Theresa May wines and dines her Brexit ‘war cabinet’ in a bid to hash out a policy

and that May would set out “the way forward” in a speech next week after meeting with her full cabinet. There was no word on a united front. It has been 600 days since the June 2016 referendum in which British voters chose to leave the European Union, and it is little over a year away from Britain’s self-declared exit from the bloc in March 2019 — and still May’s Tory government remains a house divided. Europe’s leaders, accepting that Britain will leave the union, keep asking for clarity from May and her negotiators — and so do anxious Britons, from Cornish fisherfolk to Kentish berry farmers to London City bankers. The Brexit meeting Thursday featured such senior figures as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who has promised that Britain can “have its cake and eat it, too,” and Chancellor Philip Hammond, who worries the country is heading toward rough economic times if it crashes out of the European Union. Despite a string of speeches by May and her ministers, no one in London or Brussels is yet quite sure what Brexit means — meaning how much Britain remains allied with the bloc — in terms of standards for washing machines, tariffs for motorcars, quotas for salmon fishing, and on and on. To say nothing of the far more emotionally fraught status of Europeans in Britain or Brits abroad: Who stays? Who comes? How many? How easy? All unknown. Polly Toynbee, a columnist for the Guardian newspaper, called Thursday’s meeting at Chequers the “lockdown from hell” and said that the Tory leaders were “destined to disagree into eternity on the most momentous question of their lifetime.” May’s Brexit secretary, David Davis, joked that the cabinet would be “locked in a room all day.” “Even the Brexit Secretary, a man once described as being able to swagger sitting down, could not pretend that today’s summit would result in a finalized position arising,” wrote the Telegraph. Davis told the newspaper this week: “There is no final answer.” The prime minister has repeatedly said that “Brexit means Brexit.” She has vowed that Britain will leave the European single market and customs union — although many in her government want to remain more closely aligned. The single market guarantees free movement of goods, capital, services and people — the “four freedoms” of the European Union — while the customs union provides for tariff-free trade among


American Devin Logan leaves PyeongChang bruised but still a badass

pretty big.’ ” Then, of course: “ ‘Let’s just put the pant leg down and not worry about it.’ And then the next run I come back up before my final run, let’s see, and it has gotten bigger.” She reeled off a laundry list of body parts broken in her life: “I’ve broken my ankles a couple times. I broke my ankle when I was younger on the trampoline. I got double-bounced by my friend, and I came down, and it just snapped right away. I roll my ankles all the time. It’s really bad, so I’m used to cankles and like that. Broke my hand. Separated my AC joints. I’ve blown out my knee. Hit my face a bunch. It just happens.” Postscript: In the case of the trampoline, she never stopped to surmise her ankle might be broken until the next morning, when her mother noticed it had just about blown up. “My doctor tells me I have a really high pain tolerance, so that’s a good thing,” she said. She said she has noticed that, at least in her circles, women seem better than men at handling being sick and getting on with it. She’s clearly a champion friend. She postponed an interview one day so she could help two male skiers, Aaron Blunck and Torin Yater-Wallace, navigate the emotional aftermath of unwanted finishes. Her second Olympics seemed emotionally easier than her first, but she hadn’t gotten to practice enough, preserving her energy for two events and dealing with that thing and other pains and nuisances. She remarked on the strange nature of Olympic events, how they require years of preparation and then they whir by in seconds. She noted a cultural reality that still needs improvement, about endorsements, how having “a pretty face” still matters, how “if you look cute” in some outfit, “you’ll get paid. I’m just going to let my skiing do the talking for me. If you like my skiing, that’s awesome. If not, that’s fine, too, but I’m not going to be that girl that puts the face on just because.” American women have had a big Olympics, and the U.S. hockey team demonstrated how female athletes compel the country with an intensity that long since seems normal. As a memorable serendipity of these PyeongChang Games, here sat a female athlete, leg propped up, ice on knee. She looked like all


Come see us, Mr. President. We have questions.

really believe that when he tells me that, he means it.” Is that still your position? If so, why do you believe Putin? Why did you believe him previously? Please outline what steps you have taken to prevent Russia from repeating in 2018 or 2020 what it did in 2016. What meetings have you held on this subject with your intelligence chiefs or the National Security Council? Last year, you tried to persuade Congress not to enact new sanctions on Russia over its election interference. And recently, you declined to identify new targets of sanctions. In light of the Mueller indictment, what do you say to critics who believe you have been too soft on Russia? In the aftermath of the recent indictments against 13 Russians and three companies, you expressed anger at various people and institutions — the FBI, Democrats and President Barack Obama, among others. But you do not seem angry at Russia — at least judging from your public statements. Can you explain? Last weekend, you tweeted that “the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter” and suggested this was because “they are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.” Do you really believe the two are related? How would you feel about that tweet if you were one of the victims’ parents? Also given those latest indictments, would you still describe the Mueller investigation as “the single greatest witch hunt in American history”? Why? When did you become aware that former national security adviser Michael Flynn had spoken to former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak about lifting sanctions? When did you become aware that Flynn had lied to the FBI about those conversations? What did you do in response? Why did you describe Flynn as a “good guy” and ask FBI Director James B. Comey to “let this go,” referring to the investigation of Flynn? Please outline what role you played in drafting your son Donald Trump Jr.’s statement about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting? Did you say that the statement should describe the meeting as being “primarily” about adoption? What was your basis for saying that? When did you become aware of the meeting? Do you believe it is appropriate for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt to fly first-class at taxpayers’ expense? Do you believe that your Veterans Affairs secretary, David Shulkin, should


Olympics Day 16: U.S. men’s curling team earns stunning gold medal

be a thing The Alpine skiing team event made its Olympic debut, but many of the world’s top skiers skipped. Switzerland came out atop the depleted field. Austria skied to silver and Norway bronze. The U.S. lost in the opening round to Britain. Overall, PyeongChang was the worst American Alpine skiing performance (three medals) since the Turin Games in 2006. Mass start speedskating also made its first appearance at a Winter Games Finland’s Iivo Niskanen won the men’s cross-country skiing 50-kilometer mass start. Olympic Athletes from Russia took silver and bronze. With the PyeongChang Games winding down, Winter Olympic eyes now turn to Beijing 2022 and beyond. But as the climate changes, the search for Winter Olympic hosts may get increasingly difficult. In January, The Washington Post explored which American locations might be best suited to hold a Winter Games. Factors such as elevation, population and topography were taken into account. The four-man bobsled event debuted at the 1924 Chamonix Olympics and has been at almost every Games since then. (In 1960, Squaw Valley organizers didn’t build a track to reduce operating expenses.) At the 1928 Olympics, however, the four-man event was actually five-man competition. It only happened once. SATURDAY NIGHT: Known as the “Garlic Girls,” in honor of a common crop in their rural home town, the South Korean women’s curling team looks to finish its surprise run with a gold medal. Their rimmed glasses, nicknames and politeness have made the host nation squad an international sensation. The Swedes, however, are the favorites and will look to play spoiler. The match is at 7:05 p.m. Eastern time. Four-man bobsled finishes tonight. Two German teams are predictably at the top of the field. A South Korean team is in fourth. The Americans, who are still reeling from the sudden death of teammate Steve Holcomb last year, are further back. Codie Bascue, just 23, is the top U.S. pilot in 10th. The third run is set for 7:30 p.m. Eastern, and the fourth and final run is at 9:15 p.m. Eastern. In men’s hockey, a Cinderella-esque German team looks to upset the Olympic Athletes of Russia for gold. The game starts at 11:10 p.m. Eastern time. The figure skating gala is also on tonight, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern time. It’s a noncompetitive exhibition, where skaters let loose a bit. SUNDAY MORNING: The women’s cross-country mass start is at 1:15 a.m.


Skywatch: In March, planets loiter together in the evening and morning heavens

the U.S. Naval Observatory. February didn’t get a full moon, as January scored a full moon and a blue moon. A double blue moon in a given year hasn’t happened since 1999, and will happen next in 2037. The next blue moon is Oct. 31, 2020. We lose an hour when we turn our clocks forward on Sunday, March 11, as Daylight saving time starts. Spring officially starts at the vernal equinox March 20 at 12:15 p.m. Eastern time, according to the observatory, as the sun appears to cross into the Northern Hemisphere. Incidentally, for the Washington area on March 17, daylight (12 hours, 1 minute) virtually matches darkness (11 hours, 59 minutes). Down-to-Earth Events ● Feb. 26 — “How Geckos Helped the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Make Some Really Cool Robotics,” a talk by Aaron Parness, of the laboratory, at the Moving Beyond Earth gallery, National Air and Space Museum on the Mall. 1:30 p.m. airandspace.si.edu. ● March 5 — “Recycling Crustal Bits on Earth and Europa,” a talk by University of Maryland professor Jessica Sunshine, at the university’s observatory, College Park. See the night sky delights through telescopes afterward, weather permitting. 8 p.m. www.astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● March 9 — “Eclipses: Using Shadows to Shed New Light,” a lecture by NASA’s Thomas Zurbuchen, in which he will describe NASA projects that use shadows to comprehend the cosmos. The lecture is hosted by the Philosophical Society of Washington at the John Wesley Powell Auditorium, adjacent to the Cosmos Club, 2170 Florida Avenue NW. 8 p.m. philsoc.org. ● March 10 — “Why Send Spacecraft to Comets?” — a talk by astronomer Ludmilla Kolokolova at the regular meeting of the National Capital Astronomers. University of Maryland Observatory, College Park. 7:30 p.m. capitalastronomers.org. ● March 11 — “Origin of the Earth and Moon,” a talk by Miki Nakajima, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science, in which she will explain that our lunar neighbor was probably formed by a collision between Earth and an impactor. At the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club meeting, 163 Research Hall, George Mason University. 7 p.m. novac.com. ● March 20 — Listen to an astronomy talk at the University of Maryland observatory, followed by the real heavens through telescopes afterward, weather permitting. 8 p.m. astro.umd.edu/openhouse. ● March 21 — “The Vernal Equinox: The First Day of Spring,” a program at the Montgomery College Planetarium, Takoma Park. 7 p.m. goo.gl/q9iwrS.


Shani Davis says goodbye, maybe, quietly and on his terms

GANGNEUNG, South Korea — After a strong seventh-place showing in what will probably be his final Olympic race, at the end of his fifth Olympic Games, Shani Davis sneaked out the back. He skated well in his specialty, the 1,000-meter race in which he holds the world record, enough to consider the whole thing as going out on his terms. But Davis wouldn’t say a word. His Olympic career might be over, and he left it to everyone else to discuss it at the end. The International Olympic Committee requires athletes to pass reporters in the area called the mixed zone after their competition. Davis didn’t do that. When reporters asked to speak to a coach about the five-time Olympian, the coach declined on Davis’s behalf, according to U.S. Speedskating spokesman Matt Wheeler. Davis didn’t want to talk about Davis. He didn’t want anyone else to talk about him, either. But they will talk about him. They always have. Davis’s career could only have ended like this, in nuanced and convoluted controversy, with anyone who knows his story stuck somewhere between wondering how he could possibly decide against discussing his legacy and how he could ever see the benefit in discussing it at all. He answered questions about his Olympic credibility in 2002, when some wondered whether his teammates had thrown a qualifying race to get him to Salt Lake City. He defended his sportsmanship in Turin in 2006, when he wouldn’t race in the team pursuit and virtually guarantee the U.S. a medal — a decision he said he made to give other teammates a chance to compete, a decision teammates said he made to keep himself fresh. He answered similar questions about the team pursuit in Vancouver in 2010, when he wasn’t even eligible to race it. In Sochi in 2014, there were those pesky, stiff racing suits that Davis ripped as part of a broader indictment of U.S. speedskating. This month, he tweeted about the U.S. team’s selection of Erin Hamlin to bear the flag at the Opening Ceremonies instead of him — mostly about the fact that it reduced such an important decision to the flip of a coin. He sort of had a point. He’s almost always sort of had a point. He’s just never been able to convince everyone. Friday, he didn’t try. Davis hinted at retirement on his website in November, saying that,


Four more years? Olympians confront life after the Olympics.

gone the other way against the Canadians on Thursday, and the discussion of whether to go for it again would have carried a different tinge. But for so many of the stars of the Games here, the risks both are financial and personal. The Lamoureux sisters are both married, and starting a family is a real possibility. How would that affect training? Elana Meyers Taylor, now a three-time medalist in bobsled, has held down a job between training stints. The stipends in the more obscure sports can be paltry, not enough on which to live. Katie Uhlaender, who races in skeleton, just completed her fourth Olympics. She said when it was over that she had gone into debt to finance her career. That’s another way the hockey players have pushed forward. It is my strong belief that, whatever had happened in the gold medal game, these women are heroes because they took a stand — threatening to boycott the world championships, which were being held on American soil — to force USA Hockey to pay them a salary more in line with what the men make. That move bonded the players on this team more closely. But it also removes one element from their upcoming choice. “Now to make that decision is no longer a financial burden,” Lamoureux-Davidson said. “It’s a decision based on whether I have the passion and desire and skill-set to continue to play. . . . It means the world to us that we can make the decision based on our love for the game.” A word about love for the game: There’s another reason to try to extend the feeling Rooney’s save generated, the phenomenon that might be known as POD — post-Olympic depression. It is real, and it hits athletes from every sport of any gender from every nation. “Everything after it feels ‘bleh,’ ” Shiffrin said Friday. “. . . The hardest thing about the Olympics is the incredible emotional valley you feel after it: ‘What is my life meant for, now that the Olympics is over?’ That’s kind of what it feels like.” So hold on to that moment. Don’t take the medals from around your neck — not yet, anyway. There are decisions to be made about the future. Most of us won’t know who decided what for four more years. But the athletes, their commitment is all-encompassing and never-ending. barry.svrluga@washpost.com


Neurologists explain how Olympic athletes’ brains help them pull off those McTwists and triple Lutzes

as fast as possible without crossing the threshold of losing control. It’s somewhat related to the research he does at Hopkins’s Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute. “In our day-to-day lives, we make countless small unconscious decisions like this. In the Olympics . . . the stakes are much higher, the world is watching, but the processing going on in the brain is very similar. In these athletes, it has been honed to perfection to perform a particular skill.” No matter their physical ability, athletes need to be able to handle the intense pressure that comes with competition. And stress originates in the brain, where chemicals cause blood pressure to go up, and can trigger hyperventilation, said Judith Kupersmith, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine. So Olympic athletes need to learn how to handle that increased heart rate and other reactions that make it difficult to focus and perform as usual. “Some people are wired in such a way that they can deal with it more easily,” Kupersmith said. And some learn to control the emotions that come from those brain chemicals. She runs a clinic for people in the performing arts such as ballerinas and violinists to help them handle the pressure of performing. But competing is different than performing, she noted: In the Olympics, the fate of an athlete often hinges on a single moment, a tiny amount of time, and that increases the pressure enormously. With so much at stake, it’s easy to see why some athletes choke. Vikram Chib, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins, who studies how our brains process incentives and how that influences performance, sees potential parallels between the lab and the Olympics. In his research, when people are paid to do certain tasks, performance increases along with the incentive — until the reward gets too big. Then, researchers see the opposite effect. When the subjects see a potential $100 reward, a scan shows “their brain lights up: ‘I have $100 to gain.’ ” But when the subjects actually do the task, researchers see activity in another part of the brain. “The brain activity looks like they are thinking they have $100 to lose.” And performance deteriorates. So when a gold medal is at stake, Chib said, athletes who can keep their minds off the possibility of losing are those more likely to perform well — and win.


Trump administration unveils sanctions aimed at starving North Korea of resources

“on notice that this administration views compliance with U.S. and U.N. sanctions as a national security imperative. Those who trade with North Korea do so at their own peril.” Speaking beside Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump suggested that the United States might resort to military action if sanctions don’t work. “We’ll have to see,” Trump said. “I don’t think I’m going to exactly play that card. But we’ll have to see. If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go Phase Two. And Phase Two may be a very rough thing — it may be very, very unfortunate for the world. . . . If we can make a deal, it will be a great thing. And if we can’t, something will have to happen.” The announcement takes place as Ivanka Trump and a presidential delegation visit South Korea for the Closing Ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. Trump attended a dinner earlier Friday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Mnuchin said Trump was briefed on the U.S. move, and she discussed the sanctions with Moon before they were publicly announced. Moon said North Korea’s participation in the Olympics has “served as an opportunity for us to engage in active discussions between the two Koreas, and this has led to lowering of tensions on the peninsula and an improvement in inter-Korean relations.” “I also believe that such developments are thanks to President Trump’s strong support for inter-Korean dialogue, and I would like to express my deep appreciation on this point, as well,” Moon said. Another key element of the Trump administration’s strategy for confronting North Korea is building a more comprehensive regime of international sanctions. Speaking before the announcement, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, claimed success for the United States in steering three rounds of successively tighter international sanctions at the U.N. Security Council over the past year. Those penalties are more effective than any Washington can apply on its own, mostly because they involve North Korea’s major trading partner, China. “And even though North Korea has yet to end its nuclear and missile programs, we know the sanctions are having a real impact,” Haley said in an address to the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics. “The regime has less and less money to spend on its ballistic missile tests and less capacity to threaten other countries with those tests.” missy.ryan@washpost.com jenna.johnson@washpost.com peter.whoriskey@washpost.com


An exhausted — and relieved — Mirai Nagasu hopes to land on ‘Dancing with the Stars’

a complicated question of ownership. In professional sports, where the fans pay for tickets and tickets help pay the players, a certain level of commitment is expected. Those who remain “just happy to be here” soon become “recently unemployed.” But in figure skating, athletes pay to play, dedicate their lives to achieving their own goals, then suddenly find themselves beholden to public opinion. Who gets to decide how they approach the end? Do they owe anything to anyone but themselves? When Nagasu helped the United States earn a bronze medal in the team event, she decided that was enough. She brought that medal with her to the rink for her free skate Friday. She pulled it out for reporters after her skate, a strange twist in an interview most in attendance expected to be somber. “It’s been a long three weeks, and we got here, got to walk in the Opening Ceremonies, and then I saved the team event with Adam [Rippon] and the Shibutanis. We were about to lose our medal,” Nagasu said, holding up her medal. “So today, I put my medal in my pocket — here she is — and I said, ‘Mirai, you’ve done your job already. This is all just icing.’ ” Nagasu, 24, described going to bed at 8 p.m. night after night, then waking up at 4 a.m. morning after morning as her teammates in other events finished their competitions and let loose. She said she hadn’t taken a hot shower in weeks because “there are a lot of people on Team USA, and somehow I keep trying to take a shower when all the hot water is gone.” She said she missed her dogs. She talked about how, after medaling in the team event, she and her teammates “had so many other commitments.” “I’ve been crying every day since the team event because I was so happy, but then we had to keep training and training and training, and we’re just exhausted,” Nagasu said. “. . . Maybe it won’t be enough for another person, or maybe someone else could have done a better job. Although I got zero points in my attempt for the triple axel, in my mind I went for it.” But she didn’t go for it — neither the axel nor her absolute grittiest best. That decision, and her justification for it, felt incongruous to everything that came


Olympics Day 17: The PyeongChang Games close with a pair of historic silver medals

The Washington Post’s complete Olympics coverage can be found here. The 23rd Olympic Winter Games ended with a closing ceremonies dance party. Beijing 2022 is next (via the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, of course). This is the The Post’s final Olympics newsletter. It’s been an absolute pleasure to produce, and we hope you have enjoyed reading it, as well. The Olympics are long and we know your inbox is valuable real estate, so thank you very much for lending us a plot. Please send comments, suggestions or questions to olympics2018newsletter@washpost.com. Tell us what you liked, didn’t like or, if you feel so inclined, your dog’s favorite sport. Your feedback will help us shape any future iterations of our Olympics digest. In the meantime, here’s the latest from PyeongChang: The Cinderella teams had a tough day, with South Korea losing to Sweden in curling, and Germany losing to the Olympic Athletes from Russia in men’s hockey. After the hockey game, which went to overtime, the OAR team intentionally violated International Olympic Committee (IOC) sanctions by singing the Russian national anthem. Both Germany and South Korea, however, still walked away with historic silver medals. In addition to curling and hockey, the two countries collected hardware in the four-man bobsled, which saw one German sled win, and another tie South Korea for silver (both teams got the medal). There were no surprises atop the final Olympic event — the women’s 30-kilometer cross-country mass start. Norway’s Marit Bjoergen won gold and further solidified her position as the most decorated winter Olympian ever. The cross-country medals were awarded at the closing ceremonies, which were this morning. Afterward, PyeongChang passed the Olympic torch to Beijing, which will host the next Olympic Winter Games in 2022. See the “What To Watch” section for more on the closing ceremonies, which NBC will broadcast tonight in prime time (8 p.m.). Tara Lipinski, Johnny Weir and Terry Gannon will be the commentators. Cross-country skier Jessie Diggins will carry the American flag. Finally, be sure to watch as the world’s best will take the stage again next week, at the paralympics. A record number of events will be available, both on TV and streaming online. See NBCOlympics.com for details. The final medal standings seem pretty straight forward: Norway came out on top with a total of 39 medals (14 gold). Germany followed with a total of 31 and Canada was in


The high-speed ‘maglev’ promises many things, but at what cost?

Canadian provinces. The Northeast Corridor is the country’s largest and busiest rail corridor, carrying more than 750,000 passengers and 2,200 trains daily — including Amtrak, commuter and freight. (Amtrak owns most of the track in the Northeast Corridor, but shares it with eight commuter and four freight systems.) The railroad is planning upgrades to cut travel time and accommodate more passengers throughout its network. But modernizing the Northeast Corridor alone will require investments of $121 billion to $153 billion, according to an FRA report issued last summer. In the Baltimore-Washington region, Amtrak is pursuing $250 million in investments that include the expansion and modernization of Union Station, as well as track and platform upgrades between the two cities. “The plan to develop sufficient track capacity on the current corridor is set. It is not a question of whether it can be built. It is a question of needing to invest in it to make it happen,” said Amtrak Executive Vice President Stephen J. Gardner, who oversees Northeast Corridor infrastructure and investment development. Construction estimates for the maglev line, which would require carving out an entire new right of way, range between $10 billion and $12 billion for the 40-mile Washington-Baltimore stretch. Northeast Maglev and its sister company, Baltimore-Washington Rapid Rail — which would develop and operate the train — say they have secured financial commitments, including $5 billion from Japan. Company officials have said they also would seek federal loans or grants for the project. The FRA has narrowed down to two possible route alignments for the project as it moves forward in a federal review process to select a preferred route and construction process for the Washington-to-Baltimore leg. The federal government’s next step would be giving clearance for tunneling to begin as early as 2020 and operations in 2027. Extending the line to New York could take decades. Some Maryland officials say it doesn’t hurt to explore alternatives to Amtrak. “We have maxed out on what we can do with the Amtrak Northeast Corridor,” said Del. Robert L. Flanagan (R-Howard), a former Maryland transportation secretary. “There’s only so much you can do that is feasible and practical in improving the Amtrak rail line and technology. It is outdated. It is constrained.” Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn, who insists that the state won’t invest any tax dollars in the maglev project, said opening the door to new technologies can


IOC upholds Russian doping ban, keeping athletes from marching with flag

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — The International Olympic Committee on Sunday dealt Russia one final punishment at these Winter Games, upholding a ban on Russia’s Olympic federation and preventing the country’s athletes from marching in the Closing Ceremonies with their tricolor flag. Though the ruling squashed Russia’s short-term hopes, the IOC also opened the door for the country to quickly escape its sporting ostracism after the Games are over. If no additional Russian athletes fail doping tests — a process that will play out in the coming days — the penalties against the nation will be promptly lifted, IOC President Thomas Bach said. At a news conference, Bach said Russia squandered the chance to carry its flag in the Closing Ceremonies when two of its athletes, over the last two weeks, tested positive for banned substances. In the aftermath, pressure mounted on the IOC to maintain sanctions that were put in place nearly three months ago, the penalty for Russia’s long-running, nationwide doping operation. Those failed tests were “hugely disappointing,” Bach said. Russians have participated in these Games as neutral athletes, not as representatives of their own country. The participation of those 168 athletes was part of a compromise in which the IOC punished the Russian Olympic committee — charging it with a $15 million fine — but tried not to penalize those with no history of doping. In PyeongChang, the Russians wear plain uniforms that say, “Olympic Athlete from Russia.” They were not permitted to brandish the Russian flag, post about Russia on social media, nor complain publicly about the ban. If they won medals, they would hear not the Russian anthem, but the Olympic one. Though Russia’s men’s hockey team won a gold medal on Sunday, defeating Germany, Russia’s athletes have largely struggled at the Winter Olympics — claiming just 17 medals, two of them gold. At Sochi in 2014, Russia won 33 medals, most of any country, but more than a dozen of those medals have since been stripped for doping violations. The IOC said Sunday that Russia had largely followed the terms of its punishment — except for the additional doping violations. During these Olympics, Russians have accounted for two of the four positive doping tests. Athletes from Japan and Slovenia also tested positive. Alexander Krushelnitsky, competing in mixed doubles curling, tested positive for banned substance meldonium and returned his bronze medal. Then, bobsledder Nadezhda Sergeeva tested


Could a power-sharing arrangement end protests in Togo? It’s complicated.

used the power-sharing model widely in Africa in an effort to resolve violent conflicts including civil wars and post-election disputes. Indeed, by my count, during the 1999 to 2010 period alone, 20 African countries adopted power-sharing pacts. While scholars have focused on power-sharing after civil wars, much less attention is given to the power-sharing model in contexts of lower-intensity conflict, such as post-election accords in Kenya and Zimbabwe in 2008 and Togo in 2006. Togo’s mixed experience with power-sharing The same family has ruled Togo, a small, semi-authoritarian country of 7 million people in West Africa, for more than 50 years. Faure Gnassingbé (known in Togo as Faure) was installed as the president by the military in 2005 after his father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, died in office. Togo experimented with power-sharing more than a decade ago, with mixed results. After a bloody election left 500 dead, the Accord Politique Global (APG-Comprehensive Political Accord) was signed in 2006 and effectively came to an end in 2010. The power-sharing agreement included a broad array of reforms. In addition to a government of national unity (which the main opposition party boycotted) headed by a moderate opposition figure, the APG called for transparent legislative elections and an overhauled electoral commission, as well as other constitutional and security reforms. Largely due to the ruling party’s resistance and infighting among the opposition, the APG did not live up to expectations. A host of APG reforms went unimplemented, including constitutional reforms and the question of presidential term limits — an enduring issue that has driven the current protests over the past six months. That said, some political, electoral and security reforms outlined in the APG did pass, especially in the run-up to peaceful and credible legislative elections in 2007. A more representative electoral commission was formed. Special election security forces, trained by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), have overseen elections since the APG was signed. The current unrest notwithstanding, Togo has not seen a return to the high levels of deadly electoral violence that the country experienced before the APG was signed. Still, the current impasse threatens a return to Togo’s violent past, with an estimated 16 people having died in clashes between security forces and protesters. Lessons learned? Should Togo give power-sharing another chance? The 14-party opposition coalition may be reluctant to entertain the idea, given the APG’s mixed results. But if all parties


NFL players’ protests, Trump’s response both receive low marks in new poll

CBS News has released the results of a poll asking Americans what they think of both NFL players’ protests during the national anthem and President Trump’s response to them. Basically, the majority of the people polled wish that everyone would just stick to whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing. Respondents also said, by a 41 to 33 margin, that Trump is trying to distract the country from other issues his administration is facing with his denunciations of the protests. And in the least stunning news ever in these deeply fractured times, the poll results break down heavily along political and racial lines. — 50 percent of white respondents either strongly or somewhat approve of Trump’s recent comments about protesting NFL players. Conversely, 79 percent of black respondents either strongly or somewhat disapprove. — 72 percent of Republican respondents either strongly or somewhat approve of Trump’s comments. Among Democrats, 77 percent either strongly or somewhat disapprove of Trump’s comments. — Only 28 percent of white respondents strongly or somewhat approve of NFL players protesting police brutality and racial inequality during the playing of the national anthem. That number rises to 74 percent among black respondents. — Only 11 percent of Republican respondents strongly or somewhat approve of the protests. Conversely, 67 percent of Democrats strongly or somewhat approve of the protests. Given this schism, the Dallas Cowboys’ split-the-difference pregame actions Monday night — they knelt as a team before the anthem but stood up as it was performed — seems to be the path teams are going to follow as they attempt to court both sides of their fan bases. On Thursday morning, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees said his team will do exactly the same thing for Sunday morning’s game against the Miami Dolphins in London. The poll of 1,335 people who roughly reflected the racial and political makeup of the country as a whole was conducted for CBS by YouGov Sept. 26-28 and has an approximately 3.8 percent margin of error. Read more: Trump remains on the attack as Aaron Rodgers and the Packers ask fans to link arms ‘That was terrible’: Stephen Curry didn’t care for this week’s Sports Illustrated cover Ray Lewis said he was praying, not protesting, as he knelt for anthem ESPN’s Jemele Hill says tweets about Trump were, to her, ‘about right and wrong’


Military women need a voice in the #MeToo movement

said “You know [the chief] will never let you travel on assignment with another man.” I attempted to enroll in courses at the local community college, but my weather chief refused to let me switch shifts with a coworker so I could make it to class on time. I grew hopeless. I joined the military to travel and finish my education. I never expected to be wind up in a workplace I hated with zero freedom. Eventually I stopped caring and handled my resentment immaturely. I began to rebel. I did a number of foolish things that culminated in my separation from the military. When I was asked to re-enlist in exchange for a promotion because the station was understaffed, I emphatically refused. I longed to live the regular life of a college student in a dorm where I felt safe and my supervisor could not show up and try to force his way into my room if I did not show up for work (oh yeah, that happened too). I received a general discharge under honorable conditions. Deep down I felt relief, but I was sad I left the military because I let someone else get the best of me. For his part, my weather chief was transferred to a different duty station. The military has long been plagued by incidents of sexual assault and sexual harassment, yet people are not talking openly about it. When military members are sexually harassed and sexually violated, we have nowhere to turn. Our only recourse is report the abuse to our chain-of-command, complaining to the same people we know are friends with the perpetrators. The military justice system is set up to protect abusers, not victims that are often of lower-rank and without power. I never felt more powerless than when I was in the military. It took me years to recognize that it was an oppressive environment where I was destined to fail. It was wrong for me to be forewarned of my supervisor’s sexual proclivities and considered his de facto playmate because of his preference for black women. I had a right to report to work without feeling like prey. I had a right to block his advances and not be penalized for it. As it grows, the #MeToo Movement must shift its focus to the most marginalized victims, including those suppressed from speaking out against injustice in the military.


What did Trump know, and when did he know it?

made by George Papadopoulos, an adviser to the campaign, to an Australian diplomat in London that May. At that point, Papadopoulos had been in contact with Russia-linked individuals for months and was working to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said he was pushing for it during a meeting of Trump’s foreign policy advisory team meeting that the candidate attended on March 31, 2016 — though it’s not clear if Trump was in the room when Papadopoulos raised the subject. In late April, Papadopoulos’s main contact in London mentioned that the Russians had “dirt” on Clinton in the form of emails. Specifically, his contact told Papadopoulos that “they have dirt on her”; “the Russians had emails of Clinton”; “they have thousands of emails.” The next day, Papadopoulos emailed senior campaign adviser Stephen Miller and told him that he had “some interesting messages coming in from Moscow about a trip when the time is right.” Is that where it ended? Did Papadopoulos tell the campaign specifically about the stolen email messages? The next month, he told it to Australian High Commissioner to Great Britain Alexander Downer over drinks in London. Once the DNC leaks began, Australia tipped off the FBI about the conversation with Papadopoulos, and the investigation began. Is it likely that Papadopoulos told a foreign diplomat about what he had learned — but never told anyone else in the campaign? That never got back to Trump? Despite Trump saying that he believed the Russians to be in possession of Clinton emails — which the DNC leaks that were public on July 27 were not? At that point, remember, the campaign was being run by Paul Manafort, who himself had ties to the Russian leadership, thanks to his years of work for oligarch Oleg Deripaska and on behalf of former Ukraine president Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Putin’s. In June, Manafort was one of three campaign representatives to meet with a Kremlin-linked attorney named Natalia Veselnitskaya and a lobbyist named Rinat Akhmetshin who is rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence. The other two campaign attendees were son-in-law Jared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. — the latter of whom was told explicitly that the meeting was intended to share “dirt” on Clinton that would be provided by the Russian government as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr.’s response?


Target is opening two new stores in Washington

A decade after opening its first District store, Target is opening two small-format locations in the nation’s capital. The locations — one in Cleveland Park, the other in Ivy City’s Hecht District — will sell apparel, home decor, groceries and health and beauty products. Both will have CVS pharmacies and will offer in-store pick up for online orders, the company plans to announce Monday. The Cleveland Park store, to be located at the corner of Connecticut Avenue and Porter Street in the Sam’s Park and Shop shopping center, is expected to open next spring. At 24,700 square feet, the store will be significantly smaller than the Columbia Height store two miles away, which spans 180,000 square feet. The Target in Ivy City, meanwhile, will be at the corner of New York Avenue and 16th Street NE. The 67,000-square-foot store will also sell beer and wine and include a Starbucks. It is expected to open in fall 2020. “Target is expanding our offerings for the residents of our nation’s capital,” Mark Schindele, senior vice president of properties at Target, said in an email. “Located along well-known corridors, these two stores offer D.C. guests a convenient shopping trip for groceries, household items and a unique product assortment that only Target can provide.” Target, long synonymous with sprawling big-box stores, has shifted its focus in recent years to more compact locations in city centers, dense suburban neighborhoods and near college campuses. The Minneapolis-based retailer already has small-format stores in College Park, Rosslyn and Bethesda, as well as plans to open locations in Falls Church’s Tinner Hill (in March) and Ballston (in 2021). Each new location will have 50 to 100 employees, the company said. The news comes as Target doubles down on its efforts to compete with Walmart and Amazon.com by beefing up its grocery services and delivery capabilities. In December, it announced a $550 million plan to buy Shipt, a same-day delivery company that specializes in groceries. The retail giant also plans to offer same-day delivery from the majority of its stores by the end of the year. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, also owns The Washington Post.) “Target’s expansion in the District signals the strength of our market as we see retail entering neighborhoods that were once overlooked but are now prime locations,” District Mayor Muriel E. Bowser said. “This is no longer your grandfather’s D.C.


A new superbug requires urgent attention

WHEN TYPHOID fever broke out in Pakistan in late 2016, doctors noticed that many patients were not responding to an antibiotic, ceftriaxone, that had worked before. Now we know why. Scientists reported Feb. 20 that the organism that caused the illness, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, had become extensively resistant to antibiotics. This development should be another warning that the global threat of antimicrobial resistance remains real, and urgent. Typhoid fever is a major public-health menace in low- and middle-income countries ; it is often transmitted by contaminated water and causes an estimated 200,000 deaths a year. Prevention is best accomplished through vaccination, access to clean water and improved sanitation, but when the disease strikes, antibiotics are critical for treatment. Already, strains of the organism in Asia and Africa were resistant to some antibiotics, but so-called third- generation antibiotics, such as ceftriaxone, seemed to be working. Then came the outbreak. Three hundred thirty-nine isolates from patients in the Sindh region in southeastern Pakistan, including Karachi and Hyderabad, taken from November 2016 to September 2017, revealed that third-generation antibiotics were failing. Thankfully, a few of the more modern, fourth-generation antibiotics still worked. To understand how the resistance spread so quickly, scientists mapped the genetic blueprint of the organism. They found it had embraced a piece of genetic material, probably from another species, that conferred the ability to resist ceftriaxone. In essence, bacteria were trading instructions across species on how to fight antibiotics. It has long been known that bacteria can exchange genetic material like this, but the Pakistan study underscored how the process may be accelerating antibiotic resistance. The scientists say in their report, published in the journal mBio, that ceftriaxone “is no longer reliable in the region.” Antibiotics are a pillar of modern medicine and have saved lives for decades, but the rise of resistance threatens a back-to-the-future moment when small infections could become fatal, as they once were. This reckoning was postponed for a long time because a robust pipeline of new antibiotics was discovered and brought to market. But then the flow began to dry up. Antibiotics are often not as profitable as other drugs, making costly development less attractive for pharmaceutical companies. The Pew Charitable Trusts and the World Health Organization published analyses in December of the worldwide pipeline of products in clinical development with the potential to treat drug-resistant infections, and they called the findings “grim.” They


The real scandal at the EPA? It’s not keeping us safe.

this class would not persist or bioaccumulate (build up) in organisms and the environment. Carson’s research revealed the flaws in this thinking. Her introduction to the chemicals was as succinct as it was disturbing: “The second major group of insecticides, the alkyl, or organic phosphates, are among the most poisonous chemicals in the world.” She went on to describe a case in which two children died after repairing a swing with an empty bag that had contained parathion and another in which 65,000 blackbirds died after an ill-timed bout of spraying with that insecticide. Based on high toxicity and potential risk to humans and wildlife, it would stand to reason that the organophosphates would have been banned alongside DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons beginning in 1972. This did not occur. In fact, the ban on DDT increased their popularity among farmers still eager to protect their crops from insects. Organophosphates slipped through the regulatory net because they did not persist in the environment like DDT and the chlorinated hydrocarbons. U.S. farmers relied heavily on organophosphates until the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 required EPA reassessment. In 2001, the EPA banned many organophosphates, but not all: Four of these pesticides remained available for agricultural applications because they demonstrated the lowest toxicities in a class of highly toxic chemicals. Even the least toxic organophosphates carry serious risks, however. The recent National Marine Fisheries Service report showed that pesticides containing chlorpyrifos or malathion were likely to jeopardize nearly half of 77 species listed under the Endangered Species Act and “adversely modify” more than 60 percent of designated critical habitats. Other related pesticides had similar effects. In 2016, under the headline “Like it’s been nuked,” The Washington Post reported widespread deaths of bees after South Carolina sprayed naled for Zika mosquitoes. And risks are not confined to wildlife and ecosystems. In 2017, a team of American and Chinese researchers found an association between prenatal exposure to two of these pesticides and deficits in infant motor function in a cohort of Chinese infants. In light of the historical legacy of the highly toxic organophosphates and recent findings showing significant risks to wildlife and humans, this is not the time for the EPA to reduce penalties or relax regulations that prohibit children under 18 from using these and other restricted-use pesticides. A more prudent course of action would be to ban the organophosphate insecticides altogether.


After 2016 rocket explosion, Elon Musk’s SpaceX looked seriously at sabotage

His rocket had blown up into a spectacular fireball. The Cape Canaveral launchpad that SpaceX had essentially built from scratch was now in ashes. And Elon Musk was dumbfounded. A week after the explosion in September 2016, with still no idea what caused the rocket to suddenly explode while being fueled ahead of an engine test, Musk vented on Twitter that the loss of the rocket was “turning out to be the most difficult and complex failure we have ever had in 14 years.” On the Internet, where conspiracy theories were already percolating, some speculated that the “something else” was a projectile, maybe even a bullet or UFO. On Twitter, Musk was asked about the possibility of something hitting the rocket, and he fueled speculation even further by saying, “We have not ruled that out.” Although they didn’t say so publicly at the time, SpaceX investigators were looking seriously at sabotage, Musk and SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in their most extensive public comments since the explosion. “We literally thought someone had shot the rocket,” Musk said in an interview last summer at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. “We found things that looked like bullet holes, and we calculated that someone with a high-powered rifle, if they had shot the rocket in the right location, the exact same thing would have happened.” If someone did shoot the rocket, SpaceX knew it needed to collect whatever evidence it could as fast as possible. “So for sure, we put pressure on the Air Force and the [Federal Aviation Administration] to go collect whatever forensic data was possible,” Shotwell said. “The first thing you do is think it’s some outside force, right. Because we couldn’t figure out how in the world this could have happened.” Early indications were that something caused an upper-stage helium bottle to explode, and at the SpaceX test site in McGregor, Tex., engineers were trying to replicate the explosion. But “we were having a hard time blowing these bottles up,” she said. So, instead, they got a rifle, “and we shot it,” Shotwell said. “And the signature on the bottle was just like the signature on the bottle that we recovered. That was an easy test to do. It’s Texas, right, everybody’s got a gun and you can blow stuff up.” But who would want to? About two weeks after the explosion, a SpaceX employee suddenly appeared at a


For 16 days, PyeongChang Games turned all of us into one unified team

Games’ closest and most dramatic competitions in the men’s snowboarding halfpipe final, then embrace, and in recognition of how they all pushed each other to greatness, say the same words at once: “Thank you.” It’s a place where Japanese speedskater Nao Kodaira can win the 500-meter final, become the first woman from her country to win Olympic speedskating gold and then share the moment with Korean silver medalist Lee Sang-hwa. They hugged. They shared flags. It became a touching moment that the home-biased crowd at Gangneung Oval could cheer as if Korea had won. Asked afterward why she chose to engage Lee, Kodaira said: “Sport can make the world one together. It’s simple.” There were plenty of more memorable athletic feats, provided by bigger stars who will never be forgotten. There were also embarrassing moments, including more Russian doping drama. But overall, the PyeongChang Games were triumphant. The organizers’ optimism came to life. “Sport cannot lead the policy in the political area, but we are aiming for a Peace Olympic Games,” declared Lee Hee-beom, the president of the 2018 PyeongChang organizing committee, before these Olympics. At a time of great pessimism about the world, a time of heightened concern about nuclear warfare, it was nice to live in this aspirational bubble for more than two weeks. And now we return to the real world, where the problems remain and the resolutions are, at best, a work in progress. I wish we weren’t about to exit this bubble. I wish the bubble wouldn’t burst as soon as we leave. But the hope of the PyeongChang Games will continue to exist. They will be examples that can be referred to for weeks, months and years to come. Sports can only do so much, but there’s always hope. And hope is a most powerful thing. The enduring image of these Olympics occurred during the Opening Ceremonies when the two Korean hockey players, one from the North and one from the South, ran up those bright and glowing steps, torch in their hands. They barely had time to practice, but they had to find a rhythm. They couldn’t drop it en route to delivering it to figure skater Kim Yu-na. They didn’t drop it, and that’s the message: When you trust in humanity, the humans teach us about grace. Perhaps more of us will learn to run in sync without dropping the torch. jerry.brewer@washpost.com


Can a nonprofit grocer succeed in a Prince George’s city that Safeway left?

Prince George’s County and the city of Seat Pleasant are using tax incentives and loans to recruit a nonprofit grocer they hope will eliminate a food desert in the small municipality along the D.C. border. The planned opening of Good Food Markets in Seat Pleasant this fall will serve as a “test case” for how Prince George’s can attract affordable, healthful stores to inside-the-Beltway communities that have seen Safeways and other supermarkets shutter in recent years. If Good Food, which launched its first and only store three years ago in Northeast Washington, is successful, county officials say they will try to use similar economic incentives to lure other grocers to remaining underserved areas. “I’m going to be looking for the next opportunity to do this quickly,” said Larry Hentz, a business development specialist with the Prince George’s Economic Development Corp. Good Food promises to be actively engaged with its host communities, hiring locally, promoting workforce training and getting students involved in urban agriculture. Those who run it are “completely happy with a break-even model” and understand that in some years there will be losses, said Philip Sambol, executive director of Oasis Community Partners, which operates Good Food. “It’s what social enterprise is,” Sambol said. “We’re automatically looking at areas that have been written off by the traditional grocery store model.” The grocery gap Prince George’s has had some highly publicized successes in attracting quality grocers to more affluent communities, including the opening of a Wegmans in Lanham and the launch of a 40,000-square-foot Whole Foods in Riverdale Park. County Executive Rushern L. Baker III celebrated the latter as “the realization that the county is competitive with the region” — proof that Prince George’s, the most affluent majority-African American jurisdiction in the United States, was no longer an afterthought for big-name chains and businesses. But residents in the poorest areas of the county have watched a different story unfold. Five Safeways inside the Beltway have closed since 2010, leaving the county’s most densely populated areas with just one location, which opened in Hyattsville in 2016. There are eight Safeways outside the Beltway in Prince George’s, which has a population of nearly 1 million and is Maryland’s second-largest jurisdiction. When Seat Pleasant’s Safeway closed in the summer of 2016, the community was in “an uproar,” said longtime resident Jacqueline Battle, 61, who has congestive heart failure and now mostly relies on rides


‘Cloud seeding’ may make it snow, but will it reduce droughts in the West?

rainfall in his area, rather than increasing it. He’s organizing local farmers in a campaign against the practice. A 20th-century technology Cloud seeding machines generate smoke that floats into the air like incense. Some state programs rely on ground-based machines. Others use airplanes to drop flares that generate silver iodide smoke into clouds, or to fly into a storm with flares strapped to their wings. The recent study, which was conducted in Idaho and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was the first to show real-world observations of silver iodide forming ice crystals inside clouds and falling out as snow. Such research has increased interest in cloud seeding, particularly among private companies and utilities, said Neil Brackin, president of Weather Modification, a North Dakota company that does cloud seeding. Other recent studies have used computer modeling to estimate the increase in snowfall from cloud seeding. A 2014 study across two Wyoming mountain ranges found that cloud seeding could increase snowfall by 5 to 15 percent — but only when the right conditions for seeding were met, or during 30 percent of snow events. Relatively small increases still matter. “People in the western United States — we’re always water-stressed out here,” said Frank McDonough, an atmospheric scientist in Nevada who oversees the cloud seeding program at the Desert Research Institute, part of the state university system. Along the Colorado River, more water is promised to people than is available. Nevada’s cloud seeding program can increase the snowpack by up to 10 percent, McDonough said. That translates into 80,000 more acre-feet a year of water, enough to sustain about 150,000 households. Still, he said, cloud seeding programs are difficult to evaluate. “Ten percent of additional snowfall is within the natural variation of storms.” Idaho Power, which serves customers in Idaho and Oregon, has been using cloud seeding to boost the volume of water moving through its hydroelectric dams since 2003. The company’s representatives say the $3 million seeding program they oversee — which is partly funded by the state and other water users — generates billions of gallons of additional water for much less than 1 percent of the company’s operational budget. Still, Busto warns that cloud seeding isn’t a cure for drought. Take this winter, which has been too warm and too dry for seeding. “We have not been able to run our cloud seeding machines because


Some reasons not to rush into open-heart surgery

Consumer Reports has no financial relationship with any advertisers on this site. Heart disease sometimes erupts as a full-blown emergency with sudden, crushing chest pain. That’s when immediate intervention to restore blood flow to the heart can be lifesaving. But in many situations, the path to aggressive care moves faster than called for, which can lead to overtreatment, worse outcomes and complications, says William Boden, a professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine. When treating heart disease, he says, “there are many clinical instances when less is more.” Boden and other experts suggest that when it’s not an emergency, consumers take time to do research so they can make informed decisions. That involves talking with doctors about such things as whether an expensive imaging test is needed and which hospital to choose for open-heart surgery. And if you feel rushed into making a decision, “ask for a second opinion,” Boden says. Here are the key questions to ask along the way: Do I really need that test? The heart disease treatment odyssey often starts on a treadmill in a doctor’s office, as part of an exercise stress test. That test can be essential if you have symptoms that indicate heart disease, such as chest pain while exercising, or if you’re at high risk of a heart attack. But some doctors include exercise stress tests as part of routine checkups, or as a safety check in people before certain surgeries. Experts we spoke with said that’s generally not a good idea, in part because for people without heart disease symptoms, the test is often more likely to reveal a harmless abnormality than to identify a real problem. So if you feel fine and are at low risk, ask why a stress test is necessary, says Marvin M. Lipman, Consumer Reports’ chief medical adviser. “If you don’t get a satisfactory answer, politely decline it or ask for a second opinion,” he says. Are drugs or stents better? If you undergo a stress test and it has abnormal or uncertain results, your doctor will probably refer you to a catheterization laboratory for more tests. That’s where the cascade of procedures often speeds up. In that lab, a physician first performs coronary angiography, which involves threading a thin tube into an artery and injecting a dye so that narrowing shows up on an X-ray. But patients are sometimes asked to sign


Legal pot on the one hand, opioid crisis on the other. What’s a DARE officer to do?

WEST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. — The class had covered bullying, Internet safety and good decision-making, and by February, Officer Thaxter could see that the sixth-graders were ready. The morning bell rang. The 11- and 12-year-olds scooted their chairs closer to their desks, looking up at a dry-erase board where their teacher had written the agenda for the day: “D.A.R.E.” The lights went off, and the projector went on. “Today,” Officer Thaxter said, “we’re going to talk about marijuana.” For 16 years, every elementary school student in this small town in Massachusetts has learned about drugs from Kenneth Thaxter. But this year, his lesson needed to change, and he was about to find out whether the students knew why. “What do you know about marijuana?” he asked. “It’s a drug,” said a boy named Jack. “There are different names for it,” said Cassidy. “There is medical and legal,” said Luke. “It could actually save your life,” said Chelsea. “Okay, very good,” Thaxter said, and he began to explain. Massachusetts had become one of eight states to legalize recreational marijuana, and in just a few months, anyone over 21 would be able to purchase it at dispensaries nearby. This, he thought, was a confusing message to send to kids. They’d grown up knowing that drugs are bad. Now they were hearing from older siblings and maybe even their parents that weed is just a plant, and plants are good. It was up to Thaxter to convince them not to try it. “People get high. That’s the reason people like to smoke, because they get a feeling of euphoria. That is what is reported to me — I don’t smoke,” he told the class. “But there’s also a bunch of other short-term effects.” He pointed to a list on the screen. Difficulty concentrating. Trouble problem-solving. Loss of coordination and motor skills. “You would get bad grades,” said a student named James. “Very good,” Thaxter said. “You guys know Mrs. Wenzel’s science class is no joke. If you’re not paying attention, you’re going to miss out.” It was exactly the kind of lesson that DARE has officially distanced itself from. The police-run program on “Drug Abuse Resistance Education” was seemingly everywhere in the 1980s and ’90s. Then multiple studies showed that it did nothing to stop kids from doing drugs. In the 2000s, states slashed it from their budgets. It revamped its curriculum to focus


One day, a serious athlete couldn’t walk straight. Doctors were stumped.

parts of the brain that govern movement. In people with this disorder, involuntary muscle contractions or uncontrolled movements develop without warning. Writers can develop it (in which case it’s called writer’s cramp), as can people playing a musical instrument such as piano or guitar (musician’s dystonia) and those engaged in sports, including running (where it’s known as repetitive exercise dystonia, or runners’ dystonia). “You’ll probably never see this,” Jowers remembers the instructor telling the class, “but just in case, keep it in the back of your mind.” The disorder is rare, affecting an estimated 7 to 69 people out of a million. Approximately 1 percent of musicians suffer from dystonia severe enough to impair their performance, among them virtuoso pianists Leon Fleischer and the late Glenn Gould. A recent study of repetitive exercise dystonia found that it is often misdiagnosed as an orthopedic or even a psychological problem. In November, Justine Galloway, a 28-year-old with runner’s dystonia, completed the New York City Marathon in just over six hours by running backward, which seems to allow her brain to fire properly. The disorder is not curable. Treatments, which include Botox injections and levodopa, a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease, have been found to ease the problem. During their second meeting, Jowers told Hsiung that he suspected the disorder might be causing her foot problem and suggested that she consult a neurologist. A few months later, after Hsiung consulted a dystonia specialist in Manhattan, the diagnosis Jowers suspected was confirmed. “It was a relief to finally have a name for this,” Hsiung said, “but I couldn’t fix it.” She began taking levodopa, which has helped normalize her walk. Hsiung also discovered that walking on uneven terrain, such as a hiking path, is much easier than walking in a mall. Hsiung’s two-year ordeal, and her intense frustration with the many doctors who showed little interest in resolving her problem, spurred her to make a life change. In 2014, she left a 28-year career selling legal software and enrolled in a 2½ -year program at Montgomery College, where she earned a degree as a physical therapy assistant. Hsiung said she was drawn to the profession by the sports-related injuries she sustained over the years and by her experience with Jowers, whom she described as “the only one who was willing to take the time to figure out what was wrong.” For the past


Transcript: The Washington Post Hosts Reporters Without Borders 2017 World Press Freedom Index

single time a journalist is attacked or killed because they’ve done their job. But if you look at the successes as well, including just in the last two or three months in the United States, an extraordinary flowering of investigative journalism that has absolutely tied the hands of President Trump in a number of areas and changed his policies and his personnel. If you look at the Michael Flynn case. I was a little bit more pessimistic three months ago about whether the traditional methods of journalism can work in the kind of political climate that we have. I’m more optimistic today that they can. Priest: And just to stay on that optimistic note for a minute. You had mentioned corruption and strengthening laws against corruption and transparency. If you want to look at a great illustration of what the power of journalism can do, go to OCCRP. I’m not going to spell it out right now but they are a foundation-funded organization that has done amazing work on corruption in Eastern Europe, the caucuses and elsewhere. And so we’re trying to also come with the positive things here and I think again, journalists are so resilient they figure out ways around obstacles and we had a couple more questions. Yes, over here. Flintoff: My name is Corey Flintoff. I’m a former correspondent for NPR in Russia and my question is to Zaina and Erol. To what extent do you think these autocratic regimes are sharing techniques for surveillance and hacking against journalists and specifically, do you have a sense of whether Russia is sharing its techniques and doing training for the regimes in Syria and Turkey? Erhaim: About the Syria part, it’s confirmed that—well, first, they have moved underground. They own the sky. So definitely, they’re running the electronic system of the regime and they’re helping it a lot in the digital phase. Even before starting the invasion of Syria, we knew then that they are providing this experience in the technology and they created this electronic army that was attacking mainly Syrian journalists who were working inside Syria and outside. So with the Russians, they’re definitely very much involved in the Syrian context and they’re helping the regime a lot to attack all of us. Like physically and digitally and mentally, in all ways. Onderoglu: I’m not an expert in this field but I think that Russia is


Transcript: CEO Series with Brian Moynihan

it I’d leave to the world at large to discuss. But the reality is you have to be secure, you have to be safe, the trust that we have in our—our capabilities, the—the—the devices and, whether it’s mobile phones or tablets or other types of device—devices used to access are so different, even a phone system is—they’d allow us to operate in a way that the customer gets tremendous service and capabilities. But they have to feel its secure and that’s what we drive on [ph]. So we spend, you know, a fair amount of money on this and it grows. It’s probably tripled over the last eight, 10 years. , I don’t ask those people to—you know, if they need to spend the money, they just keep spending it. They’ve done a great job but one of the things that has happened is the cooperation among the industry is tremendous. So we have a couple of different initiatives. One called FSARC. F-S-I-A-C. F-S-S-I-A-C, whatever it’s called. You know, these are industry groups where we share information along with the government and the key of this is actually have instantaneous information transferred to cure the problem and just keep—and have that happen in real-time. And I would say with the Obama Administration, with the Trump Administration, and with the Bush Administration before, you know, there is—there is a common goal to do this. The question of coordinating it all gets tricky but we, as the large institutions, have been driving to get better and better coordination among us and with the defense base and inside the government, the NSA and stuff, to allow us to be able to operate better and give that to the rest of the industry, honestly. And because at the end of the day, if you total what we spend as the eight large institutions through the—that are on the Financial Services For, it is a lot of money on this and we’re going to try to get more efficient on how we do it but more importantly, we’re trying to make sure everybody gets the same information. And they’re seeing those benefits come out every single year. They get better every single week. They get better every single month. Paletta: So the idea is that if one bank sees digital fingerprints from an adversary you share that with the other guys and say, “Hey, you


applied, which is a very draconian situation. Because actually— Paletta: But is it capital or is it liquidity, right? Moynihan: And we have more liquidity and we have a resolution planned and so what you’ve done is gone after the issues that were ahead. So if you look at it, the real issue that happened in 2006 when house prices quit going up—and that’s when the crisis started; it wasn’t 2008 when it started—was that all of the companies, not FDIC-insured, the deposit-taking business started really having trouble and the funding sources were cut off. All of those companies are now under the brella pretty much. Now, it’s starting to creep back out with shadow banking and other types of providers. But if you look at whether Merrill Lynch at the time, they weren’t in the brella. Look at Bear Stearns. Look at Countrywide. Look at, you know, Century. Look at whoever— M3: WaMu was, IndyMac was. There were some good ones. Moynihan: And they were resolved like they—but a top-10 bank has been resolved in every crisis in the United States and it never caused a ripple. Because the stability of the system does it and resolves it and comes out. So WaMu was resolved but the problem was there was no resolution capabilities to figure out what to do with some of these other institutions. And that was the problem. They’re under the tent now. So between liquidity, the capital, the insurance fund buildup, the resolution, the pre—you know, the pre-filing. Just give all the living will plans that says you can re-liquidate it. But the real point—two points to make. One is if you look at the stress test we run every quarter but they publish— we publish twice a year. Ones the fed stuff and the other we publish off cycle as our own. And you look at the losses and stuff. You look at what’s happened is the losses and stuff have been managed down in these industry platforms to be—we did not lose money in ‘09, ‘10, ‘11, ‘12. We actually made money. We had $200 billion of costs without any preparation for it. Think about that. Now, it was not good for our shareholders and we had to issue a lot of shares in ‘08 and ‘09 to build the capital up and then we had to issue shares to bring the capital


Mattress start-up Casper is opening its first store — with complimentary naps

Online mattress start-up Casper is opening its first permanent store, a 3,000-square-foot location in New York, where shoppers are invited to not only look at the company’s mattresses, pillows and bedding, but also to use them. Dozing off is encouraged, executives say. The start-up, founded four years ago out of a one-bedroom apartment in New York, has grown into a $300-million-a-year business. Philip Krim, one of five co-founders, says it began with a simple premise: Mattress shopping was a terrible experience. The industry had long been dominated by a handful of big companies, he said, and many people hated traditional showrooms, where dozens of mattresses were lined up side by side under bright lights. He and his co-founders set out to create a different kind of experience — one where shoppers could pick out a mattress online and have it delivered to their front doors free of charge. Not happy with it after 100 nights? Casper promised to haul away the mattress at no extra cost. “Before we started this company, the idea of sleeping on your mattress before you bought it just didn’t exist,” Krim said. “This was a stagnant industry.” The approach worked: The company racked up $1 million in revenue in its first four weeks. In 2015, its first full year, sales topped $100 million. Casper mattresses are now also sold at Target stores. The company’s success has given way to a number of other online mattress start-ups, including Leesa, Tuft & Needle, Helix Sleep and Pangeabed. Even Walmart is jumping in: Allswell, a premium mattress and bedding brand targeted to affluent online shoppers, is scheduled to launch next week. The basic premise of the companies is the same: Buy a mattress online and try it for 100 nights. If you don’t like it, they’ll give you a full refund. (In most cases, returned mattresses are donated to charity.) But back in 2014, it wasn’t necessarily an easy sell. Shoppers weren’t accustomed to spending hundreds on a mattress they’d never seen or touched. Krim said he knew it’d be a challenge to get people to buy mattresses sight-unseen, but what he didn’t expect was a steady stream of shoppers who stopped by Casper’s office, a one-bedroom New York City apartment, to test out the company’s wares. “On day one, we had someone knock on our door and say, ‘I’m here to try out the mattress,’ ” Krim


Spring is running 20 days early. It’s exactly what we expect, but it’s not good.

of development, which happens earlier when winter is warm and spring is early, they are extremely fragile and susceptible to freezing temperatures. If, say, half of the plant’s blossoms are killed off by a freeze, it essentially cuts the plant’s productivity by half. Limits to growth because of lack of sunlight in early fall Longer summer temperatures will keep the environment hospitable for crops, but they need sunlight first and foremost. As the sun angle decreases in the fall, plants lose the light necessary for photosynthesis. Plants need winter to thrive It sounds counterintuitive, but they basically need a break. They need a period of time each year to turn off and conserve energy. Shorter winters puts a lot of stress on plants that are not acclimated to the new climate we have thrust them into. Each plant evolved specifically for a known climate — when, on average, growing season started and ended at certain times. In those conditions, they can shut down their metabolic processes and enter dormancy before the harsh conditions begin. Plants use the steady decrease in temperature in the fall to predict that winter is coming, so they know to go dormant. In an uncertain climate, plants are sometimes forced into dormancy. Instead of being able to predict when winter will arrive, it shows up without warning in the form of a hard freeze while the plant is still happily metabolizing and doing its thing. It is kind of like shutting off a computer — there is a process, and it is not good for the system if you simply pull the plug out of the wall. They literally run out of water A longer growing season does not necessarily mean there are enough resources for the plant to survive that whole time. It means they need water over a longer period, and we know that — in this new climate — water is often hard to come by. Whether by natural drought or our own depletion of water resources, the plants are getting less and less. Climate scientists and biologists are cautious about saying they do not know exactly how plant production will change in the future. Given that we have not been through this kind of change before, it is hard to say with certainty whether productivity will continue to decline. Risk management would suggest we should not bank on a comeback anytime soon.


Packed with 9/11 hindsight, ‘The Looming Tower’ looms a lot

Every moment of this limited series looms, and looms heavily, and in case you still don’t get it, an early scene depicts “The Looming Tower’s” star — Jeff Daniels as the head of an New York-based FBI counterterrorism squad — passing in front of the still-standing twin towers of the World Trade Center. Watching it is an exercise in the inexorable. Which means, as a TV show, that “The Looming Tower” is deliberately short on “Homeland”-style tension that builds toward an explosive outcome, since we already know exactly what explosive outcome awaits. It’s also missing “Homeland’s” constant desperation to give viewers their next adrenaline fix, which might come as a relief to those who like their TV shows about how intelligence informs policy to be as serious as possible without being a documentary. (I mean, have you been watching “Homeland” this season? With Carrie once more undermedicated and Saul trying to reason with redneck revolutionaries, while the inept President What’s-Her-Face has a slow-motion meltdown? Is it brilliantly prescient or beyond repair?) In contrast, “The Looming Tower,” whose executive producers include documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney (“Going Clear,” “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”) and Dan Futterman (“Capote’), is a quietly methodical affair that homes in on the counterproductive rivalries between American intelligence offices as they urge different responses to increasingly ambitious and sophisticated terrorists. Daniels plays John O’Neill, whose FBI team goes after bad guys in the field, usually in response to attacks, such as the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, which preoccupies much of the first three (of 10) episodes, which are available starting Wednesday (with new episodes following weekly). O’Neill’s nemesis is a CIA analyst named Martin Schmidt (Peter Sarsgaard, playing a composite character fashioned from Wright’s book), who argues for preemptive bombing strikes on suspected al-Qaeda hideaways, based on intelligence he and his all-female staff collect and decipher at Langley. The sneering disdain between O’Neill and Schmidt is bluntly portrayed — almost too bluntly — and refereed by ambivalent Clinton-era officials, some played by familiar faces, such as Alec Baldwin as CIA Director George Tenet and Michael Stuhlbarg as National Security Council adviser Richard A. Clarke. Schmidt already views the effort against bin Laden and his network as a war, while O’Neill views it as a matter of bringing criminals to trial. When the CIA traces a phone signal to what they believe is


Man charged in fatal stabbing of 71-year-old Northwest D.C. resident

a man Tuesday and charged him in the fatal stabbing of a 71-year-old man this month inside the victim’s third-floor apartment in Northwest Washington. Edward Brown, 55, of Northwest Washington was charged with first-degree murder while armed. He could make his initial appearance Wednesday in D.C. Superior Court. The victim, Michael Mahoney, was found dead the morning of Feb. 5 in the Garfield Terrace apartments in the 2300 block of 11th Street NW, west of Howard University. Police said he had been stabbed in the neck. Authorities did not discuss a possible motive, though additional details will be made public once Brown appears in court. A friend of Mahoney said the older man had known Brown years ago and that Mahoney had let Brown stay the weekend in his apartment. That friend, Thomas Crenshaw, 69, also lives in Garfield Terrace, though on a different floor than Mahoney. He said Mahoney had introduced him to Brown on Feb. 2. Crenshaw said he grew concerned when he could not reach Mahoney the following day or Sunday, Feb. 4, the day of the Super Bowl. Crenshaw said that when he could not contact his friend Monday, he asked the apartment manager to open the door and check. The manager found the body and called authorities. A search warrant application filed by police said Mahoney was found dead on the floor of his bedroom. The bedroom door was slightly ajar, and loud music was playing on a radio in the living room. The warrant application said a blue storage bin had been emptied onto the bed, where Mahoney’s wallet was found. Police did not say in the court documents whether anything was missing. A service for Mahoney was handled by Cedar Hill Funeral Home in Suitland, Md. His family members could not be immediately found for comment. “Mike was a very kindhearted person,” Crenshaw said, noting that they often sat together and talked “about how the day was going. We talked about everything from characters on TV to what’s happening with some of the shows.” Crenshaw, a retired electrician, said Mahoney — who enjoyed rhythm and blues and at one point worked for the D.C. government — had lived in the apartment building about five years and had an ex-wife and children. He could not recall his precise job. “He just liked to sit back and relax,” Crenshaw said, “and listen to music.” peter.hermann@washpost.com


Is ‘seed to table’ the next big food trend? One top chef hopes so.

develop new varieties driven by flavor and nutrition that have a chance to make it in the wider marketplace. Such collaborations have occurred before — think of the work by Charleston chef Sean Brock and Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills to locate long-lost Southern seeds — but this venture takes that movement a step further. Breeders will use traditional techniques to marry the flavor of heirlooms with the vigor of modern plant varieties. Think of it, a company slide-deck says, as seed to table. The seeds also will be bred to perform well in organic farming systems, where agrochemicals can’t be applied. In this age of widely privatized seed, these selections will be available for others to improve upon as farmers have done since the dawn of agriculture. In the conventional food chain, breeding is “built around three things: yield, uniformity and shelf life. Those are the determining factors,” Barber said. “There’s breeding going on, but the question is, who’s at the table and what are they asking for? What’s the intention? Without chefs at the table you’re not asking for flavor, which is ironic because chefs curate for flavor every day.” Barber has enlisted more than 50 top chefs in the United States and overseas to join, including Jean-Georges Vongerichten in New York, Renee Erickson in Seattle and Anne Quatrano in Atlanta. In the Mid-Atlantic, Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen in Baltimore and A Rake’s Progress in the District has signed up, too. Gjerde said he was interested because for the past decade he has visited with farmers, paging through seed catalogues around kitchen tables to discuss what they might grow. But in that time, he has never talked with a seed breeder about what might be possible. “For me it kind of restarts a conversation that has trailed off — a conversation about what can and should be grown in a region like ours,” Gjerde said. His dream is a locally grown potato that can be stored for months, because supplies get thin this time of year. When he mentioned it to Barber, his reply was, “Let’s work on that.” The first chapter in this trajectory to recapture flavor began with heirloom vegetables, such as the Brandywine tomatoes you find every summer at farmers markets. For the most part, supermarket tomatoes are bred to withstand trucking from Florida, Mexico or Canada and can’t match locally grown varieties. But


Trump has long vowed to slash government. Now the knives are finally coming out.

1994 has offered business development counseling and job training for rural Americans. And the U.S. Geological Survey aims to end its whooping crane restoration program, which over half a century has helped save the species. Some cranes have already been shipped to nonfederal facilities. Until now, the administration has been largely prevented from making such moves because the government has been operating under a series of continuing budget resolutions. Those generally require agencies to maintain funding for existing programs. “The executive branch can’t just say, ‘We’re going to close down this part of government that has appropriated dollars,’ ” said Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Budget. The ground is about to shift, however. Having cut a deal earlier this month to increase agency spending over the next two years, lawmakers expect in March to approve formal appropriations bills that will allow them to re-order agency priorities. Once the legislation passes, a House Appropriations Committee aide confirmed Friday, USGS will be able to shutter both the crane program and the Biological Survey Unit. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who met with House Republicans this month to discuss the restructuring efforts, said in an interview that he believes President Trump and his allies in Congress are prepared to fundamentally change the way government operates. “A simple battle cry is that we need to move at the pace of technology, not the pace of bureaucracy,” Gingrich said. “And for every place that moves at the pace of bureaucracy, we need to overhaul it.” In that sense, the Biological Survey Unit would appear to be a ripe target. Established in 1885 as the economic ornithology branch of the Agriculture Department, it set out to survey, study and catalogue plants and animals across the United States with an eye to helping the agriculture and industry sectors. Today the office has an annual budget of about $1.6 million and six researchers, who help maintain nearly a million bird, reptile and mammal specimens, which are kept in climate-controlled vaults at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Those opposed to the bureau’s termination say closing it would impede public access to an important collection that reveals changes in the variety and distribution of species across North America, as well as shifts in climate, habitat and contaminant levels over time. DNA samples kept there continue to shed light on how myriad


Trump’s personal pilot to head the FAA? It’s the latest sign norms are breaking down.

Axios has reported So what makes Dunkin suitable for the position of ensuring the safety of the American aviation system? Well, one thing leaps out immediately. He has served as Trump’s personal pilot for more than two decades. As for his other qualifications, well, as one supporter told Axios: According to Axios, Dunkin told Trump that if a pilot was in charge of the FAA, flight delays would not happen. Have you stopped laughing yet? I hope so. Because this is serious stuff. It might seem like a yet another bit of Trump nonsense and craziness, but the Dunkin saga highlights how the current administration is breaking down traditional norms of American governance on multiple fronts. Whether it’s ludicrously inappropriate presidential appointments, flouting of long-held governance customs or stuff that reeks of self-dealing, it seems as though there is a new example almost every day. After all, the news of the possible Dunkin appointment comes mere days after CNBC reported that the Republican National Committee is paying rent to the tune of $37,000 a month for space for Trump’s 2020 campaign. The location? New York’s Trump Tower. (And making sure no politician’s family is left behind, the RNC is also paying the approximately $12,000 monthly salary of the Trump campaign’s deputy executive director, Mike Pence’s nephew John Pence.) This, apparently, is not illegal. “This is permissible and it’s being reported properly,” as Brendan Fischer of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center told CNBC. It is, however, concerning. As CNBC reports, the payments began shortly after public pressure forced the RNC to cease paying for the legal advice Trump was receiving related to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation. All of these things, seemingly unrelated, add up to a whole. We have a president who is so unconcerned with even the appearance of traditional ethics that all his administration’s erosions of professional norms are bleeding into one another. The result? Each brings a day or so of outrage, which subsides, but then they continue, all contributing to the ongoing debasement of our political culture. That Trump views the presidency as a combined personal piggy bank and employment opportunity for family and friends is hardly news at this point. Yet this co-mingling of Trump business interests, family and other personal relationships has become so the norm of the over the past year that we’ve all but become inured to it. More


NFL plans to impose penalty of more than $2 million on Cowboys owner Jerry Jones

penalize Jones millions of dollars was first reported by the New York Times. Jones hired attorney David Boies and threatened to sue to prevent Goodell’s extension from being ratified and taking effect in early November. He later dropped that threat of litigation, and the extension, worth as much as roughly $40 million per year and running through 2024, was completed. Jones, through a letter sent by an attorney for the Cowboys, at one point accused Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, the chairman of the compensation committee, which negotiated Goodell’s extension, of misleading other owners. In a November letter from an outside attorney for the league to Boies, the compensation committee informed Jones that he was guilty of conduct detrimental to the league. “With due respect, we urge Mr. Jones to drop his misguided litigation threats and media campaign to undermine the Committee’s mandate,” read that letter, written by NFL attorney Brad S. Karp. “We urge Mr. Jones to honor the resolution that he and his fellow owners adopted and allow the Committee to continue its work, in compliance with the May 2017 Resolution and the League Constitution. And we urge Mr. Jones to support the Committee’s deliberations, not attempt to sabotage them.” That letter noted Jones’s “antics” were “damaging the League and reflect conduct detrimental to the League’s best interests.” Jones also was critical of the league’s six-game suspension this past season of Elliott under the personal conduct policy. The Cowboys running back was not charged with a crime, but the league determined after an investigation that Elliott, in its view, was guilty of domestic violence in a series of incidents involving his former girlfriend. Elliott and the NFL Players Association challenged the suspension in federal court and managed to delay its implementation for half of the season. They dropped their legal challenge after the NFL secured the right in court to implement the suspension. Beginning in November, some owners urged the league to consider disciplinary action against Jones. Those measures could have included a fine, a suspension or the loss of a draft pick or picks. There was speculation last year about an attempt by the league to strip Jones of his franchise, valued at more than $4 billion. But people close to the situation dismissed that as being unrealistic, saying they believed that any sanction likely would be limited to a possible fine. “Roger will be extended, and


Jeremy Corbyn urges a soft Brexit, putting Theresa May in a hard spot

that Britain ought to remain in the safety of a customs union with Europe, its largest trading partner by far. The European customs union aids “frictionless” trade by allowing goods to cross borders among its member countries without duties. It also establishes a common external tariff on all goods entering Europe from outside the bloc. The problem for hard-line Brexiteers is that the European customs union dictates that all trade deals between the bloc and the outside world be negotiated by the European Union, not the individual member states. “There’s no bilateral trade deals in a customs union” — no Germany-China deals or Britain-U. S. deals. “If you’re in, you’re in,” said Thomas Sampson, an expert in international trade at the London School of Economics. May’s spokesman reacted to Corbyn’s speech by vowing that “the government will not be joining a customs union. We want to have the freedom to sign our own trade deals and to reach out into the world.” In his remarks, Corbyn complained that May’s cabinet, with its public spats and sharp divisions, is making a shambles of Brexit and endangering British jobs. “They have no Brexit plan,” Corbyn said. “Time after time with this government, anything agreed at breakfast is being briefed against by lunch and abandoned by teatime.” The Labour leader also said that remaining in a European customs union was the only way to avoid the need for a hard border between Northern Ireland, which remains part of Britain, and the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the European Union. International trade secretary Liam Fox, who favors a hard Brexit, said, “This is a cynical attempt by Labour to try and frustrate the Brexit process and play politics with our country’s future — all the while, betraying millions of Labour voters.” May is scheduled on Friday to give her own speech on Brexit, laying out the government’s position before negotiators return to Brussels in March for the second and most crucial round of talks. She and her unruly cabinet last week reported that they had agreed on an approach they vaguely described as “ambitious managed divergence,” keeping close to Europe on some areas of trade, tariffs and regulations while moving away on others. The prime minister faces a skeptical continent. European Council President Donald Tusk told reporters on Friday that “if the media reports are correct, I am afraid the U.K. position


We don’t even know if this heroic Chinese lawyer is alive or dead

Cardin (D-Md.) asked Thornton to reaffirm to the committee her commitment to human rights, which she did. “Standing up for democracy [and] human rights is part of who we are,” Thornton said. Human rights, she added, “need to be part of every conversation we have with governments around the world.” Wang’s case should “be part of every conversation” the U.S. government has with the Chinese government. He is an extraordinarily courageous man who has not succumbed to the authorities’ likely demand for a public confession. Based on similar cases, we can assume that Wang has also been tortured relentlessly. The authorities seized Wang on Aug. 3, 2015, in a sweep of human rights lawyers and defenders that resulted in the detention and interrogation of more than 300 people. This unprecedented attack is known as the 709 Crackdown because the first arrests took place on July 9, 2015. Those who have since emerged from custody have suffered various forms of torture and maltreatment. Wang is no different. But what makes his case unique is the extraordinarily long period of his detention. He is the last remaining detainee from the group who is still in prison. He has now been incarcerated for 960 days in total. Wang was subsequently indicted on Feb. 14, 2017. The most recent reports we received seemed to suggest that he was being held at Tianjin No. 2 Detention Center. And yet, neither his wife nor his lawyers have been able to meet with him, so it is hard to say for sure. Born on Feb. 15, 1976, in a rural area of Shandong province, Wang has represented a wide range of clients and taken on many sensitive cases since graduating from Shandong University Law School in 2000. He stayed in Jinan, Shandong, after graduation, working in legal aid and giving free lectures to villagers on Chinese law relating to issues relevant to their lives, such as rural land rights. Wang received many threats because of his work and eventually decided to leave Jinan. He moved to Beijing in 2008. At the time of arrest, Wang was practicing law with the Fengrui Law Firm. Wang has been a particularly brave advocate in the rights defense movement, representing Falun Gong practitioners as well as other persecuted human rights defenders, such as housing rights activist Ni Yulan and the journalist Qi Chonghuai. In recent years, Wang focused increasingly on cases