months ago this week. Then he acted. “I have left my home, my family and my job, and I am raising my voice,” he declared. “I can speak when so many cannot.” In the columns he published in The Post before his disappearance, Mr. Khashoggi offered a consistent message: Saudi Arabia desperately needed the liberalizing reforms being promised


This is why the E.U. is being so tough about Brexit

project run by Ignacio Jurado, Sandra Léon and myself suggests that voters are more interested in damage control than punishment. This is not E.U.-wide data but does examine attitudes to Brexit in two of the most important E.U.-27 economies, Germany and Spain. The people who responded to our questions said that protecting their countries’ economic interests was the most important goal for the Brexit negotiations (52 percent). Other important goals included avoiding an increase in Spanish/German contributions to the common E.U. budget (41 percent very important), finding a mutually beneficial deal for the E.U. and Britain (36 percent), and avoiding the departure of other countries from the E.U. in the future (34 percent). Only 14 percent said that punishing Britain for leaving the E.U. was important. Among Europhiles, avoiding a domino effect ranked as the highest priority. Our research also suggests that German and Spanish voters have a clear understanding of the dilemmas and trade-offs involved in the Brexit negotiations. We presented our survey respondents with a number of Brexit packages to find out what might attract them to different packages of policies (see here for an explanation on how this works). We found that the respondents strongly supported Brexit packages that extract maximum concessions from Britain on zero-sum issues such as the financial bill for Brexit but were more compromising in areas where a hard approach would also impose costs on the E.U. — such as trade cooperation or Britain’s continued participation in the E.U.’s frameworks for scientific research and cooperation between national police forces. People understood the trade-offs but overall nonetheless supported the E.U.’s uncompromising negotiating stance. Taken together, strong public support for the E.U.’s approach to Brexit, the E.U.’s greater bargaining power and the risk that accommodating Britain might undermine the long-term stability of the E.U. make it unlikely that the E.U. will soften its position. The outcome of the Brexit process will thus depend on when and how much Britain shifts its red lines. Read more: Brexit is exposing — and widening — tectonic rifts in British politics Theresa May’s Brexit speech may break the Northern Ireland peace process Brexit is a mess — and Trump’s visit sure didn’t help Stefanie Walter is professor for international relations and political economy in the department of political science at the University of Zurich and author of “Financial Crises and the Politics of Macroeconomic Adjustments” (Cambridge University Press, 2015).


Amtrak is committed to safety

The Oct. 2 news article “Amtrak makes progress, but safety issues persist” reported on an inspector general’s report on our successful efforts to improve operations and safety. Amtrak, through its board of directors and employees, is committed to continual improvement of our safety systems and performance. There is no higher priority. We owe this level of commitment to our customers, our state and commuter partners, and Congress. As recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board, Amtrak is the first major U.S. railroad to implement a Safety Management System employing a strong preventive approach to managing safety. Because of the hard work and diligence of our workforce, we have already seen a 10 to 25 percent improvement in our broad range of train safety metrics. Additionally, we have engaged in an all-out effort to implement positive train control, a proven safety technology. We believe the use of positive train control or its equivalent should be a 100 percent mandate for passenger rail operations in this country and are aggressively working to implement it. We recognize that more work remains, and we are taking significant steps in the right direction. Amtrak is America’s railroad, and we owe all of our employees, our customers and partners the safest, most reliable and best customer experience. We commit to achieve that result for Amtrak and the American public. Richard Anderson The writer is president and chief executive of Amtrak. Ken Hylander The writer is executive vice president and chief safety officer for Amtrak.


Best of D.C. 2018: See what Express editors picked as their favorite things in Washington

worry too much — a boardwalk built on Heritage Island just last spring is already being drowned by the river. S.D. Best rainy-day activity 2020 O St. NW Actually five interconnected Dupont Circle rowhomes, The Mansion on O Street is a private club, bed-and-breakfast, museum, concert venue and flea market, and it also hosts a popular weekly brunch. But my favorite way to explore the oddball space is by going on one of its treasure hunts ($30-$45 per person). Choose from several rotating themes — my favorite is the Rock & Roll Hunt — and then poke your way around the home’s 100-plus themed rooms. Three that are easy to find are the two-story log cabin room, an animal-print-intensive safari room and a guest room where Rosa Parks used to stay (she was friends with the mansion’s reclusive owner, H.H. Leonards). As you wander around, gently push suspicious-looking bookshelves, mirrors and oversized paintings — some of them will swing open to reveal hidden rooms. That’s your ticket to finding treasures like Prince’s jacket from “Purple Rain,” a chair shaped like a giant stiletto heel, and several musical toilets. S.D. Best D.C. art that comes with a beer 300 Tingey St. SE From a practical standpoint, the label on your beer can doesn’t matter — it’s what’s inside that counts. That hasn’t stopped craft breweries from turning now-ubiquitous cans into works of art. In D.C., no one is doing cans more distinctively than Navy Yard’s Bluejacket, which started its brewery-only weekly can releases in March. While many brewers take either a brash or uniform branding approach that might make all their cans blend together, Bluejacket puts the art first, with most of each can’s label dedicated to a stylized, unique image (with typography that is simple, clean and to the point). When Bluejacket released an IPA called Turnstiles, for example, Kris Mullins, who designs the cans as Neighborhood Restaurant Group’s creative director, used an image of a Metro station ceiling. The label for Open Window shows a squinting dog with its head poking out a car window. Freak Scene features a bold, retro drawing of a suited-up man with four eyes. “Every one of the beers has a backstory, and with the images — metaphorically or otherwise — we’re trying to telegraph something about the feeling we get from the beer itself,” Mullins says. “It’s an expression of what’s in the


intend to keep hosting … as long as people keep showing up,” he says. Now that’s the playa spirit! S.D. Best grocery store for whatever you’re cooking 3201 Brinkley Road, Temple Hills, Md. If you’re a serious cook, there comes a time when you need something weird — at least by American grocery store standards. Mine came when I was preparing Anthony Bourdain’s cassoulet and needed pig skin to line the pot. I asked at my local grocery store and got some very weird looks; then a butcher suggested Jumbo Food International Supermarket. Asian, Hispanic and African grocery stores and the like have always been a place to grab ingredients that never make it to the “international” section of the local supermarket, but Jumbo has products from all around the world, all in one spot. Want to make menudo? Here’s the tripe! Recipe calls for Chinkiang vinegar? You got it! Want to make your own bacon? Jumbo has pork belly for $3 a pound and it’s ALWAYS in stock. The seafood section is pristine (you always want a fish counter that smells nothing like fish), has an incredible variety and all the fishies are whole; the men with terrifyingly sharp knives will prep them any way you want. If you’re a cook with high standards and a sense of adventure, then Jumbo is your kind of place. K.P.K. Best impossible restaurant that’s worth the drive 196 West St., Annapolis You really only need a few things to open a restaurant. A good-sized kitchen? Nope. A stove? Nope. An oven? Nope. When Scott Herbst, owner and operator of Sailor Oyster Bar, walked into the building for the first time in 2016, he realized he couldn’t have it all. “I knew that it wasn’t going to have the traditional kitchen, just because of the layout of the building,” which was constructed in 1910, Herbst says. “I sat down with my chef at the time and we started brainstorming about what we could do if we were on a boat. After an hour, we had this outline of a menu and we were like, ‘We can do this.’ ” The menu they arrived at includes oysters on the half shell, crudo, charcuterie, toasts and preserved seafood like sardines from Portugal and mussels from Spain — and it’s all done with nothing but a toaster oven, one induction burner, a sous vide machine and


As we mourn a colleague, Trump celebrates violence against a journalist

If there was any doubt as to why the Saudis might think the leadership of this country would look the other way on the atrocity they are alleged to have committed against our colleague Jamal Khashoggi, President Trump erased it Thursday night. The president of the United States, who has long referred to journalists as enemies of the people, celebrated an act of violence against a reporter on U.S. soil — to cheers and laughter from his supporters. At a rally in Missoula, Mont., he commended Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for assaulting a reporter last year during a special-election campaign. The congressman was sentenced to community service, anger-management classes and a small fine for attacking reporter Ben Jacobs of the Guardian, who had had the temerity to ask the candidate about the Republican health-care bill. “Any guy that can do a body slam, he’s my kind of — he’s my guy,” Trump told the crowd at the rally. This, mind you, is the same president who keeps howling that Democrats are turning into violent mobs. As horrifying as Gianforte’s behavior was, there is of course no comparison to torture and murder, which is what is now believed to have happened to Khashoggi. But Trump’s point could hardly have been clearer: Journalists deserve no protection, much less respect for their role in protecting the functioning of democracy. Meanwhile, something even more insidious is happening. As Robert Costa and Karoun Demirjian report, Trump supporters in the far-right reaches of the fever swamp — among them, his son Donald Trump Jr. — are mounting a quiet campaign to slander Khashoggi and the work for which he appears to have given his life: Costa and Demirjian note that this is a distortion of Khashoggi’s actual record and his point of view: So as Trump promises “very severe” measures against Saudi Arabia if there is confirmation of what appears to have been the case, which is that its government was behind the horrific death of a journalist, let us be clear-eyed about what is going on here. Trump and his supporters are not looking to punish it. They are looking for a way to excuse it. And if that means journalists everywhere feel they are less safe — well, to Trump and his supporters, that is something to celebrate. Read more: President Trump greenlights assaults on reporters Jamal Khashoggi’s last column for The post: What


Plant-based ‘dairy’ products aren’t new. Neither is the U.S. dairy industry’s hostility.

Paul Shapiro is the author of “Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World.” Stroll through your local supermarket and it won't be hard to see why some in the dairy industry are, well, having a cow. Milks and cheeses from soy, almonds, coconuts, cashews and even flaxseeds are decidedly in. Cow's milk isn't in danger of being put out to pasture, but consumption in the United States has been in a steady slide since the 1970s and the dairy aisle is getting crowded. With interest in drinking cows' milk waning, especially in Western Europe and the United States, and the popularity of plant-based milk rising, the Netherlands-based Rabobank in May advised dairy producers to diversify with investments in their alternative-dairy competitors. The major agribusiness lender noted: "Global retail sales growth for dairy alternatives has soared at a rate of 8 percent annually over the last ten years." The dairy industry is fighting back against the plant-based competition. One weapon is a campaign to prevent Big Dairy's rivals from using coveted terms such as "milk" and "cheese" on product packaging. Under intense industry lobbying, the Food and Drug Administration may soon issue new guidance — the agency on Sept. 28 issued a request for comments "on the labeling of plant-based products with names that include the names of dairy foods such as 'milk,' 'cultured milk,' 'yogurt,' and 'cheese.'" Last year Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) introduced the Dairy Pride Act "to require enforcement against misbranded milk alternatives." Critics of employing the words "cheese" and "milk" to describe plant-based products would maintain they are simply defending the traditional understanding of what those terms mean. Tell that to Benjamin Franklin. In 1770, according to Smithsonian.com, Franklin sent to America from London a few dried beans that he said were used by the Chinese to make "a cheese." The beans were almost certainly soy, the magazine said in March, and "cheese" was likely the translation of what a Spanish traveler to China, according to Franklin, had described seeing: "tau-fu." (Francis Bacon was nearly a century and a half ahead of Franklin in describing nondairy milk, writing in 1626 that "there be plants, that have a Milk in them when they are Cut.") By the mid-19th century, soybeans were being introduced for cultivation in the United States, and in 1897 the term "soy-bean milk" appeared for the first time in


The State Department must step up in the Jamal Khashoggi case

Regarding the Oct. 17 front-page article “Pompeo visit seems to favor conciliation over confrontation,” about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia to discuss missing Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi: Will the State Department fulfill its mandate under the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act and investigate this outrage against journalism and a truth-speaking journalist? Del Atwood


Where Trump stands on Saudi Arabia

Let’s begin with the most exciting breaking news of all: I’ll become a mom any day now, so starting Monday, I’m going on leave for a couple of months. I’ll be back in spring 2019. You will be in good hands for the midterm elections and beyond with Where does Trump stand on Jamal Khashoggi? President Trump is the ultimate mixed-message-giver: He’s been known to contradict himself in the same sentence. He’s especially confusing to follow when he faces tough decisions, like he does this week on whether and how much to punish Saudi Arabia for the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump has cozied up to Saudi Arabia as an ally in the Middle East, but evidence is growing that its top leaders may have been connected to the Khashoggi’s alleged slaying. Trump seems to think out loud. And everything he’s said this week suggests he’s vacillating big time on what to do, even though the rest of Washington seems pretty set on punishing Saudi Arabia. Consider: He promised on Oct. 10 to get to the bottom of what happened: But the next day He’s repeatedly given Saudi Arabian leaders a hefty benefit of the doubt, like here on Sunday: On Monday he floated a conspiracy theory that Khashoggi could have been killed by people who have nothing to do with the government of Saudi Arabia: As Turkey produced evidence purporting to show Khashoggi was slain by a team of hit men inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Trump tried Tuesday to give Saudi Arabia’s leaders cover to blame someone else for what happened: Then, on Thursday, he explicitly acknowledged what he hasn’t before: But in the next breath, Trump gave himself an out of whatever severe punishment he had in mind: More alarming foreign news: Russia is meddling again The Justice Department just confirmed that on Friday by indicting a Russian, Elena Khusyaynova, on charges related to an effort “to sow discord in the U.S. political system” ahead of November’s midterm elections. Prosecutors say she managed the finances of an operation connected to a Russian oligarch to get Americans to read fake news and then argue about everything from immigration, to the Confederate flag, to gun control, to NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. So basically, all the hot-button issues imaginable right now BUT, and this is important: TWO bipartisan (!) political things to talk about this


New Order, ‘Murder’: The Week In One Song

The apparent killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives roils U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia; local president’s response is lackluster.


Stephen Colbert wants Trump to run in 2020. Here’s why.

a reliable stream of monologue taunts. The “Late Show” discussion turned to the disappearance of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi and Trump’s soft approach and reluctance to pressure the Saudis amid mounting evidence of his killing by men close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump, who advanced the idea of “rogue killers” responsible for Khashoggi’s death, helped sow doubt that the Saudi government orchestrated the killing, Brzezinski said. And she said it was similar to how Trump defused sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh during his nomination process. “That can’t be our reality, and at some point this has to end, one way or another,” Brzezinski said. That end, Scarborough said, was to marshal support for the midterm elections next month and weaken Trump’s influence in Congress. By 2020, he believes, Trump will be eyeing the exit. “He didn’t want to be elected president, he didn’t think he was going to be elected president, he didn’t even think he was going to get the Republican nomination. He’s going to cash out,” Scarborough said. Colbert, a fierce Trump critic, wants him to be out in 2020. But not in that way. “I think that would be a smart thing for him to do,” Colbert told Scarborough, as the audience laughed. “I’ll tell you why I don’t want it to happen, because I think it’s important that the voters of America have an opportunity to say, ‘Oops, my bad, we made a mistake there’ and correct themselves. "And if Donald Trump doesn’t run, he takes away that corrective action of history, and therefore his presidency is whole and unjudged, if he just doesn’t run again.” Colbert said that if that were to happen, Trump could say, “'I fixed it, I made it great again, goodbye,’” and take the $100 million he raised and make “another failing casino or something,” Colbert said. Scarborough said he was skeptical Trump would ride off into the sunset. “He’ll get money from the Saudis. He’s right now proving to the Saudis he’ll be their lap dog. He’ll make money from [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin when he gets out. That’s why he’s been Putin’s lap dog. Donald Trump is all about money. It’s what drives him,” Scarborough said. Read more: How cartoonists are artfully addressing the Jamal Khashoggi story How the Park Service plans to help Trump keep protesters off his lawn


The Daily 202: Trump’s fixation on immigration reflects his belief that the midterms will be a base election

Rep. Greg Gianforte for physically assaulting a reporter. -- Ahead of Trump's rally, former Montana GOP chairman Will Deschamps Sr. -- Afghanistan has delayed legislative elections in the Kandahar province after two provincial officials were assassinated. GET SMART FAST: NEARLY THREE WEEKS AFTER JAMAL'S DISAPPEARANCE, THE WORLD WAITS FOR ANSWERS: -- Trump said it appears veteran journalist and Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi is dead and warned the United States could consider “very severe” measures against Saudi Arabia if the kingdom is found responsible. -- In an interview with the New York Times, Trump expressed confidence in multiple intelligence reports that strongly suggest a high-level Saudi role in Khashoggi’s assassination. -- Turkish investigators are looking into the possibility that Khashoggi’s remains were taken to a forest on the outskirts of Istanbul. -- Treasury Secretary Steven -- Some conservatives hard-liners have mounted a “whisper campaign” against Khashoggi in an effort designed to insulate Trump from questions about his handling of the journalist’s disappearance Fred Hiatt, The Washington Post’s editorial page editor who published Khashoggi’s work, sharply criticized the false and distorted claims: -- One Turkish official said Secretary of State Mike -- Some accuse -- “[T]he Senate and House intelligence committees should begin an urgent oversight investigation of what U.S. spy agencies knew about threats against Khashoggi,” -- “Why one man’s disappearance captured the outrage and media attention that war has not,” ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN: -- Secretary Ryan Zinke violated the Interior Department’s policy on travel, according to a new report from the agency’s internal watchdog. -- The White House removed the acting leader of a small agency that had attracted controversy for providing jobs to Trump’s political supporters. -- Rank-and-file employees at the Justice Department say Jeff Sessions’s leadership has caused low morale and infighting. -- Trump is considering Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, to replace Nikki Haley as U.N. ambassador. -- Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), one of Trump’s top congressional allies, called on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to resign. -- Emmet Flood has temporarily taken over as White House counsel following Don McGahn’s departure. -- “A Conservative Group’s Closed-Door ‘Training’ of Judicial Clerks Draws Concern,” THE MIDTERMS: -- George W. Bush, in stealth mode, has played an active role fundraising for Republican candidates this cycle. -- Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) is ramping up his attacks on Democratic opponent Ammar Campa-Najjar, with a letter accusing him