Con su líder encarcelado, esta ciudad se acobardó a su voluntad

201 funcionarios locales fueron asesinados. Muchos de ellos, dicen los analistas, porque estaban vinculados a cárteles o porque se negaron a cooperar con ellos. “Incluso si eres un alcalde que quiere mantenerse honesto, se convierte en un asunto de supervivencia física para ti y tu familia”, dijo Falko Ernst, investigador del International Crisis Group en México. “En muchos casos se quedan con muy pocas opciones”. El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador ha exigido que la Policía local se someta a “pruebas de confianza”, incluyendo una prueba del polígrafo, para demostrar que son leales al gobierno y no a los grupos de crimen organizado. En algunos lugares, como en Acapulco en 2018, fuerzas policiales enteras han sido disueltas por la sospecha de tener vínculos con cárteles. Los alcaldes están legalmente exentos de esas pruebas de confianza. Aún así, varias fuerzas de seguridad estatales han emprendido sus propias campañas de contrainteligencia contra los funcionarios locales. Morelos ha sido inusualmente transparente. Las autoridades estatales dijeron este año haber encontrado un teléfono celular propiedad de un asociado de Hernández que tenía 11,000 intercambios de nota de voz relacionadas con las operaciones de Los Rojos, muchos de ellos entre Hernández y autoridades locales en todo el estado. “Nos muestra cómo funciona todo”, dijo un funcionario de seguridad del estado, quien habló bajo condición de anonimato para poder discutir una investigación en curso. Existían más pruebas. En 2017, las autoridades encontraron un video que mostraba al alcalde de Mazatepec, un municipio a unos pocos kilómetros al norte de Amacuzac, amenazado por hombres armados enmascarados del cártel. “Queremos que coopere”, dijo uno de los hombres armados. “No me voy a hacer el héroe”, afirmó el alcalde Jorge Toledo, sometido. “Ustedes hagan su trabajo y yo haré el mío”. El problema de la corrupción en la política local a veces parece inabordable. Las autoridades estatales pueden arrestar a alcaldes y jefes de la Policía, pero eso no logra eliminar la influencia de los grupos criminales a menos de que puedan conseguir líderes transparentes e inflexibles para reemplazarlos. Con Miranda en la cárcel, Ojeda buscó un reemplazo. “Alguien que esté limpio”, le dijo al Post el año pasado. “Alguien en que podamos confiar”. Pero cualquier persona que hubiera dado un paso al frente habría sido visto como un desafío a la familia Miranda. El último alcalde de Amacuzac que no fue un Miranda fue un hombre llamado Noé Reynoso,


Ivy League cancels winter sports as coronavirus pandemic worsens

The Ivy League canceled its winter sports seasons, the conference announced Thursday, making it the first Division I college athletics conference to do so. The league — composed of Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale — made its decision amid an unprecedented spike in the coronavirus pandemic nationally. New coronavirus cases in the United States reached a record total of 145,835 on Wednesday, a number that was on track to be topped Thursday. “Consistent with its commitment to safeguard the health and well-being of student-athletes, the greater campus community and general public, the Ivy League Council of Presidents has decided that league schools will not conduct intercollegiate athletics competition in winter sports during the 2020-21 season. In addition, the Ivy League will not conduct competition for fall sports during the upcoming spring semester. Lastly, intercollegiate athletics competition for spring sports is postponed through at least the end of February 2021,” the conference announced. The canceled winter sports include men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s ice hockey, men’s and women’s squash, men’s and women’s swimming and diving, men’s and women’s indoor track and field, and wrestling. Ivy League athletes in fall and winter sports will not lose a season of college eligibility, the conference announced. “Throughout the last nine months,” the Ivy League Council of Presidents said in a joint statement, "we have asked our campus communities to make extraordinary adjustments in order to do our part in combating the global pandemic and to safeguard the health and wellbeing of our students, faculty members, staff and the communities in which they live and work. “Regrettably, the current trends regarding transmission of the COVID-19 virus and subsequent protocols that must be put in place are impeding our strong desire to return to intercollegiate athletics competition in a safe manner. Student-athletes, their families and coaches are again being asked to make enormous sacrifices for the good of public health — and we do not make this decision lightly. … We look forward to the day when intercollegiate athletics — which are such an important part of the fabric of our campus communities — will safely return in a manner and format we all know and appreciate.” In March, the Ivy League was the first Division I conference to cancel its men’s and women’s postseason basketball tournaments. In July, it became the first major conference to announce it would not


The election is over, but there’s no end to Republican bad faith

to believe that America’s democratic system is fundamentally corrupt. No agent of China or Russia could do a better job of sabotage. Republicans are fostering cynicism about the constitutional order on a massive scale. They are stumbling toward sedition. And they are looking mighty pathetic in the process. After Trump’s campaign manager threatened political harm to Republicans who refused to embrace Trump’s position on the election, Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) reported promptly for degradation. Cruz falsely alleged that Republican poll watchers had been denied access in Philadelphia. McCarthy falsely asserted: “President Trump won this election.” It was a good thing both men were not in the same room or their strings might have gotten tangled. Other Republicans simply expressed no opinion on the validity of a U.S presidential election, as though Trump’s sabotage of democratic legitimacy was just another tweet they could ignore. What explains this degree of deference to a besieged, erratic lame-duck president? Some legislators claim that they are just providing time for Trump to cool down and accustom himself to the election result. They believe, apparently, that the president just needs a little encouragement and self-care before he will do the right thing. This theory is less compelling on the 1,001st unsuccessful attempt. Trump will not sacrifice any personal interest merely for the good of the country. He will interpret anything short of opposition as permission. And permission is clearly what many elected Republicans intend to provide. The only plausible explanation for Republican complicity is fear. Fear of a vengeful, wounded president. Fear of a Trump-endorsed primary challenger. Fear of voters so loyal that they stuck with Trump through a botched pandemic response, a wrecked economy and an aimless campaign. The damage encouraged by feckless elected Republicans is considerable. Trump’s defiance of the election results is already creating confusion in the transition process. The incoming Biden administration is being denied resources and facilities: office space, government email addresses that allow secure communication, access to classified briefings. That will undermine the staffing and preparations necessary to tackle concurrent health and economic challenges. It is particularly obscene for an administration that has abdicated the work of pandemic response to undercut a new administration determined to mount a serious effort. Trump seems determined to extend his legacy of incompetence and needless death as far into the future as possible. The other effect of


Transcript: Post Live Election Daily with Trump Campaign Advisory Board Member Ken Blackwell & Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

your politics. COVID-19 is a very real threat to every single one of us, all across this country. Governor Herbert has got a challenge in front of him, just like every one of us governors does. The reason I've been asking my legislature to codify this is because I have a Republican legislature, and it really needs to be all hands-on deck in order to push our COVID numbers down, and codification would say, "We, Republican legislature, agree. We've got to get the politics out and we've all got to mask up." That's the value in that. Currently, the law in Michigan is you're supposed to be wearing a mask. That is the law, codification won't change that, but it will reinvigorate, I think, the bipartisan effort that needs to happen in this country around masking up, because this is a dangerous moment. We as a nation are posting record numbers. Every day the numbers are getting worse. That means more hospitalizations; that means, sadly, more deaths. And it is going to keep getting worse as the temperature plummets and we converge with flu season. And so, masking up right now is and remains, despite the great news on the vaccine front--currently, the best tool we still have is a mask, and we've got to get the politics out of putting that mask on, because it's a way to be patriotic; it's a way to protect ourselves; it's a way to protect our economy. MR. COSTA: Your state is going to get very chilly in the coming weeks as winter nears. How are you going to respond to Michiganders who say, "Governor, I'm sick of this. Governor, you're acting like Big Brother with these mandates. I'm not going to follow this." And they're not, maybe, convinced by the argument you just made, that the facts are--there are outbreaks throughout the state, there are outbreaks throughout the nation. How are you going to handle that type of person in Michigan who's just sick of the pandemic and thinks you're overstepping your executive power? GOV. WHITMER: Well, I think a new administration will go a long way toward that. If we can have people who have positions of authority all continuing to share accurate, consistent medical information about the seriousness of this virus. If we can build coalitions, Republican and Democratic alike. I've got an ongoing conversation with my colleagues here in


vaccine front--currently, the best tool we still have is a mask, and we've got to get the politics out of putting that mask on, because it's a way to be patriotic; it's a way to protect ourselves; it's a way to protect our economy. MR. COSTA: Your state is going to get very chilly in the coming weeks as winter nears. How are you going to respond to Michiganders who say, "Governor, I'm sick of this. Governor, you're acting like Big Brother with these mandates. I'm not going to follow this." And they're not, maybe, convinced by the argument you just made, that the facts are--there are outbreaks throughout the state, there are outbreaks throughout the nation. How are you going to handle that type of person in Michigan who's just sick of the pandemic and thinks you're overstepping your executive power? GOV. WHITMER: Well, I think a new administration will go a long way toward that. If we can have people who have positions of authority all continuing to share accurate, consistent medical information about the seriousness of this virus. If we can build coalitions, Republican and Democratic alike. I've got an ongoing conversation with my colleagues here in the region, governors on both sides of the aisle who are confronting the very same thing and are trying to achieve the same goals, and that is increasing compliance with masks. We all know this is the best thing that we can do. But we're all tired of it. Trust me, I'm as tired of COVID-19 as the average person in Michigan or the average person in any part of this country is. And yet, COVID-19 doesn't care. And that's why it's so important that we continue to try to find ways to break through and to explain to people what's really at stake here and why it's so important every one of us does our part. Our rural hospitals are filling up. What was largely considered an urban issue, right, places where big cities are--where people are seeing--where COVID was spreading so fast early on, it's now a much more rural issue. And our rural hospitals are nowhere near as big or as equipped to deal with the COVID influx, and that means more people are going to get hurt in our rural areas. So, we really have to do everything we can to build the coalition, to reach


Help the National Zoo name its baby panda

The National Zoo in Washington is seeking the public’s help in naming its baby giant panda. In a Twitter message, the zoo invited the public to select a name between Monday and Friday this week. The name with the most votes will be given to the cub on Nov. 23. The panda was born Aug. 21 and weighed 9.2 pounds as of early this month. Zoo officials said the cub’s favorite activities are “napping, nursing and cuddling with mother Mei Xiang.” Suggestions for names on the zoo’s website included the following: Mandarin Chinese for “prosperous boy.” Mandarin Chinese for “little miracle.” Mandarin Chinese for “happy and prosperous.” Mandarin Chinese nickname for a boy.


Transcript: The Future Reset: Powering Equitable Opportunity

of countries on the planet. We will come up with the technology. But we have to most importantly raise our ambition globally as we go in to the Glasgow Meeting, which is the follow-on meeting now to Paris which will take place next year. And that's absolutely imperative. If we don't do that, again, we're not going to get there. So, this will be one of the most gigantic global organizational challenges, but we're up to it. And I think Mary has cited one of the single most important steps we could take is to have not command and control, telling companies how they have to do, what they have to do, but setting standards which then people can follow and they can go out and innovate and figure out the best and cheapest and most effective way of dealing with it. But pricing carbon and having a method, which has worked in other countries in now four markets. There's one in the East Coast of America, Reg E; there's one in the West Coast which involves Canada and Western states, California. There's--China is going to be coming online with one. And then you have the European trading mechanism. That is going to contribute very significantly, I think, to accelerating the pace of meeting this challenge. MR. IGNATIUS: So, let me--let me turn to President Robinson. Secretary Kerry helped negotiate the Paris climate accords. President-elect Biden has said he's going to rejoin them. But Secretary Kerry rightly reminds us, we're really now thinking about the road to Glasgow, the road to the follow-on agreement. And I'd ask you, President Robinson, for some more specific ideas that should be on the agenda as we think not simply about getting back to the world of the Paris Accords, but the follow-on accords that are essential to do what you and Secretary Kerry have talked about. Give us some specifics. MS. ROBINSON: Well, the first specific, and a really important one, is the Glasgow conference, because that's where countries have to set out their nationally determined contributions--this is U.N. complicated language--but their commitment for 2030. Now importantly, as Nick mentioned in the last session, China has committed to be carbon-neutral by at least 2060, meaning maybe before 2060. Japan has just committed to be carbon-neutral by 2050. I know that the Biden plan is to be carbon-neutral by 2050. That's a bit too


Businesses race to battle back new coronavirus restrictions as U.S. faces deadly new surge

though party leaders in the House adopted a bill months ago. The stalemate over federal coronavirus aid has fueled some of the resistance nationwide toward another round of coronavirus-related shutdowns. In Oregon, for example, a broad coalition representing local gyms, restaurants, hotels, wineries and other businesses pointed to the loss of enhanced federal unemployment and small business assistance as it urged Democratic Gov. Kate Brown against adopting “any future business closures or curtailed operations.” Brown on Friday imposed a two-week halt on everything from office buildings to zoos in an attempt to bring the state’s outbreak back under control. “We’re very concerned about closing businesses now,” said Sandra McDonough, president of Oregon Business and Industry, an advocacy group that is part of the coalition. “And we’re not sure that’s really going to address the spread, that’s the issue.” The group instead called on the state to redouble its efforts on testing and focus on the spread of covid-19 through private social gatherings, particularly ahead of Thanksgiving. The arrival of the lucrative holiday season has added even more urgency to some of the lobbying efforts. More than half of Americans say they aren’t planning any holiday travel this year, according to a poll conducted by the U.S. Travel Association. More than a quarter of Americans say they expect to spend less on gifts over the coming weeks, according to a survey conducted by Gallup. The downturn threatens to deliver another blow to some retailers that have already experienced significant revenue shortfalls this year. The potential for additional sky-high losses appears to have emboldened the industry to look more skeptically — and fight more aggressively — against new or heightened restrictions viewed as onerous for some retailers. The National Retail Federation, for example, has taken aim at states including New Mexico, which under an order issued in October required shops to close if they experience four or more workplace cases of covid-19 over a two-week period. NRF invoked state open-records law Tuesday to try to force New Mexico’s leaders to turn over more information about how they devised the policy in the first place. Stephanie Martz, the retail lobby’s general counsel, said the group is likely to oppose the kind of broad shutdowns many states instituted in the spring. “We know more about how this spread than we did in March,” she said on Friday. “The answer cannot be that we make


to zoos in an attempt to bring the state’s outbreak back under control. “We’re very concerned about closing businesses now,” said Sandra McDonough, president of Oregon Business and Industry, an advocacy group that is part of the coalition. “And we’re not sure that’s really going to address the spread, that’s the issue.” The group instead called on the state to redouble its efforts on testing and focus on the spread of covid-19 through private social gatherings, particularly ahead of Thanksgiving. The arrival of the lucrative holiday season has added even more urgency to some of the lobbying efforts. More than half of Americans say they aren’t planning any holiday travel this year, according to a poll conducted by the U.S. Travel Association. More than a quarter of Americans say they expect to spend less on gifts over the coming weeks, according to a survey conducted by Gallup. The downturn threatens to deliver another blow to some retailers that have already experienced significant revenue shortfalls this year. The potential for additional sky-high losses appears to have emboldened the industry to look more skeptically — and fight more aggressively — against new or heightened restrictions viewed as onerous for some retailers. The National Retail Federation, for example, has taken aim at states including New Mexico, which under an order issued in October required shops to close if they experience four or more workplace cases of covid-19 over a two-week period. NRF invoked state open-records law Tuesday to try to force New Mexico’s leaders to turn over more information about how they devised the policy in the first place. Stephanie Martz, the retail lobby’s general counsel, said the group is likely to oppose the kind of broad shutdowns many states instituted in the spring. “We know more about how this spread than we did in March,” she said on Friday. “The answer cannot be that we make the same decisions now that we made in March.” Hours later, New Mexico had done precisely that. Michelle Lujan Grisham, the state’s governor, imposed a two-week lockdown shuttering shops, gyms and other businesses deemed nonessential. In doing so, she stressed the state had tried “targeted crackdowns” and other measures to bring the pandemic under control for months — without success. “The public health data make clear, however, that more aggressive restrictions are not only warranted but essential if we are to prevent mass casualties,” she said.


The Technology 202: YouTube alternative Rumble highlights conservatives' move to more hands-off social networks

being an echo chamber for both right-wing news, but also for misinformation," Joan Donovan, an expert in online extremism and disinformation and research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, told CNN. Conservatives flocking to these new services say the major companies have gone too far in labeling or otherwise limiting the spread of false election content on their services. But many liberals and misinformation experts believe they haven't gone far enough in stopping the spread of baseless election fraud claims. YouTube, particularly, has faced backlash for not removing video pushing claims of election fraud without evidence. In some instances, they've blocked such videos from pulling in advertising money, and otherwise limited their distribution on the platform. But such videos remain viewable. Twitter, meanwhile, has been notably aggressive recently in labeling false claims from Trump and his allies about election fraud. However some believe the company should go farther, and have called for Trump to be deactivated from the platform. This debate is expected to be in the spotlight this week as Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey and Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg testify before Congress. The hearing was called in response to the steps the companies took to limit the spread of a New York Post article about alleged emails belonging to Hunter Biden. (The Washington Post has not substantiated the emails.) But it's likely lawmakers will delve into more recent events. Republicans said in a news release that the hearing would “provide a valuable opportunity to review the companies’ handling of the 2020 election.” SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Sunday, Hamza Shaban and Christian Davenport report. SpaceX's Dragon capsule recently became the first privately owned and operated spacecraft certified by NASA for human spaceflight. SpaceX and NASA already have a second mission scheduled for March. The launch marks the next step in private space companies' partnerships with NASA. It's less clear what that relationship will look like under a Biden administration. The agency probably will have a renewed focus on Earth science and combating climate change, Christian reports. Biden congratulated SpaceX and NASA on the launch. SpaceX founder Elon Musk did not attend the event because of a recent coronavirus diagnosis. “It doesn’t matter if you’re Elon Musk or Jim Bridenstine,” Norm Knight, NASA’s deputy manager for flight operations, told a news conference Friday evening. “If you


Boris Johnson, in self-quarantine, says he’s ‘bursting with antibodies’

the back garden, so he will not have to be in contact with any staff members. Johnson on Monday said that he felt great and that because he previously had the disease he was “bursting with antibodies” but that he would self-quarantine for two weeks as “we got to interrupt the spread of the disease.” He added that he would continue to govern by video conference. “Plenty more to say via Zoom, of course, and other means of electronic communication,” he said. It is unclear how much of his schedule will change. His official spokesman, who is not named because of traditional protocol, said Johnson may address the House of Commons on Wednesday for the weekly session known as Prime Minister’s Questions. But he could also easily send a substitute. Johnson’s quarantine comes at a rugged moment. Two weeks into a national lockdown — which has shuttered businesses but not schools — the virus is still roaring throughout Britain, with nearly 25,000 daily infections, 168 deaths and 1,922 patients newly hospitalized on Sunday. The country’s death toll since the start of the pandemic is at 52,026, the highest in Europe. It’s also crunchtime for Brexit negotiations. Britain has yet to secure a post-Brexit trade deal with the European Union, even though its transition period will expire at the end of the year. Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, told RTE on Monday that the talks are “not in a good place.” He said a “very, very wide gap” remains between the two sides’ positions on fishing rights and government subsidies. Meanwhile, Johnson’s government has been consumed by infighting. Last week, power struggles led to the dramatic departure of Cummings, Johnson’s pugnacious chief aide and mastermind behind the successful Brexit campaign. Two weeks of self-quarantine, political commentators suggested, might get in the way of Johnson’s effort to “reset” his agenda. Matt Hancock, Britain’s health minister, told Sky News on Monday that the prime minister was “well” and “absolutely full of beans.” Commentators took the reports with a pinch of salt, noting that when Johnson was ill in the spring, his office continually said he was in “good spirits,” even as he was being rushed to the hospital and then ICU. Johnson has previously said that he thinks his weight made him more susceptible to the virus. He he has since dropped pounds, going for early morning jogs with his dog, Dilyn.


Either elected leaders the world over are wrong about the pandemic, or Scott Atlas is

result. Sweden has since implemented new legal restrictions aimed at containing the virus after a spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Atlas’s insistence that somehow more cases don’t lead to significantly more deaths is baffling. There is by now a demonstrated relationship between cases, hospitalizations and deaths that comports with common sense: More cases means more people in the hospital and, then, more deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. The current surge in cases nationally began in mid-September; data from the COVID Tracking Project shows how hospitalizations and deaths each increased after the surge began. As we’ve reported, there’s a fairly steady relationship between the number of cases and hospitalizations and the number of deaths that follow. Since Aug. 1, the average number of deaths on a day is about 1.7 percent of the number of new cases 16 days prior. The average number of deaths is about 2.2 percent of total hospitalizations 15 days prior. In other words, if 150,000 people contract the virus today, on average, we can expect there to be more than 2,600 deaths a day in two weeks’ time. The actual figure has been slightly lower in recent days, given the rate at which new cases are being added. If we manage to hold at 1.5 percent of new cases leading to new deaths, that’s still 2,250 deaths per day — a rate that matches the worst period of mid-April. It’s worth noting that this ratio is not significantly better than many other countries, including both Sweden and Canada. In other words, more new cases in the United States have led to a higher percentage of deaths here than in other countries. (These figures are relative to the 16-day period, which is the most significant period in the United States and fluctuates with aberrations in the data.) What’s important to remember is that increased hospitalizations introduce risks unrelated to the virus. Swamping hospitals with covid-19 patients fills up intensive care units which are then unavailable to other critically ill patients, like those in car accidents or those suffering from other acute trauma. Even if we are better able to treat coronavirus patients, there’s a downside to allowing the virus to spread wildly. Atlas’s advocacy within the coronavirus task force for a policy allowing the virus to spread widely was met with internal resistance, as The Washington Post reported last month. With Trump’s blessing,


Pandemic leads tens of thousands of international students to delay plans to enter U.S. colleges, survey shows

Tens of thousands of international students have paused their plans to enroll in U.S. colleges and universities this fall amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, threatening a key source of revenue for higher education, a new survey shows. The Institute of International Education reported Monday that international enrollment fell 16 percent this fall at more than 700 schools it surveyed. The flow of new international students into U.S. institutions plummeted 43 percent from the previous year. Nearly 40,000 international students have deferred enrollment, the institute reported, as the pandemic continues to wreak worldwide havoc on plans for travel and education. The numbers pose a huge challenge for schools that rely heavily on international students to meet revenue targets and bring diverse viewpoints to campus. “We’ve never had a decrease like that,” said Allan E. Goodman, the president and chief executive of the nonprofit institute based in New York. But Goodman predicted that the phenomenon will be temporary. “What we do know is when pandemics end, there’s tremendous pent-up demand,” he said. When it is safe to resume travel, Goodman said, schools will be “dealing with surges of students that have deferred.” The coronavirus crisis led to widespread shutdowns of U.S. campuses in March as authorities sought to control the spread of the pathogen. The disease caused by the virus, covid-19, has killed at least 245,000 people in the United States. Schools this fall have taken a variety of approaches, delivering courses online, in person and in hybrid fashion. Colleges are feeling an overall enrollment squeeze. Counting domestic and foreign students, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported in September that head counts were down 1.8 percent compared with the previous year. That was fueled by a decline in undergraduates among all racial and ethnic groups. Many international students who already were in the country when the pandemic began have stayed on or near campuses. But those who needed to travel to the United States, especially first-time students, have encountered significant hurdles. Some chose to take classes remotely from their home countries if they did not defer enrollment. The survey, a snapshot of fall trends, was released alongside a more comprehensive annual report the institute produced with the State Department. That report, called Open Doors, showed the number of international students in the United States fell 1.8 percent in the 2019-2020 school year. But the total — 1.075 million international students —


Man fatally stabbed on 16th Street NW, the D.C. police say

A man was fatally stabbed Sunday night in the Mount Pleasant area of Northwest Washington, and an arrest has been made in the death, D.C. police said. Andrew Tillman, 38, whose address was not known, was stabbed shortly after 7 p.m. in the 3100 block of 16th Street NW, police said. He died at a hospital, they said. Police said Dedan Williams, 49, of Northwest, was arrested Sunday and charged with second degree murder.


The Daily 202: Trump eggs on boos that previous leaders shushed

cases of covid-19 in the study. … It is …. expected to reach its endpoint in seven to 10 days … [Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel] anticipates a vaccine might begin to become available to those at high risk in the second half of December. Unlike Pfizer, which invested $2 billion of its own money in researching and developing a vaccine, Moderna is part of Operation Warp Speed, the government initiative designed to erase the financial risk of vaccine and therapeutics development by providing upfront funding to companies and helping coordinate the trials. Moderna received $2.5 billion from the U.S. government to support research, development and manufacturing of its vaccine candidate, whereas Pfizer signed a contract to sell doses to the U.S. government.” “The milestone came one week after the country hit 10 million cases, a testament to just how rapidly the virus is spreading — the first 1 million cases took more than three months. This new wave has increased covid-19 hospitalizations past the peaks seen in April and July, straining health-care systems and pushing some reluctant Republican governors to enact statewide mask mandates for the first time,” Paulina Firozi and Hannah Knowles report. “Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Sunday announced sweeping new limits on gatherings for three weeks — including a ban on indoor dining at restaurants and bars, and a halt to in-person classes at high schools and colleges. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) also laid out a slew of new rules, which prohibit indoor social gatherings with people outside one’s household and indoor service at restaurants, bars and more. … New Mexico and Oregon on Friday ordered extensive new statewide shutdowns … North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) on Friday issued a statewide mask mandate and new capacity limits on businesses." “In the states where the virus is spiking highest — particularly in the Upper Midwest — Republicans made substantial gains down-ballot. Often they did so by railing against the very tool that scientists say could best help arrest the virus’s spread,” Griff Witte reports. "Victories in state and local races have allowed GOP leaders to claim a mandate for their let-it-be approach to pandemic management, with pleas for ‘personal responsibility’ substituting government intervention. As hospitals fill and deaths climb, it’s a philosophy that public health experts warn could have disastrous consequences this winter. … “In Iowa, cases have grown by nearly 180 percent in two


Local Digest: Man is fatally stabbed on 16th Street NW

THE DISTRICT A man was fatally stabbed Sunday night in the Mount Pleasant area of Northwest Washington, and an arrest has been made in the death, the D.C. police said. Andrew Tillman, 38, whose address was not known, was stabbed shortly after 7 p.m. in the 3100 block of 16th Street NW, the police said. He died at a hospital, they said. Police said Dedan Williams, 49, of Northwest, was arrested Sunday and charged with second-degree murder. — Martin Weil MARYLAND Hyattsville Police Chief Amal Awad will resign next month to take a job as chief of the Anne Arundel County Police Department, city officials announced Monday. The resignation will take effect Dec. 16, according to a statement. Awad, who began her law enforcement career in the early 1990s as a Prince George’s County officer patrolling the Hyattsville area, joined the Hyattsville force in the spring of 2017. Nearly two years later she became the city’s first Black, first woman and first member of the LGBTQ community to become chief, officials said. City officials named Deputy Chief Scott Dunklee interim chief. — Clarence Williams A police officer in Prince George’s County fired a gun at an armed man as officers were serving a warrant. The incident happened in the 4300 block of Telfair Boulevard in the Camp Springs area. At a news conference early Monday, Assistant Chief Hector Velez, the county’s interim chief of police, said the man fled out the back of an apartment and was armed. An officer fired a service weapon at the man, and the man then ran back into the apartment, where he was arrested, police said. They said the man was not injured. An investigation continues. — Dana Hedgpeth


Washington Post Live to host “Virus Hunters”: A Conversation with Christopher Golden, PhD and Kendra Phelps, PhD

The Washington Post brings together epidemiologist Christopher Golden, PhD, and field scientist Kendra Phelps, PhD, to discuss National Geographic’s new series about how scientists are piecing together cultural, medical and environmental factors to trace the origins of deadly diseases and help stave off future pandemics. Tune in on Friday, Oct. 30 at 4:00 p.m. ET. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how vulnerable the world population is to the next deadly virus. Understanding how these viruses spread through human populations and where they come from is vital to prevent the next global public health crisis. Stream live here. In partnership with National Geographic.


Transcript: Chasing Cancer

that. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, absolutely. And recovering from the virus, I know that you're joining the fight to find a drug therapy to try to combat it. Can you talk a little bit about that progress? DR. JUNE: Sure. One of the main issues with COVID is not just--it's the number of people who actually require hospitalization and that advanced care. So, the asymptomatic or low-symptomatic patients who stay out of the hospital, actually, then most of them become immune and contribute to herd immunity. So, the problem we face right now, as you know, is overcrowded hospitals and lack of beds and intensive care units. So, if we could give a medication to people as an outpatient that could keep them from ever getting hospitalized, that could have a huge--relieve a big burden on the medical care system. One approach is to prevent the inflammation that causes secondary damage in the lung, and so tuning down--it's counterintuitive, but tuning down the immune system appears in several models to decrease the need for hospitalization and death. The RECOVERY Trial that came out this summer showed a 40 percent reduction in death using an immunosuppressant, that pill dexamethasone, which is an immunosuppressant, which is really counterintuitive. Everyone thinks that when you have an infection, you need to jazz up the immune system, and so now it looks like what we need is a balance, not too much and not too little. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, this idea that the immune system can actually be so revved up that that is the thing that can cause death, I remember reading about the 1918 flu, and this seemed to also be one of the causes of death. Can you explain to our audience a little bit more about how that works? DR. JUNE: Yeah. That's exactly right, Paige. They've now found--so this is pretty amazing. They've been able to reconstruct the 1918 virus using molecular biology and sort of paleo molecular biology techniques, and then they took what we think is a standard flu virus--so this is influenza A--or put in the reconstructed 1918 pandemic virus into monkeys. Those monkeys had a much more severe infection and died compared to monkeys who got the standard flu that we face pretty much every year that's not a pandemic. So that virus killed actually more young people than old. The traditional flu virus mostly


Transcript: Chasing Cancer

So, we have tried our best to not only protect our family but also educate people that, well, you don't wear a mask and you're being cavalier and you don't take it seriously, you are actually endangering Nusayba. And you are endangering your elders. And so even now, slowly but surely, we've seen that some people are hesitant, resistant. There's disinformation. There's stubbornness, but I try to shamelessly use the example of my daughter. I'm like, "This girl lived through cancer. Are you telling me that you can't wear a mask to protect her? Come on." And so, for those of you who don't wear masks, please wear masks. I'm not the doctor. Sarah, they'll listen to you. I'm an English major. DR. KURESHI: Echoing Waj's message, absolutely. I mean, we--besides Nusayba, like he said, we have so many vulnerable communities, and Waj brought up Black and brown communities. And that's not because of anything genetic. That's because of racism and other socioeconomic factors that makes those communities more susceptible to COVID and higher mortality rates of COVID by far. So, for all of our vulnerable patients, our vulnerable communities, please--we're researching vaccines. We're researching medications. That's great, and I love the work that Dr. June is doing. But we want to also put a plug in and say we know that--and he said this already. We know that masks work. We know that PPE works in terms of like hospital providers. We know that social distancing works. So, we should practice what works, and hopefully, moving forward with our new administration, we will have that model for our country and we will move in a more positive direction. But please think about all of these patients. I'll just say as a family medicine physician, it's not about just mortality rates. It's also about people who get coronavirus and are living with long-term effects of it in terms of chronic cough, in terms of chronic fatigue, body aches. I see it all the time. So, I think we talked about mortality rates, but we're not talking about really how people are unable to work, for some people are really affected by this, and these were people who did not have health conditions before. So, it's really for the betterment of everybody. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Sarah, I want to--you mentioned a vaccine, and of course, we got really big news this


TEST V3 with Force Webview

is authorized, but the general principles have been discussed for months. You may qualify for earlier access because of your job: Health-care workers and first responders are likely to be among those prioritized. People who have essential jobs, such as teachers and food workers; those who are at higher risk because of their age; and those who have underlying conditions that increase their risk for severe disease are also likely to receive earlier access. Healthy younger adults who don’t have medical conditions or high-risk jobs are likely to begin to get vaccinated starting in April, but not everyone will be able to get the shots immediately. And children aren’t even included in most coronavirus vaccine trials — Pfizer is the first company to expand its trial to people 12 and older — so they probably will be among the last to get access. “I would say starting in April, May, June, July — as we get into the late spring and early summer — that people in the so-called general population, who do not have underlying conditions or other designations that would make them priority, could get” shots, said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Moderna vaccine is stored frozen at minus-20 degrees Celsius, but it keeps for a month at refrigerator temperatures. This could make it easier to distribute to pharmacies and to rural areas that don’t have specialized freezers. The vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech must be kept at an ultracold, minus-70 degrees Celsius. The company has created its own GPS-tracked coolers filled with dry ice to distribute it. Each vial of the Pfizer vaccine holds five doses when diluted. Once thawed, the undiluted vial can be kept in a refrigerator for only five days. A diluted vial can be kept for only six hours before it must be discarded. Both vaccines require two doses. Pfizer’s booster shot will be given three weeks after the first one; Moderna’s is spaced four weeks later. If cleared, these two will be the first vaccines using messenger RNA technology ever approved for human use by the Food and Drug Administration. It is different from more traditional vaccines, which often use a weakened or dead version of a virus, or a laboratory-generated protein. Both vaccines use a snippet of the virus’s genetic code to instruct cells to build the spike protein on the surface


The architect of Britain’s political culture war is gone. The culture war will go on.

trading orbit. That involves the reintroduction of border controls to a system that was based on removing them. Goods moving to and fro will need customs declarations, safety and security documentation, regulatory checks and proof that they comply with the complex processes to be installed in Northern Ireland. The poetry of national sovereignty sold by the Brexit campaign — of a dynamic national destiny unchained from the continent — will change into the grim remorseless prose of regulatory and customs compliance. Johnson will be unable to blame himself or the Brexit he backed for this incoming disaster. So he will instead have to blame the Other: dastardly Europeans abroad, traitorous Remainers or ill-prepared businesses at home. And in doing so, he will be replicating the same tactic Cummings taught him — to take objective reality and urge voters to ignore it on the basis of their tribal allegiance. He also has a problem with the broader non-Brexit culture war. Electorally, he is trapped in the nativist straitjacket Cummings designed for him. The Conservative members of Parliament elected in northern pre-Brexit seats know that their only chance for reelection is to keep the focus on identity issues over economic ones so they can hold the former Labour voters they won in 2019. This will entail a continuation of attacks on BBC, “woke” politics and symbols of perceived political correctness. But there is one way in which Britain’s experiment with populism might truly be coming to an end. It is not political, but strategic: Johnson is now set on his course without the man who was most committed and competent at delivering it. For all of Cummings’s failings, he was genuinely convinced of the culture war, eager to deploy it at every opportunity and effective at pursuing it. Johnson has none of that instinct. So now the government is trapped in an unenviable position: deploying a political program that it has lost the ability to articulate. And that, in the end, will provide more of the confusion, contradiction and inadequacy that has typified Johnson’s time in power so far. He is trapped in a prison of his own making. And the jailer has walked off with the key. Read more: Boris Johnson’s master class in how not to respond to a pandemic Boris Johnson is discovering that Brexit only works when it’s a fantasy The collective madness behind Britain’s latest Brexit plan


Transcript: The Future of Work with Humu CEO Laszlo Bock & ORCAA Founder Cathy O’Neil

stakeholders, like, for whom it might fail, and we might--and we have to name what their concerns would be, what would it mean to them to fail. And for example, in that--in that context, we had immigrant rights groups join the conversation so that they could say what would it mean for them that the DMV fraud detection system would fail. And that's generally true of the ORCAA clients, is that we go in and we talk--we facilitate a conversation between the stakeholders of an algorithmic context about what it would mean for them to fail, and then we build tests to see whether the most worrisome scenarios are, in fact, happening or not, whether we can stop worrying about them. MR. SCOTT: And in your opinion, what would effective government regulation look like? Do we need a federal agency that oversees the use of tech exclusively? MS. O'NEIL: That's such a great question. Thank you. And it's such a timely question. Well, listen: The good news is, we already have a lot of existing laws that are simply not being enforced in the era of big data. As I mentioned, there are algorithms in insurance, in credit, in hiring, and in the justice system. They all have laws. And the question is, like, to what extent are they compliant with those laws? And most of the answer is, we don't know because the regulators are, to be honest, not completely sure of how to check, how to ask an algorithm, are you fair? What does that mean? What does it mean for a hiring algorithm to be fair, or an insurance algorithm not to be racist? And it's an ongoing question. I'm not saying that they should have already figured this out, but it is something we have to figure out urgently. And to that point, I would argue that instead of having every regulator sort of bone up on the technology to--required to do these audits, it might make more sense to sort of endow one regulatory body--like the FDA, for example, I'd like to call it the FDAA, potentially, the Food, Drug and Algorithmic Administration--to sort of do the same thing for algorithms that they do now for drugs, which is to say, is it safe, is it effective? And "effective" would mean does it work at least as well as the current system, because usually algorithms


We still haven’t decided what it means to ‘beat’ the pandemic

any breakthrough outbreaks and keep the virus out of the city, state or country. In practice, the main tool for containment is an aggressive test-trace-isolate program: Test people with covid-19 symptoms quickly and often, and whenever anyone tests positive, isolate them and identify and quarantine all of their contacts, ideally in specialized facilities that can help protect their families. Travelers from outside the area are, likewise, put through a long and closely monitored quarantine process before they can move freely. This is the strategy taken by China and New Zealand, among others. It has the distinct advantage that, if it’s successful, people can more or less go on with their lives as normal once containment is achieved, with perhaps some moderate social distancing and mask use to slow any breakthrough outbreaks. However, the downsides are numerous: If this strategy is only put in place after cases are widespread in a country, lockdowns must be aggressive and last for months to eliminate transmission, putting significant strain on the economy. The systems that might make a test-trace-isolate program most effective (e.g., cell-phone-assisted contact tracing) may be seen by some to infringe on civil liberties. But perhaps the biggest challenge of the crush and contain strategy is that until there is a vaccine, the population remains susceptible to outbreaks because of lack of immunity. That means there is no end to the requirement for ongoing vigilance against the virus and the associated costs until a safe and effective vaccine is widely available. Flatten the curve An alternative to attempting total elimination is to allow transmission to continue but to try to keep it low enough that health-care systems are not overwhelmed and vulnerable populations can be easily protected. This “flatten the curve” strategy aims to avoid the strict measures needed to eliminate transmission, and it allows the population to slowly accumulate the immunity that will result in long-term herd protection against the virus. If well implemented, a flatten-the-curve strategy can be adaptive to epidemic conditions in specific locations — relaxing measures as we accumulate community immunity to the virus and reinstituting them when case counts begin to grow because of seasonal fluctuations in transmission or other factors. Though some entertained the idea of a “crush and contain” approach with early lockdowns, since late spring, we have more or less been following a “flatten the curve” strategy in the United States, with individual states


Transcript: The Path Forward: Combating COVID-19 with Alexander Hardy, CEO of Genentech

studying this right from the very early days of the pandemic. We first heard anecdotal reports from China and Italy from clinicians who were using it to address the cytokine release syndrome stage of the disease. This is in the patients in the latter part of the disease where they get a significant immune response triggered by the virus. And you have to damp down the immune response. That's the hypothesis. And we very quickly developed Phase 3 studies. It's really important. I think it's one of the learnings that I think we have as a society around COVID, is that nothing replaces robust, well-controlled clinical studies to really ask the question of the clinical utility of interventions. And so, it was really important that we had those Phase 3 studies. And a number of them have now read out, and we've discussed those results with the FDA. The results are mixed. There's some positive end points and findings and some negative findings. And so, we continue those discussions with the FDA. And specifically, we are waiting for another Phase 3 study, which is looking at the combination of ACTEMRA with Remdesivir. This is the REMDACTA study. And that will be important to see if there's an additive or synergistic effect between the two medications in again treating patients in the more severe stage of the disease. And we should get those results in the first part of next year. And so that will be very important to see those findings, and then we'll of course discuss them with the FDA in about--and determine, you know, what role, if any, does this drug have in the treatment of COVID. MR. IGNATIUS: There's one more therapy I want to ask you to comment on for our viewers, and that's the nasal spray that it's said that could be sprayed in your nostrils and have the effect of killing the virus right at that point where you might be acquiring it. Do you think that's a promising approach? MR. HARDY: You know, David, I don't know enough about that. But I would say that it's--you know, as I just mentioned, it's just so important that we really rely on well-controlled clinical studies. There is obviously so much pain, suffering and in many cases false hope provided as people grasp for potential solutions. And it's--of course it's very nice to think that something


Diagnostics. We actually have five different COVID-19 tests. As of October, we've delivered more than 30 million of them. The initial tests were laboratory-based highly accurate PCR tests. The latest developments that we're working on are more rapid tests at the point of care, easier to administer, eventually hopefully self-administered and easy to administer and produce in those rapid results. And I do think that's going to be enormously important stage of getting ahead of this disease. MR. IGNATIUS: And I'd ask you what advice you'd give on this question of testing and related issues of travel and social contact, our many thousands of viewers who are trying to make plans for Thanksgiving and wondering should I go see my relatives this year, should I get tested beforehand, should I get tested after I arrive. I don't want to ask you to be a public health advisor, but you know a lot about testing and what's available. What would be some basic advice you'd give to your family, say, based on what you know? MR. HARDY: Well, I think every family is having that--having that discussion. If they're not, they should be having that discussion and thinking really carefully. And I am not a public health official, and of course we should be primarily--we should all be listening to them, but then having those discussions. And you know, there's tremendous excitement about the vaccine developments. There's excitement about the therapeutics. We can't get ahead of ourselves right now. That's what I would--I would say. That's the discussion that I'm having with my own family, with two daughters in college who potentially are coming home with the usual group that we have Thanksgiving, that have elderly family members. You know, we're not going to have a normal Thanksgiving this year. That's just the reality of where we are with this disease at this stage. MR. IGNATIUS: I want to ask you about one of the most painful issues associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and that's the unequal impact it's had on communities of color, among poorer socioeconomic groups. And it's a deeply disturbing aspect of this pandemic. I know that your company is trying hard to think about ways to lessen this differential, this especially harsh impact. Talk a little bit about this problem and how you at Genentech are thinking about how to respond to it. MR. HARDY: You know,


A NASA official asked Boeing if it would protest a major contract it lost. Instead, Boeing resubmitted its bid.

on the performance of these HLS contracts.” Typically, violations of the Procurement Integrity Act are situations where contractors receive inside information they use to their benefit to win a contract. In this case, Boeing still didn’t win the contract — its revised bid arrived well after the submission deadline — but “there are rules and processes that shouldn’t be taken lightly,” said Scott Amey, the general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group. “Boeing should have known better,” he said. “If they tried to use that info to revise their bid, they could equally be on the hook for a Procurement Integrity Act violation because they were trying to use it for their benefit.” POGO has catalogued 80 instances of Boeing misconduct since 1995, resulting in nearly $1.5 billion in fines. The highest-profile case involved Air Force contracting officer Darleen Druyun, who steered contracts to Boeing and received a lucrative job at the company, as did her daughter and son-in-law. She was sentenced to nine months in prison. Michael Sears, then Boeing’s chief financial officer, received a four-month prison sentence after admitting he gave her the job in exchange for inside information. The loss of the lunar lander contract was another embarrassment for Boeing, which has been a NASA partner since the dawn of the Space Age. The company was once so trusted that NASA initially gave Boeing only a limited review of its safety culture while forcing its rival SpaceX to go through a comprehensive audit after Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, took a hit of marijuana on a podcast broadcast on the Internet. But at the end of last year, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft suffered multiple software problems during a test flight without astronauts on board that forced the company to redo the mission. It also has been reeling since the fatal crashes of two 737 Max airplanes that killed a total of 346 people. Its stumble on the lunar lander contract opened the door for other companies. A team led by Blue Origin, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper, won an initial contract worth $579 million. Dynetics, which teamed up with the Sierra Nevada Corp., received $253 million, and SpaceX won $135 million. In addition to Boeing, another company, Vivace Corp. of San Antonio, was eliminated early in the source selection process, according to NASA’s source selection document. But it doesn’t say why


How do travel bubbles work? 4 questions, answered.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, even as nations shut their borders and airlines struggled with record-low passenger levels, there was a lot of optimism about “travel bubbles” — a controlled return of quarantine-free air travel between designated cities or countries. Since then, with few countries’ outbreaks truly under control, there has been far more chatter about potential travel bubbles than there have been actual bubbles implemented. But this weekend, Asia’s first bubble, between Hong Kong and Singapore, will finally make its debut. The two cities’ “Air Travel Bubble,” set to start Sunday, will test whether regions can safely partner in a return to quarantine-free travel in the pandemic era. The practice could soon emerge in other places, including North America, as scientists learn more about the coronavirus and as nations inch closer to offering vaccines. So: How do bubbles work? Here’s what you need to know. Sometimes called a travel corridor, a travel bubble is a partnership between two or more places with similar rates of covid-19 that allows for quarantine-free leisure travel in both directions. The first large international travel bubble to make headlines was a potential agreement between Australia and New Zealand, both of which had very low coronavirus caseloads early in the pandemic. The two nations hoped to implement a bubble in September, but those talks sputtered when Australia saw a rise in cases in August. While travel from New Zealand to Australia may not require quarantining, New Zealand still has strict quarantine requirements in place for all arrivals. The Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania created Europe’s first quarantine-free bubble in May. By July, however, the European Union’s “Re-open EU” initiative had rendered it redundant. You could, in theory, call Re-open EU — which allowed for controlled travel within the border-free Schengen Area and Britain — a travel bubble, although the E.U. and Britain did not. In that agreement, nations were allowed to set their own restrictions and pace beginning in July, but rising coronavirus cases curbed free travel again not much later: England, for instance, recalled quarantine-free travel conditions with Spain two weeks after allowing travel there. Many E.U. nations implemented new restrictions as coronavirus flare-ups emerged, and since October, many nations have again implemented shutdowns or travel limitations, with quarantines and testing required. (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have since reestablished their own bubble.) Hong Kong and Singapore, by contrast, have


Senate passes bill that would allow U.S. to pursue doping conspirators abroad

A sweeping anti-doping bill that has sparked both global intrigue and controversy was approved by the Senate on Monday and is now poised to empower the United States to prosecute bad actors around the world involved in tainting competitions and victimizing American athletes. The Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, named after the whistleblower who helped expose Russia’s state-sponsored doping scheme, passed the House last year and now goes to the White House, where it awaits the president’s signature. While the bill was championed by U.S. anti-doping officials, it faced resistance from the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is charged with establishing and enforcing policy for major international competitions, such as the Summer and Winter Olympics. In addition to providing protections for whistleblowers, the legislation calls for prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines of up to $1 million for conspirators involved in doping schemes that cheat U.S. athletes. The bill does not target the athletes specifically, allowing them to then step forward as whistleblowers and cooperate with investigators. “This is a banner day for clean athletes everywhere,” said Jim Walden, attorney for Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of Moscow’s anti-doping laboratory. “Obviously, the United States is often at the forefront of these anti-corruption issues. Hopefully, rule-of-law nations everywhere will join and pass similar measures so that the United States could be part of a network of countries that take these issues more seriously. Clean sport hangs in the balance, and together, locking arms and making sure there’s meaningful enforcement, we can restore confidence in international sporting events.” While the White House hasn’t publicly stated whether President Trump intends to sign the legislation, the administration’s drug policy office welcomed news of the Senate’s passage of the bill Monday. “Bad actors who enable unfair competition should face legal consequences — a position shared by legislators on both sides of the aisle in the U.S., and by athletes around the world,” an official with the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy said in an email. “It is our hope that WADA sees this development as a positive step that fortifies clean sport for the betterment of worldwide athletic competition.” But WADA has long questioned the legislation, concerned that the United States is overreaching in its efforts to police international sport. The bill, in effect, gives one country the ability to investigate and mete out punishments for infractions that take place anywhere in


There’s a dark undercurrent to the notion of decriminalizing drug use

It’s simply not true to say “The war on drugs isn’t working” [editorial, Nov. 13] and assert that it is “difficult to know how new drug laws will affect drug usage.” There is a record on both points. Monthly recreational drug use is down almost 40 percent from the 15 percent use rate in the 1960s and 1970s to 9 percent now. Imagine what the numbers for use, car crashes, treatment and hospitalizations will be if the new Oregon all-drugs decriminalization is implemented. Luckily, Congress, aware of these risks, and despite efforts by Big Pot financial interests to repeat the mistakes of Big Tobacco, has resisted. Federal law on illegality remains and supersedes state laws Treatment is a better approach than prison for the individual and society where possible. That’s why drug courts mandating treatment have increased from 12 in 1995 to more than 3,000 now. Imagine if we decreased by 40 percent the heart attacks, diabetes, cancer, poverty or hunger. Would we say those efforts were a failure? No, we’d say great, but we have more to do. The same is true for drug policy. Robert S. Weiner The writer was director of public affairs for the Office of National Drug Control Policy from 1994 to 2001. Read more letters to the editor.


Transcript: Post Live Election Daily with Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) & Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.)

think he was about 68 when he got elected governor. So, there's always inspiration out there. MR. COSTA: President-elect Biden, of course, from Scranton. Are you privately pushing for the presidential library--and I know this is down the line--to be in Scranton, Pennsylvania rather than in Delaware? SEN. CASEY: Bob, we haven't gotten that far down the road. We're still at 47,000 in the margin and still climbing. We at least want to certify the results before we talk about a presidential library. But I would say this, Bob: When you consider the issues that Joe Biden talked about a lot in the campaign, I think set forth a real detailed plan, the virus and jobs--as I like to call it--or the virus and the economic ditch that we're in, you can see those challenges right here--or I should say right there, I'm in Washington today--but in Pennsylvania. Number one, we have still have a very high unemployment rate. September, 518,000 people out of work, a little more than 8 percent, and that's low from where it was in April through August. And then, secondly, we have a raging virus, numbers going way up in Pennsylvania, 243,000 cases, roughly; and more than 9,000 deaths. So, just in Pennsylvania, you can see the two challenges that confront the new administration. MR. COSTA: Is a stimulus package going to be the first priority for President Biden? SEN. CASEY: Well, I hope it doesn't have to be his first priority upon taking office. I hope that we can get something done this month or in December. I think that's what we should try to do. And when I say "something," I mean something robust, something substantial, not just a very limited scaled-down proposal that Leader McConnell has set forth a couple of times. We need a big, bold, robust relief strategy, relief bill, really. And I think it should concentrate at a minimum on at least three groups of Americans: older citizens, a real strategy to get the nursing home case number and death number down. Over 91,000 people have died in nursing homes. That's an abomination, a failure for the greatest country in the world. We have--you know, 91,000 represents resident deaths as well as worker deaths. We have to get that down and I have a strategy to do that if we fund it. Secondly, I think communities of color need


What’s in a name? For animals at the National Zoo, all sorts of considerations.

It’s once again time to pick a name for a celebrity infant at the National Zoo. Frankly, I like all the candidates for the 3-month-old giant panda: Fu Zai (Mandarin Chinese for “prosperous boy”), Xiao Qi ji (“little miracle”), Xing Fu (“happy and prosperous”) and Zai Zai (a nickname for a boy). All those names fall into a category I call “country of origin.” That’s when a zoo animal has a name that is in some way related to where it comes from, either through geography, history or language. The panda name sweepstakes got me thinking about other names at the National Zoo. I did a quick survey and came up with a rough taxonomy of animal names. Call me the Carl Linnaeus of the beastly moniker. Other country-of-origin names include two immense Russian wolfhounds donated to the zoo in September of 1892 by Byron C. Daniels, U.S. consul at Hull, England. The dogs were called Sokorouchai and Outechka. I don’t know what those names mean, but they sure sound Russian to me. Wrote a reporter for the National Tribune: “The hounds are of the famous Borzoi breed, a strain for ages past the peculiar property of Russian nobility, and they can boast a pedigree almost as remote as that of their autocratic sovereign, the czar.” Around that time, the zoo also had a lion, said to be the largest in captivity. It was named Lobengula, after a 19th-century king in southern Africa. In 1911, zoo superintendent Frank Baker reportedly resorted to chance to choose the name of a new baby hippopotamus. According to the Washington Herald: “Last Friday, when the girl baby hippo arrived at the zoo, she was nameless. . . . Dr. Baker grabbed an atlas, shut his eyes as he opened the page at Africa. Then he jammed his finger down on the book and reopened his eyes. His finger pointed to Mombasa.” Mombasa Some wild animals have distinctly Anglo names. In 1904, Menelik II, the king of Abyssinia — present-day Ethiopia — donated a lion to the United States. The zoo could have gone with “Menelik” or something Ethiopian. Instead the lion was named Joe. In 1927, rubber magnate Harvey Samuel Firestone donated a pygmy hippo to the zoo. It was named William Johnson Hippopotamus, although everyone called him Billy. Billy was famously virile, siring offspring with a pair of females, both of whom had


The Daily 202: Biden’s early moves foreshadow a cautious presidency

of the Hoover Institution or the university.” “Jodi Doering, an emergency room nurse in South Dakota, was overwhelmed Saturday night. Her patients were dying of covid-19, yet were still in denial about the pandemic’s existence. It’s like a ‘horror movie that never ends,’ Doering wrote on Twitter,” Paulina Villegas reports. “Her anxiety and despair is shared by many health-care workers who are facing a dramatic surge in … patients who, despite being severely ill, are reluctant to acknowledge that they have been infected with a virus that Trump has said will simply disappear. Doering said she has covid-19 patients who need 100 percent-oxygen breathing assistance who will also swear that they don’t have the illness … ‘Their last dying words are, 'This can’t be happening. It’s not real,’’ Doering said, adding that some patients prefer to believe that they have pneumonia or other diseases rather than covid-19, despite seeing their positive test results.” “There is record demand for travel nurses, who take out-of-town assignments on short-term contracts of 13 weeks or less at elevated wages. Per-diem nurses, who are willing to take a shift or two in their local hospitals, have been pressed into service. The military is chipping in. And still, in some places, it is not nearly enough,” Lenny Bernstein reports. "Staffing in U.S. hospitals, particularly among nurses, has reflected a patchwork of local shortages in recent years … But now, the once-in-a-century pandemic is exposing the liabilities of this just-in-time, cost-conscious approach at some hospitals, chronic staff shortages in others and the toll of the pandemic on an exhausted workforce.” Former first lady Michelle Obama urged Republicans to respect the election results after reflecting on how painful it was for her to do so in 2016: Senate Republicans sent a fundraising text signed by Donald Trump Jr. that appears to admit that Biden won by suggesting that, if Democrats win the two Georgia seats, they’ll take control of the chamber. That could only happen if Kamala Harris is vice president: Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) had a tense moment with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), who was presiding over the chamber, when he asked him to put on a mask. Sullivan declined to do so: Stephen Colbert said executive mismanagement is the primary reason why the pandemic has not been controlled in America: Seth Meyers took a look at Trump’s Twitter “concession”: And comedian Sarah Cooper spoofed Trump’s lawyers:


An outbreak at a group home and a frantic effort to Clorox wipe the virus away

it was in the midst of a mess that could not be so easily wiped away. Clorox started running its manufacturing plants 24 hours a day. The company had been bracing its shareholders for a mediocre year. Instead, in sales, stock price and surveys of whom Americans trust, Clorox would become one of the pandemic’s biggest winners, and wipes its most coveted trophy. On March 6, 240 of those canisters were loaded into a box truck, along with $1,945 worth of disinfecting spray, hand soap and jugs of bleach, all bound for the Arc of Greater Prince William County. President Trump was a week away from declaring a national emergency. But at the nonprofit, Donna Shipman was already preparing for chaos. Before she became a supervisor, Donna had worked as a direct support professional like Angela. She understood that to someone with intellectual disabilities, even the slightest change in routine could feel like their world had imploded. Soon, every day would bring the cancellation of something the nonprofit’s 2,200 clients depended on. Then came weeks of comforting caregivers who’d been kicked and bitten by group home residents in distress, calming parents who’d been barred from visiting their children, apologizing to staff members they couldn’t afford to keep. By the time Clorox was warning Americans not to ingest bleach as Trump had suggested, disabled communities were battling outbreaks. At a state-run facility in Illinois where half of the 336 residents are nonverbal, 237 of them and 160 of their caregivers had tested positive by mid-November. Four employees and seven residents there have died. Though large facilities like it still exist in at least 36 states, decades of abuse allegations, lawsuits, court decisions and Justice Department interventions have whittled away at their numbers. In Virginia, just one remains. The Trump administration has refused to track outbreaks at such institutions or in group homes, meaning there is no national count of how many people with disabilities have become infected or died of the virus. But on May 13, the Virginia group home learned its fifth resident had indeed tested positive. Donna unlocked the closet where she’d stashed the Clorox wipes and other supplies and carried them to her car. Unaware that she, too, would soon be showing symptoms, she delivered the wipes to their final destination. She could see the anxiety in the caregivers, who in the days ahead were going to be


Trump’s election fraud allegations suggest military voters uniformly supported him. It’s not so.

as a whole, various demographic groups within the military hold different opinions, much as civilian demographic groups differ. People join the military for a variety of reasons, and not just because they hold conservative beliefs Many Americans assume that people join the military for reasons often associated with conservative views, like support for the military or conceptions of patriotism and honor. However, people join the military for many, highly varied reasons. One of the strongest predictors of who will serve is family background. Those with family who served are more likely to join. But other motivations abound. While many are motivated to serve out of a sense of duty and a belief that military service is honorable, a survey of junior enlisted Army personnel revealed that they are equally — if not more — likely to cite occupational benefits such as pay, travel opportunities and job security. While Republicans remain more likely to enlist than Democrats overall, these diverse motivations further undercut the narrative that members of the military would have been likely to vote in lockstep for Trump. Indeed, recent polls suggested that career military personnel disapprove of the Trump administration and were leaning toward Biden. The military values its professional military norms The higher you go in the military, the more its members care about upholding professional norms in which civilians command the armed forces and military leaders stay out of politics. Many in the military have been asking the president to stop treating the services as political tools because doing so undermines their valued norms of staying above the political fray. Scholars of civil-military relations have been warning about what’s lost when Trump uses the military as a political prop, threatening the public perception that the military is an apolitical or nonpartisan institution. Although Democrats have also been guilty of politicizing the military, Trump has been very open about claiming that the military rank and file “love” him, as if to borrow public respect for the military to gain political support. This summer, Trump had Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appear with him after Trump had Park Police use tear gas against Lafayette Square protesters. Many retired military officials criticized Milley, who later apologized. Nevertheless, the Trump campaign showed Milley in a political advertisement, reportedly without the general’s consent. Current and former members of the military objected that such acts violated


Behind the tally, names and lives

As the battle against the Islamic State raged in Iraq in March 2017, Ahmad Bashar Abdullah managed to escape the militants’ grip and slip into newly freed areas of his native city of Mosul. But his mother, sister and other relatives remained in militant-controlled territory, where fighters were forcing civilians out of their homes and using them as human shields against the bombs raining down from the sky. The militants forced his family, and dozens of others, into a nearby house. That the large concrete structure had a basement, unusual in the area, appeared to offer a degree of security. But when Ahmad reached his mother via satellite phone before she left the family’s home, she was still terrified. He tried to soothe her. “Security forces will arrive soon,” he said. Ahmad later learned that his mother’s worst fears had been realized. Responding to sniper fire against allied Iraqi forces, an American aircraft, operating with erroneous intelligence that no civilians were inside the building, dropped a GBU-38 bomb, carrying nearly 200 pounds of explosive material, on the concrete structure. The bomb, U.S. military officials subsequently concluded, ignited an even more powerful cache of explosives that the militants had stored inside the building, collapsing the structure and killing more than 100 civilians. The dead included Ahmad’s mother, Najlaa; his sister, 20-year-old Teeba; his grandfather Thamir, and his twin uncles, Ali and Rakan, and their wives. In all, 32 of Ahmad’s relatives perished. “From that day on I’m not the same person,” Ahmad said by telephone from Mosul earlier this year. “People ask me what I want. I tell them I want my mother and sister back.” Ahmad’s relatives are among the civilians killed in events that are being documented with an unprecedented level of precision in a new accounting of the U.S.-led war against the Islamic State. Using U.S. military geolocation data being made public for the first time, U.K.-based watchdog group Airwars has pinpointed locations, some of them to within a meter squared, for hundreds of strikes resulting in more than 1,400 civilian deaths. The analysis represents a breakthrough in advancing public understanding of the war’s unintended impact and provides a new basis for potential compensation payments to families of those killed. The effort comes as the United States and its allies wind down a six-year-long air campaign against a group that, at the height of its power, controlled an


Flights with rapid testing are being dubbed ‘covid-free.’ Here’s why that is a myth.

This week, United Airlines announced a trial of flights between Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and London Heathrow where every passenger receives a rapid coronavirus test before boarding. The program runs until Dec. 11 and is part of “the airline’s free transatlantic covid-19 testing pilot program.” Rapid antigen testing technology displays results in minutes, unlike the more accurate polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests now required by many destinations for entry. (The United Kingdom does not require Americans to get tested before arrival, but it does mandate a 14-day quarantine.) The flights were called “covid-free” in reports by Forbes, CNN and other travel sites. But it’s misleading to call something “covid-free,” especially a flight with only rapid antigen testing, said David Freedman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Alabama, who has reviewed studies on in-flight transmission. This week, the Food and Drug Administration updated its guidance on the rapid-test technology, saying that rapid tests are intended for use on people showing covid-19 symptoms and have a far lower accuracy rate than the preferred PCR tests. “Rapid tests are under emergency use authorization, and so they have not gone through full FDA scrutiny … most are 70 to 80 percent as sensitive as a PCR test,” Freedman says. In other words, he stresses, “they miss about 20 to 30 percent of cases that a PCR would pick up.” Rapid antigen tests recently made headlines when SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he took four in one day, receiving split results of two positives and two negatives, before conceding he “most likely” has covid-19. While headlines dubbed the flights “covid-free,” airlines have not. United said in an email that “United has said this is the first of its kind transatlantic testing program which guarantees customers over two years old and crew test negative before departure.” German airline Lufthansa, a partner with United, is trialing similar flights. The term appears to have been attached to reports about rapid-tested flights since September, when Forbes covered Alitalia’s coronavirus-tested flights. Premise Health, which is providing the rapid-test service for United’s Heathrow-Newark flights, says it is aiming to provide another layer of safety to passenger, and not a covid-free environment, until a vaccine is available. “No test is perfect, which is why we see testing as part of a layered approach that includes other safety measures to help prevent the spread of covid-19, such


positives and two negatives, before conceding he “most likely” has covid-19. While headlines dubbed the flights “covid-free,” airlines have not. United said in an email that “United has said this is the first of its kind transatlantic testing program which guarantees customers over two years old and crew test negative before departure.” German airline Lufthansa, a partner with United, is trialing similar flights. The term appears to have been attached to reports about rapid-tested flights since September, when Forbes covered Alitalia’s coronavirus-tested flights. Premise Health, which is providing the rapid-test service for United’s Heathrow-Newark flights, says it is aiming to provide another layer of safety to passenger, and not a covid-free environment, until a vaccine is available. “No test is perfect, which is why we see testing as part of a layered approach that includes other safety measures to help prevent the spread of covid-19, such as wearing masks,” Premise Health President Jami Doucette said. “There are hundreds of antibody, PCR and antigen tests that have received emergency use authorization, and accuracy varies by specific test, not just the category of test.” United has been notifying all customers booking the route that they would be required to take a rapid test. “If someone didn’t want to be tested, we then accommodated them on another flight or provided a refund,” United spokesperson Robert Einhorn said in an email. Freedman points out that even if PCR tests were given to everyone onboard, no flight can be guaranteed to be covid-free. All coronavirus diagnostic tests can and do miss contagious passengers; rapid antigen tests are just more likely to miss them. And, he says, the risk of a coronavirus-infected individual being on your flight depends on the amount of cases that exist in the area at the time of travel. “Right now, there’s so much covid out there that the chances of one covid-positive person sneaking by and onto a flight, even if everyone is tested, is substantial,” Freeman says. “The airlines just want to do something to sway passengers that their particular plane is safer on that day.” Read more: A travel group report says flying is safe. The doctor whose research it cited says not so fast. Is it safer to fly or drive during the pandemic? 5 health experts weigh in. Teen on family trip spread the coronavirus to 11 relatives across 4 states after a negative test, CDC says


Murder hornets sound terrifying. But should we really be so scared?

virus, the source of the current global pandemic — the latest in a long line of migrant microbes, some destructive, others not. (Some scientists believe that studying invasive species might help us to combat the spread of diseases such as covid-19.) Yet there are also plenty of invasive species that, while they might have a certain nuisance value, don’t wreak widespread destruction. The ubiquitous house sparrow is one; so, too, is the butterfly bush, which provides food for countless insects in the United States. To ecologists, each new introduction of an exotic species to North America is an uncontrolled biological experiment with unknown long-term results. As far as murder hornets are concerned, agricultural authorities probably won’t be able to extinguish them all. Getting rid of the two established populations in British Columbia and Washington state would be like successfully killing every mosquito in your backyard on a summer’s evening with a fly swatter. Is there reason for alarm? Yes, but probably not because of any direct threat to humans. There are lots of venomous bugs in the United States, and these new arrivals don’t appear to be unduly aggressive, unlike the Africanized honeybees — yep, “killer bees” — that caused such consternation in the mid-1980s in the Deep South. More worrisome is the species’ possible impact on the honeybee-reliant commercial pollination systems in agriculture, which could potentially cause billions of dollars of economic harm. Think of the Mediterranean fruit fly’s depredations in California, Florida and Texas. So how well will the Asian giant hornet adapt to the varied environments in the United States? It apparently evolved in humid forested environments. Recent ecological modeling indicates the hornet might remain confined to the Pacific Northwest over the next two decades. The only other true hornet in North America is another introduced species, the European hornet. This slightly smaller species is now widespread in the United States, and most people aren’t even aware of its existence. It’s also known to be a predator of honeybees but seems to have had relatively little impact on their numbers in the United States. This gives us a reason not to worry about its larger relative. Here’s the thing. There are more than 91,000 species of insects in the United States. The Asian giant hornet will become one more member of that huge group of species. Like so many introduced exotic species, it probably will have no


are lots of venomous bugs in the United States, and these new arrivals don’t appear to be unduly aggressive, unlike the Africanized honeybees — yep, “killer bees” — that caused such consternation in the mid-1980s in the Deep South. More worrisome is the species’ possible impact on the honeybee-reliant commercial pollination systems in agriculture, which could potentially cause billions of dollars of economic harm. Think of the Mediterranean fruit fly’s depredations in California, Florida and Texas. So how well will the Asian giant hornet adapt to the varied environments in the United States? It apparently evolved in humid forested environments. Recent ecological modeling indicates the hornet might remain confined to the Pacific Northwest over the next two decades. The only other true hornet in North America is another introduced species, the European hornet. This slightly smaller species is now widespread in the United States, and most people aren’t even aware of its existence. It’s also known to be a predator of honeybees but seems to have had relatively little impact on their numbers in the United States. This gives us a reason not to worry about its larger relative. Here’s the thing. There are more than 91,000 species of insects in the United States. The Asian giant hornet will become one more member of that huge group of species. Like so many introduced exotic species, it probably will have no serious effects, other than scaring people who are already frightened of creepy crawlies. A sting from one, in most cases, will be little more than a painful badge of courage. We have no evidence at this stage that the species will become widespread. It might just become a curiosity confined to the dark conifer forests of the Pacific Northwest — something like Sasquatch. Hysteria over a potentially invasive species is understandable, but it’s not a basis for good policy. Most invasive species, once established, can’t be eradicated. We need to focus all our energy on containing those exotic species that pose the most threat. Murder hornets aren’t one of them. Read more Bruce Beehler: The feel-good animal comeback photos mean little in the grand scheme of the environment Bruce Beehler: What a bobcat sighting tells us about a rewilding Washington Robert Gebelhoff: Coyotes are poised to invade South America. Humans are to blame. Helaine Olen: We’re in danger of killing off the biodiversity that makes our way of life possible


What flight attendants want you to know about traveling during the holidays

The surge in coronavirus cases across the United States has millions of Americans questioning whether they should travel for the holidays. Nonetheless, flight attendants are gearing up for another busy period of hectic airports, packed planes and holiday traffic. It has been an incredibly challenging year for those in the profession. Throughout the pandemic, tens of thousands of flight attendants were furloughed as the airline industry faced some of its worst job losses in history. Those lucky enough to keep their jobs are adjusting to elements of the new normal, such as policing passengers for coronavirus policies and wearing personal protective equipment. We asked four flight attendants to share their advice from the front lines of pandemic travel to help those planning on flying this holiday season. After volunteering to take about seven months off during the pandemic, Jalisa Robinson, who is based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is back to flying for JetBlue. While she has noticed that travel is picking up again, Robinson is not anxious about flying. “I haven’t had really too many worries, because I feel it’s just a part of life,” she says. Passengers following coronavirus precautions give Robinson confidence in flying. When she boards a plane, she wipes down common surfaces and makes sure she is washing her hands constantly. Her advice to travelers is to do the same. “Don’t let your guard down; take the precautions,” she says. However, there may be such thing as too many precautions. Robinson says travelers should avoid going to extremes with their PPE choices, as some can do more harm than good onboard, particularly in the case of emergency. Avoid wearing bulky gear like a hazmat suit that can be difficult to see out of and limit movement. “Protect yourself, I’m all for that. But make it comfortable and feasible in case something else happens that you need to move quickly,” Robinson says. Danario Green was optimistic about returning to work as a JetBlue flight attendant after taking a five-month voluntary leave earlier in the pandemic. His first few flights came with some jitters, but now Green has eased back into the routine and feels comforted by the precautions JetBlue is taking to keep staff and travelers socially distanced, and by how frequently plane air is filtered. Green says one frustration of the job is dealing with passengers who take off their masks beyond eating or drinking. He


After fleeing to Sudan, Ethiopians from Tigray recount brutal killings

into Sudan each day. A wave of 27,000 refugees has already poured into Sudan since the conflict erupted this month, and humanitarian groups on the ground were overwhelmed, the agency said. “People are coming out of Ethiopia really scared, afraid, with stories saying they have been fleeing heavy fighting,” said agency spokesman Babar Baloch. “There is no sign of the fighting stopping.” Abiy ordered troops into Tigray on Nov. 4 after the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) attacked federal military bases and attempted to access artillery and military equipment. He has demanded that the TPLF, which for decades was the dominant political force in the country’s multiethnic ruling coalition, hand over control and ordered Tigray’s security forces to lay down their arms. He has ignored growing international calls for negotiations to end the fighting, saying he will negotiate only when the rule of law is restored in Tigray. The violence spilled across Ethiopia’s northern border over the weekend when Tigrayan forces launched rockets at Eritrea’s capital, Asmara, blaming it for siding with Addis Ababa. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement Tuesday blamed the TPLF for what he called “its blatant attempt” to cause regional instability and condemned the missile attacks on Eritrea. He urged all sides to show restraint, protect civilians and open up humanitarian corridors so that aid workers could help those in need. “Civilians, including U.S. citizens, should be protected from harm and be provided with humanitarian assistance and safe passage out of the conflict,” Pompeo said. Abiy, who last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, warned Tuesday that federal troops were closing in on Tigray’s capital, Mekele. “The final critical act of law enforcement will be done in coming days,” he said. Ethiopia says its air force struck unspecified TPLF targets outside Mekele on Monday and “liberated” four areas on the eastern front. U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet expressed concern that the war could spiral out of control and raised the possibility that war crimes may have been committed. Amnesty International, citing witnesses, said last week that it had evidence of a massacre of civilians stabbed and hacked to death in the town of Mai-Kadra in Tigray, days after the conflict first flared. At the temporary camp guarded by the Sudanese army, Zam Zam said food and blankets are running low amid the surge of refugees. She and others are waiting to be moved


Navy football has third consecutive game postponed

The Navy football team had its third consecutive game postponed because of a coronavirus outbreak. The American Athletic Conference announced Wednesday that the game between Navy and South Florida scheduled for Saturday in Tampa was called off because of positive tests at USF. Navy hasn’t played since a 51-37 loss to SMU on Oct. 31. Games against Tulsa and Memphis the past two weeks were postponed because of an outbreak on the Naval Academy grounds. The Midshipmen have one more game scheduled for Dec. 12 against Army in West Point, N.Y., where the annual event was moved after local safety guidelines prompted a venue change from Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. Cadets and midshipmen will be permitted to attend the game. South Florida has one more game scheduled for Nov. 27 against Central Florida, so both teams have the first weekend of December open as a possible landing spot for a rescheduled game. Navy, however, is also trying to make up its other two postponed games. The Midshipmen took a nearly two-week break from in-person football activities while dealing with the outbreak at Navy. They returned to the field Friday and had been preparing for USF this week, but they still didn’t expect to have their full roster available. “Really excited about this game,” Navy Coach Ken Niumatalolo said Monday. “Our practices on Friday and Saturday, our young men were just excited to get out of their rooms. Just that part, getting out of their rooms, some of our more spirited practices. Just the fact of being able to get out of their rooms is definitely beneficial for them.” Niumatalolo spoke Monday about having to be flexible during a 2020 season that is different from anything college football has previously seen. From the cancellation of spring and summer workouts to no tackling in preseason practices to online position meetings, Niumatalolo has been consistent with his message. “We’ve been dealing with this for so long, you just keep rolling,” he said. “The approach I’ve taken with our guys … I’d imagine when they’re overseas and they’re in deployment or they’re on a ship in the Middle East somewhere, things change. You might have a mission, and things change, and you adapt. “I have no idea — that’s just me watching movies. I don’t know if that’s how it works. I’m just saying, you’re going to have to adapt in life. You’re