China is laying the groundwork for a post-American world order

manifold reports of debt overload and kickbacks for corrupt leaders. In Sri Lanka, China has taken over a port it built because Sri Lanka couldn’t afford the debt. The same dynamic seems to be developing in Pakistan and Laos; the new Malaysian government, meanwhile, has put its Chinese-financed rail project on hold, citing corruption and disadvantageous terms negotiated by the previous regime. There is no mileage in being naive about China’s ambitions and its self-interested motives. But lining up with hostility against China’s initiatives the way Joseph Stalin and his minions did toward the Marshall Plan after World War II — which did wonders for a devastated Europe while also benefiting the United States through purchases of imports from American companies that were required to cross the Atlantic on American merchant ships — is a mistaken course for the West. And let’s not forget that the American expansion of railroads westward in the 19th century also led to a crisis of corruption and over-indebtedness. Despite the turmoil and losses, when it was all sorted out, the result in the end was a connected continent that became a foundation of American prosperity. Twenty years from now, the same will likely be true of Eurasia and Africa as a result of China’s initiatives, even with all of their faults. That is why, to diminish the downsides, the proper stance would be for the West to join with China’s efforts at global development so that the process is more transparent and less corrupt, with terms that don’t foster debt traps and amount to creditor imperialism. The experience of the “clean, lean and green” AIIB, which many Western nations — though not the United States — have joined, shows that high standards can be imposed if the West is a participant instead of an outsider as the new order is being built. After all, it is not as if Western nations on their own are going to finance and construct infrastructure around the world. No one needs reminding that the United States has been unable to build a single high-speed rail project anywhere on its vast territory. By and large, it can’t even manage to finance the repair of old infrastructure, much less invest in anything new. The European Union remains mired in deep disagreements about how to manage its own internal finances. While critics carp from the sidelines, those in need of help


Ecological nativism is more than just a buzzword

Perhaps Adrian Higgins has been in the Washington area for too long, or perhaps he has been affected by the current administration’s penchant for divisiveness. In his July 19 Gardening column, “The rewarding buzz of watching honeybees at work” [Local Living], he used the term “in an age of ecological nativism” in a clause that was entirely gratuitous. His (vague) term implied that ecologists’ focus on the native elements of ecosystems is an annoying fad. Scientists’ studies that show the relationship between native plants, native wildlife and the health of our environment is not a fad. This recognition is essential for supporting the health of the environment on which we humans depend. Honeybees have become a part of our ecosystem, and we can support them while we also support the myriad birds, bumblebees, butterflies and other beautiful creatures that are native to our area. Mr. Higgins’s derision was detrimental to the quality of the article as well as to moving readers’ horticultural choices in an environmentally responsible direction. Susan Gitlin


Need health advice? Ask a scientist — not a celebrity, politician or activist.

popular discourse to help educate the public. While “Bad Advice” is a quick read, its goal is weighty: to defend science as a vital beacon in the public sphere. Offit lays a compelling — and sometimes disturbing — foundation for why we need to protect its honor, and he calls for scientists to “become an army of science advocates out to educate the country. Because science is losing its rightful status as a source of truth, now is the time.” In breezy and deceptively conversational prose that often winks with humor, “Bad Advice” breaks down complex scientific subjects that have been distorted through several cultural lenses. Offit takes to task actors, network news anchors, quack scientists and even politicians who, unlike Jolie in her thoughtful article, have opined on scientific subjects in ways that misinform the public, on occasion to a potentially dangerous degree. Offit himself has spent years navigating media appearances as a medical and scientific expert. A co-inventor of RotaTeq, a vaccine against rotavirus, which can cause life-threatening vomiting and diarrhea, most commonly in infants and young children, Offit has become a high-profile voice on vaccine safety and, in particular, an ardent defender of the scientific community’s consensus that vaccines have no association with autism. He dedicates a chapter of the book to how his role in bringing RotaTeq to the market has been used by anti-vaccine activists to discredit him as a shill for pharmaceutical companies. The impulse to include this information is certainly understandable: Offit has been harassed and even sued for taking on the anti-vaxxers. He ultimately leaves it to the reader to trust the compassion and sincerity in his profession he displays in these pages. “Bad Advice” homes in on the consequences of the failure of clear and overwhelming scientific evidence regarding vaccines to win the day. Offit examines, for example, the root causes of the reemergent debate about whether they cause autism. He cites several recent outbreaks of measles and mumps that swept across the nation because some Americans are choosing to withhold vaccines from their children. Beyond the sizable list of celebrity activists such as Jim Carrey, Charlie Sheen, Robert De Niro and Jenny McCarthy who have questioned the safety of vaccines, Offit says the current political climate bears some culpability for what he calls “science denialism.” He points out that before being elected, President Trump posited the idea that vaccines may


Chrissy Teigen befriended a ‘nice’ bug. Twitter tried to convince her it was a dangerous wasp.

of the bugs. Is there a [expletive] entomologist here?” Don't worry, Teigen. Experts say it was likely not a tarantula hawk, which hunt tarantulas, sting and paralyze them, and then drag them back to their nests, where they plant a single egg on them, according to the United States Forest Service. Once the larvae hatch, the Forest Service says, they begin “sucking the juices from the paralyzed, but still living spider . . . feeding voraciously while avoiding vital organs to keep the host fresh. Eventually, an adult Tarantula Hawk wasp emerges from the nest and the life cycle begins once again.” Gwen Pearson “It's not a tarantula hawk,” she said in a phone interview. “The behavior is wrong, the body is wrong and the size is wrong.” Pearson said tarantula hawks have a characteristic “flick” to their wings, which she said she does not see in the online video. Also, James Pitts, a biology professor at Utah State University who specializes in spider wasps such as tarantula hawks, said tarantula hawks have a taller thorax, longer legs and wings that are folded lengthwise, among other differences. He said that the insect on Teigen's arm is likely a predator or scavenger wasp that would only be dangerous to a person with an allergy. Tarantula hawks, by contrast, are said to have one of the most painful stings. In 2015, invertebrate biologist Ben Hutchins told Wired that one recommendation is to “lie down and start screaming, because few if any people could maintain verbal and physical coordination after getting stung by one of these things. You're likely to just run off and hurt yourself. So just lie down and start yelling.” By Thursday afternoon, Teigen's video had been viewed more than 1.5 million times and people commented on it 19,000 times. Pearson, of Purdue, said paper wasps are nothing to be afraid of but should be treated respectfully. “They can sting, although their fiercest behavior is reserved for defending their nests,” she said. “I definitely do not advise that people run around petting wasps. But when we look at all the amazing insects around us without fear, we can share the wonder of kids and discovery.” Read more: Neanderthals could start fires with their stone tools, new study suggests Astronomers discover 12 more moons of Jupiter, including an oddity In a cosmic first, scientists detect ‘ghost particles’ from a distant galaxy


Climate change is supercharging a hot and dangerous summer

record heat and widespread power outages. In Yosemite Valley, which is imperiled by wildfires, park rangers have told everyone to flee. The brutal weather has been supercharged by human-induced climate change, scientists say. Climate models for three decades have predicted exactly what the world is seeing this summer. And they predict that it will get hotter — and that what is a record today could someday be the norm. “The old records belong to a world that no longer exists,” said Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s not just heat. A warming world is prone to multiple types of extreme weather — heavier downpours, stronger hurricanes, longer droughts. “You see roads melting, airplanes not being able to take off, there’s not enough water,” said Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. “Climate change hits us at our Achilles’ heel. In the Southwest, it’s water availability. On the Gulf Coast, it’s hurricanes. In the East, it’s flooding. It’s exacerbating the risks we already face today.” The proximate cause of the Northern Hemisphere bake-off is the unusual behavior of the jet stream, a wavy track of west-to-east-prevailing wind at high altitude. The jet stream controls broad weather patterns, such as high-pressure and low-pressure systems. The extent of climate change’s influence on the jet stream is an intense subject of research. This summer, the jet stream has undulated in extreme waves that have tended to block weather systems from migrating. The result has been stagnant high-pressure and low-pressure systems with dire results, such as heat waves in some places and flooding elsewhere. “When those waves are very big — as they have been for the past few weeks — they tend to get stuck in place,” said Jennifer Francis, a professor of atmospheric science at Rutgers University. Last year, scientists published evidence that the conditions leading up to “stuck jet streams” are becoming more common, with warming in the Arctic seen as a likely culprit. Gone are the days when scientists drew a bright line dividing weather and climate. Now researchers can examine a weather event and estimate how much climate change had to do with causing or exacerbating it. Last year, when Hurricane Harvey broke the record for how much rain could fall from a single storm, researchers knew climate change had been a factor. Months later, scientists presented findings


Today’s total lunar eclipse is the longest of the century

The full moon is set to glide through Earth’s shadow today to create a beautifully red total lunar eclipse for one hour and 43 minutes. This is the longest such eclipse of the young century. Here in the United States, we’re on the wrong side of the world to see it locally. But thanks to Internet magic, Americans can watch it live on the Weather Channel app (its show starts at 4 p.m.) or on the website Slooh (its members can start watching at 1 p.m.) or on TimeandDate.com starting at 2 p.m. Simone Boyce, new host at the NBC News streaming network, will anchor the digital special “Space Is Awesome” — timed to the lunar eclipse. Find the program on NBCNews.com at 4 p.m. Folks in western Africa, parts of Europe, the Middle East and India will only have to look up to the sky to catch the deep-copper-toned totality in person. Lunar eclipses occur only during a full moon, which means the moon and the sun are on opposite sides of the Earth. In this case, the full moon officially occurs at 4:20 p.m. Eastern time on July 27. Earth casts a shadow opposite from the sun — and the moon can occasionally run through the shadow. As the moon scoots through the shadow, light refracted by Earth gives the moon a reddish tint. Throughout the Eastern time zone, according to NASA and the U.S. Naval Observatory, the lunar eclipse (penumbral phase) starts at 1:14 p.m. and partiality occurs at 2:24 p.m. Totality starts at 3:30 p.m., with the maximum totality at 4:21 p.m. Totality will end at 5:13 p.m., and the partial eclipse ends at 6:19 p.m. Everything is over by 7:28 p.m. Unfortunately, the moon will not have risen anywhere in the United States for viewing during this window. But it will put on a great show elsewhere. “What makes the upcoming one special is that it occurs at nearly the same time as the year’s second-most-distant lunar apogee (the monthly moment when the moon is most distant from Earth) and the moon passes almost smack through the center of Earth’s shadow,” astronomer Geoff Chester of the Naval Observatory said. He continued: “This will make it the longest-duration total lunar eclipse of the century. It’s also cool that [the eclipse] occurs on the night that Mars reaches opposition, so (for people on the other side of


‘A way of monetizing poor people’: How private equity firms make money offering loans to cash-strapped Americans

millions of Americans who might otherwise not have safe, responsible access to credit,” John C. Morton, the company’s general counsel, wrote. “We operate in a competitive environment on narrow margins, and are driven by that competition to offer exceptional service to our customers. . . . A responsible story on our industry would focus on this reality.” Regarding the money that borrowers pay for Mariner’s attorneys, the company representatives noted that those payments go only toward the attorneys it hires, not to Mariner itself. The company declined to discuss the affiliated offshore company that handles insurance, citing competitive reasons. Mariner sells insurance policies that are supposed to cover a borrower’s loan payments in case of various mishaps — death, accident, unemployment and the like. “It is not our duty to explain to reporters . . . why companies make decisions to locate entities in different jurisdictions,” Morton wrote. Through a Warburg Pincus spokesman, Geithner, the company president, declined to comment. So did other Warburg Pincus officials. Instead, through spokeswoman Mary Armstrong, the firm issued a statement: “Mariner Finance delivers a valuable service to hundreds of thousands of Americans who have limited access to consumer credit,” it says. “Mariner is licensed, regulated, and in good standing, in all states in which it operates and its operations are subject to frequent examination by state regulators. Mariner’s products are transparent with clear disclosure and Mariner proactively educates its customers in every step of the process.” Equity firms' stakes Over the past decade or so, private equity firms, which pool money from investment funds and wealthy individuals to buy up and manage companies for eventual resale, have taken stakes in companies that offer loans to people who lack access to banks and traditional credit cards. Some private equity firms have bought up payday lenders. Today, prominent brands in that field, such as Money Mart, Speedy Cash, ACE Cash Express and the Check Cashing Store, are owned by private equity funds. Other private equity firms have taken stakes in “consumer installment” lenders, such as Mariner, and these offer slightly larger loans — from about $1,000 to more than $25,000 — for longer periods of time. Today, three of the largest companies in consumer installment lending are owned to a significant extent by private equity funds — Mariner is owned by Warburg Pincus; Lendmark Financial Services is held by the Blackstone Group, which is led by


Metro speeds up safety upgrades on new rail cars after federal funding threats

months, the public address systems on trains have been playing a recording as the trains pull into stations: “This is a 7000-series train.” The purpose of the audio messages is to alert visually impaired riders that they need to be cautious while boarding the 7000-series trains. (Metro has conducted outreach to disabilities advocacy groups, educating them about the hazards posed by the 7000s.) But the repetitive audio messages have also annoyed other riders, with some passengers complaining on Twitter that they do not understand why the transit agency feels a need to brag about the new model of train car at every stop. The concerns about the design of the 7000s stem from when the stainless steel trains were being developed years ago. On older models of the Metro fleet, two sets of metal chains stretch across the gap between the train cars, so that anyone erroneously reaching with a cane or a hand into the gap between cars would probably detect the chains and move to a door instead. But when the time came to begin manufacturing the 7000s, Metro officials wanted a change. The chains were cumbersome when moving train cars around the rail yard, and workers had reported slip-and-fall injuries related to maneuvering the chains during icy weather. Instead, Metro opted for a different safety feature: black rubber flaps that stick out like tail fins from either end of each rail car. Those flaps are set farther back from the edge of the platform, which federal regulators believe is why at least two visually impaired people reportedly stepped into the gaps between the train cars and fell onto the tracks. Those incidents alarmed the FTA enough that it issued an ultimatum: Metro must install new between-car barriers on all 7000-series trains by the end of 2018 or the system might temporarily lose some federal funding. That threat got the attention of Metro officials. In his letter to the FTA on Friday, Lavin said the trains’ manufacturer, Kawasaki, has agreed to expedite the retrofitting. Still, he said, there are limits to how quickly Metro can press Kawasaki to work. And in a letter from Kawasaki to Metro, forwarded to the federal government, the manufacturer explained the reason for the 10-month timeline. “The bracket assembly has a long lead time,” wrote the program manager for the 7000 series, and “the polishing process for painting takes a long time.” martine.powers@washpost.com


Evidence found linking another suspect to 2015 quadruple killings, attorneys for man charged in case say

The attorneys for the man charged with the 2015 killings of three Upper Northwest Washington family members and their housekeeper say they have evidence someone else was responsible for the killings that they plan to introduce during the September trial. In their latest filing Friday, D.C. public defenders Judith Pipe and Jeffrey Stein did not identify who the other person is and argued to D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith McKenna — over prosecutors’ objections — that they do not have to reveal the details of their defense until trial. “The court should reject the government’s attempts to secure pretrial discovery of defense theory, the identities of any purported third-party perpetrator and the evidentiary basis supporting” such defense, Daron Wint’s attorneys wrote in their filing. A hearing is scheduled Friday, at which point McKenna could rule on whether defense attorneys would be required to reveal their defensive strategy or allow them to wait until trial. Wint, 36, of Lanham, Md., is charged with murder and other crimes in the killings of businessman Savvas Savopoulos, 46; his wife, Amy, 47; their son Philip, 10; and their housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Police have said the four victims were held captive the evening of May 13, 2015, and that their attacker fled with $40,000 in ransom that had been delivered to the stately home in the 3200 block of Woodland Drive NW, the neighborhood where the vice president’s official mansion is also located. The family’s burned-out home has since been demolished. Prosecutors say Wint beat, strangled and stabbed his four victims before setting the house on fire. Police discovered the bodies after firefighters were called to the home. Authorities initially said they thought Wint did not act alone, but Wint remains the sole defendant in the slayings. Wint’s trial is scheduled to begin mid-September following what attorneys expect to be a lengthy jury selection process as a result of the media attention the case has drawn. The trial is expected to last about two months, attorneys have said. Although Wint’s attorneys did not name another suspect, in an earlier court filing, they cited one person they said had provided homicide detectives with “false information” about his whereabouts on the night and early morning of the killings. The attorneys requested additional information regarding this person. The name of the person was redacted from court files. Wint once


Serena Williams may be singled out for drug testing. The question is why.

data as aspersion against her accomplishments. There is a long lineage of black athletes, going back at least to Johnson, whose excellence has somehow been met quite publicly by suspicion. “This crops up from time to time,” said Damion Thomas, the curator of sports at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “Suspicions about whether African American athletes are cheating or have some sort of genetic advantage or superiority somehow tied to slavery.” To be sure, Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder, sitting in D.C.’s now-defunct famous eatery Duke Zeibert’s back in January 1988, infamously ascribed the talents of black NFL stars to breeding in the antebellum South. He lost his analyst job predicting NFL games on CBS shortly after. Any number of newspaper stories, academic journal articles and books, such as Jon Entine’s “Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It,” have been published arguing that black athletes’ success may be a product of genetics rather than diligence and, most disconcerting, intelligence. “There’s an insidious quality to it,” Roberts said. “They’re saying [black athletes are] better because . . . they’re not like us.” Ghanaian American Freddy Adu’s prodigious talent as a teenage soccer player in the early 2000s generated loud rumors that he couldn’t be 14 years old. Tiger Woods stood out on the golf course because of his black and Thai heritage, winning 12 majors in nine years, and a physique highlighted by a red shirt on Sundays led some to whisper he was on steroids or HGH. A book published in 2014 linked Woods to a Canadian doctor busted at the U.S. border for smuggling HGH, though no proof of Woods receiving PEDs was compiled. Former longtime NBA coach George Karl stated unequivocally in his 2017 memoir, “Furious George: My Forty Years Surviving NBA Divas, Clueless GMs, and Poor Shot Selection,” that NBA players were juicing — taking direct shots, it seemed, at Kobe Bryant, who sought medical treatment in Germany, and even LeBron James, whose physique has generated rumors of PED use. “It’s obvious some of our players are doping,” Karl wrote. “How are some guys getting older — yet thinner and fitter? How are they recovering from injuries so fast? Why the hell are they going to Germany in the offseason? I doubt it’s for the sauerkraut.” “One of the things that hasn’t trickled down to the public,”


Northrop Grumman CEO is grilled about James Webb Space Telescope errors

NASA's troubled James Webb Space Telescope continues to enjoy congressional support, but lawmakers Thursday expressed dismay with the performance of Northrop Grumman, the huge aerospace contractor that has made a series of errors delaying the telescope's launch until 2021 at the earliest. Wes Bush, the company's chief executive, found himself on the defensive as he testified before the House Science Committee. He refused repeatedly to specify how much profit his company made last year. The Webb telescope was conceived in 1996 as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, and NASA had originally hoped to launch it in 2007. It is an infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter-wide segmented mirror, and it has to be kept cold to gather light emitted in the early universe when stars were just starting to form galaxies. This requires a tennis-court-sized, five-layer sun shield that has to unfold in space. In a shake test in April, screws came loose from the sun shield, just the latest in a series of technical glitches and human errors at Northrop Grumman. An independent review board this summer urged NASA and Congress to keep the program going but said there were 344 potential “single-point failures” that could doom the telescope with a single mistake, and it urged greater care in rooting out technical problems. The latest cost estimate of the project is $9.7 billion, most of that already spent. Bush admitted that mistakes at Northrop Grumman had been a factor in the delays. He pledged that the company would put all of its past profits and potential future profits — known as “award fees” — into a common pot to be awarded only if the telescope is successful. But he pushed back when House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) asked him whether the company would consider paying for the latest $800 million cost overrun out of its own pocket. Bush said that would transform the company's cost-plus contract with NASA into a fixed-price contract, and would “significantly impair” the relationship between the company and NASA. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) scoffed at comments made by Bush and other lawmakers about how the Webb will inspire young people. “I'm sorry that I cannot join you in this uplifting testimony that you've given today. Mr. Bush, I don’t think we should look to our young people and give them an example of being, you know, eight times over budget and twice


Fox in Jessup, Md., tested positive for rabies, health officials warn

The Anne Arundel County Department of Health is seeking to talk to anyone who came in contact with a rabid gray fox near Old Jessup Road and Route 175 in Jessup, Md., the department said Saturday. The fox tested positive for rabies on Friday, according to the department. Rabies can be contracted from an infected animal’s bite or scratch, as well as saliva. Anyone who handled, fed or was attacked by the fox may require treatment, the department said. Those who came in contact with the fox should call the Anne Arundel County Department of Health at 410-222-87256. Anyone whose pets were bitten or scratched by a fox should call Anne Arundel County Animal Control at 410-222-8900. michael.brice-saddler@washpost.com


Cleveland concertmaster suspended over sexual harassment allegations

The Cleveland Orchestra has suspended violinist William Preucil, its concertmaster of 23 years, “until further notice” while opening an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment leveled at him in an article in The Washington Post. “The Cleveland Orchestra was not aware of the allegations reported by The Washington Post about William Preucil in their July 26, 2018 article,” said the statement from André Gremillet, the orchestra’s executive director, released to the media on Friday afternoon. “We take this matter very seriously and will promptly conduct an independent investigation. Mr. Preucil has been suspended until further notice.” The Cleveland Institute of Music, where Preucil is a longtime faculty member, was less decisive Friday, when the school’s president and CEO, Paul W. Hogle, said in a statement that the school was “deeply troubled by The Washington Post story discussing issues of sexual harassment in classical music but will not comment on specific allegations made in the article.” On Saturday afternoon, however, Preucil resigned his teaching post, CIM spokeswoman Amy Brondyke confirmed. In the article, violinist Zeneba Bowers said Preucil assaulted her in his hotel room after a lesson when she was a fellow at the New World Symphony, the country’s leading training orchestra for young professionals, in 1998. Other musicians confirmed Preucil’s reputation for inappropriate advances. The story also mentioned an article that ran in 2007 in the publication Cleveland Scene, in which it was alleged that Preucil made an unwanted advance to a student at the Cleveland Institute of Music. The student subsequently transferred to a different school, at CIM’s expense. At the time, Preucil responded to the Cleveland Scene reporter, Rebecca Meiser, in an email that “the issue was fully reviewed by the institution and was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.” Speaking to The Post on Friday afternoon, Gremillet, who has been at the Cleveland Orchestra for 2½ years, said this was his first time hearing these allegations. “There was no blind eye turned,” he said. “No allegations were made; no one came forward to anyone in management. I need to know about it to do something about it.” “I don’t want to make assumptions about Bill,” he added. “But we have to be careful that we don’t condemn someone in the court of public opinion. We need people to come forward. I know how difficult it is, but we need to hear about it.” Gremillet also said he hoped the


Donald Trump has been wrong on trade for 30 years

And a trade war risked sending it all back to Japan. The notion that the Japanese were unfairly cheating American manufacturers also missed why Americans were increasingly engaging with Japanese products. They liked Hondas and Toyotas because they were more efficient and dependable than Detroit’s vehicles; they relished the ability of the Sony Walkman and VCRs to transform their relationship to the audio and visual worlds; they ate sushi because it made them feel cosmopolitan; and they even created fan clubs to celebrate Japanese popular culture, particularly Japanese animation, or anime. Calls for a trade war missed these benefits Americans were experiencing from nascent globalization. And they also wildly overinflated the threat posed by Japanese competition. By the mid-1990s, Japan’s bubble economy, fueled by reckless real estate speculation, had popped, leaving the country mired in a “lost decade” of flat or negative economic growth. The U.S. economy, on the other hand, surged, taking advantage of an information-technology revolution that propelled U.S. companies across new global horizons. Smaller, nimbler U.S. firms were better positioned to take advantage of that revolution than were the massive inflexible Japanese conglomerates that had conquered global markets a decade before but were slow to adapt to rapid technological change. Today, Trump seems poised to make the same mistake he made in the 1980s. His vows that the United States can successfully wage a trade war are premised on the notion, embedded in economic simplifications such as “trade deficit,” that national economies are self-contained entities that can exist and thrive independent of interconnectedness. But history has proved time and again that this isn’t the case. And today, there are just as many risks to a trade war as there were in the 1980s. Places such as Spartanburg, S.C., where BMW manufactures many of its vehicles, stand to lose big time. That is why Trump should embrace the ideas of wiser critics from the 1980s who actually understood the economic reality that he flubbed — people such as future labor secretary Robert Reich, who argued that change began at home, that the best way to future-proof an economy was not to build barriers between it and the world but to invest in the kind of education and training that would make a population flexible in the face of future challenges. That is the formula that will propel the American economy to new heights — not a trade war.


The sun is spotless and serene: What does it mean?

For 32 of the past 33 days, the sun has lacked a single spot as the current Solar Cycle, numbered 24, nears its end. SpaceWeather.com said it has been almost a decade (since 2009) with so little activity on the sun. About a year from now, the first spots of newly emerging Solar Cycle 25 are expected to appear, initiating a new 11-year sequence in which the sun’s energy rises to a peak and then falls before the next cycle begins. Solar Cycle 24 was average size but significantly smaller than its predecessors of the past 30 years. So how strong will the next cycle be? And how will the magnetic field evolve, which forms sunspots and fuels eruptions on the sun’s surface, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, that affect electric power grids, GPS, and other technologies on which we depend? Scientists, employing three different techniques, have made predictions. This small sample illustrates the complexity of the task of understanding how the sun renews its magnetic fields and molts into the new cycle. Frank Hill, of the National Solar Observatory, and co-workers have measured the subsurface zonal flow of the solar plasma as an indicator of the processes that build the upcoming cycle. They believe that Cycle 25 will be smaller than the current cycle by approximately 25 percent. A second technique, studying the occurrence of bright points in the solar corona, has been employed by Scott McIntosh, director of the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and colleagues. They believe these bright points serve as buoys connected magnetically further down in the solar atmosphere that indicate evolving magnetic field. Their predictions align with Hill’s and predict a new cycle about 25 percent weaker than the current. W. Dean Pesnell, project scientist of the Solar Dynamics Observatory at NASA, believes that studying the strength of the solar polar magnetic fields before the onset of the new cycle tells how much flux will be available to build sunspots. He finds the polar fields to be on par with the now waning cycle, and predicts that Cycle 25 to be at least as strong as Cycle 24, maybe larger, if the polar fields strengthen in the next year. Solar eruptions, which tend to increase as the solar cycle moves toward its maximum, can have important consequences for critical systems. For example, a study in the


The Energy 202: Acting EPA chief Andrew Wheeler’s lobbying ties under increasing scrutiny

and the fact that its executive director, Carole Goeas, is a Republican political fundraiser. “Ultimately this is about the fossil fuel industry and a way to inject it into our politics in a way that’s dangerous for the climate,” Ross said. NERO Chairman Laura Marshall Schepis rejected the idea that her group was affiliated with a specific viewpoint or party. “We have Republicans and Democrats, we have traditional fuels and renewables,” Schepis said, adding that NERO’s events are open to the public. Schepis added that she respects “the decision” Wheeler and his colleagues made to decline the invitation. “We hope to welcome him next spring or summer as a speaker,” she said. Several groups that had worked with Wheeler’s firm said that their recent conversations with him were unrelated to any past work he had done at FBD. ADM spokeswoman Jackie Anderson said in an email that firm officials attended a meeting with Wheeler on the renewable fuels standard on May 24, which was “the first time we discussed EPA-related issues with Mr. Wheeler. Our previous work with Mr. Wheeler was several years ago around un-related food-issues.” And Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Management District, said that the district did retain Wheeler’s firm from 2010 to 2012, “but I cannot find any indication that Andrew Wheeler was a point of contact.” The district’s executive officer, Wayne Nastri, met with Wheeler on June 22 to discuss its push for stricter nitrogen oxide emissions limits for heavy-duty trucks, Atwood added. Despite the fact that ethics rules allow appointees to meet with clients they had outside a two-year window, Democrats are still pressing for a probe. Reps. Don Beyer Jr. of Virginia, Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Jamie Raskin of Maryland on Friday wrote a letter to the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics seeking a review of Wheeler’s meetings with former lobbying clients. — EPA rolls forward with some Pruitt deregulation: More on Wheeler’s deregulatory agenda: — Dow’s “dioxin lawyer” awaits confirmation to lead EPA Superfund program: — Fishing law changes loom — FEMA vows to address Puerto Rico’s morgue backlog: — Trump golf course in Scotland damaged protected land: — California is burning: — Tariff woes: Also: — Big Oil’s earnings disconnect: — Iowa’s lone nuclear plant to close: Coming Up — The longest "blood moon" lunar eclipse of the century


D.C. police seek help in solving killing of girl on way to get ice cream

District authorities on Monday pleaded for people to come forward with tips in the unsolved shooting death of 10-year-old Makiyah Wilson, who was killed in a fusillade of 70 bullets on her way to an ice cream truck parked near her home. D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said detectives have received a “substantial amount” of information from the public but not enough to arrest any of four masked gunmen — one armed with an assault-style weapon — who jumped from a stolen black Infiniti and sprayed the Clay Terrace courtyard with gunfire. The shooting on July 16 in the 300 block of 53rd Street NE occurred at 8 p.m. as residents milled about the apartment complex and after Makiyah returned from swimming with her sister. She was shot as she stepped out of her front door clutching a $5 bill her mother had given her to purchase the treat. Several other people were wounded. Police have not determined a motive, but Newsham said one theory is a dispute between neighborhoods. Police also have not said whether the gunmen, or a fifth person who was driving, targeted anyone in particular. Officials announced on Monday that the FBI has contributed $20,000 to the reward the city offers for a tip leading to an arrest and conviction, bringing the total to $45,000. Police recovered the vehicle used in the attack in Temple Hills, Md., three days later. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said that residents of Clay Terrace, “like in many communities, have had enough of senseless violence and the use of illegal guns destroying families. We have to solve this homicide and solve it just as quickly as possible.” The mayor noted that Makiyah “was doing what 10-year-olds do, near her home, when she was shot and killed.” While violent crime is down 7 percent in the District, homicides are up 37 percent, from 67 recorded at this time last year to 92 so far in 2018. Newsham said authorities are “very concerned” about those numbers, and he blamed illegal guns. He said police have seized more than 1,000 of them so far this year. On Friday, police said the department’s Gun Recovery Unit and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested a man-and-woman team who police said bought a cache of firearms at a Northern Virginia gun show and took them to Southeast Washington. Newsham said a car


Cat Zakrzewski to anchor The Post’s new Tech 202 newsletter

Announcement from National editor Steven Ginsberg, PowerPost editor Rachel Van Dongen, and deputy editor of PowerPost Sara Sorcher: We’re very excited to announce that Cat Zakrzewski will join The Post as the anchor of a new PowerPost newsletter on the intersection of Washington and Silicon Valley. Cat comes from The Wall Street Journal, where she spent the last two-and-a-half years as a venture capital reporter based in San Francisco. Her experience and sourcing in Silicon Valley will help inform her coverage of the rapidly changing policy debate on Capitol Hill, within the regulatory agencies and in the White House. She will also focus on the role social media companies play in distributing news, competition among tech titans and the challenge that governments face in keeping pace with new technologies. Before joining the Journal, Cat wrote about tech policy for TechCrunch and interned for the Boston Globe in Washington, where she covered the Massachusetts congressional delegation with a focus on tech policy. She was a homicide watch intern for the Chicago Sun-Times, and her work has been published in USA Today and UPI. Cat is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She is originally from the Philadelphia suburbs, and she is very excited to move to Washington and live near a Wawa again. Please welcome her when she starts Aug. 20.


World Digest: July 30, 2018

said at a news briefing. “We cannot rule out unlawful interference by a third party,” such as someone holding the pilots hostage, he said. But he added that no group has said it hijacked the plane and that no ransom demand has been made. He said the investigation showed lapses by air traffic control, including a failure to swiftly initiate an emergency response and monitor radar continuously. The plane, carrying 239 people from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, vanished March 8, 2014, and is presumed to have crashed in the far southern Indian Ocean. Pieces of debris that washed ashore on African beaches and Indian Ocean islands indicated that the plane probably crashed in a distant remote stretch of the ocean. But a government search failed to pinpoint a location, as did a private search. — Associated Press HORN OF AFRICA Eritrea and Somalia agree to restore ties Eritrea and Somalia have agreed to restore diplomatic relations, both countries announced Monday in another thaw in the restive Horn of Africa region, while Somalia’s leader called for sanctions on Eritrea to be removed. Eritrea’s information minister shared the joint statement on Twitter as Somalia’s president ended a historic three-day visit to one of the world’s most closed-off nations. The countries have not had diplomatic ties for nearly 15 years. Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed called for the lifting of U.N. sanctions on Eritrea over its alleged support of the Somalia-based al-Shabab extremist group, which Eritrea has long denied. “We urge all economic sanctions and embargo imposed on the people of Eritrea must be lifted so that the economic integration of the Horn of Africa region can be realized,” Mohamed said Sunday at a banquet hosted by Eritrea’s president. The visit by Somalia’s leader follows a stunning diplomatic thaw between Eritrea and neighboring Ethiopia after more than two decades. — Associated Press South African court revokes immunity for Grace Mugabe: Mexico had more homicides in 2017 than previously thought: German far-right party ordered to correct Clinton claim: A Berlin court ordered the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to publicly correct its claim that the German Environment Ministry gave money to former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton while she was running for president in 2016. The AfD had claimed that German government funds intended for projects in Africa overseen by the Clinton Foundation had gone to Clinton's campaign. — From news services


Recruited by Iran to fight for Syrian regime, young Afghans bring home cash and scars

against the Islamic State and other anti-Assad militias, emergency hospitalizations in Iran for various injuries, and struggles with Iran’s military bureaucracy to obtain further medical treatment. “You get caught up in a situation; they give you money and food, they promise you more medical treatment, they give you documents to move freely inside Iran,” Hussain said. “They make you feel obligated.” Human rights groups have described Tehran’s use of Afghans and other foreign fighters as a tactic to save Iranian lives and mute domestic criticism of its involvement in a messy and destructive foreign conflict. Some groups said that boys as young as 13 have been induced to fight and that recruits received brief training and often suffered heavy casualties. Afghans and other foreign fighters were reportedly decisive in the battle for Aleppo and others that have turned the war in Assad’s favor. Tehran denies using foreign fighters to avoid casualties among its own youths; Iranian officials describe the Afghans as religious volunteers. Experts say Iran’s main stake in the war is to extend its influence across a broad stretch of the Middle East, from its border with Afghanistan to Lebanon. Afghan officials have other reasons for opposing the covert collaboration of Afghan citizens in a messy Middle East war. It has further complicated Afghanistan’s close but tense relations with Iran, a more powerful neighbor and trading partner with a lengthy common border, and it has raised the specter of sectarian strife inside Afghanistan, which until now it has largely avoided. For years, Afghanistan’s minority Shiites have endured discrimination and repression at the hands of its larger Sunni, mostly ethnic Pashtun groups. Often Shiites have looked to Iran for sanctuary and jobs. Now, Iran is deporting nonresident Afghan workers while recruiting them as fighters, leading to suspicion that Iran could use them to challenge Sunni dominance at home. But the pace and intensity of Iranian recruiting have slowed considerably as the Syrian regime has consolidated power. At first, Hussain said, the authorities “would take anyone, young or old, Shiite or Sunni. We would register in the morning, and they would send us for training in the afternoon.” Now, he said, the program is more selective. Additional incentives to keep fighting, recruits say, include offers of work or residency permits that are no longer available to most Afghans. Moreover, aside from expressing horror and antagonism toward the Islamic State, the fighters


Local Digest: Rabid fox identified in Maryland

manually, Maggiolo said. No one trapped in the elevator required medical treatment, the fire department said. A Metro spokeswoman said Sunday that “it appears [the five people] took intentional action that caused the elevator to stall.” The action was not described. Elevators in underground stations typically run between the street and the mezzanine, and also from mezzanine to the train platform. — Martin Weil Arrest in carjacking near Union Station A vehicle was taken in a carjacking near Union Station early Saturday, D.C. police said. Police said the incident occurred just after midnight in the 100 block of H Street NE. The carjacker indicated he was armed and threatened to shoot, police said. Officers spotted the vehicle shortly afterward, police said. A brief chase ended at Sixth and Morton streets NE, and an arrest was made, police said. The carjacking site is to the northeast of Union Station. — Martin Weil MARYLAND Health officials seek handlers of rabid fox The Anne Arundel County Department of Health is looking to talk to anyone who came in contact with a rabid gray fox near Old Jessup Road and Route 175 in Jessup, the department said Saturday. The fox tested positive for rabies Friday, the department said. Rabies can be contracted from an infected animal’s bite or scratch, as well as saliva. Anyone who handled, fed or was attacked by the fox may require treatment, the department said. Those who came in contact with the fox should call the county health department at 410-222-7256. Anyone whose pets were bitten or scratched by the fox should call county Animal Control at 410-222-8900. — Michael Brice-Saddler Body is found in Gaithersburg The body of a Montgomery County teenager was found Friday in the parking lot of an elementary school in Gaithersburg, and police said Sunday that he had been identified. They said the body was that of a male 17-year-old from Gaithersburg. His family was notified, police said, but no name was released. Police said the teenager’s body was found about 2:15 p.m. at South Lake Elementary School at 18201 Contour Rd. He had been seen by school staff walking on school property about noon Friday, police said, and school personnel had seen him previously playing basketball there. Police said no obvious signs of a wound were found and foul play was not suspected. An autopsy will be conducted. — Martin Weil and Clarence Williams


The spectacular rise and fall of Paul Manafort

[This story has been optimized for offline reading on our apps. For a richer experience, you can find the full version of this story here. An Internet connection is required.] Before he joined the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort hadn’t been seen around Washington in a while. He made a name for himself in the DC lobbying world, but he made a fortune overseas, advising strongmen and doing business with oligarchs. Then his past caught up with him. Important figures Rinat Akhmetov Rinat Akhmetov is a Ukrainian oligarch who hired Paul Manafort as an adviser in 2005 to burnish the reputation of one of his steel companies in the eastern Donetsk region. Through Akhmetov, Manafort was also brought on as a consultant for the Party of Regions and tasked with rehabilitating the image of Viktor Yanukovych. Oleg Deripaska Oleg Deripaska is one of Russia’s wealthiest men and belongs to a trusted circle of businessmen around President Vladimir Putin. Deripaska partnered with Paul Manafort and Rick Gates on an investment fund based in the Cayman Islands but filed suit against them in 2014, alleging they failed to account for $19 million. Rick Gates Rick Gates is a longtime associate of Paul Manafort and worked closely with him in Ukraine. He was also a top official on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and a deputy chairman of his inaugural committee. In February 2018, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI, striking a deal to cooperate and provide information to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Yulia Tymoshenko Yulia Tymoshenko was a leader of the “Orange Revolution” in 2004 and the first woman to serve as Ukraine’s prime minister. A longtime rival of Viktor Yanukovych, she was jailed for 2½ years under his administration. Viktor Yanukovych Viktor Yanukovych was president of Ukraine from 2010 to 2014. During his rise to power and his time in office, Paul Manafort was one of his closest advisers. A popular uprising forced Yanukovych into exile in Russia, and the Ukrainian government is trying to recover $1.5 billion in assets it accuses Yanukovych and his associates of stealing from the country. Manafort's most notorious clients Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Marcos was president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986 and ruled under martial law for nearly a decade. A front group for Marcos signed a $950,000 contract with Paul Manafort’s firm in 1985. Before going into exile, Marcos’s


The Afghan air force is growing. So are questions about its actions in combat.

Three American-made helicopters swooped over a religious gathering, taking aim at the field below. The Afghan pilots unleashed volleys of rockets and machine-gun fire, killing scores of people. The April 2 airstrikes in Kunduz province’s Dasht-e Archi district targeted Taliban leaders, Afghan officials said. But the incident was messier than that. While some Taliban members were there, so were children, an investigation by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan found in May. At least 36 people were killed and 71 were wounded, the investigators said. And at least 30 of the dead were children. The incident is emblematic of a troubling issue as the U.S. military’s years-long effort to train the Afghan air force begins to make headway. In the last three years, the force has expanded from barely flying to launching scores of strike missions most months, according to statistics released by the U.S.-led military coalition. However, as operations have increased, so have instances of civilian casualties documented by human rights groups. The U.N. mission recorded 149 civilian deaths and 204 wounded as a result of air operations in Afghanistan in the first half of 2018, it said in a report released this month. The Afghans, despite carrying out fewer strikes than Western counterparts, were responsible for half of the deaths and injuries, U.N. analysts said. In 2017, the Afghan air force caused at least 99 civilian fatalities and 210 injuries, the United Nations found. The trend has prompted human rights groups to call for the United States to press the air force to do more to prevent civilian casualties. Right now, it appears that its leaders define success as kills, regardless of civilian casualties, said Patricia Gossman, a researcher with the nonprofit Human Rights Watch. “If the Afghan government and U.S. trainers do not address this fundamental problem, they have lost the most important battle — that of convincing ordinary people the government cares about their losses, and that they can get justice,” she said. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has appointed a team to review the strike in Dasht-e Archi. U.S. advisers “constantly reiterate the importance of minimizing civilian casualties” and emphasize the importance of making sure all conditions are met before a weapon of any kind is used, said Army Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell, a U.S. military spokesman. O’Donnell noted that the recent U.N. report showed that 67 percent of all Afghan civilian casualties this year


‘He’s a hugger . . . so I want to hug him’: Ethiopians greet new prime minister

Hulgize Kassa, a 52-year-old from Raleigh, N.C., earned his spot at the front of the line. The father of two camped outside Walter E. Washington Convention Center starting at midnight Friday, watching as Ethiopians from as far as Colorado and Texas arrived with boxes of food, speakers and selfie sticks. By 7 a.m. Saturday, thousands had gathered in the streets spanning Mount Vernon Place to N Street, honking car horns and sharing food. Most wore T-shirts emblazoned with the face of their homeland’s newly minted prime minister, Abiy Ahmed. In the three months since his rise to power, the 41-year-old politician has introduced sweeping changes to Ethiopia, lifting a state of emergency, brokering peace with neighboring Eritrea and releasing hundreds of political prisoners. These dramatic steps toward liberalization have sparked “Abiy-mania” within the Ethiopian diaspora in the United States, which, for decades, stood among the fiercest critics of the ruling party’s autocratic regime. Abiy is in the United States to visit and speak to members of the diaspora. The Washington area is home to some 300,000 Ethiopians, making it the largest community outside the African country. “I want to hug him. He’s a hugger, I know, so I want to hug him,” said Kassa, a researcher at North Carolina State University. When Kassa first came to the United States in 2000, he never thought he would go back to his homeland. But Abiy’s ascension has changed his mind, he said. He plans to visit his home in the Amhara region next year, and bring his children, 12 and 14, with him. Abede Yimenu, a former major in the Ethiopian army, said he is also thinking of going home after having been away for 17 years. The 57-year-old from Dallas was in the District with three friends from his days in the Ethiopian military, all clad in army uniforms, complete with black sunglasses. After fighting together in the Eritrean-Ethiopian War of 1998 to 2000, they left for the United States, unhappy with the oppression imposed by their government, Yimenu said. “This uniform,” he said, tapping his red beret. “It shows that we believe in this prime minister, and that we still love our country, and that we still need to serve our country.” Inside the convention center, the crowd spent the hours before Abiy’s arrival dancing, waving Ethiopian and Eritrean flags, and engaging in ululation, called ililta. For many, this is


She had a lot of rashes, but don’t all kids?

The pediatrician was blunt but not unkind. Even so, her unequivocal message made Jan Wiese bristle. “You know, this is really not normal,” the Northern Virginia doctor said as she examined 2-year-old Lucy Wiese for the first time. Struck by the little girl’s medical history, especially her repeated skin infections, the doctor recommended that Lucy see a pediatric immunologist in Baltimore. “I was kind of offended,” Wiese recalled of the encounter. It had not occurred to her or her physician husband that their daughter’s infections might signal something more serious than a toddler’s normal — if acute — reaction to unfamiliar germs. Years later, Wiese ruefully recalled how indignant she felt. “Of course she was right,” Wiese conceded. In the months following that routine 2010 appointment, it would become clear just how extraordinary Lucy’s medical situation was. Timing and luck proved to be crucial. A serendipitous encounter with a specialist expedited a diagnosis that can take decades. And proximity eased Lucy’s access to one of the world’s preeminent treatment centers. Over the past eight years, Lucy’s odyssey has consumed her family, who have marveled at her ability to survive repeated setbacks and endure some of medicine’s most arduous treatments. Her precarious health, which had been spiraling downward, appears to have rebounded in recent months. “She’s just a really spunky kid,” her mother said. “It’s really a miracle that she’s here.” Lots of infections Lucy’s birth at a Richmond hospital in June 2008 followed an uneventful pregnancy. Doctors noted what they characterized as a benign newborn rash that blanketed her body. To Wiese, the rash looked like little freckles, which scabbed over and then fell off. Lucy also had a mild case of jaundice — common in newborns — which required a week of light-exposure therapy at home. At 9 months she developed an infection near her toenail. The area grew swollen and pus-filled, but it wasn’t painful. The pediatrician drained it and the toe healed. Three months later, something similar happened to two of Lucy’s fingers, which she habitually sucked. “It really looks like she’s been burned,” one doctor told Wiese, who assured him that this was not the case. “Luckily, they believed me,” Wiese recalled. Lucy was given antibiotics, and the doctor advised that she be prevented from sucking her fingers — easier said than done, her mother observed. Lucy had also developed periodic patchy outbreaks on her face


and torso that resembled a heat rash and puzzled her doctors. Wiese and her husband, Scott, then a fourth-year medical student, thought Lucy might simply be vulnerable to the germs he was bringing home from the hospital. Around the time of her first birthday, the family moved to Charlottesville, where a new pediatrician noted the large size and unusual shape of her head, which was somewhat long and narrow. “We have kind of big heads in our family,” Wiese told the new pediatrician. After a CT scan revealed sagittal craniosynostosis, a birth defect that results in premature closure of the bones in a baby’s head, Lucy was referred to a pediatric neurosurgeon at the University of Virginia. He deemed her case mild and recommended against surgery, which can be risky. Five months later, Lucy developed an abscess behind her left ear. More serious than the previous infections, it needed to be surgically drained and required that she be hospitalized for IV antibiotics. This infection, unlike the previous ones, healed more slowly and required a round of oral antibiotics as well as corticosteroids. Around the time of Lucy’s second birthday, the family moved again, temporarily settling in Reston. A few months later, she saw the pediatrician who recommended an immunology work-up in Baltimore. Lucy’s parents agreed, and she was placed on a waiting list at Johns Hopkins. Painful patches But weeks before her third birthday, the little girl developed a severe case of oral thrush, a fungal infection that causes white patches inside the mouth and esophagus. “It was so painful she couldn’t swallow her own saliva,” Wiese recalled. Lucy was admitted to MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, where her father was an anesthesiology resident. An infectious-disease specialist noted that thrush, one of the opportunistic infections that can affect patients with HIV, was extremely unusual in a patient Lucy’s age and strongly suggested a malfunctioning immune system. Less than a month later, Lucy was back at Georgetown with a second, severe case of thrush. This time, she saw Charlotte Barbey-Morel, then the hospital’s chief of pediatric infectious diseases. (Barbey-Morel has since retired and moved back to her native Switzerland). Wiese recalled that the specialist told her she was fairly confident she knew what was wrong. One of Barbey-Morel’s colleagues, who split her time between Georgetown and the National Institutes of Health, had treated patients with a rare diagnosis whose symptoms sounded much


President Trump’s claim that foreigners are responsible for ‘the vast majority’ of terrorism convictions since 9/11

Wittes, editor in chief of Lawfare Blog and senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, aims to find out. (The blog also has a weekly podcast, Lawfare Podcast.) In April 2017, Wittes filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find out whether DOJ data exist that support Trump’s claim, and what, if any, communications took place between DOJ officials and the White House before Trump’s speech to Congress. “I believe the president was lying not merely about the underlying facts but also about his own Justice Department,” Wittes wrote in April. “Or, in the alternative, I believe it’s possible that the Office of the Attorney General may have supported the White House’s claim. But I think it extraordinarily unlikely that the folks at NSD [National Security Division] actually provided data in support of this presidential statement.” There was no response within the statutory deadline, prompting Wittes to file an Aug. 11, 2017, lawsuit against the DOJ and the Office of Management and Budget. What do we know about the foreigners’ terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland? The answer: Not what the president claimed. New America found “Far from being foreign infiltrators, the large majority of Islamist militant terrorists in the United States have been American citizens or legal residents,” according to the New America report on Islamist militant activity since 9/11. Despite repeated fact checks of Trump’s use of Department of Justice data, it made its way into his maiden speech to Congress in February — and now, into a FOIA lawsuit against his DOJ. Unless the Department of Justice, led by Sessions, provided some other data to the White House, Trump’s claim is not supported by the June 2016 analysis by Sessions’s former Senate office. The information in that analysis came from the DOJ’s National Security Division, but Trump twisted the data to make an unsupported claim. Sessions has been attorney general for six months. He has had ample opportunity to release official findings to either correct the record, or back up the president’s claim. Sessions and the administration must set the record straight for the public, and he has a duty to release all relevant information regarding the president’s claims about the threat of terrorism to the United States. If new information emerges, we will update this fact check. But until then, we award his claim Four Pinocchios, for a grossly exaggerated misuse of federal


Who’s who at the Manafort trial

was listening.” Yet once in power, he pushed Ukraine back toward Russia and away from NATO. He jailed his main political rival and other opponents while enriching himself, his family and his friends. In 2014, Ukrainians again took to the streets in protest after Yanukovych bowed to Putin and rejected a trade deal with the European Union. Yanukovych fought bloodily to keep power but was eventually ousted by parliament and fled to Russia. Manafort continued to advise his political party, the Party of Regions, which re-formed as the Opposition Bloc. The country’s chief prosecutor accused Yanukovych of running a “mafia structure” that cost the country up to $100 billion.” Two years later, a ledger found by anti-corruption investigators in Ukraine revealed Yanukovych’s multimillion-dollar payments to Manafort, leading to the latter’s resignation as Trump’s campaign chairman. Oleg Deripaska It was Deripaska who paved the way for Manafort to work in Ukraine by introducing him to Rinat Akhmetov, a coal and steel baron who was also the leading financial force behind the Party of Regions. Deripaska appears to have loaned Manafort $10 million in 2006, according to court filings. The following year, Deripaska partnered with Manafort on an investment project focused on Russia and Ukraine. Manafort’s firm also tried to ingratiate the oligarch with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the 2008 presidential campaign. But in 2014, Deripaska accused Manafort in a Cayman Islands court of taking nearly $19 million intended for investments and then failing to account for the funds, return them or respond to numerous inquiries about exactly how the money was used. Rinat Akhmetov Manafort’s first job in Ukraine was to burnish the local and international reputation of a company owned by Akhmetov based in the Russian-speaking industrial Donetsk region. Akhmetov soon introduced Manafort to Viktor Yanukovych; Akhmetov was a major financial backer of Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, and the Opposition Bloc formed after Yanukovych’s ouster. Manafort wrote a long, detailed memorandum to Akhmetov in 2005 outlining his thoughts on the Party of Regions, including that it was associated in voters’ minds with “corruption” and considered the “party of the oligarchs.” Konstantin Kilimnik Kilimnik’s name appears on many emails prosecutors hope to show at trial detailing Manafort’s work in Ukraine from 2005 to 2014. Tad Devine Devine advised Al Gore and John F. Kerry in their presidential bids; in 2016 he was the chief strategist for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)


Trump administration must stop giving psychotropic drugs to migrant children without consent, judge rules

A federal judge on Monday found that U.S. government officials have been giving psychotropic medication to migrant children at a Texas facility without first seeking the consent of their parents or guardians, in violation of state child welfare laws. U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to obtain consent or a court order before administering any psychotropic medications to migrant children, except in cases of dire emergencies. She also ordered that the government move all children out of a Texas facility, Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Manvel, except for children deemed by a licensed professional to pose a “risk of harm” to themselves or others. Staff members at Shiloh admitted to signing off on medications in lieu of a parent, relative or legal guardian, according to Gee’s ruling. Government officials defended this practice, saying they provided these drugs only on “an emergency basis” when a child’s “extreme psychiatric symptoms” became dangerous. The judge didn’t buy this explanation, pointing to testimony from children who said they were given pills “every morning and every night.” Officials “could not have possibly” administered medications to children on an emergency basis every day, Gee wrote. Children testified in court filings that staff with the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement would sometimes not tell them what drugs they were being given or why. They recalled feeling side effects such as nausea, dizziness, depression and weight gain. Some reported being forcibly injected with drugs, and others said they felt that refusing medications would cause them to be detained longer. “I witnessed staff members forcefully give medication four times,” one child held at Shiloh, identified as Isabella M., said. “. . . Two staff members pinned down the girl . . . and a doctor gave her one or two injections.” Isabella was prescribed multiple psychotropic medications at Shiloh, including topiramate, without her mother’s consent, according to an April court filing. “Nobody asked me for permission to give medications to my daughter, even though the staff at Shiloh has always had my telephone number and address,” the mother testified. The mother said Isabella’s anxiety medications were causing her to tremble and feel nervous. Isabella “tells me that she has fallen several times,” her mother testified, “because the medications were too powerful and she couldn’t walk.” The Shiloh Residential Treatment Center, the judge ruled, violated a long-standing settlement that set strict standards for detaining


Malaysian aviation chief resigns after investigation found someone veered MH370 off course

A day after an investigation report concluded that someone steered Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 — and the 239 people on board — onto a doomed course, the country's civil aviation chief announced his resignation Tuesday over the shortcomings of the country's air traffic control center. The report It is an admission that someone managed to thwart the systems and processes designed to keep fliers safe. “Therefore, it is with regret and after much thought and contemplation that I have decided to resign as the Chairman of Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia effective 14 days from the date of the resignation notice which I have served today,” Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said Tuesday in his resignation letter, which did not suggest that the authority was to blame for the plane's disappearance. Azharuddin, an engineer, has headed the aviation authority since 2008. Authorities believe the airplane crashed in the southern Indian Ocean. Everyone aboard is presumed dead in what has become the greatest airline mystery since the disappearance of Amelia Earhart. Only a scattered few pieces of wreckage — and none of the victims' bodies — have been found despite two massive searches that have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The 495-page MH370 report highlighted the lapses of Malaysia's Air Traffic Control, which did not monitor radar continuously or determine that an emergency was occurring until well after MH370 was gone. “There were uncertainties on the position of MH370 by both Kuala Lumpur [air traffic control center] and Ho Chi Minh [air traffic control center]," the report concluded. Controllers in Ho Chi Minh City did not notify their counterparts in Kuala Lumpur or the air force when the aircraft did not enter southern Vietnam's airspace as planned — one of the first signs that something was wrong. “The Air Traffic controllers did not initiate, in a timely manner, the three standard emergency phases in accordance with the standard operating procedures,” the report said. The last contact that controllers had with the plane was when Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shad radioed them, “Good night, Malaysian three seven zero.” A short time later, the plane changed its flight path in a way that “probably resulted from manual inputs,” the government's report said. A system malfunction alone could not account for sudden shifts in the direction of the plane. Investigators with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau have said that everybody on the plane — the captain,


Athletes can easily trick popular concussion test, study finds

Duping one of the nation’s most common concussion screening tests is significantly easier than previously measured, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Butler University. The researchers found that half of test takers who “sandbagged,” or purposefully underperformed, on the Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Test, known as ImPACT, went undetected. That means those test takers were able to fool the exam, and thus might have returned to physical activity sooner than medically appropriate. Athletes generally take ImPACT before the start of their sports season to record a baseline score. The test, first released in 2002, has been administered more than 12 million times, according to ImPACT Applications, the company that makes the exam. The company has deals to provide the assessment to Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, U.S. Lacrosse and the British Football Association. The test is also commonly administered to high school and youth athletes. ImPACT markets a pediatric version of the exam, as well. The computerized test asks subjects to answer word, design, color and symbol matching questions to test the brain’s function. After a traumatic brain injury, an athlete is asked similar questions in another version of the test, and the scores are compared. If an athlete “sandbags” on the original baseline assessment, he or she would only have to match that lower threshold to possibly return to action after a head injury. Nearly a third of athletes reported to researchers in a separate 2017 study that they didn’t provide “maximal effort” on computerized neurocognitive tests, such as ImPACT. “Anyone who works with the concussed clinically knows there are a lot of people who purposefully sandbag the baseline test and a lot of people don’t get caught,” said Amy Peak, one of the study’s authors and director of undergraduate health science programs at Butler. Previous studies, including one cited by ImPACT’s “Administration and Interpretation Manual,” have found that the test successfully flags 89 percent of sandbaggers and invalidates their scores, which requires subjects to retake the baseline assessment. The test has five built-in indicators meant to flag any irregularities. But Butler’s study, co-researched by Indiana University medical student Courtney Raab, found only two of those indicators detected more than 15 percent of test takers who tried to trick the exam. Peak found half of test subjects were able to defeat the flagging mechanisms without being coached. Peak and Raab presented the findings at


The climate impact of the food in the back of your fridge

improved technology can cause a dramatic shift in wastage. Better information can help prevent producers from generating more food than can be consumed, and proper infrastructure can allow food to reach markets and households in need. Prevention is the most substantive solution to reducing food waste, but “waste-benefit” solutions such as composting or anaerobic digesters are beneficial last resorts for food that cannot be eaten or redistributed to hungry populations. Project Drawdown’s modeling showed that worldwide implementation of composting can reduce emissions by 2.3 billion tons over the next 30 years. Food waste that decomposes in landfills releases methane, a greenhouse gas that is at least 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Wasted food that is composted can be used as a fertilizer on cropland, improving soil health and productivity. Anaerobic, or “methane”, digesters, on the other hand, convert methane produced from decomposition into electricity, helping to shift away from fossil fuel-based energy. Project Drawdown estimates that as population growth, economic development, food consumption and waste continue to grow, the total food produced worldwide would need to increase by 107 million tons annually by 2050. This level of production would require converting more than a billion acres of forests and grassland into farmland over the next 30 years, resulting in the release of approximately 84 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent into the atmosphere. Additional emissions across the supply chain, from agricultural production to our refrigerators, would also be generated. By reducing food waste today, we can redirect what would be wasted to feed hungry people, and we can avoid the production of excess food. When adopted in parallel with other solutions like switching to plant-rich diets and supply-side agricultural production solutions like silvopasture, Project Drawdown estimates that enough food could be produced to feed the entire world a healthy diet from now to 2050 without converting any forests or grasslands to farmland. The climate impact of the food system may come as a surprise to many people. Of the top 20 solutions, out of the 80 compiled by Project Drawdown, eight relate directly to the food system. For comparison, only five have to do with electricity generation. While we need all 80 solutions to be implemented in parallel, the decisions we all make every day on the food we produce, purchase and consume is perhaps the single most important contribution an individual can make. This was produced by


I thought I was showing my kids how tough I was. Instead, I almost died.

avoid picking up toys so no one else would be catching this demon virus, but I didn’t crawl into bed as my body wanted to. Day 10 It feels good to be clean. My plan is working. I’ve persuaded my body I’m fine. When I flip my head to towel-wrap my hair, I notice my left shin is swollen. Not a lot, but it’s discernible, which is weird, because I thought I’d just pulled it. An overwhelming urge to call my doctor sets in. Before the physician assistant is even in her chair, I’m apologizing for wasting her time. She looks at my leg. It’s redder than it was earlier. “Have you been breathing okay?” she asks. I shake my head. “Not at all. In fact, one night last week my breaths were so shallow it was worrying, but it went away the next day. It’s all from this virus I had.” “You’ve been having a hard time breathing, but you didn’t make an appointment until you noticed your calf was swollen?” And just like that I go from thinking I’m tough to knowing I’m a moron. What I Ignored I had a blood clot that ran from my groin to an inch or two up from my ankle. I suffered not one but two pulmonary embolisms, which resulted in a cardiac event that caused heart damage. It is a statistical aberration that I survived that night when my son had to wake me up in the morning. Had I not, my 4- and 5-year-olds would have been home alone with a dead mother. None of the doctors was impressed to hear I worked out almost every day with untreated PEs, gasping for air. I thought I was teaching my kids resiliency and strength, when really I was teaching them to be ashamed to ask for help and to ignore their gut. I was diagnosed with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome (APS), a disease where your blood turns against you and throws clots, and I was put on a daily blood thinner. Accommodations had to be made. I nap most afternoons and have to stand every 40 minutes or so. When I don’t, my left leg swells from the vein damage of having endured such a large, prolonged clot. I wear a compression sleeve on my calf, so summer shorts have been replaced with maxi dresses and jumpsuits. I avoid activities that


Gordon Ramsay’s new Nat Geo show is a colonialist mess

a role. A woman, for example, has never hosted a major show of the “No Reservations” ilk, in which she’s allowed to freely traipse around the world satisfying all her curiosities and appetites. In the wake of Anthony Bourdain’s tragic death and the discussion surrounding the “best female chef” award at the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, it’s become a more prominent focus for food writers and passive viewers alike: When will we have the chance to see what a woman, perhaps queer or of color — or both — could do with the opportunities that have thus far been awarded only to straight, cisgender men such as Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern, Action Bronson, Marcus Samuelsson and David Chang? We’ll have to wait a bit longer to find out. Ramsay, a white British man who is as famous for his numerous Michelin stars as he is for his rage, will not just be traveling to various countries on “Uncharted” to showcase their cultures and cuisines, but in a troubling twist, he will be competing with locals to determine whether his takes on their national dishes could “beat” the real thing. An initial press release said he would be “pitting his own interpretations of regional dishes against the tried-and-true classics.” This seems like a setup for quite a few disasters, considering he’s received attention for, among other things, suggesting that a traditional Indian breakfast was “prison” food. “The premise smacks of colonial stink,” says food writer Mayukh Sen. “It positions a foreign country’s cuisine as something for Ramsay to decode and eventually ‘master,’ to harness into greatness. I don’t want to preemptively write this show off. Perhaps it won’t be as horrendous as the premise makes it sound.” To Sen’s point, the Variety announcement even used the phrase “anthropology-through-cuisine expeditions,” as though this will be a safari. It also speaks of “discovering the undiscovered,” further implying that nothing exists until it’s been gazed upon by white Western eyes. While Twitter was immediately ablaze with sharp commentary on the idea of Ramsay taking on a Bourdain-type role, the food writers I spoke to had more considered perspectives. “I know that the project of hosting a show requires a really rare mixture of knowledge, charisma and that general muck of attributes we call ‘star power,’ but I can’t believe that there are no women or nonbinary people of color who possess all three,” says Soleil


Maryland park reopens after search yields animal tracks, but no mountain lion

Visitors at a park in Prince George’s County were told to shelter-in-place Tuesday after a woman reported seeing a mountain lion, authorities said, but no lion was found. A woman came into a U.S. Park Police substation in Greenbelt Park to report she had seen what she believed to be a mountain lion, police spokesman James Dingeldein said. The animal was not aggressive, the woman reportedly said, and was about as tall as her waist. Access to the park, which is managed by the National Park Service, was restricted and visitors were told to shelter-in-place as authorities searched for the animal, Dingeldein said. The park was reopened after it was searched and no mountain lion was found, although authorities did note “numerous” animal tracks, including those from coyotes, according to Dingeldein. “There was no evidence of anything that would be a mountain lion,” he said. Mountain lions have “the greatest of range of any living mammal in Americas,” according to the website of the National Wildlife Foundation, and live from Canada to the tip of South America. They are carnivores that often prey on deer. Reports of mountain lion sightings in the District of Columbia in 2011 and 2013 were not verified. justin.moyer@washpost.com


Local Digest: Two charged with murder in death of man in the Fort Washington area

gunshot wounds. Police said he was pronounced dead there. Within minutes of the shooting, police arrested two men who they say were Little’s acquaintances: Irving Silva, 25, of Northwest Washington, and Jelani Edwards, 17, of Brentwood. Edwards is being charged as an adult, police said. Police said that Silva and Edwards robbed Little before the shooting. Silva and Edwards have been charged with first-degree murder and related charges. The homicide is the 157th in the Washington area this year, according to tracking by The Washington Post. Of those, 37 have been in Prince George’s. — Dana Hedgpeth and Lynh Bui VIRGINIA Man shot during possible burglary A Centreville homeowner allegedly shot a man in front of his home early Monday during what might have been a burglary, Fairfax County police said. Officers were called to the 6300 block of Fairfax National Way about 5 a.m. for a reported burglary after the homeowner saw a man in his backyard, police said. The homeowner, who was not named, confronted the man near the front porch of his home and fired at the man several times, police said. The man was hit twice and fled the scene, police said. He went to a hospital in Loudoun County before being airlifted to Reston Hospital, where he was being treated for wounds that are not life-threatening, authorities said. Police said they are investigating whether a burglary was in progress, but said the men did not appear to know one another. The results of the investigation will be forwarded to Fairfax County prosecutors, who will determine whether to file charges, police said. — Justin Jouvenal THE DISTRICT Two men are slain in separate incidents Two men were fatally shot in separate incidents in the District on Monday about a half-hour apart, according to D.C. police. The first shooting was reported about 5:30 p.m. in the 1400 block of Maryland Avenue NE, said Officer Hugh Carew, a police spokesman. The second shooting was reported at 5:47 p.m. in the 1500 block of 19th Street SE, Carew said. Both men died at hospitals. In the second incident, in addition to the man who was slain, another man was wounded, police said. The site of the first shooting is just south of H Street NE, near the eastern end of the H Street corridor. The second was about three miles away, east of the Anacostia River. — Martin Weil


From six homes to a city jail: Paul Manafort, who redefined lobbying, faces trial

that they plan to prove more than $60 million came to Manafort as payment for his Ukraine work. “I know Paul is a very good guy. And during the years I worked with him . . . an honest person. And a person who was a good friend to people,” Black said in a recent interview. He said he hasn’t followed Manafort’s business activities closely since 1995. “So I do not know if the charges against him are true,” he said. “I hope he’s innocent. But I don’t know.” Manafort claimed that he had “no interaction with oligarchs for business” while taking millions from businessmen involved in a suspect Ukrainian political party, according to law enforcement documents. He funneled some of that money through accounts in Cyprus to hide it from the U.S. government, prosecutors say. One of Manafort’s first contacts in the region was a Russian aluminum magnate with ties to the Kremlin, Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska introduced Manafort to Rinat Akhmetov, a coal and steel baron funding Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions. Party leader Viktor Yanukovych’s victory in a 2004 election was deemed fraudulent, street protests ensued and he lost a redo of the election. Manafort’s firm was among those from the West hired to give Yanukovych and the party, in the words of a U.S. ambassador, an “extreme makeover.” Manafort told Akhmetov in a 2005 memo included in court files that Yanukovych “must be replaced. He is an impenetrable obstacle to success.” The Party of Regions, he said, was supported only by people of Russian ethnicity and only because of patronage: “It has never been held together by an ideological philosophy. It has always been opportunistic.” Yet Manafort managed to, in his own words, “out-reform the reformers” and rebrand Yanukovych as an anti-corruption, pro-Western politician. Meanwhile, he sought to do business with Yanukovych’s wealthy allies. Deripaska paid millions to Manafort’s firm for what were billed as private-equity investments in Russia and Ukraine. In 2014, the oligarch tried to get his money back, suing Manafort and his partners. Manafort tried to develop a 65-story Manhattan luxury apartment building in 2008 with financial support from another Ukrainian businessman, Dmitry Firtash, according to court papers. In the end, the apartment project fell through as Firtash withdrew and the economy plunged into recession. Each year from 2009 to 2014, Manafort reported less than $200,000 and sometimes less than $50,000 in income from


Assaults in dressing rooms. Groping during lessons. Classical musicians reveal a profession rife with harassment.

relations at the Cleveland Orchestra, said in an email, “We reached Mr. Preucil and informed him of your request. He indicated that he is not available.” A 2007 article in the Cleveland Scene about Preucil and his influence at the Cleveland Orchestra describes an allegation of a sexual advance toward one of his students. According to that story, Preucil responded to the allegation in an email to the reporter, “The issue was fully reviewed by the institution and was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.” In 2010, more than 10 years after the Miami encounter, Bowers learned that Preucil had been hired as guest concertmaster for a program with the Nashville Symphony, the orchestra she joined in 1999. She was so upset that she told the orchestra’s human resources office about the earlier incident and said she couldn’t play with him. An official at the orchestra confirmed that Bowers and her husband, a cellist, were given excused absences for the week Preucil was in Nashville. Bowers still plays with the Nashville Symphony. Her history with Preucil “shut off the options of going to a lot of places,” she says. “I would look and see where he was, and make a plan not to go. This was a humongously impactful thing on my career. It changed where I would consider auditioning.” 'This is not okay' There is no consensus about whether the #MeToo movement will lead to meaningful change in the field. But there are signs people are starting to push back. In November, students at the Berklee College of Music in Boston marched in the streets in protest after revelations that 11 teachers had been dismissed on sexual harassment charges in the previous 13 years, complaining of the school’s insufficient response. Other music schools are taking note. “We are going through an extensive revision of our policy right now, as everybody’s doing,” says K. James McDowell, president and artistic director of the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, a leading training center for opera singers. Artists who had been silent are telling their stories. Former soprano Robin Follman didn’t tell anyone for a decade about her experiences with William Florescu, general director of the Florentine Opera in Milwaukee, where she sang “Madame Butterfly.” She says Florescu’s continuous harassment culminated on a night when he drove her to a secluded area and subjected her to nonconsensual sexual acts. It was the worst experience


The Health 202: Trump officials ignored HHS advice on two big issues

response has been overwhelming The anecdote is illustrative of Democrats' newfound eagerness to discuss Obamacare — An effort to combat the ongoing opioid crisis may cause pain patients to instead turn to riskier treatments, a consequence illustrated by the growth in popularity of anti-inflammatory injection-based drug Depo-Medrol, the New York Times’s Sheila Kaplan reports. The drug, made by Pfizer, was previously approved for a treatment for muscle and joint pain, Sheila reports. But Pfizer had previously called on the Food and Drug Administration to ban the drug after complaints about injuries and complications related to the injections. The FDA declined to ban the drug, but strengthened a warning on the drug label. “After concerns were raised about the off-label treatments, use of the injections declined,” Sheila write. “But the opioid epidemic appears to be spurring their popularity despite risks known to public health officials and doctors… The number of Medicare providers giving steroid injections along the spine, including Depo-Medrol and other drugs, had increased 13 percent in 2016 from 2012. The number of Medicare beneficiaries receiving these injections is up 7.5 percent. The Department of Veterans Affairs reported a 17 percent increase in the injections from 2015 to 2017.” — Genetic testing companies Ancestry and 23andMe joined others yesterday in setting new guidelines for how they will proceed with the sharing of customers’ DNA, including for when the data is given to researchers, businesses or the police, The companies say they will now request “separate express consent” from users before they turn any genetic information over to another party. The guidelines also indicate that the companies will disclose the number of requests from law enforcement they receive every year. “The new commitments come roughly three months after local investigators used a DNA-comparison service to track down a man police believed to be the Golden State Killer, who allegedly raped and killed dozens of women in California in the 1970s and 1980s,” Tony and Drew write. “Investigators identified the suspect using a decades-old DNA sample obtained from the crime scene, which they uploaded to GEDmatch, a crowdsourced database of roughly a million distinct DNA sets shared by volunteers.” Companies including Helix, MyHeritage, Habit, African Ancestry and FamilyTreeDNA also signed onto the new guidelines, according to the Future of Privacy Forum. “Yet users still may not know everything,” Tony and Drew write. “Under the industry-made rules, DNA testing services don’t have to


U.S. sanctions two Turkish officials over detention of American pastor

well as attempting to convert Turkish Kurds to Christianity. Outrage over his detention has been bipartisan, although the case has taken on particular importance for evangelical Christians in the United States, who form an important part of Trump’s political base. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who serves on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said in a statement: “The president is not acting alone. A bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate are supportive of the president acting on behalf of an innocent American being held by tyrants in Turkey. Now is the time for Turkey to begin acting like the NATO ally that it claims to be and live up to its own constitution.” In a statement issued as he was en route to meetings in East Asia, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the “Turkish government refused to release Pastor Brunson after numerous conversations between President Trump and President Erdogan, and my conversations with Foreign Minister Cavusoglu. President Trump concluded that these sanctions are the appropriate action.” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters that the administration will continue its talks with Turkish officials even as the sanctions take effect. Pompeo and Cavusoglu spoke by phone about Brunson’s detention earlier Wednesday and are expected to meet on the margins of the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this week in Singapore, she said. “We are still pursuing a diplomatic approach,” Nauert said. According to the Treasury Department, Wednesday’s sanctions were imposed in accordance with an executive order Trump signed in December pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Act, a human rights measure Congress passed in 2016. The global order, included in the fiscal 2017 Defense Department funding authorization, expanded authority under the 2012 Magnitsky Act, named after a Russian lawyer and auditor who uncovered tax fraud and graft linked to the Kremlin, leading to his arrest and death in prison under mysterious circumstances. Trump’s executive order was used this summer to sanction people in Nicaragua deemed responsible for human rights abuses and corruption. The upheaval over the Brunson case comes as U.S.-Turkey relations had begun to improve slowly after years of tension, mostly having to do with conflicting objectives in Syria. Trump has repeatedly lauded Erdogan as a strong leader and, after their meeting last month in Brussels, praised the Turkish president while criticizing other NATO leaders. karen.deyoung@washpost.com felicia.sonmez@washpost.com


Why Trump is so freaked out by the Manafort trial

The Post reports Wednesday morning Trump freaked out in a series of tweets: For all the talk from Trump defenders and even some in the mainstream media that the Manafort trial has nothing to do with Trump, Trump plainly feels differently. So why should he be so upset, again showing that his objective has been to shut down (i.e., obstruct) the ongoing Russia investigation? There are a slew of reasons why the trial should trouble Trump, not the least of which is a possible conviction (carrying what amounts to a life sentence) against the president’s former campaign chairman. That’s not going to help Trump’s effort to paint the entire Russia investigation as a “hoax.” And this is not the only trial Manafort has to worry about. A separate case in Washington involving failure to register as a foreign agent and witness-tampering claims will come in September. Conviction in either of those cases will increase the incentive for Manafort to make a deal with Mueller. The trial also connects to Trump in other ways. The Post report continues: And then Manafort went to work for Trump. For free! And led the campaign when the Republican National Committee platform was changed in Russia’s favor (dropping support for arming Ukraine, for example). And offered briefings for a Kremlin-connected Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. In essence, the trial is the prequel to the story of the Trump campaign’s multiple contacts with Russia. “Manafort is a mirror image of Trump. He is a man seduced by the oligarch wealth of the former Soviet Union,” says Max Bergmann of the Moscow Project. “Putting profit over principles he ends up becoming entangled, entrapped, and then a witting tool of Russian interests. The trial is a preview for much of what’s to come. ” He adds, “The trial is going to help us understand why the Trump campaign conspired with Russia. It is going to spell out Manafort’s motive. It will show that Manafort had deep ties to Russia (just like Trump) and was financially desperate prior to joining the Trump campaign.” Frankly, confirming the presence on the campaign — at its highest level — of a guy as thick as thieves with the Russians will begin to chip away at Trump’s emphatic denial of any contacts or ties with Russia. Remember, in July 2016, Manafort was asked by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, “Are there any ties between Mr. Trump,