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Transcript: America’s Digital Transformation

continue to innovate. And that's the way we think about it, it's really something we like to call the "double bottom line." How can we deliver results for our shareholders at the same time as delivering results for society on a whole? MS. LABOTT: You know, I think especially in the COVID pandemics, companies are really mindful of that double bottom line, not only productivity and profit, but also the worker. Brad Surak, President of Digital Solutions at Hitachi Vantara; and Bryan Jones, CEO of JR Automation, also part of the Hitachi Group, thanks for joining me. Back to The Washington Post. [Video plays] MR. SCOTT: Welcome back. I'm Eugene Scott, political reporter for The Fix and the Washington Post. My next guest is Scott Galloway. He's a professor of marketing at the NYU's Stern School of Business, and he's also an author and well-known podcast host. Scott, welcome to Washington Post Live. Thank you for joining us. MR. GALLOWAY: Thanks, Eugene. Good to be with you. MR. SCOTT: Awesome, awesome. I would like to start by asking you about this explosion in the use of technology that we have seen during COVID-19. Do you see this as an era of digital transformation? Is this something that we think could stick, or is this just pretty temporary? MR. GALLOWAY: So, I think that almost when we talk about digital, it's a little bit talking about electricity, and that is it's now just such a fundamental component of everything we do. I think technology is a tool. Obviously, it's helping us scale, just as the assembly line or the printing press helped us scale innovation, but really at the end of the day, what you have here, as largely facilitated by digital but also consumer, changes in consumer behavior, changes in regulations coming down, if we're going to talk about the acceleration in telehealth or remote medicine, but loosely speaking, COVID-19 is more of an accelerator than a change agent. I think a decent exercise for any organization to go through is to take the three biggest trends in your industry or your company, take the slope of those trend lines, and then extend them 10 years out or where they were supposed to be in 10 years, and ask yourself are we there today. So, I see COVID-19 as more of an accelerant. Digital is obviously a key component of

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College athletes, long muffled by schools, are finding new ways to speak out

One morning in August, as the novel coronavirus pandemic and racial unrest gripped the country, an email from a dozen Pac-12 football players landed in the inboxes of reporters. The email listed demands the players wanted to have met before they would return to competition in the fall, including increased safety protocols and steps to combat racial injustice. They also called on the Pac-12 to share the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue flowing through the conference each year. It was a rare and dramatic power play from a group of organized college athletes. But how it was delivered to reporters was noteworthy, too. The message came from the Gmail account of Valentino Daltoso, an offensive lineman at the University of California, and offered the personal email addresses of the other players so reporters could contact them. “The interests of athletes aren’t always in line with the institutions and coaches,” said Andrew Cooper, a Cal cross-country runner who helped organize the effort. “It was important that we talked directly to the media.” As college sports navigate their returns, enveloped by issues of racial justice, safety and amateurism, athletes have advocated for themselves this year in unprecedented ways. That’s including how they have delivered their messages. Many college athletic departments prohibit players from talking to journalists without team permission. Some team handbooks urge players not to speak to the media at all. Others, including at the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia, have policies against freshmen speaking to the media during the regular season. And many schools have policies that monitor or even restrict players’ social media accounts. But in their efforts to advocate for change this year, players have increasingly cut out their athletic departments. The Pac-12 players maintained correspondence with reporters over several weeks about their negotiations with the conference. When Florida State’s football coach said in an interview that he was having one-on-one conversations with players about George Floyd and racial justice, defensive lineman Marvin Wilson tweeted that it wasn’t true. Clemson’s football program recently eliminated a long-standing rule barring players from using social media, after star quarterback Trevor Lawrence tweeted about players’ rights and the return of the season over the summer. As games are canceled and some universities withhold information about positive coronavirus tests within football programs, it’s especially critical that players are allowed to speak out, said Frank LoMonte, head of the

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Fauci’s actual view of how Trump’s handled the pandemic isn’t a mystery

Anthony S. Fauci understood President Trump’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic even before The Post’s Bob Woodward published audio from his late-March interview with the president. In that conversation, Trump told Woodward that he liked “playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic.” During a news briefing focused on the pandemic the next day, the country’s top infectious-disease expert made a similar point. Trump had been touting hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. A reporter asked Fauci to respond, given his obvious skepticism about the treatment. “There really isn’t that much of a difference in many respects with what we’re saying,” Fauci said. “The president feels optimistic about something — his feeling about it. What I’m saying is that it might — it might be effective. I’m not saying that it isn’t. It might be effective. “But as a scientist, as we’re getting it out there, we need to do it in a way as — while we are making it available for people who might want the hope that it might work, you’re also collecting data that will ultimately show that it is truly effective and safe under the conditions of covid-19,” Fauci said. “So there really isn’t difference. It’s just a question of how one feels about it.” For a nonpolitical official, Fauci’s response was quite politically sensitive. He has spent decades in government, of course, working for presidents of both parties — the sort of thing which seems likely to hone a skill at navigating political currents. On that day, Fauci was careful to highlight the difference between his reliance on the science with Trump’s optimism but did so without challenging the president directly. He made his point without obviously undermining Trump’s position. Over the next few months, though, Fauci’s desire to accurately represent the threat posed by the pandemic frequently conflicted with Trump’s insistence on “optimism.” Over and over, the doctor found himself answering questions honestly in ways that made clear his disagreements with Trump’s approach. And, over and over, his warnings proved prescient. This is important to keep in mind given a new ad created by Trump’s reelection campaign. The president’s it’ll-all-work-out approach to the virus has repeatedly proved to be flawed, leading Americans to view his handling of the pandemic with broad skepticism. That, in turn, has hammered his standing in the polls. So

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E.U. penalizes Belarusian leader Lukashenko for ongoing crackdown

sanctions “send a clear message to the Belarusian authorities that business as usual is no longer possible in our relations,” said E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, speaking to reporters from Luxembourg after the meeting of the foreign ministers. “Yesterday, Sunday, we saw again a strong, tough, disproportionate response to the demonstrators. There has not been any signal from the Belarus authorities to engage in any kind of conversation, in any kind of talks.” Diplomats said the measures against Lukashenko would include a travel ban and an asset freeze. The leader, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, is under British and U.S. sanctions. A previous round of E.U. sanctions against him was lifted in 2016 during a thaw in relations. Lukashenko has given little ground to protesters. Ahead of the election, he locked up most of the main opposition candidates. After the election, he chased the main remaining contender, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, into exile in Lithuania and imprisoned another group of dissident leaders. Over the weekend, Lukashenko met with many of the imprisoned opposition candidates, according to Belarusian government news outlets, which broadcast images of the meeting. But it did not appear as though he was engaging in serious political dialogue with them, as E.U. leaders have urged, diplomats said. A previous round of sanctions against Belarusian officials took months to enforce after internal E.U. squabbling about unrelated foreign policy issues delayed them. Monday’s decision will also need additional technical preparation, but Borrell and other top diplomats said they do not expect the same kind of political delay again. “We should have had them earlier,” said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics. “This is inevitable if you have 27 members. It shows that even with delays, the E.U. is capable inevitably to make decisions.” The list of Russian officials to be punished is not finalized and will be discussed before final approvals. France and Germany pushed for punishing officials deemed to have a connection to the attack on Navalny after he was nearly killed by what those governments have said was a nerve agent of the Novichok variety, developed by the Soviet and Russian governments. “We have agreed to enact sanctions against individuals that we consider to be responsible for this violation of international law. It is important that the E.U. shows unity concerning such a serious crime, and we did that today,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said after the meeting.

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Transcript: Primary Care in the Time of COVID-19

similar to COVID-19. MS. CUNNINGHAM: I know you live in New York City and you practice medicine in New Jersey, so you were really in the epicenter of everything during the spring. Can you describe a little bit of what you saw as a physician there during that time and how it affected you? DR. VARSHAVSKI: It was a time of health care heroes, and I'm not talking about myself because I largely work in an outpatient practice. A lot of it was switched to telemedicine so I was practicing from a computer just like this, safe at home. But the health care heroes in the Atlantic Health System, the ones that I work with day in and day out--the nurses, the CMAs, the patient care techs, the custodial staff, the engineering staff--those individuals were putting their lives on the line to adapt and pivot during one of the most stressful times that I can remember in my young career. I've got to give a huge thank-you to those individuals, because there was a lot of uncertainty. The amount of mental health stress that they took on but continued to show up for work was absolutely incredible. In fact, there was a recent survey done by the Primary Care Collaborative Institute where they said 50 percent of respondents were having a level of mental health burnout that they were putting to the side in order to take care of their patients. And while I think that's noble, I also think that it's going to lead to a lot of problems down the line for these health care physicians, because they're not putting their mental health care first. And we need to talk about the mental health struggles that we're facing as physicians. We need to address it, to make sure that we continue to be able to deliver the best care for our patients. MS. CUNNINGHAM: I want to ask you a little bit about the obesity epidemic, and I feel like it's kind of flown under the radar a little bit during COVID, although we know that it's one of the biggest risk indicators for having serious COVID-19. And, of course, this an epidemic that our country has been struggling with for a really long time, and in many ways, we've failed to fix it. But do you think that this pandemic is bringing attention to this problem and

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Transcript: Primary Care in the Time of COVID-19

even my colleagues, put out messages negatively about the FDA and the CDC. How can we expect the general public to trust these major institutions that they so desperately need to, when we do have a COVID vaccine come out, when both sides are attacking them? I think we need to make these attacks accurate. We need to make them not personal, not politicized, and really stick to the facts without getting offended, because getting offended, getting emotional is only going to make the conversation more confusing and lead the general public astray to make worse health care decisions. MS. CUNNINGHAM: You mentioned President Trump being infected with COVID-19, and, of course, that has dominated so much of the conversation over the last couple of days. We had a report recently saying the thought now is that he contracted the virus on September 26th, because, of course, the White House won't say when the president last received a negative test result. If it's true that he first contracted the virus on the 26th, that would put him around day 12 of being infected and potentially out of the woods. But what's your take on all of that? Are you concerned about kind of the speculation around all of this, and conversely, are you worried about the White House's refusal to share both the information about testing and then also some specific indicators about Trump's health, such as how his lungs are doing and other indicators? DR. VARSHAVSKI: I'm concerned about two things. First is how the White House has handled COVID-19 messaging. They haven't been clear with their recommendations about supporting the CDC, Dr. Anthony Fauci, recommending masks for everyone. In fact, the first thing that President Trump did when he arrived back at the White House was remove his mask. And I think a lot of these are symbolic gestures that confuse the general public. There are many people who look up to President Trump and I want to reach out to those people, to recommend that they wear masks to protect themselves, their family members, and those around them. So, I desperately would like to see the White House improve their COVID-19 messaging, to not have President Trump come out and say, "Don't worry. We'll dominate COVID-19. There's nothing to be afraid of," because that's simply an inaccurate message. The truth is we shouldn't be afraid and we

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Transcript: Manufacturing: The Road Ahead

back shortly with the CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, as Senator Klobuchar promised, Jay Timmons. So please stay with us. [Video plays] MS. HUMPTON: I'm Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens USA. And joining me today is assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, Dr. Will Roper. Welcome, Will. MR. ROPER: Barbara, thank you so much for having me, and I'm excited about this subject, so I can't wait to hear your questions. MS. HUMPTON: Well, earlier this summer I had a chance to share with The Washington Post audience my thinking about how digital twins could be used to enhance preparedness, whether that's for a natural disaster, for a pandemic, or even for future national security issues. But I know that you have been working toward digital twin technology for quite some time. And you, the Air Force and Space Force have made this a foundational element of your plan for the future. Tell us what motivated you to get interested in digital twins? MR. ROPER: It's one word, Barbara: Speed. Our process right now is exceptionally slow. It's still borne out of the Cold War during a time when technology was slow and difficult. And so, when we had a breakthrough, we tended to go into mass production and buy things for a long period of time. But technology is ubiquitous, it's everywhere, and we need to change with the times. Digital technology, especially digital twin technology, allows us to do things in the virtual world that we once had to do in the physical one. And that speeds everything up. It helps us to learn in a digital world where normally we had to build something, fly something, test something, and then come back to those engineers who originally designed the system to provide them the learning that they need to make improvements. Now all of that can happen millions of times every night when we leave the office. So, the power of digital technology is ultimately one of speed and agility. And during today's era where technology's ubiquitous and it's available to every adversary we have just as it is to us, speed and agility are going to be the only delineators for us on the future battlefield. And this is one way that we can start preparing for that future battlefield today in the laboratories and computing enclaves we have

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Transcript: Manufacturing: The Road Ahead

PPP. MS. LONG: Thank you. And can you just say, again, what is your biggest worry if Congress and the White House don't reach a deal, or if they just do something for the airline industry that's very limited? Obviously, that wouldn't help many of your members. What do you foresee that could happen in the next few months without aid? MR. TIMMONS: Sure. And look, this is difficult. Let's not--you know, let's not sugarcoat this. This is very difficult because we're not just talking about the manufacturing sector. That's what I represent and obviously I want to make sure that manufacturing has got all the tools necessary to recover. But it really does involve every industry. It involves the airlines; it involves schools; it involves the service industry and the hospitality industry. We've never experienced anything like this, and so this is vital to be able to produce the predictability, the certainty that American business needs in order to operate and to function and to ensure that they don't have to make horrific decisions to lay off parts of their workforce. That was what the PPP program and the main street lending programs were all about, as well as some of those tax incentives that would be applicable for businesses that did not lay off employees. MS. LONG: Yeah. MR. TIMMONS: And so, we need to make sure that we are all--Democrats, Republicans, independents, we're all united on the same idea that we have to provide certainty for American business and for the American worker. MS. LONG: I think another issue that's come up a lot when I talk to manufacturers is this issue of childcare. A lot of manufacturing workers are moms and dads and they can't work from home, generally. They need to go into their place of work, usually a factory or something along those lines. How big of an impact has been on your sector to have so many schools virtual and childcares offline? MR. TIMMONS: Yeah, it's a big--it's a big issue for all Americans. I think--I have two remote learners down in the basement right now from Chesterfield Elementary School, my local school. And then, we have a preschooler who's also, unfortunately, lost his ability to go to preschool. So, it is a very difficult issue for so many Americans. I am not one who says get the schools open. I think that

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China hawks encounter powerful opponent: U.S. companies

would like to see there be, in an ideal rule, a more clear scoping of who is covered,” said Bitko, a former top FBI official who has been meeting with lawmakers and the Pentagon to press the industry’s case. Another section of the Senate’s latest NDAA bill is causing a similar panic among U.S. companies because it requires them to stop using printed circuit boards made in China, Iran, North Korea and Russia by fiscal 2033. The Senate recently approved the bill with bipartisan support, while the House adopted a bill containing a similar prohibition. The bills are now being merged in conference, where industry lobbyists are pushing for changes, a campaign that prompted Hawley to urge Senate staff members not to “give in” to the pressure. Technology and defense companies including Microsoft and Honeywell have been pushing particularly hard against the provision known as Section 808, according to legislative staff members who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive meetings. The Aerospace Industries Association has also emerged as an opponent, they said. Microsoft and the AIA declined to comment. McGovern, Honeywell’s spokeswoman, said the company and trade associations have proposed “the setup of a trusted supplier or design verification program to better protect national security." Printed circuit boards are a key component of most electronics, from computer servers to fighter jets. The panels hold semiconductors and other components in place and connect them to one another. “If you’ve ever broken your alarm clock or phone, that green board that the chips stick to, that is the PCB,” said John Mitchell, chief executive of IPC, an industry group representing U.S.-headquartered PCB makers and other electronics companies. Twenty years ago, about 30 percent of the world’s PCBs were produced in the United States, but that number is only 5 percent today, after manufacturing migrated to China and other Asian nations, Mitchell said. In a 2018 report, the Pentagon called this reliance on foreign suppliers a security risk, saying that strong domestic production of PCBs is “essential to U.S. defense and essential civilian needs.” “The U.S. printed circuit board sub-sector is aging, constricting, and failing to maintain the state of the art” technology, the report said. Hawley, who introduced the measure in the Senate, has said the Chinese government could “sabotage” PCBs destined for the Pentagon or “sever DoD’s access to Chinese PCBs altogether.” Mitchell said his group supports the

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Trump returns to campaign trail after bout with covid-19, amid criticism he is still not taking pandemic seriously

pandemic. “His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis has been unconscionable,” Biden said. “The longer Donald Trump is president, the more reckless he seems to get.” Biden tested negative Monday for the coronavirus, his campaign said. It was the seventh known test he has taken since Oct. 2, the day Trump announced his diagnosis. All seven have been negative, and the more accurate PCR test has been used, according to the campaign. There continues to be criticism that the White House is not releasing enough information about Trump’s health to assure the public about his well-being. Joshua Sharfstein, a physician at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that the president might not be contagious but that it was difficult to reach any conclusion based on the Conley memo Monday. He said there were “a couple of actual test results, then an interpretation of other test results” whose contents were not disclosed. He said that the antigen test “is probably the least accurate.” “The challenge is that the president’s physician is not a credible source,” Sharfstein said. “It’s very clear that he’s taken ‘accentuate the positive’ to heart. For credibility, you need to release everything or have a totally credible person review everything.” On a call with reporters Monday morning, top campaign aides emphasized Trump’s eagerness to return to public campaigning and touted what they claimed was his robust physical health. “He is strong, he is energetic, he is raring to go, and I think his campaign calendar reflects his health and well-being and enthusiasm to get back on the trail,” said Stepien, who added that Trump was the campaign’s “best asset” and would be “a big shot in the arm of the campaign.” Stepien also tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this month. Senior adviser Jason Miller said he expects that the president will start doing two to three events a day, before ramping up to as many as half a dozen in the campaign’s final stretch. “You’re going to see President Trump flat-out outworking Joe Biden down the home stretch here, just as he has shown in his previous campaign,” Miller added. At his last public rally — in Duluth, Minn. — before his covid-19 diagnosis, the normally verbose Trump kept his remarks uncharacteristically brief, speaking for just 45 minutes. And Saturday, at an event on the White House South Lawn aimed at conservative activists, the

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Vanderbilt-Missouri game pushed back as SEC football sees first virus-related postponement

The SEC announced Monday that Saturday’s scheduled game between Vanderbilt and Missouri has been postponed until later in the year because of positive novel coronavirus tests and subsequent isolating of Vanderbilt players. It is the first pandemic-related alteration to the conference’s football schedule since the league began its season Sept. 26. The game, hosted by Missouri, has been tentatively rescheduled for Dec. 12, the league announced. “We’re playing football in a pandemic,” Vanderbilt Coach Derek Mason said Saturday after the Commodores’ 41-7 loss to South Carolina for which Mason said the team had only 56 scholarship players available. “I think everybody understands that, but as we go forward, this university is committed to not putting our student-athletes in harm’s way and making sure we’ve got as good of a roster as we can to go into ballgames, and if we don’t, we’ll make other decisions. Looking at our health from week to week is something we’ve got to do.” The SEC announced last month a minimum threshold of 53 scholarship athletes per team for its football games this season. Conference programs affected by outbreaks have the option to take the field with fewer than those 53 players or can request to have the game rescheduled. The Commodores cited “a lack of available scholarship student-athletes” Monday in announcing the postponement of the game at Missouri. The shortage, they said, was “due to the quarantining of individuals with positive tests and those designated as close contacts, along with injuries and opt-outs.” Missouri Coach Eli Drinkwitz said on a radio show Monday that he had learned his team would not be playing the Commodores this week when a charter bus service alerted the Tigers that Vanderbilt had canceled its travel arrangements. “We absolutely understand,” Drinkwitz said. “… Our number one priority is for everyone at Vanderbilt to be safe.” The matchup between the 0-3 Commodores and the 1-2 Tigers, who are coming off a 45-41 win over LSU, is the 28th game at the Football Bowl Subdivision level to be postponed or canceled since August, according to the Associated Press. That includes a Big 12 matchup, Oklahoma State at Baylor, that was originally scheduled for this coming Saturday but is now set to be played Dec. 12 after Baylor suspended football-related activities last week. “We are disappointed to postpone another game,” Baylor Athletic Director Mack Rhoades said Sunday in a statement, referring to

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Nobel Prize in economics awarded to Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson of Stanford University

to place bids lower than their own estimate of the item’s value to themselves or other buyers, because they feared paying too much. Milgrom, 72, drew the nod for developing a more general theory of auctions involving values that vary between bidders. After analyzing bidding strategies in several popular auctions, he showed the best format to be one in which bidders learn more about each other’s estimated values during bidding. Auctions are embedded throughout the modern economy. Art houses use them to sell paintings and antiquities. Search engines rely on them to dispose of advertising space. And public authorities offer airport landings slots and mineral rights via auctions. Global financial markets also operate on their principles. Asked by reporters about his own use of auctions, Wilson mentioned that he had recently purchased a pair of ski boots on eBay. “It’s something you encounter a lot,” he said. The prize committee said that Milgrom and Wilson had invented new formats for simultaneously auctioning off many interrelated objects for societal benefit rather than maximal revenue. In 1994, the U.S. government first used their insights to auction off radio frequencies to telecommunications companies. “This year’s Laureates in Economic Sciences started out with fundamental theory and later used their results in practical applications, which have spread globally. Their discoveries are of great benefit to society,” said Peter Fredriksson, chair of the Prize Committee. The two men will receive a cash award of 10 million Swedish krona, worth a bit more than $1.1 million. “Amidst the pandemic, there’s not much I can use it for,” Wilson said, speaking by telephone. “Probably, I’ll just save it for my wife and children.” Monday’s announcement comes as the global economy is battling to emerge from a painful recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The International Monetary Fund expects “a partial and uneven recovery” next year. Finance ministers and central bank chiefs from 189 member nations will gather virtually this week for the annual meetings of the fund and its sister institution, the World Bank. Last year, a trio of economists shared the prize, which they received in recognition of their pioneering work developing new methods to fight global poverty. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Michael Kremer of Harvard University were honored for practical research insights that the academy said had “considerably improved our ability to fight global poverty.” Duflo, at

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These subscription boxes are a fun way to treat yourself — and support local businesses

potted in a terra cotta planter. Though the shop is sold out, new memberships will be available starting Oct. 14 — and come with access to a portal full of advice, plus free “office hours” for those who need assistance with their plants or repotting. The co-owners post tips and hacks on Grounded’s Instagram account (@groun.ded), such as explainers on how different types of water affect plants. “We’re really big on introducing plants to our community and shedding light on the fact that everyone can own a plant,” Hemsley says. She notes that, as a Black-, women-owned business, Grounded can reach people who aren’t aware of plants’ healing benefits, and who often shy away from discussing issues like depression and anxiety. “We have a big focus on mental health, and how plants can help your mental health.” grounded-plants.com. If you love cheese — a rather universally relevant statement — Each Peach Market in Mount Pleasant might just brie (ahem) home to your favorite subscription box. The shop’s monthly “I Love Cheese” box offers two or three cheeses paired with condiments or snacks. Expect a different theme with each delivery: Past favorites include an Italian-themed box; apples and cheddar; and “it’s all Gouda.” “The first one we did was an introduction to our cheesemongers, so each cheesemonger chose their favorite cheese and included a little description of why they liked it,” says the market’s co-founder, Emily Friedberg. “February was about cheeses that had love stories around them, and March was ‘Ladies of the Curd’ — all female cheese producers.” October’s theme is cheeses that melt. Each box comes with “a pretty sizable amount of cheese — almost half a pound,” as Friedberg puts it. It’s $200 for a three-month subscription, and $350 for six months. eachpeachmarket.com. Ali Chrisler’s mobile floral business was less than six months old when covid-19 put the brakes on street vending. She could no longer cruise the District’s streets in her powder blue truck, talking customers through which blooms they ought to take home. So she started offering contactless delivery and subscriptions. “I try to use a wide variety of flowers,” Chrisler says, noting that bouquet designs change every week and depend on what’s in season. She aims to include at least a few unique flowers that you can’t easily find at grocery stores, plus one big, focal flower — think sunflowers, pincushion proteas, zinnias and peonies.

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The Daily 202: RBG’s memory shadows Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing

world. It’s a need to believe in something.” (Travis Andrews) “A Nevada man became the first published case of Covid-19 reinfection in the U.S., adding to a number of examples world-wide signaling that patients who have recovered from the viral disease might still be at risk of getting it again,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “In a paper in the medical journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, a group of authors including University of Nevada researchers recount the case of a 25-year-old who suffered two bouts of Covid-19 infection, one confirmed through testing in mid-April and the second in early June. Symptoms of the second case started in late May, a month after the patient reported his initial symptoms as having resolved. The two strains of virus were genetically distinct, signaling that it is unlikely that the man simply remained unknowingly infected with the virus in one, longer bout, the authors wrote. "The paper notes that the patient’s second case of Covid-19 was more severe than his first, requiring supplemental oxygen and admission to a hospital after he suffered from shortness of breath. The Nevada case comes after similar reinfection case reports from locations including Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ecuador. The growing number of examples in medical literature bolsters evidence that immunity to SARS-CoV-2… might in at least some cases only last for a limited period, similar to coronaviruses that cause the common cold, researchers said.” “A document sent to outside researchers running the 60,000-patient clinical trial states that a ‘pausing rule’ has been met, that the online system used to enroll patients in the study has been closed, and that the data and safety monitoring board — an independent committee that watches over the safety of patients in the clinical trial — would be convened,” STAT News reports. "Some of the states setting records on Monday — including Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming — have been witnessing a surge in infections for weeks. But new highs were also reported in Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and West Virginia. Six states — Arkansas, Indiana, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wisconsin — additionally set records for coronavirus-related hospitalizations on Monday,” Antonia Farzan and Jacqueline Dupree report. “England has seen new coronavirus cases quadruple in the past three weeks and now has more covid-19 patients hospitalized than before the government imposed a

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Coronavirus cases are rising in U.S., sparking worries the next big wave has begun

in the reporting of cases, experts often look at the seven-day average of case counts to accurately spot trends. In 40 states, cases are higher when compared with the week before. Indiana, Minnesota and North Dakota have set a new average high for cases each of the past eight days. More than a dozen other states have set new average highs in recent days. “A lot of the places being hit are Midwest states that were spared in the beginning,” said William Hanage, a Harvard University infectious-diseases researcher. “That’s of particular concern because a lot of these smaller regions don’t have the ICU beds and capacity that the urban centers had.” Even D.C. and some Northeastern states — including Connecticut, New Jersey and New York — are beginning to see case counts creep back up. Hospitalizations for covid-19, the illness caused by the virus, have also begun rising in almost a dozen states — including Ohio and Pennsylvania — raising the specter that increasing death counts will soon follow. On Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) warned in a tweet: “In all likelihood, things will get worse before they get better. This virus is sneaky and cunning and won’t give up. It has a mind of its own.” Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Monday he hopes the numbers “jolt the American public into a realization that we really can’t let this happen, because it’s on a trajectory of getting worse and worse.” In a CNN interview, he called the rising numbers “the worst possible thing that could happen as we get into the cooler months.” At least 215,000 people in the United States have died of covid-19, according to an analysis by The Post. One prominent model — by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington — forecasts that U.S. deaths could rise to more than 394,000 by Feb. 1. The U.S. trajectory highlights the urgent need for action by federal and state leaders as well as everyday Americans before transmission grows out of control, experts said. Many experts, including Fauci, have emphasized that such actions do not have to be as drastic as the shutdowns of the spring. Public health experts say that if Americans adopted even the simplest measures discussed for months, it could make a big difference. That includes universal mask-wearing, physical

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Nobel laureate: Tens of millions of children worldwide at risk of exploitation, forced labor during pandemic

We read a great deal about the damage that children in the United States are suffering because of the coronavirus pandemic, but less so about the consequences for tens of millions of young people around the world who face dire futures without more support. In this post, Kailash Satyarthi, who was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for his global advocacy for children’s rights, explains what is at stake for many children. He is the founder of Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a nonprofit organization in India that works to protect children, and he is a member of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. In early August, the 187th — and final — member of the U.N. International Labor Organization (ILO) ratified Convention No. 182, a treaty to protect children from the worst forms of child labor, including slavery, prostitution and trafficking. It’s a powerfully important achievement more than two decades in the making. Never before in history has there been, from every corner of the planet, an absolute consensus to eradicate the exploitation that deprives children of their most basic of freedoms and robs them of the personal peace, promise and prosperity every human being deserves. We reached this remarkable milestone as the covid-19 pandemic was continuing to envelop and frighten the world, leaving millions sick and dead, economies in ruins, and driving more than 90 percent of the world’s children — or about 1.6 billion — out of school. When the poorest and most marginalized children are out of school, we already know they can be forced into child labor and exploitation, and they endure the most violent suffering. Also, the longer they stay out of school, the less likely they will ever go back. At the same time, child laborers are prone to drop out of school, if they ever go at all. With hundreds of millions of children now locked out of education, these multiple threats have become widespread. Many children are now more exposed to sexual abuse at home, which will likely drive a spike in child marriage and teenage pregnancies that too often mean the end of formal schooling for girls. They become fodder for online child sexual commercial exploitation, which is expanding to meet growing demand from locked-down abusers. Moreover, the collapse of whole economies and family livelihoods is predictably pushing more children into work and the worst forms of child labor, including

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No, Trump has not been ‘tough’ on Russia

that. It delayed implementing the law and missed key deadlines, grudgingly conceding only after intervention by congressional leaders. Nervous tycoons scrambled to hire Washington lobbyists to keep themselves off a blacklist mandated by the law. But the Trump team made a mockery of the effort by merely copying and pasting from a Forbes list of Russian billionaires. That reassured the Kremlin that the sanctions would never be used as intended. Trump’s most egregious act of sanctions malfeasance, however, came in April 2018. That was when the Treasury Department — acting with support from then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster, on his way out of the White House — imposed the first consequential Russia sanctions of the Trump years, targeting the oligarch Oleg Deripaska and his aluminum company, Rusal. The impact was swift: Rusal’s shares nosedived by more than 50 percent. Instead of using this leverage to extract concessions from Moscow, the Trump administration immediately defanged the sanctions and eventually expunged Rusal from the sanctions list. To make matters worse, the Trump administration cut a deal with Deripaska, whom the Senate Intelligence Committee described as a “proxy for the Russian state and intelligence services,” allowing him to maintain control of his businesses through allies. This episode sent an unambiguous message to both Moscow and the private sector: The Trump administration had no stomach for tough sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, the administration dragged its feet on imposing consequences for the nerve agent attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. It delayed chemical weapons sanctions required by law, only moving forward after formal requests and demands from bipartisan congressional leaders. Unsurprisingly, when the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was recently poisoned with a similar agent, the Trump administration said — and did — nothing. Ahead of the 2018 midterms, bipartisan legislation to deter Moscow from interfering in future U.S. elections gained momentum in the Senate. Trump cut it off at the pass, signing an executive order mimicking its language but lacking the critical piece: automatic sanctions against Russian banks and energy companies if the Kremlin’s attacks on American democracy persisted. It was this executive order that the Treasury Department used in September. Trump’s policy on Russia sanctions has been an elaborate ruse, designed to project toughness while actually doing little to follow through. The reality is that Trump, far from taking a tough line, has proactively undermined sanctions from Day One of his

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The Washington Post names Lily Kuo its China bureau chief

Announcement from Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl and Deputy Foreign Editor Eva Rodriguez: We’re thrilled to announce that Lily Kuo will join The Washington Post later this year as the China bureau chief. Lily has distinguished herself the past two years as the Guardian’s Beijing bureau chief with clear, accessible and compelling storytelling that illuminates its evolving role in the world. She has reported nearly nonstop from China since the pandemic began in January, and she has worked adroitly to navigate a challenging environment. She has delivered vivid portraits of ordinary life while unearthing details about China’s efforts to control the narrative surrounding the pandemic, while also producing a series of scoops, including a revealing interview with a Central Party School professor expelled from the Communist Party in August over her criticism of President Xi Jinping. Her reporting has exposed large-scale razing of mosques and shrines in Xinjiang and the mass internment of Uighur Muslims, revealed the use of forced foreign prison labor, and provided nuance and insight into China’s tightening hold over Hong Kong through the new national security law. Lily has been covering China for most of the last decade after first moving to Beijing in 2008 to pursue a career in journalism. Since then she has reported for Reuters, from Washington and New York; and for Quartz, from New York, Hong Kong and Nairobi, where she covered China’s influence in Africa. Lily is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Peking University and the London School of Economics. She grew up in North Carolina, and she speaks Mandarin and Spanish. She joined the Guardian in 2018. Lily will take on the bureau chief role at a particularly fraught moment. For the first time in decades, The Post does not have an accredited correspondent in China, a byproduct of tensions between the United States and China that have led each side to tighten restrictions on the others’ journalists. Until her accreditation is approved, Lily will report on China from outside the country, joining an Asia-based team that includes correspondents Gerry Shih (who was among a dozen American journalists expelled from China in March) and Eva Dou (who is now covering China for The Post from a base in South Korea, while waiting for her own accreditation). Lily will start work on Dec. 14. Please join us in welcoming Lily to The Post.

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Trying to reach herd immunity is ‘unethical’ and unprecedented, WHO head says

The head of the World Health Organization said Monday that allowing the novel coronavirus to spread in an attempt to reach herd immunity was “simply unethical.” The remark was a sharp rebuke of the approach amid mounting new infections around the world. Recent days have seen the most rapid rise in cases since the pandemic began in March. “Never in the history of public health has herd immunity been used as a strategy for responding to an outbreak, let alone a pandemic,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a Monday media briefing. “It is scientifically and ethically problematic.” In a public health context, herd immunity typically describes a scenario in which a large enough share of the population is vaccinated against a disease to prevent it from spreading widely, thereby providing default protection to a minority of people who have not been vaccinated. But as there is still no vaccine for the coronavirus, achieving herd immunity in the current environment would require a large number of people to contract the virus, survive covid-19, and then produce sufficient antibodies to provide long-term protection. While the scientific community has roundly rejected herd immunity the approach, public interest in it has waxed and waned amid pressure to reopen schools and economies. Last month, President Trump appeared to praise the idea during a town hall in Pennsylvania. “You’ll develop herd — like a herd mentality,” he said. “It’s going to be — it’s going to be herd developed — and that’s going to happen.” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government initially expressed interest in the theory before backtracking amid public outcry over the dangers of letting the virus spread. Johnson himself was hospitalized with a severe case of covid-19, which he said could have killed him. Tedros, noting that there had been “some discussion” about the concept recently, told reporters Monday that allowing people to be exposed to a deadly virus whose effects are still not fully known was “not an option.” “Most people who are infected with the virus that causes covid-19 develop an immune response within the first few weeks, but we don’t know how strong or lasting that immune response is, or how it differs for different people,” he said. Though rare, there are multiple documented instances of people being infected for a second time after recovering from covid-19. An 89-year-old woman in the Netherlands died after being infected with

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I stayed at 3 hotels during covid-19. The best option surprised me.

Until last week, the last time I stayed at a hotel was back in March. Since the pandemic began, I spent months locked down alone in my D.C. apartment, then with family in Upstate New York. I took bike trips and road trips to go camping, but I avoided hotels completely. In the meantime, hotels, like the rest of the travel industry, were suffering. According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association, hotels are facing a debt crisis and a historic wave of foreclosures as the pandemic’s economic impact on the industry is estimated to be nine times greater than that of 9/11. As a result, they’ve been doing everything they can to attract business. For some, that means promoting packages for remote workers or encouraging families to take remote-school vacations. For most, it means amplifying their new coronavirus precautions so that customers feel safe booking (and staying at) hotels again. Once the pandemic revealed its severity, hotel brands began developing and promoting new cleaning procedures. Hotels knew that “hygiene theater” would show customers that the services were taking coronavirus sanitation seriously. Hand-sanitizing stations and sneeze-guards were installed in lobbies, masks became mandatory for staff and guests, and Hilton began placing seals on room doors to show they had been cleaned and left vacant since. With the pandemic wearing on and travel beginning to increase, I wanted to venture out and see how hotels have adapted. So I booked the cheapest room option at a budget hotel, a mid-level hotel and a luxury hotel in New York City to investigate firsthand how hotels are handling the situation eight months into the covid-19 era. When I travel on my own dime, I book the cheapest accommodation 80 percent of the time, from motels to hostels to a space on the floor of a shared Airbnb. The corporate-beige lobby of the Holiday Inn Express was familiar to me from the moment I walked through the automatic doors (a comforting feature during the pandemic when we’re supposed to be mindful about touching public surfaces). There were stickers on the floor noting appropriate social distancing for guests — although I was the only guest checking in — and hand sanitizer dispensers were readily available. The front desk was barricaded with tables from the kitchen area to create more distance between guests and staff, and plexiglass panels propped up to further separate staff and guests.

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The red-state coronavirus surge resembles what’s happened in Brazil

new cases stemmed from red counties in red states. As a function of population, the nature of the pandemic shifts a bit. Red states make up more of the United States’ cases, though the gap between red and blue states on per-population cases is narrower. Because blue states saw bigger surges in new cases earlier in the pandemic, as medical experts were learning how best to treat covid-19 and when cases spread more easily in elder-care facilities, the number of deaths in blue states is substantially higher on a per-population basis. The number of total covid-19 deaths in red states, though, has nearly matched the blue-state toll. You can see the difference in how the number of covid-19 deaths is increasing in the graph at left above. The cumulative number of deaths in blue states is flatter, meaning it’s growing more slowly. Again, that’s because, as a function of population, new cases and new deaths are mostly centered in red states. It remains the case that the United States broadly has done a bad job containing the virus. Both red and blue states compare unfavorably with our immediate northern and southern neighbors on new cases, both cumulatively and as a function of population. That’s in part because Mexico probably undercounts its case totals. The number of deaths in Mexico — a harder metric to miss — tracks more closely with the tolls in both blue and red states. The recent increase in deaths in red states has put them on a close track with Mexico’s death toll on a per-population basis. Since August, and excepting a recent spike in Mexico’s death toll, the number of new deaths per population in red states has tracked closely with Mexico’s. The red state numbers match the evolution of the pandemic in Brazil even more closely. Brazil and India are two of the hardest-hit countries internationally, though India’s far-larger population means that the effects of the pandemic have been more muted on a per-person basis. Since the pandemic began, the number of new cases in red states has tracked closely with the total in Brazil, which is about 14 percent larger. The number of deaths in Brazil has been higher than in blue states, red states or India — each of which has about an equivalent number of deaths at this point. The per-population trend in new cases and new deaths in Brazil overlapped

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How covid-19 amplified the anti-vaccine movement

Post Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post. For your ears. Martine Powers is your host, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Listen online. How Amy Coney Barrett would view her role on the court. How anti-vaxxers are using covid-19 to further their agenda. And when mail ballots get counted. Read more: During the first day of questioning in Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, she told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she has made “no commitment” to the White House or senators on how she would rule on major cases on the Affordable Care Act, abortion and election disputes. Amber Phillips breaks down how Barrett says she would view her role on the court. The pandemic is amplifying the U.S. anti-vaccine movement — and globalizing it We’ve been taking your questions about voting this year, and how it will be different because of the pandemic. If you have more questions check out The Washington Post’s guide: How to vote in your state in 2020. And if you want to know exactly when mail-in ballots are processed in your state, here’s a comprehensive guide to that. More than a week after we learned the president was sick with covid-19, we still don’t know much more than that. Washington Post podcast Can He Do That? looked at why that matters. Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer

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The World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize. Does food aid boost peace?

Last week, the Norwegian Nobel Committee named this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, recognizing the World Food Program (WFP) for “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.” With the World Health Organization under pressure and countries such as the United States emphasizing isolationism over international collaboration, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is a push for “international solidarity and multilateral cooperation,” the head of the Norwegian committee said. It is not surprising, therefore, that last week’s announcement was met with near-universal praise, with commentators describing the award as “highly deserved” and “badly needed.” But is there a direct relationship between combating hunger and building peace? Our research helps explain why these linkages are so complicated. Global hunger is on the rise After a steady decline in the prevalence of global undernourishment, the trend has deteriorated in recent years. The covid-19 pandemic is making things worse. WFP estimates that without international assistance, the number of acutely food-insecure people in high-risk countries may nearly double (from 149 million to 270 million) before the end of the year. From conflict to food insecurity … The Nobel committee’s announcement describes the link between hunger and armed conflict as a “vicious circle,” where conflict can cause food insecurity and food insecurity may trigger violence. The first part of this link is clear — almost all of today’s major food crises are in countries experiencing endemic conflict and violence. The WFP spends over 80 percent of its operational budget on humanitarian operations in conflict zones. In September, WFP Executive Director David Beasley wrote, “we can’t end hunger unless we put an end to conflict.” Experts sometimes describe war as development in reverse. Wars often trigger displacement of agricultural livelihoods, or can lead to armed groups looting or destroying crops. And wars can set back progress toward food security for decades. Add in a global pandemic and extreme weather events and it’s easy to see why the United Nations is now warning of the potential for famines of “biblical proportions.” … And food insecurity to conflict But the link from hunger to conflict is less obvious. True, persistent or increasing levels of food insecurity can produce widespread grievances that can motivate people to form groups and

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Virginia governor is critical of Trump’s coronavirus response in first appearance since testing positive

the Northams were told to ­self-quarantine for two weeks. Northam said none tested positive, which he called a “testament” to the value of wearing masks. He noted that masks protected several staff members who could not physically distance from him before he tested positive, including a press secretary, photographer and security detail who traveled in an SUV and airplane with Northam. He contrasted that with the largely mask-free Rose Garden ceremony last month that Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, has called a superspreader event. Trump, first lady Melania Trump and several others subsequently tested positive for the virus. “No masks, no social distancing — and look at the number of people that tested positive,” Northam said Tuesday, referring to the White House event. “We talk about science, it doesn’t get any clearer than that . . . I would remind every Virginian: Masks are scientifically proven to reduce the spread of this disease, plain and simple.” Northam, a former Army doctor and pediatrician, said his and his wife’s symptoms were mild. He warned Virginians not to let down their guard, particularly as cooler fall temperatures and shrinking daylight hours make outdoor socializing less appealing. The governor said he is unlikely to ease pandemic-related restrictions in the near term. He acknowledged pressure to return to in-person education at public schools but urged continued caution. “Numbers are going up in a number of states across this country, so we’re not out of the woods,” he said. “We’re nowhere close to being out of the woods.” The greater Washington region on Tuesday reported 1,763 additional coronavirus cases and 20 deaths. Virginia added 1,235 cases and 11 deaths, Maryland added 482 cases and nine deaths, and the District added 46 cases and no deaths. Virginia’s daily caseload was above its rolling seven-day average, lifting that number to 1,089 — the state’s highest daily average since Aug. 13. The seven-day average in Northern Virginia rose Tuesday to 264 cases, a four-month high in the region. Daily caseloads Tuesday in Maryland and the District were below their rolling seven-day averages. It’s the third consecutive day that both jurisdictions reported new infections at or below their recent average amid an uptick that began earlier this month. The recent caseload rise across the region has coincided with the outbreak at the White House, although local health officials have said it’s unclear whether there’s a connection.

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Scientists have a powerful new tool for controlling the coronavirus: Its own genetic code.

at a school are sick, but all have <div class="nowrap ib"><div class="dot dot-a dot-ml"></div><div class="dot dot-c dot-ml"></div><div class="dot dot-b dot-ml dot-mr"></div><span class="inline inline-mr">different</span></div><span class="inline">sub-strains</span> of the virus. This suggests the virus was brought into the school from outside, but did not spread within it. The school can safely stay open. Scienceville is a fantasy. But in some countries, researchers and governments are racing to make it a reality — for this pandemic and the ones that follow. The six British patients seemed to have little in common besides this: Each was dealing with kidney failure, and each had tested positive for the coronavirus. They were among scores of virus-stricken people showing up at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge in the early weeks of April. Had they lived in the United States instead of the United Kingdom, the link that allowed the contagion to spread among them might have slipped by unnoticed. But the U.K. had done something in the early days of the pandemic that the United States and many other nations had not. It funded a national push to repeatedly decode the coronavirus genome as it made its way across the country. The process reveals tiny, otherwise invisible changes in the virus’s genetic code, leaving a fingerprint that gives scientists valuable glimpses into how the disease is spreading. It’s a cutting-edge technique that was not widely available in previous global pandemics but that researchers think can help hasten the end of this one. Experts cite this practice, known as “genomic epidemiology,” as one more tool the United States has failed to fully employ in the fight against the virus. Though it first sequenced the 3 billion-base-pair human genome 20 years ago and spends more on basic biomedical research than almost any other nation, the United States has yet to muster the kind of well funded and comprehensive national effort that could produce a more precise accounting of how the coronavirus is infiltrating communities around the country. In the case of the six British patients, sequencing revealed they had been infected by almost identical sub-strains of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19. Epidemiologists soon determined that all six had visited the same outpatient dialysis clinic on the same day of the week. Many had ridden in the same small transport van that regularly brought patients for treatment from across the surrounding area. Officials promptly put in place new safety measures, including

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Scientists have a powerful new tool for controlling the coronavirus: Its own genetic code.

with color, said Paraic Kenny, a cancer researcher-turned-coronavirus geneticist at the Gundersen Health System in La Crosse, Wis. Diagnostic tests can answer a single, binary question about covid-19: infected or not. “But once you start seeing in color, there are all kinds of implications,” Kenny said. It’s possible to know who shares similar sub-strains of the virus, and where those strains likely originated. The shades and nuances of an outbreak become much clearer. This makes viral sequencing a key source of information for contact tracing, which is essential to curbing disease spread before cities and states get overwhelmed. And unlike people, viral genomes don’t lie or forget where they’ve been. Yet for genomic epidemiology to work, scientists say, scale and speed matter. Since one of the most important pieces of information that a genome can reveal is its connection to other cases, the technique becomes more valuable the more samples have been sequenced. The process must also happen quickly enough for health officials to act on the results. In the Netherlands, for instance, sequences can be produced just one day after the initial coronavirus test, said Marion Koopmans of the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, who began working with health authorities to set up sequencing there in January. “What we’ve shown is that you can do it quickly, and then you can feed back the results to clinicians and infection control teams, and you can really investigate outbreaks in real time and put in interventions that help to control them,” said Török, the Cambridge researcher. “There’s no point in doing this weeks or months or years later." The value of sequencing has been clear since it helped fight another deadly disease: Ebola. In 2014, Pardis Sabeti, a computational biologist at the Broad Institute, used sequencing to reveal that the devastating Ebola outbreak in West Africa began with a single spillover from an animal to a human in Guinea. From there, it spread from person to person across the region. The findings strengthened the health response to the epidemic by documenting how contact with infected people, rather than bats and other animal hosts, was the most important mode of transmission. After that outbreak, Sabeti became an evangelist for genomic surveillance of infectious diseases in the United States. She got a grant from the CDC to train employees at state and city public health departments in sequencing and analysis. She urged

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The small city farm: An oasis in food deserts, during the pandemic and beyond

eight feet and filled with deep, rich soil. That’s a lot of growing area; the beds generate bushels of edible plants for most of the year. A shed houses tools, a single beehive is active, a few fruit trees ring the area, and one side is devoted to little benches for little people. The center, which normally houses classes for 188 children up to age 5, has been closed because of the pandemic, though a limited reopening is in the works. Williams, a teacher and the garden coordinator, shows me cool-season veggies growing in the fall, young plants of kale, collards, cauliflower, broccoli and red cabbage. In other planters, mature plants are seeing out the season in robust vigor. The most obvious is a single pepper plant — now taller than Williams — whose leaves hide unripe green chiles that hang like ornaments. This is a mighty hot pepper from Trinidad named Scorpion, she said, and I have no doubt that it has a sting in its tail. Nearby, a Japanese eggplant is full of purple streaked fruit. Along another path, Williams stops to lift a wayward cherry tomato vine and places it back in its bed. “I don’t like to step on my babies,” she said. Elsewhere, wizened sunflowers have had their day. “We bring the kids out, we show them how to plant seeds, what the plants need,” she said. “It’s getting folks exposed to the garden.” Food from the garden is used in the center’s kitchen. Thus the children (and their families) get a sense that food comes from the soil. This is not so obvious a connection in Ward 8. In this corner of the capital of the United States, there is one full-service grocery store for 80,000 people, and access to something as basic as fresh vegetables is limited. “We have a lack of grocery stores,” said Jahni Threatt, the CSA market manager for the nonprofit Building Bridges Across the River. “In Wards 7 and 8, we have three grocery stores.” Residents eat from fast-food chains or out of convenience stores and liquor stores. “The food that’s available isn’t necessarily healthy,” she said. Under Community Supported Agriculture programs, or CSAs, growers provide direct weekly harvests to subscribers. The Baby Bloomers Urban Farm that Williams coordinates at the National Children’s Center is one of seven in a network of city farms east of the Anacostia River,

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Covid-19 is shaking up pop culture. Imagine what it’ll do to everything else.

of foreign viewers if the American box office becomes less lucrative. Even if movies don’t die, the transformation of a populist art form that gave us common touchstones into yet another driver of America’s cultural continental drift would be a seismic change. And though streaming has fared well during the pandemic, television isn’t without its challenges. According to an industry report That dip, a product of pandemic-induced production shutdowns, isn’t likely to be permanent — at least, as long as Netflix continues throwing money around and other outlets stay in an arms race with it. Still, it wouldn’t be shocking if we’ve seen the absolute heights of Peak TV and now are settling into a world with somewhat less television, especially given the costs associated with keeping casts and crews safe during an ongoing pandemic. Those budget realities have already killed — or un-renewed — some shows. It will be intriguing to see if coronavirus considerations change, at least in the short term, outlets’ estimations of what shows cost to make, and correspondingly, what they’re willing to greenlight. It’s harder to imagine seeing battle scenes — or sex scenes — on the scale that “Game of Thrones” staged them before a vaccine is available worldwide. And finally, it’s worth watching how the pandemic affects Hollywood’s push for gender equity. English actress Keira Knightley recently dropped out of an Apple TV+ show she was starring in and producing because she couldn’t work out a child-care arrangement that felt safe to her. Stars have different resources than ordinary working women, but if the pandemic drives actresses and female directors out of the workplace, it could set back an industry that wasn’t very far along in the journey toward equity to begin with. In recent years, blockbuster movies have conditioned us to treat world-upending disasters as entertainment. But in the movies, when aliens invade or cities turn into rubble, everything else stays pretty much the same. Now, a real catastrophe is here. The havoc the pandemic wreaks on our diversions might be just the beginning. Read more Peter Franchot: We can’t let Main Street become a ghost town Gina Raimondo and Mary Kay Henry: Women are bearing the brunt of the economic crisis. They have to lead our recovery plans. Megan McArdle: Be prepared to say goodbye to movie theaters David Ignatius: There’s no question we’ll be living in a different world post-pandemic

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D.C. region’s coronavirus caseload hits two-month high; officials say small gatherings are fueling rise

The number of new coronavirus infections across the greater Washington region jumped to a two-month high Wednesday as D.C.’s top health official said small social gatherings are helping to fuel the virus’s spread. The seven-day rolling average of new cases across Virginia, Maryland and the District stood at 1,801 — the highest since the average hit 1,916 cases Aug. 13. The increase has coincided with cooler temperatures and an outbreak at the White House, although local health officials say any connection to a late-September Rose Garden event is unclear. Among patients who contracted the novel coronavirus in D.C. in the first week of October, nearly a quarter had attended a social gathering of at least five people in the two weeks before they got sick, city Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt said Wednesday. One out of 5 had eaten at a restaurant. Nesbitt provided some of the most detailed information yet on what contact tracers have learned about the sources of coronavirus infection in the nation’s capital. She said about 17 percent of patients had recently traveled outside the Washington area before testing positive for the virus, and nearly 22 percent reported going to work. The most common type of work for those who tested positive was in the health-care industry. Nesbitt said work, travel, restaurant dining and socializing are the four most concerning types of activities that health officials are noticing, but she added that almost half of the 374 patients in the sample reported doing none of those four activities. That doesn’t mean half the patients stayed home, she said. They might have shopped at a grocery store, met in person with one or two friends, worshiped in church, worked out at the gym or gotten a manicure. About 6 percent of patients reported worshiping at a faith activity, and 6 percent also reported a “personal care” activity such as a haircut. Nesbitt said both of those numbers were higher in early October than at any other point during the pandemic. Contact tracers do not ask those who visited restaurants whether they ate indoors or outdoors, she said, but they do ask details about the social gatherings that patients attended. Nesbitt said about half the gatherings included five to 10 people, while 20 percent had more than 20 attendees. Health officials in Maryland and Virginia have also said small social gatherings are helping to fuel an increase in the

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D.C. region’s coronavirus caseload hits two-month high; officials say small gatherings are fueling rise

(MVA) in Prince George’s County died of the coronavirus, and four other workers in the department’s Largo branch office have tested positive. Whitney Nichels, a Maryland MVA spokeswoman, said the agency was notified of the first case Oct. 5. Officials were also told about the most recent case of an employee testing positive Oct. 10. “We are deeply saddened to share that one of those employees has since passed away,” Nichels said in a statement. “We have been in contact with that team member’s family, and grief counselors are being arranged for staff at the Largo branch office as we get through this tragedy together as an MDOT MVA family.” Nichels said the branch office, which assists the public with driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations, has been cleaned and disinfected twice in the past two weeks, once Oct. 5 and again Tuesday. The state confirmed the death and the additional coronavirus cases after the union representing state workers made the outbreak public. Union officials said the administration of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) did not notify workers of the positive cases and failed to protect them. Nichels said contact-tracing is underway and that employees who had interactions with the infected co-workers are in quarantine. “My heart goes out to our members who are dealing with this crisis,” Mildred Womble, the AFSCME MVA local president and Council 3 executive vice president, said in a statement. “This was all preventable if management had taken the safety of their employees seriously.” Walter Powell, who works as a customer agent and serves as shop steward, said he has been in quarantine because he was in contact with a worker who tested positive. Powell said he found out about the death of his colleague on Facebook and notified his manager. “We service the public,” he said. “How many people have been in contact with [the agent who died] and the other workers?” The Largo branch has 76 employees, Nichels said, which means nearly 7 percent of the staff has contracted the virus in recent weeks. The greater Washington region Wednesday reported 1,444 additional coronavirus cases and 20 deaths. Virginia added 805 cases and nine deaths, Maryland added 575 cases and 10 deaths, and the District added 64 cases and one death. While caseloads have risen across the region this month, the rolling seven-day average death toll has held steady at about 20 daily virus-related fatalities.

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Don’t be fooled. Myanmar’s ‘democratic election’ is a sham.

of their lives is controlled by the state. It is important to stress that we are not concerned only about Rohingya rights. In an extremely worrying move, the Myanmar election commission is allowing the generals to decide whether people living in conflict-affected areas will be excluded from voting. The military is fighting conflicts against ethnic armed groups in several parts of the country. This potentially means that other minority communities — Shan, Karen, Kachin — could also be stripped of the vote at the military’s whim. At the same time, the authorities continue to impose arbitrary Internet bans across two states, denying people access to the information they need to make an informed choice. A fresh outbreak of the coronavirus complicates things further. Lockdown restrictions have particularly hampered smaller parties that lack the name recognition of Suu Kyi’s NLD. The government’s handling of the virus has been suspect at best. A government spokesperson has even claimed that Myanmar people’s superior “lifestyle and diet” protects them from the virus. The United States and the rest of the international community should not fall for this charade. They should push the Myanmar government to ensure that democratic rights are protected, for Rohingya inside Myanmar and in Bangladesh, as well as for all those caught in areas of conflict or under threat of covid-19. Democracies around the world can no longer stand by and watch Myanmar continue to erase Rohingya from our homes, our territory, our shared history and now from political life. As Americans prepare to vote, they are being reminded of how important free and fair elections are to the integrity of any democracy. They also know that one election cannot make up for broken institutions. For my people, and other ethnic communities, military rule continues unabated. The approaching election in Myanmar highlights the civilian government’s complicity with the generals’ continuing abuse of power. We count on democratic countries around the world, including the United States, to stand with us in our struggle. Read more Christian Caryl: One of the world’s most vulnerable groups now finds itself confronting covid-19 The Post’s View: Three years since their genocide began, the Rohingya remain desperate for help Maung Zarni: Why Myanmar’s genocide denial will come back to haunt it The Post’s View: For Myanmar, too much impunity and too little accountability António Guterres: The Rohingya are victims of ethnic cleansing. The world has failed them.

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The Health 202: A court with Amy Coney Barrett is more likely to reinterpret Roe than reverse it

experts have called for greater disclosure given the intense public interest in the trials. Johnson & Johnson is the second pharmaceutical company to pause a late-stage vaccine trial. AstraZeneca paused its trial twice after two participants experienced rare neurological side effects. The trial was quickly restarted in most countries after the second pause in early September, but it remains halted in the United States. U.S. coronavirus cases are rising with 40 states reporting week-to-week increases in infections, even as at least a dozen states are reporting increased hospitalizations, The Post’s William Wan and Jacqueline Dupree report. “For almost a month, new U.S. cases have been trending upward. Since Saturday, more than 20 states have hit a new high in their seven-day average of case counts, and more than half of those states set records again on Tuesday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post,” Wan and Dupree report. Midwestern states, many of which were spared in the early months of the virus, are now being hit especially hard. It’s still not clear what is driving the uptick, although it could be related to a combination of factors, including changing weather, reopening of businesses and schools, or people relaxing their social distancing precautions as the pandemic wears on. “The rising numbers are especially concerning because they set the stage for an even greater surge this winter when the virus will be helped by drier conditions and people spending more time indoors,” Wan and Dupree write. “The upward trend comes before the increased mingling of people expected to arrive with Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.” By repeatedly sequencing the coronavirus genome as it spreads, scientists in the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland and other countries can detect minute changes in the genetic code and trace outbreaks. The United States, however, has lagged far behind other countries in decoding virus genomes, The Post’s Brady Dennis, Chris Mooney, Sarah Kaplan and Harry Stevens report. “Nearly 10 months after infections began surfacing in the United States, the country has sequenced just 0.4 percent of its more than 7 million coronavirus cases — a proportion surpassed by 40 other countries,” Dennis, Mooney, Kaplan and Stevens write. Genetic epidemiology can give scientists insights into the source of an outbreak. If three children at the same school all test positive with the virus, genetic sequencing of the virus could help determine if the children all contracted the same sub-strain,

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Transcript: America’s Health Future: The Impact of COVID-19 on Our Health Systems

negative. They used this Abbott BinaxNOW test, which is not meant for this, and so they're using the wrong test. But more importantly, it is unquestionable to me based on all the evidence that we have and all the deception that the president suffered from a COVID pneumonia, that his chest, lung CT scan was abnormal due to pneumonia, and he also had significant desaturation of his oxygen. Now, the CDC states that that should be a 20-day time, not 10 days. So, basically, it's at odds with the CDC guidelines for moderate to severe, that is, a COVID pneumonia case. And that's unfortunate because this is just not communicated properly, and the wrong tests are being done. This has nothing to do with having to do a physical examination of the president, Paige. This is about knowing what the guidelines are and the fact that there's these missing pieces of data that seem to be a recurrent issue throughout the entire communication path of the president's illness. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, I know we need to wrap up soon. I know we could talk forever about these matters. I just want to ask you one more question. Scientific American recently endorsed Joe Biden for president, and we've seen the New England Journal of Medicine call for Trump to be voted out of office. Should scientific publications voice political opinions like this or remain nonpartisan? DR. TOPOL: Well, yeah, and you can add to that list, Paige, Science magazine and The Lancet, and yes, I do think that we are at a rarified time in our lives as far as politics having invaded science. If we had let science lead the way in the pandemic for the U.S., we'd be in a different state right now. So, the reckless--the things that have happened since the beginning of the U.S. pandemic with this denial and total mismanagement leads to these important editors of journals and magazines to call for a change and to call out this as "dangerously incompetent," as the New England Journal put it, and the lies and the anti-science. So, we have to stand up for that, and yes, it's unusual. It's unprecedented, but so is our time being unprecedented. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Well, unfortunately, we're going to have to leave it at that, but thank you so much, Dr. Eric Topol, for being with us today. DR.

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Transcript: America’s Health Future: The Impact of COVID-19 on Our Health Systems

the final example of calls for essentially trying to get to herd immunity, without a vaccine available, without any other essential interventions taken. In this case, they're calling it "focused protection." So, their idea is that they would focus some kinds of rings of protection around the most vulnerable, you know, senior citizens stay-in-your-cage kind of approach. But the only countries around the world that have had real success in holding their COVID numbers down to quite minimal infections and really small numbers of deaths have been individual nations that have taken very strict social distancing approaches, mandated nationally the use of masks, and then once they got their levels way down and the amount of virus circulating in the nation came to some reasonably low level, then they approached focused testing, focused cluster analysis, contact tracing to find each outbreak as it might occur and stop it before it spread further. So, we're talking about countries like Japan, Iceland, New Zealand, Finland, and China, frankly, but here in the United States, we've taken a total chaos response. We have a different strategy in every single state, and in some states, we have strategies that vary county by county. We have no consistent pattern of response and no agreed-upon strategic goal from one part of the country to the other and certainly not at the federal level. So we're not in a position to sit around waiting for herd immunity, and I would add that more and more nations around the world, especially in Europe, are finding that the major spreaders of COVID-19 are, in fact, the very age group that the Great Barrington Declaration thinks should be allowed to roam freely and no longer be under mask orders or restrictions on their behavior, namely people aged between 20 and 40. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: I want to ask you about that topic of what we know about how much people spread the virus at different ages and particularly on the school issue, and as you know, we've seen many, many districts go to all virtual. But what we've seen--I know at The Post, we've reported this--there have been fewer outbreaks at least at K-through-12 schools than many had originally projected, and I feel like I'm hearing increasing frustration that we took this sort of aggressive approach to schools which, as you know, have huge effects on kids. Can you talk

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Transcript: America’s Health Future: The Impact of COVID-19 on Our Health Systems

what should they do, how should they do it, so that the nation was really coordinated in a single epidemic response. We do not have that today. We have none of that. Zero of what I just described is going on today. MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: I know that you've taken a lot of time looking at other countries and how they've responded to the pandemic, and I'd love to hear which countries you think have done the best job versus not as good of a job in controlling the virus. And I'd also like you, if you would, to comment on Sweden because its response has become the topic of much controversy and debate. We know it stayed away from the lockdowns early on and had a very high death rate, and yet now it looks like it's having one of the lowest rates of new cases in Europe. So, what do you think about Sweden specifically and then other countries overall? MS. GARRETT: Yeah. There are many countries that we should look to that have had tremendous success and that we can hold up as examples to the world, and they are not all rich countries. I mean, let's start with the whole continent of Africa, startlingly low levels of COVID-19 across the entire continent. South Africa had a scare, but they seem to have brought it really, truly under control. And I think, you know, six months ago, everybody would have said, hands down, the worst epidemics will all be in Africa because of their resource scarcities and their paucity of health care facilities, but that's not been the case. And we could talk about why. And then let me just jump to a few other countries, circle back to whatever interests you. I mentioned Japan earlier. Japan had a very aggressive response. They went on lockdown for six weeks and came out of it with just cluster responses here and there. They have a prevalence of COVID-19--actually, it's an incidence of 1.2 per 100,000 population, whereas compare that to us, we're at 66 per 100,000. So, we are far, far worse than Japan. You can take a country like Vietnam, not a booming economy, not a huge prosperous nation, and yet they've had almost no COVID crisis at all. Ditto Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, and what's in common about much of these Asian countries that I'm naming--South

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Transcript: America’s Health Future: The Impact of COVID-19 on Our Health Systems

start with the whole continent of Africa, startlingly low levels of COVID-19 across the entire continent. South Africa had a scare, but they seem to have brought it really, truly under control. And I think, you know, six months ago, everybody would have said, hands down, the worst epidemics will all be in Africa because of their resource scarcities and their paucity of health care facilities, but that's not been the case. And we could talk about why. And then let me just jump to a few other countries, circle back to whatever interests you. I mentioned Japan earlier. Japan had a very aggressive response. They went on lockdown for six weeks and came out of it with just cluster responses here and there. They have a prevalence of COVID-19--actually, it's an incidence of 1.2 per 100,000 population, whereas compare that to us, we're at 66 per 100,000. So, we are far, far worse than Japan. You can take a country like Vietnam, not a booming economy, not a huge prosperous nation, and yet they've had almost no COVID crisis at all. Ditto Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, and what's in common about much of these Asian countries that I'm naming--South Korea would be one that struggled and then brought things under control--is that they had prior experience with either SARS or MERS, the other two big coronaviruses. And they learned a lot from that. They've instituted policies that were based from the very beginning of this COVID crisis on their learning experiences with SARS or, in the case of South Korea, with MERS, the Middle East respiratory syndrome virus. In Europe, the best examples of real success are Iceland, Finland, which has had a far better response to the COVID crisis than Sweden, ranks number one among the Nordic nations, and we might also consider looking carefully at Germany, which is [audio distortion] now but had good results before now. In Latin America, we see some real progress, and it's hard to name a real success story in Latin America, certainly not [audio distortion]. [Technical difficulties] MS. WINFIELD CUNNINGHAM: Do you project more global pandemic of this nature? MS. GARRETT: I'm sorry. There's some technical interference. I'm hearing somebody talk in the background while I'm on the line, and I don't hear you. Well, I will speak to you, and hopefully, somebody at your end will correct this issue. But

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During the pandemic, a lifelong travel writer takes a journey inward to reflect on what he has learned around the globe

aurora borealis, I wondered aloud if sheep in their winter pens could dream. And if sheep could dream, did they dream of green grasses and a glorious summer with no darkness? Of blue fjords and glaciers and mushrooms? We all agreed that they must. As I sit here now, wearing the musty old Bevar Christiania sweatshirt (its pocket hanging by a thread), typing in the present tense, all this feels like another lifetime ago. We are different people now. When I visit Trine these days, I stay with her family, and we trade stories about our children. We’re much more likely to eat at one of Copenhagen’s world-class “new Nordic” restaurants than to visit Christiania. I am no longer the sort of naively adventurous person who lights out for politically unstable places with a backpack. In Italy, on my visits to Pieve San Giacomo, I now take time to stop by the gravesites of Paolo and Aunt Gina, who both died years ago. We aren’t the only ones to have changed. The places themselves have, too. So many foreign tourists visit Iceland that, in recent years, it has become a cautionary tale of the consequences of overtourism. Nicaragua has slid backward, run for the past decade by authoritarian Ortega, whose paramilitary forces have killed hundreds. Even the Italy I first encountered is quite different than it was three decades ago, and likely will be transformed even more after its oldest generation was hit hard by the pandemic. What travel has taught me is that the things of the world are only ever temporary — though, once in a while, the temporary can become eternal. I hope that we will be able to travel, to interact with and witness the world again in the near future. When we do, it will certainly seem strange. But when has travel not been strange? We don’t need a pandemic to show us this, but the pause we’re experiencing can highlight a basic truth: We may or may not walk this way again, and even if we do, we will never be precisely the same people who experienced that journey in the first place. Travel is only ever about a moment in time and space, but it’s also about how we choose to hold that moment in our memories. It is always both present and past. Jason Wilson has been the series editor of “

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Lights on the track are helping runners shatter world records

and Cheptegei ran the remainder of their respective races solo, accompanied to the finish line by only the flashing lights. While the blue bulbs might have aided Cheptegei’s pacers, he downplayed their impact on his 5,000-meter record. “My mind was not actually on the wavelight,” he told LetsRun.com in August. “After the pacemakers were going, I was not after the light. It was Cheptegei and the world record.” But others see clear benefits, and Gidey and Cheptegei showed remarkable consistency throughout their lengthy runs. For Cheptegei’s 10,000-meter record (26:11.00), except for his final 1,000-meter stretch, every other 1,000-meter split was within a second of 2:37, a metronomic mark that would be difficult to replicate with just a watch. The steady pacing allowed Cheptegei to break the 10,000-meter mark by 6.53 seconds, barely seven weeks after he bettered the 5,000 record by two seconds. Gidey’s run in the 5,000 last week (14:06.62) shed nearly five seconds off the record. Molly Huddle, a two-time Olympian from the United States, watched the runs online and could immediately see the benefits. While many factors go into a record-breaking run, previous generations didn’t have the aid of mechanical pacing. “It’s so hard to find pacing for the level of running needed to get things like world records,” she said in an email, “that I think it’s an exciting piece of technology that can help record setters in many different categories have a visual incentive to chase when they are alone on the track after pacers step away.” Cheptegei, Gidey and this whole generation of distance runners have turned to high-tech shoes, such as Nike’s Dragonfly and Vaporfly spikes. After much debate, World Athletics gave a green light to the shoes earlier this year. Drawing less attention, it also amended its rule book to allow for “electronic lights or similar appliance indicating progressive times during a race.” “We are in 2020,” Cheptegei told LetsRun.com. “We are not in 1980s; we are not in 1990s; we are not in 1970s. So every time we have to accept the new developments in the sport, the new technology.” Hermens, who staged last week’s Valencia meet, has heard from detractors but said every generation has faced an older guard that resists change. “Should we go back to the Greek times and run barefoot? Come on,” he said. “Let’s be honest: Our sport is already suffering, and if we listen to

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Community deaths

neighborhood children near her home in Berwyn Heights, Md., died Oct. 1 at an assisted-living center in Adelphi, Md. The cause was atherosclerosis, said a daughter, Joanne Howard. Mrs. Beardsley was born Phyllis Miller in York County, Pa., and grew up in the Washington area. She was a child-care provider from 1995 to 2000. Earlier, she was a proofreader for six years for the Beardsley-Howard TV production and graphic design company. Ana Maria Pezo, 67, a lawyer who for 20 years practiced family law and immigration law in Arlington, Va., and then Annandale, Va., died Sept. 5 at a hospital in Baltimore. The cause was multiple myeloma and amyloidosis, said a daughter, Inez Pezo. Mrs. Pezo, a resident of McLean, Va., was born Ana Maria Cuitino in Valparaiso, Chile. She was a law professor in Lima, Peru, before settling in the United States in 1989. She had her own law practice from 1997 to 2018. She specialized in representing minorities in litigation in federal courts. Willard Jasper, 84, an Army lieutenant colonel and Vietnam War veteran who served in the Medical Service Corps, died Oct. 4 at his home at Fort Belvoir, Va. The cause was complications of a duodenal ulcer, said a son-in-law, Steven Feldman. Col. Jasper was born in Brooklyn, W.Va., and served 21 years in the Army before retiring in 1980 as a specialist in computerizing medical records. In retirement, he was president of a real estate holding company, a vice president and director of corporate services at Dichroma, a defense contractor specializing in facilities management. He was a deacon at Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., and vice chairman of the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority. John Kafka, 99, a psychoanalyst who was clinical professor emeritus of psychiatry at George Washington University, where he taught for 34 years until his retirement in 2007, died Oct. 13 at a hospital in Bethesda, Md. The cause was congestive heart failure, said a son, Alexander Kafka. Dr. Kafka, who lived in Bethesda, was born in Linz, Austria. He had a private psychoanalytic practice in the Washington area since 1957 and served as a training analyst at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute since 1973. He was a staff psychiatrist at the Chestnut Lodge psychiatric institution in Rockville, Md., for 10 years until 1967, a past president of the Washington Psychoanalytic Society, a life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association

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Why you may want to consider a travel agent during the pandemic

Whenever Americans start traveling again, they will quickly find that travel planning looks significantly different in the era of covid-19. Instead of scouring the Internet for the best deals and new destinations, they will have to study border restrictions and quarantine requirements. To navigate the complicated landscape of traveling during the pandemic, people are turning to travel agents, some for the first time. InteleTravel As someone who normally relies on her own incessant Googling to plan travel, I wanted to clear up my misconceptions about travel agents (increasingly known as travel advisers) about what they do, what they charge and how they can be helpful. So I spoke with Ferrara and Bahar Schmidt, the co-founder of the travel agency and resale platform Eluxit, about the appeal. For many people, travel is something to do for fun. For travel agents, it’s work. We may have stopped planning trips when the pandemic started, but travel agents continued to study it for their clients’ needs. Schmidt says Eluxit agents have been staying informed by attending webinars hosted by airlines, hotel brands and destinations to better advise clients. “There are hundreds [of webinars] on a daily basis to choose from,” Schmidt says. Unlike the average traveler, travel agents are constantly studying the industry. They’re surveying when an airline releases new routes, watching for updates on passport services, monitoring when countries open their borders to Americans. Then they digest that information and share what’s important with their clients. They are also focusing on new safety concerns. Some agencies coordinate rapid coronavirus testing for customers, or they provide updated safety information for travelers’ peace of mind. For example, Schmidt recently worked with a client to decide on an airline based on its covid-19 precautions and a car transfer that she knew followed social distancing strictly. “A lot of people are still kind of worried about traveling. It’s comforting just to hear somebody’s voice saying, it’s okay ... this is what they’re going to serve you on the airplane, this is what you should prepare for,” Schmidt says. At a time when many travelers are scrounging for refunds on canceled flights, travel agents are better equipped to deal with those hassles. “We have expert access. We have industry relationships. There are tools we can use,” Ferrara says. He says “when customers have had to sit on the phone, wait and wait and wait, and the system hangs

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China’s Xi lays out plan to build Shenzhen into global rival to troubled Hong Kong

SEOUL — Shenzhen and Hong Kong have long represented two visions of China's development, separated only by a seam of water. To the north of the Sham Chun River, Shenzhen is governed by mainland law and is home to China's high-tech champions Huawei and Tencent. To the south, Hong Kong was the outward-facing one, an English-speaking center of ­finance and trade that was allowed — until recently — a greater measure of free speech. Beijing is now pushing the balance in favor of Shenzhen, with a new blueprint to turn the city into a world-class hub for finance, trade and other sectors that have long been Hong Kong's remit. It is, in effect, doubling down on its domestic economic experiment, while leaving the prospects uncertain for the other one across the river, the former British colony that continues to resist Beijing's rule. In a speech Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans to build Shenzhen into a "model city" of innovative industries and rule of law, while touting closer integration of Hong Kong into the mainland economy. In the audience was Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who had delayed her annual policy address to attend. "We are forming a new development pattern with the domestic economy cycle playing a leading role," Xi said. The top-level support for Shenzhen was meant to be a message for Hong Kong, said Victor Gao, a professor at China's Soochow University and a former Foreign Ministry official. "If you do not have stability, if you are caught up in revolution, or great turmoil, or anarchy, then you will lose out on whatever advantages and resources you may have previously had," Gao said. "Then your economic development will reverse course." Since last year, Hong Kong has been rocked by sometimes violent protests against Beijing's tightening grip on the city. The ensuing crackdown led to thousands of arrests and China's imposition of a national security law that sharply curtails political freedoms and has spurred doubts among international businesses about Hong Kong's viability as a base for their operations. On Wednesday, Xi gave the speech in Shenzhen to mark the 40th anniversary of the city’s ­designation as a special economic zone, or SEZ. That event helped turn China into an economic ­powerhouse. The country’s leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, designated the then fishing village as a test bed for international trade and market overhauls. Shenzhen holds

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Edward C. Meyer, general who revamped post-Vietnam ‘hollow Army,’ dies at 91

1981, military funding increased, and Gen. Meyer led an effort to modernize the Army and raise the readiness and morale of troops. When he took over the Army’s top post, he said only six of its 10 divisions at the time were combat-ready. Almost half of the Army’s 750,000 troops were overseas, leaving many stateside units threadbare or depleted. The Army had a shortage of sergeants and reserve officers, and unit leaders were rotated so often that they scarcely got to know the troops under their command. In Gen. Meyer’s first year on the job, more than 20 senior generals retired or were replaced, easing the way toward new approaches to the Army’s internal organization and procedures. It was essential, Gen. Meyer said, to create a “vision of where we were going so that we weren’t trapped, as armies in the past have been, into just being a mirror of the kind of army we were before.” He came to terms with the post-Vietnam, all-volunteer Army, although he would have preferred a return to military draft. “I have great concern about the future of a nation in which there is no responsibility for service placed upon the people,” Gen. Meyer told the Times in 1983. “Soldiers should not go off to war without having the nation behind them,” he said. One of the lessons of Vietnam, he added, was that “it became quite clear that the will of the people, the resources of the nation, and the Army weren’t clearly linked in that war.” Gen. Meyer sought to improve the pay and educational benefits for enlisted service members and noncommissioned officers, which helped in recruitment. He toughened the Army’s training requirements, adding two weeks to basic training and an hour to each day’s drills. One of Gen. Meyer’s most notable innovations was the “cohort program,” which kept company-size units, generally consisting of about 120 troops, relatively intact for three years, creating greater cohesion. He used a similar approach for larger units of 1,000 soldiers or more, maintaining stability when they were deployed to bases abroad. Some changes that seemed minor to outsiders — such as allowing members of airborne units to wear distinctive burgundy berets — helped boost esprit de corps. Throughout his four-year tenure as chief of staff, Gen. Meyer sought to modernize the Army’s weapon systems, moving away from the heavy tanks built for the Cold War to

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NCAA will allow winter-sport athletes to receive an extra season of eligibility

The NCAA’s Division I Council voted to give eligibility relief to winter-sport athletes regardless of how many games they play during the 2020-21 academic year. Athletes now have the opportunity to play five seasons within a six-year span rather than the typical four seasons in five years. Winter sports are set to begin in the upcoming months, and some of those seasons will resemble a normal schedule. However, the circumstances presented by the novel coronavirus pandemic will make the experience different from what athletes envisioned when they pursued college sports. With the virus still spreading throughout the country, teams could face postponements or cancellations during their seasons. Some athletes also might want to opt out given the risks of contracting the virus as a result of participating in practices and competition. “The pandemic will continue to impact winter sport seasons in ways we can’t predict. Council members opted to provide for winter sport student-athletes the same flexibility given spring and fall sports previously,” M. Grace Calhoun, the Division I Council chair and the athletic director at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a statement. “The actions today ensure the continuation of local decision-making in the best interest of each institution and its student-athletes.” Winter sports include basketball, gymnastics, swimming and diving, indoor track and field, ice hockey and wrestling. The NCAA delayed the start of the men’s and women’s college basketball seasons two weeks, with games set to tip off Nov. 25. The council already granted eligibility relief to spring-sport athletes whose seasons were cut short because of the pandemic, as well as fall-sport athletes. Some conferences are playing fall sports as scheduled and others have postponed until the spring, but regardless of the circumstances, this year will not count against an athlete’s eligibility. Many winter-sport athletes missed out on the postseason of their 2019-20 campaigns, but they did not receive any eligibility relief, with the council noting that those athletes had the opportunity to compete in nearly their entire seasons. The NCAA canceled all championship events, including the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, March 12, abruptly ending the seasons and careers of many athletes. Eligibility relief is viewed as a fair resolution for athletes whose seasons have been affected by the pandemic, but it’s complex and presents logistical challenges. Schools self-apply this waiver for eligibility relief, meaning they get to choose whether athletes are allowed the extra season. Some

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Transcript: Race in America: Ending Poverty

conversation, it will make you and your organization stronger on a collection of different fronts. And it goes back to this other fundamental thing that when we're talking about businesses, what they can do is, are we actually supporting financial institutions, vendors and suppliers who are minority-owned, Black-owned organizations? I think about what's happening right now, the fact that we have 5,100 banks in this country right now that represent approximately $20 trillion in assets. Now, if you break that down, there are 18 Black banks which represent $18 billion in assets. These are financial institutions that oftentimes have the closest connections to the communities. I can tell you right now, for a young entrepreneur in East Baltimore, you know, one of the--if they have an interesting idea and they're looking for capital, I can tell you one of the first places they're looking to go access capital is Harbor Bank. It's the local bank. It's the CDFI. It's the MDI. And so, we as a corporate community also have to be really thoughtful about what it means to be able to better protect and support and elevate our financial institutions, our businesses, our suppliers and vendors, and that means that it gives the business community a really creative opportunity to be thoughtful about ways they are impacting social change in the communities that they are actually driving customers as well. MS. NORRIS: But there's a--there's a little bit of a snag that I hear over and over again from the business community. You had said in September that this is not just an issue of economics and equality; it's an issue of humanity. But when you're talking about equality and social justice, it has taken on a partisan patina, that some people feel like if they get involved in this, that they're choosing sides, that it's like if we support social justice, we're supporting the liberals. How do you also address and interrogate that issue? Because that's preventing some people and some businesses, and businesses with a lot of capital and a lot of muscle from effectively stepping into this arena. MR. MOORE: I think part of the thing we have to remind the business community is that humanity--humanity doesn't have a side. You know, people's basic dignity does not have a side. It does not have a party affiliation. It does not vote one way versus another way.

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Transcript: Confronting America’s Digital Divide

right direction. Tokenistic announcements don't help. The actual data, bottom-up data when we survey shows Black and Hispanic about 10 years behind. The penetration rate is changing. That is when we start to see a difference. MR. SCOTT: You know, one approach to the digital divide that we are hearing quite often, it's about the issue of rights and this being a civil right. The access to Internet is a fundamental right, even a prerequisite to being able to function completely in a modern society. What are your thoughts on that? MR. WALIA: Yes, absolutely. You know, COVID showed us the lack of access to connectivity and tech can have a major impact in one's life on health. So yes, I do believe going forward this is something which is going to change globally and just especially in the U.S., which connectivity is going to become a fundamental right. MR. SCOTT: I've also read some of your work and seen interviews, and you've talked about the digital divide being a ticking time bomb, the idea that, you know, we don't have forever to address this issue. You've even been a bit disappointed that there's still been some resistance to moving forward in the direction that you deem is best. Can you talk a bit about the reasons for that resistance? MR. WALIA: I think one has to accept reality. You know, it's very important to know the data is there which shows this gap. So I'm going to give you a perspective from an investment perspective of if you look at the spectrum of digitization, what it's doing globally, and look at, say, the country, break it from 1 to 100, from skilled to unskilled, what digitization is doing and big tech is doing is essentially through the automation it's sucking up productivity from the bottom half of the skilled force and transferring through world [unclear] to the top 5 percent. That's why the question I was always asked, why are the markets not reflecting the underlying economy, of what's happening in the underlying country, that disconnect that is there. And then on top of that you've got this powerful backstop of [unclear] which has gone up for quite some time, which provide liquidity to these companies and markets where every time there is some slowdown or correction the backstop gives an ability to behave and go out there and

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Transcript: Confronting America’s Digital Divide

the country, rural areas mostly, where there is no viable access to the Internet. But then there are the pockets we are focused on where adoption is really the larger issue, and that's urban centers, metropolitan areas, where the Internet access is readily available, yet and still there's so many barriers to adoption, quite frankly. If we take a step back and just think about poverty in this country, you know, you talked about those children, 38 million people in America are living in poverty, and amidst COVID every single challenge they're facing, including lack of Internet access, has been exacerbated, whether it's job security, housing security, knowing where your next meal is going to come from. All of these are very complicating before COVID and certainly complicated now. And so, we've decided that our focus would be on what we consider to be the three most significant barriers to adoption. In this time of COVID, many more partners have joined us in fighting this digital divide, this opportunity divide. But those three barriers are simply, one is affordability. We've had our Internet Essentials product, high-speed Internet, $9.95 a month. Second is access to equipment, so access to free and discounted laptops, tablets. We know these are key devices to Internet access, especially from home. While smartphone access is available to many, we all know that applying for a job, trying to access health care, and of course virtual schooling is impossible with just smartphone access. And probably the most critical barrier is just access to skills, awareness, and knowledge. So, some families believe, well, out of necessity, you know, I need to work outside the home, I don't have children in the home, so it seems like, you know, it's not a critical tool that you need. Or there's trust issues. We see this a lot in immigrant populations. But we know that once people are connected and have access and know how to access resources, whether it's access to free, high-quality job training, health care resources, et cetera, that that makes all the difference and really helps stave that adoption process. And that's really what we're trying to promote, those three barriers. We know we can't do it alone but we're committed to doing everything we can to support that. MR. DIAZ-BALART: Delila, I'm just wondering, I've seen Internet Essentials evolve, and given COVID-19, and the situation has

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New ways to protect your 2021 vacation

widely. And coverage is largely untested. In other words, travelers have filed relatively few covid-19 claims, and we don’t know how the insurance companies will process these claims. The travel insurance site Squaremouth reports that 81 percent of policies purchased include trip cancellation benefits. Twenty-two percent of all policies provide “cancel for any reason” insurance, a 552 percent increase from last year. Policies that cover any cancellation will cost 10 to 12 percent of the cost of your trip — roughly double the price of regular travel insurance — and they refund 50 to 75 percent of the cost of your trip. The travel insurance site AARDY.com says more than half of its customers are choosing cancel-for-any-reason coverage, despite the higher cost. Health insurance is an item often overlooked by travelers. “Most U.S. health insurance plans will not cover you outside of the United States in the event of a medical emergency, such as an injury or sickness that requires hospitalization or evacuation,” says Christine Buggy, vice president of marketing at Travelex Insurance. The fix is a supplemental health insurance plan. (If you’re on Medicare, look for a Medigap policy that covers you overseas.) Many travel insurance policies also cover health-care expenses on international trips. Cautious travelers can go beyond travel and supplemental health insurance, buying a membership in a service such as Medjet or Global Rescue. Coverage has changed to address the coronavirus outbreak. In October, for instance, Medjet added new covid-19 coverage to its plans. If you’re infected and hospitalized while traveling in the United States, Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean, Medjet will transport you to the hospital of your choice at home. Extra-cautious travelers may also want to consider a travel assistance plan offered by a company like FocusPoint International, which specializes in travel risk management. You can buy a FocusPoint plan as part of Medjet coverage or as stand-alone protection. FocusPoint assistance includes evacuation for medical emergencies that result in hospitalization. Its plans also provide help in such situations as natural disasters, riots, strikes and, of course, pandemics. But there’s one thing you can’t do: Make your next trip risk-free. No refund policy or travel insurance company can protect your vacation from everything. Looking ahead to 2021, experts are cautiously optimistic that the pandemic will end and that normal travel will resume. But no one knows for sure when — or if — that will happen.

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U.S. schooling during covid-19 doesn’t deserve a passing grade. Here’s the way forward.

must be reported in context — both in terms of the population size in question (not just case counts) and whether infections were actually transmitted in schools rather than in the broader community. We’ve grown accustomed to population-level statistics at the city, state and national levels (e.g., 14-day cases per 100,000 people); we should insist on the same rigor for school-based measures. Data on covid-19 clusters within schools, when they occur, should also be reported alongside information on which risk mitigation measures (e.g., masks, ventilation, etc.) were in place. Third, any policy analysis must ask, “Compared with what?” While remote learning is often called the “safest option,” that view assumes children are at home, safely distancing from others. But policymakers must consider that in many households, parents have to work, meaning children are often in teaching “pods,” nanny shares or group hangouts at local playgrounds. This leads to a series of mixed interactions between children and adults. Given this reality, it’s possible that hybrid models and remote learning may not reduce infection risk relative to in-person schooling that requires masks and keeps kids in smaller, contained groups. But we need better data to make that determination. In addition to tracking cases in schools, as the New York Times is doing, districts should collect anonymous survey data from parents on how children are spending time outside school and what risk-mitigation strategies they use. Contact tracers should assess whether these informal arrangements are leading to outbreaks, and should share that information with schools so that we can understand the risks of alternatives. Finally, policy choices should not focus on just one outcome. We need a richer accounting of the costs and benefits of schooling models beyond just virus transmission. Key metrics should include student learning, engagement and well-being. How many students are consistently attending school (either in person or remotely), completing assignments and meeting learning objectives? How many have a stable Internet connection and quiet place to work? How many are missing meals or health-care services they typically receive at school? Many districts and state education departments are creating scorecards and benchmarks to assess transmission risk within schools. Similar benchmarks are needed for these other measures of well-being, with close attention paid to equity issues. Schooling decisions risk widening existing education achievement gaps by socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity; tracking these effects on equity is critical. We also must consider economic costs

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Montgomery County halts plan to lift restrictions as D.C. region’s coronavirus cases rise

gatherings with friends and family should be limited or avoided. Transmission of the coronavirus has similarities to that of a sexually transmitted illness, he said. “You may have intercourse with one person, but they’re having intercourse with two other people, so you’ve been exposed to those people, too,” Petri said. He said gatherings with others are never risk-free, but possible exposure will be most limited with a small group, while also knowing everyone within the group and the safety precautions they are taking. He warned against taking “unnecessary risks,” saying people should ask themselves whether planned social interactions outweigh the risk of exposure to the virus. Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at the Georgetown University School of Medicine and interim chief public health officer at the university, said a second wave of cases that experts predicted months ago is now unfolding. “Even in March and April people said, ‘There’s going to be another wave,’ and here we are,” she said. “We’re bracing ourselves and hoping it won’t be as bad as the spring, but we’re also preparing for the worst.” Mishori said that in the District the mortality rate is stable and hospitals have the capacity for more patients. She said, “The question on everyone’s mind is, is this going to explode?” She said adherence to the same safety protocols used for months will determine the virus’s spread as temperatures drop. “It’s hard to predict what will happen,” Mishori said, noting that much of it depends on the public’s behavior, such as social distancing, washing hands, avoiding large gatherings and wearing a mask in public. She said health experts are seeing what she calls “behavior creep,” such as eating indoors instead of outdoors or having friends visit a backyard — while not wearing masks or maintaining social distancing — after months of avoiding such situations. Those scenarios offer the virus additional opportunities to spread, she said. “The notion that we can return to normal without a vaccine is misguided,” she said. “There’s not going to be any normal for a foreseeable future. The pandemic has continued to create economic hardships in the region. Labor Department figures released Thursday showed 25,443 people in Virginia, Maryland and the District had filed new unemployment claims for the week ending Oct. 10. That’s up from 23,486 claims filed one week earlier. In addition to 1,995 new cases, the region on Thursday recorded

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Defense Department study finds low risk of coronavirus infection through air on a packed airline flight

said the rate at which the researchers assumed passengers would shed the virus was consistent with breathing but that someone talking might release 10 times more. Nonetheless, she called the findings “reassuring.” “It shows the risk is quite low if people are not talking,” she said. Researchers looking at real-world cases have identified examples of likely transmission aboard aircraft. In one case, a woman traveling from London to Hanoi in March appears to have infected as many as 15 other passengers and crew members. In one case, South Korean researchers believe a woman might have been infected when she removed a protective mask while using an airplane bathroom. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said it has investigated about 1,600 cases of infectious people traveling, identifying some 11,000 others who were exposed to the virus as a result. But the agency has not been able to confirm a case of transmission, saying that pinpointing the exact moment someone was infected is tricky and that contact-tracing information is sometimes incomplete. The CDC continues to say that air travel presents some risk because it involves being in close quarters with other people and encountering frequently touched surfaces. In a recent review of studies, David Freedman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Annelies Wilder-Smith, a professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the research remains limited across the globe, writing that “the opportunities for rigorous studies have been few.” The researchers tentatively concluded that strict use of masks offers protection and said more studies to quantify the risk when they are worn should be a priority. The team that conducted the mannequin study recommended continued use of masks and additional cleaning to guard against transmission from large droplets and surfaces. They said that it was critical for planes’ air filters to continue to run even when they are on the ground and that boarding passengers in small groups to maintain social distancing is probably beneficial. Mewbourne, the Transportation Command official, said his team would review several policies in light of the study’s findings and might make changes to how full the Defense Department allows flights to be and tweak its contact-tracing and quarantining rules. But no decisions have been made. The airline industry has sought to convince people that flight is safe since the virus began spreading. Last week, the International Air

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Devastated by lockdowns, Hawaii’s struggling tourism industry pins its hopes on the first signs of reopening

expired July 31, on top of the state’s unemployment benefit. The aid helped cover new purchases to help her 16-year-old son learn remotely: a desk, chair, printer and Internet service. Duarte’s family has otherwise gotten by thanks to her husband’s job in construction, and the fact that the Fairbankses kept all of the inn’s employees on the company’s health insurance. In the last week of September, more than 17 percent of Hawaii’s labor force was receiving unemployment benefits, again, the highest rate in the nation. Even more were receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, an emergency program Congress passed to cover gig workers, the self-employed and contractors who have otherwise not normally qualified for traditional or jobless benefits. As the inn stays open, Duarte doesn’t plan to look for other work. But she worries the career that has supported her for 20 years might not look the same in a coronavirus economy. “I’d have to start over,” she said. “And the way things are now, it would be difficult to find another job.” Even with Hawaii’s loosened restrictions, everyone expects it will take some time for travelers to return. Some Hawaiian hotels are even waiting to book rooms for a few more weeks or months to see if covid-19 cases stay under control. Green, Hawaii’s lieutenant governor, said hotels might reach an occupancy rate of 45 percent by March 2021. Fairbanks said another PPP loan from Congress would help sustain the inn until tourism picks up momentum. Yet the White House and Congress have been at odds for weeks over another stimulus package, and it looks unlikely that there will be any deal before the Nov. 3 election. At times focus has centered on relief for the airline industry and $1,200 stimulus checks. Other proposals have included redirecting unused funding from the Paycheck Protection Program. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell has repeatedly called for more fiscal aid that can reach workers in industries that will take some time to recover, including travel, restaurants, hotels and entertainment. “It also seemed likely that the sectors most affected by the pandemic — those relying on extensive in-person contact — would face a long and difficult path to recovery,” Powell said earlier this month at the National Association for Business Economics virtual annual meeting. “These sectors and people working in them would likely need targeted and sustained policy support.” But businesses dependent on tourism have

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Transcript: Climate Solutions: Next Generation

they changed their lifestyles and they put in their resources around a new clean source of water and then it goes away and it's further devastating for these regions. And that's the inspiration for the formation of the new company WellBeyond, which began consulting for other NGOs around their clean water infrastructure implementation and now we're developing technology to leverage the technology that's already rapidly evolving in these regions to further support these communities and put the power and the knowledge and the education in their hands to manage their own water. MS. SELLERS: Sarah, thank you. Karan, Sarah was inspired by a trip overseas. But the disaster that came to your attention was right on your doorstep. Tell us about what prompted you to get involved in this environmental work. MR. JERATH: Absolutely. So, this was the Deepwater Horizon spill, which happened in 2010. And my family and I moved from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia in 2008, and essentially just seeing the devastation in our backyard, the Gulf of Mexico, because we live around 30 minutes from there, really sparked my interest in trying to solve solutions that could have a global impact. At that time, I was in high school. I didn't have a college degree, and so what my limiting factors were, were just not having resources. And so, what I decided to do was to use a science fair as a way to be able to engage in these types of solutions. And freshman year of high school, I got involved with the science fair, talked to one of my teachers who happened to have contacts within the oil and gas industry, and that ultimately then allowed me to use software and simulations to develop this solution. But what really sparked my interest in this was just seeing this devastation over the course of three months not come to a standstill. As you can imagine, the news headlines were all over, not only within our local community but around the world. And after seeing all the solutions that were developed, that really sparked my interest in thinking if I could do something regardless of the scale, and regardless if it even worked, me actually contributing and making an attempt would be--would be something that I would--that I would want to do. And so, over the course of two years, within the science fair program, I developed

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Transcript: Climate Solutions: Next Generation

these regions. So, the dramatic change between a drought and the flood will actually affect the groundwater. So, we're seeing more turbid water underneath the surface, especially in the deeper aquifers, and that's problematic not just for water quality but also for the equipment that's downhole if you're pumping water out of the ground. It's compromising that equipment. It's making it more costly to have to--be able to rehab and install these systems. So, if it gets much worse, it's going to be incredibly problematic. So, I'm hopeful that these amazing young people are going to help us address these issues and the awareness of these issues. MS. SELLERS: And a quick follow-up on that, because many of the problems you describe we have documented as well in the United States and your focuses overseas. Do you see yourself bringing these technologies back to work in areas like the Texas border, the Navajo Nation, other areas where there's very poor water quality or lack of access to clean water? MS. EVANS: We get that question a lot. And we have actually done a little bit of disaster response work in Texas after hurricanes. The problem in the U.S., of course, is politics and policy. It--we have this really niche expertise in groundwater and cultural understanding in the United States, that's a lot trickier, there's a lot more--a lot more red tape to get through. However, I think with the new innovations we're working on right now, it can be translated anywhere in the world. So, we are actually hopeful that we can start working on the border or on the reservations and provide solutions at home, as well as overseas. MS. SELLERS: Thank you. Karan, Amnesty International recently had a survey that suggested that Generation Z has been more affected and is more upset about climate change than prior generations. Why, Karan, are these issues resonating so much with young people now? MR. JERATH: Because this is our problem. This is ultimately a problem that we have inherited, that we, I think youth especially in this day and age, are realizing that our leaders, if they're not going to solve it for us, we have to be the ones to take this initiative and solve it ourselves. Quite frankly, in today's day and age, climate change is the biggest threat to national security. But the thing is, it doesn't just

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Tracking a secret outbreak in Iowa

How genetic science can help expose, track and contain coronavirus outbreaks. And your voting questions answered.

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A pandemic should be the great equalizer. This one had the opposite effect.

Pandemics should be the great equalizer. They affect everyone, rich and poor, Black and White, urban and rural. After all, even the president of the United States contracted the coronavirus. But covid-19 has actually had the opposite effect. The virus is ushering in the greatest rise in economic inequality in decades, both globally and in the United States. Despite all the concern about inequality within America, it’s worth noting that global inequality — the gap between the richest and poorest around the world — had declined over the past few decades. Thanks to the rise of China, India and other countries, the share of people living in abject poverty (under $2 a day) is less than a quarter of what it was in 1990. But an astonishing set of statistics compiled by the Economist shows how years of progress are being undone in months. The World Bank estimates that about 100 million people are falling back into extreme poverty this year. Sub-Saharan Africa, which had enjoyed economic growth every year for the past 25 years, will shrink in 2020. The World Food Program — recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize — estimates that the number facing hunger will double this year to 265 million people. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation warns that vaccination rates for children are as low as they were over two decades ago. Behind all these statistics are individual human beings who are starving or sick, their children wasting away, desperate and deprived of hope. The divide between rich and poor is stark even in the United States. Two new studies estimate that between 6 million and 8 million people have been pushed into poverty over the past few months. Millions of Americans can’t pay their electric bills or are skipping meals to save cash. A recent survey found that 38 percent of those who have lost work due to covid-19 don’t have even a month’s worth of savings. Consider how the pandemic is widening inequality in the United States. The Post analyzed Labor Department data on how the past four recessions affected the top 25 percent of income earners vs. the bottom 25 percent. In the recessions of 1990, 2001 and 2008, both groups lost jobs at about the same rate — which was a few percent. In the current recession, the top 25 percent, after a slight initial decline, has bounced back completely.

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Tracking a secret outbreak in Iowa

Post Reports is the daily podcast from The Washington Post. Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post. For your ears. Martine Powers is your host, asking the questions you didn’t know you wanted answered. Listen online. How genetic science can help expose, track and contain coronavirus outbreaks. And your voting questions answered. Read more: In a pandemic rife with confusion, where essential data and clear guidance have been difficult to find, clues to controlling coronavirus outbreaks can be found in the virus’s own genetic code. Sarah Kaplan reports on an undisclosed outbreak in Postville, Iowa — and the genetic evidence it left behind. Your voting questions, answered. One listener asks, how do campaigns get involved in challenging votes? Election law attorney Ben Ginsberg explains. If you have a question about voting, check out The Washington Post’s guide on how to vote in your state. You can also ask Post Reports on Twitter or Facebook — or write us an email at PostReports@washpost.com. Subscribe to The Washington Post: https://postreports.com/offer

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Weather satellite captures stunning fall foliage coloring the Eastern U.S.

Fall foliage is reaching its peak color across parts of the Appalachians in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, where weather satellites captured their shades of amber from more than 22,000 miles above the ground. On Wednesday, satellite-derived weather maps plotted the colors, which could be seen stretching from the Virginias and high terrain of western North Carolina all the way north to the Canadian border. Those are the same areas that are listed as experiencing peak color currently, making the upcoming weekend a perfect one to enjoy the tranquil scenery — weather permitting, of course. Among the best places to see the colors? The Blue Ridge Mountains, the mountains of North Carolina, northern and western Pennsylvania, all but eastern New York State, the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Satellite imagery corroborated that story. The GOES East weather satellite, which hovers 22,236 miles above our heads, revealed a rust-colored tinge to the ordinarily verdant vegetation. That illustrates where fall foliage is at or near peak. Geosynchronous orbit describes the height at which an object can revolve around Earth in perfect alignment with a given point on the planet’s surface, constantly looking down at the same place on the ground. There is only one altitude at which this is possible, because satellites are subjected to the constant earthward pull of gravity and their immutable desire to barrel ahead in a straight line. At the level of “geosync,” a satellite is curved toward Earth at the same rate that it tries to run away into space, the perfect balance making a circular orbit around Earth. Leaves change color in the autumn as the days become shorter. Photosynthesis, a key chemical reaction that employs chlorophyll, a green pigment found in plants, is dependent on sunlight. As sunlight wanes, the production of chlorophyll slows, and other buried colors can emerge. Among them are shades of orange, red and yellow, produced by beta-carotene, anthocyanins, and flavonols respectively. Chlorophyll is required for a plant to produce food, or glucose. Once the leaves are unable to do that, they become a net sink of energy for a plant, rather than a source. So if you live in the high elevations of the Mid-Atlantic or the Northeast, this upcoming weekend may be an opportune time to enjoy the vibrant colors.

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A Japanese Olympic swimmer was caught having an affair. He’s now suspended for the rest of 2020.

was having an extramarital affair. Seto, who won a bronze medal in the 400-meter individual medley at the 2016 Rio Olympics and is the current world champion in that event and the 200-meter IM, has apologized multiple times after a tabloid published a story last month detailed how the married father of two had visited a “love hotel” — a hotel that offers stays of as short as a few hours — with a woman who was not his wife. “I intend to sincerely give my full attention to swimming … so that I may regain the trust of my family, whom I hurt deeply with my irresponsible behavior, and regain the acceptance of my family as well as all of you as a swimmer,” Seto said in a statement released through his management company on Tuesday. Seto, 26, admitted to the affair and resigned as captain of Japan’s Olympic swimming team last month after the magazine published the story. He still will be able to swim in next year’s Tokyo Olympics and already has qualified by virtue of the world championships he won in 2019. However, he has lost sponsorship deals with the Japanese Olympic Committee and All Nippon Airways. Japanese sporting officials have previously issued strict punishments to athletes who, in their eyes, have tarnished the country’s honor. In 2014, the Japan Swimming Federation suspended Naoya Tomita — a world short-course breaststroke champion — for 17 months after he was caught stealing a professional photographer’s camera from the pool deck at the 2014 Asian Games. At the Asian Games in Jakarta four years later, four members of the Japanese men’s basketball team were sent home after checking into a hotel with four women deemed to be prostitutes. The players later were suspended from competition for one year. In 2018, the Japanese Canoe Federation suspended kayaker Yasuhiro Suzuki for eight years after he admitted to spiking an opponent’s drink with anabolic steroids in an attempt to get him to fail a drug test. Two years earlier, Olympic badminton player Kenichi Tago was kicked off the national team after losing nearly $100,000 at illegal casinos in Japan, where most forms of gambling are prohibited. Read more: Tokyo to hold gymnastics meet featuring foreign teams Negotiations with Nassar victims held up by insurers, USOPC claims in lawsuit Beijing is planning to host another Olympics. Clashes over human rights are back, too.

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Presidents have long disguised their health problems. There is only one solution.

during a train tour of the country campaigning for Senate ratification of the Versailles Treaty, Wilson exhibited symptoms that foretold a major stroke that then occurred in October. His doctor suggested resigning because he lacked the physical capacity to handle the burdens of the office. Wilson ignored this advice and finished the last roughly 17 months of his term. While the White House hid Wilson’s incapacity from the public, the stroke rendered him unable to manage either the physical or intellectual demands of the political fight for the treaty, effectively ending his presidency. Wilson’s medical history was a prelude of sorts to Franklin Roosevelt’s successful campaigns for New York governor in 1928 and 1930. In 1923, polio had left him paralyzed from the waist down. Though he could not hide his disability, he encouraged the false belief that he had largely recovered from the paralysis. Speeches at the Democratic conventions in 1924 and 1928 created the false impression of a vigorous man capable of serving in executive positions. Successful terms as governor, in turn, opened the way to the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932. With the country in an unprecedented economic collapse and the ineffective Herbert Hoover in the White House, Roosevelt’s disability actually boosted his political ambitions. As a political leader who was seen to have largely recovered from a health crisis and been an effective governor of the country’s largest state, Roosevelt situated himself as the ideal political figure to lead the country out of the depression and restore America’s economic health. Roosevelt urged the country to become “prophets of a new order.” His New Deal, with a host of groundbreaking laws that made America a more humane society, made him the most popular president since his cousin Theodore and gave him a landslide reelection victory in 1936. Although his second term fell short of his initial achievements, the onset of World War II, with Nazi Germany in control of Western Europe, gave Roosevelt a fresh surge of appeal and an unprecedented third term. Despite his disability, his years in office and legislative accomplishments made him seem like the right leader to steer the country through the international crisis. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 made questions about his polio and broader fitness to do the job all but disappear. But by 1944, the 62-year-old president was in declining health and his weight loss and

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As election nears, Pentagon leaders’ goal of staying out of elections is tested

media. Milley, meanwhile, has spoken repeatedly about the military’s duty to defend the Constitution rather than any particular party or leader. In an interview with NPR over the weekend, Milley sought to minimize the possibility that the military could be pulled into an election dispute, as experts have warned. While most academics suggest the most likely such scenario would involve the president employing the military to address post-election unrest, Milley appeared to address an assertion that the military could be asked to help arbitrate the result. “I would tell you that in my mind, if there’s a disputed election — it’s not in my mind, it’s in the law — if there’s a disputed election, that’ll be handled by Congress and the courts,” he said. “There’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election. Zero, there is no role there.” Peter Feaver, a scholar on civil-military relations at Duke University, said the Trump campaign’s decision to run its recent advertisement showing Milley — along with Esper, Vice President Pence and national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien — next to Trump as they oversaw the 2019 military operation that resulted in the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi illustrated the “tone deafness” of Trump’s campaign team to norms governing military involvement in partisan activities. While presidents seeking reelection, including Barack Obama in 2012, have frequently made reference to their decisions as commander in chief, and shown military personnel in campaign material, Feaver said the inclusion of a senior uniformed officer was especially problematic. “I’m sure that Esper and Milley are uncomfortable with this and don’t like the appearance, even though they’re not allowed to say it,” Feaver said of the ad. “And I hope they don’t say it, because that will just extend the damage by getting them crosswise with the president.” Officials said neither Milley nor Esper knew about the ad, which one official said was later taken down, ahead of time. The ad recalls an incident in August in which several uniformed troops in American Samoa were featured in a Democratic convention video, which resulted in an Army investigation. Relations between Trump and Esper, Trump’s second confirmed defense secretary, have been visibly strained since June, when Esper spoke out against Trump’s desire to use active-duty military troops to address widespread protests against racism and police brutality. Officials have said Trump has

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Emboldened by his covid-19 recovery, Trump pushes return to normalcy

on the condition of anonymity to offer a frank assessment. These officials had also hoped that the president would incorporate the importance of basic health protections against the virus into his messages. “He looks completely out of touch,” said Mike DuHaime, a Republican consultant close to former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and campaign manager Bill Stepien, both of whom were infected with the virus. “He doesn’t appreciate what it would be like for a regular person. He gets the best medical treatment of everyone in the world and is acting like he’s Superman. It really reinforces a lot of negative notions about him and how he handled coronavirus from the beginning.” The White House disputed that characterization, saying the president is projecting strength and optimism. “Any suggestion that the President of the United States has not taken the threat of covid-19 seriously is completely false,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement. “As the entire country has confronted covid-19, President Trump has never wavered in his message of strength and optimism to the American people, and as he personally defeated the virus the President has once again reminded the nation that he is a fighter and that if we all fight together we will defeat this.” Deere also pointed to the president’s decisions to limit travel from China, shut down the country in the spring, expand testing and push the development of therapeutics and vaccines as evidence that Trump has taken the virus seriously. On Monday night, Trump tossed masks to supporters from the stage. Private polling shared among campaign advisers, as well as public polls, shows Trump’s handling of the pandemic remains his biggest albatross — and is among the top concerns for voters in swing states. Those internal findings are buttressed The poll also showed that many judge Trump harshly for failing to take what they regard as adequate protections to avoid contracting the virus. Almost 2 in 3 voters say he did not take appropriate precautions, and 6 in 10 say they do not trust the administration to provide complete and accurate information about his health. A similar percentage said they do not trust what he says about the pandemic. Several experts and former administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter, said the White House outbreak was a result of carelessness and disregard

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Join The Washington Post at Middleburg Film Festival Oct. 15-18

was infiltrated by communists, regarded Dr. King as a subversive bent on challenging systemic segregation and the status quo. To ruin Dr. King, the FBI director used every means at his disposal. William Sullivan, Hoover’s right-hand admitted in their pursuit of Dr. King, “no holds were barred.” Bugs were planted in Dr. King’s hotel rooms, his phones tapped, informants paid. The Bureau enlisted journalists to write hostile stories about Dr. King, never alerted him to threats on his life, and when King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the FBI threatened to blackmail him unless he committed suicide. A timely and revelatory film, directed by Emmy® Award-winner and Oscar®-nominee Sam Pollard. · Post film-screening discussion: Post Opinions contributing columnist Michele Norris in conversation with director Sam Pollard at Friday, Oct. 16 at 12PM ET. “The Dissident” · Showtime: Friday, Oct. 16 at 9:15PM ET (this film will be viewable for three hours from showtime) · Synopsis: Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was critical of his beloved Saudi Arabia and of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s policies. On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul and never came out. His fiancée and dissidents around the world are left to piece together clues to his brutal murder—and in their dogged quest for truth, they expose a global cover-up perpetrated by the very country he loved. With exclusive access to the Turkish government’s evidence; to Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz; and to Khashoggi’s close friend and fellow Saudi insurgent, Omar Abdulaziz, Academy Award–winning filmmaker Bryan Fogel unearths hidden secrets in this real-life international thriller that will continue to rock the world long after the headlines have faded away. · Post film-screening discussion: KPCC The Frame’s John Horn in conversation with director Bryan Fogel on Friday, Oct. 16 at 11:15PM ET. Festival attendees can also join Post journalists for the following panel discussions: · Post Film Critic Ann Hornaday in conversation with Sophia Loren on Friday, Oct. 16 at 4:00PM ET following the presentation of the festival’s Legacy Tribute Award to Loren. The discussion will touch on Loren’s career and collaborations – and her current film, “The Life Ahead.” · Post Arts Editor Janice Page in conversation with the cast of, “Minari” on Saturday, Oct. 17 at 9:00PM ET following the presentation of the festival’s Cast Spotlight Award to the cast. For the full schedule and ticket information, visit https://films.middleburgfilm.org/.

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Trump wants to try for herd immunity. Without a vaccine, it could kill millions.

Other coronaviruses are called “seasonal” because, like the flu, they circulate every year. The result of letting the infection go in the general population will, in all likelihood, be a persistent problem, not a nightmare followed by a blissful awakening. CDC Director Robert Redfield told Congress in late September Returning to pre-pandemic levels of activity risks a return to levels of transmission like those we saw in the hardest-hit places in the early spring, such as New York, New Orleans and Detroit, with hospitals overwhelmed and ICU beds in short supply. All the sacrifices of the last months will have been largely wasted, delaying but not fundamentally changing the devastation of an unmitigated pandemic. Among other consequences, this will mean that the return to “normalcy” hoped for by herd-immunity proponents will not occur, as fear of exposure would keep people home even if there were no rules requiring it. Indeed, economists report that states that ended their spring lockdowns early have had the worst, not the best, economic outcomes, resulting from rampant viral spread. “Flatten the curve” was a good idea when the world first heard the concept in March, and it still is. Even if we assume herd immunity will come sooner or later through the natural spread of the infection, we should prefer to delay it. A flatter curve, with more infections delayed, means a health-care system better able to cope with the cases it does have. Treatments are getting better, and there are indications that more people who would have died of covid-19 earlier in the outbreak are surviving. Further, data suggest that only two-thirds of the 225,000 excess deaths from March to August were covid-related; an overwhelmed health-care system means there is little reserve to care for all the other diseases hospitals were created to treat. And there is every reason to expect medical care for this new disease to be better in three or six months than it is now. Last and most important, vaccines are being tested that might just protect us if we can stay uninfected long enough to get our immunity that way. We can find common ground with the proponents of focused protection on the need to find more and better ways to shield the vulnerable until then, and to be smart about what restrictions we use to reduce viral spread. We also agree that control measures are taking a toll

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A rocket booster and a dead satellite avoided a collision Thursday, illustrating the ‘ticking time bomb’ of space debris

It appears that a dead Soviet satellite narrowly missed a Chinese rocket stage Thursday night as they sped hundreds of miles above the Earth’s surface, another in a series of close calls for junk whizzing around in orbit. Throughout the space community there was widespread concern over a worst-case scenario — that shortly before 9 p.m. Eastern the objects would collide, creating a massive debris field, adding even more pollution to space that could last decades, according to LeoLabs, a California-based company that tracks debris for satellite companies. If that happened, the collision could have produced thousands of pieces of space debris, the most since an active communications satellite operated by Iridium and a dead Russian satellite crashed into each other in 2009 some 500 miles over Siberia. But shortly before 10 p.m. LeoLabs reported that there appeared to be no collision. The company’s radar showed the rocket stage intact with “no signs of debris.” It added that there was “no indication of collision.” In addition to a couple thousand operational satellites, there is a lot of trash in space — spent satellites and old rocket boosters, the flotsam of previous collisions and military maneuvers, such as when China shot down a dead satellite with a missile in 2007. The more junk in space, the greater the possibility of additional collisions, which in turn would produce even more debris, further exacerbating a problem that is growing worse. “Every week we see close approaches, where derelict satellites, rocket bodies, are passing within 100 meters of each other,” said Daniel Ceperley, LeoLabs’ founder and CEO. “This isn’t like this happens once a year. This happens multiple times a week. It’s sort of a ticking time bomb that’s just out there in space.” He said the chance of a collision was less than 10 percent but added “that’s extremely high for the space industry. At one in 10,000, a satellite operator will move their satellite. At one in 1,000, it’s is considered an emergency.” So far this year, the International Space Station has had to maneuver three times to avoid debris, NASA said. Speaking at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing recently, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine lamented the growing problem and said in addition to the times the station has had to maneuver there “were three potential [collisions] that made us very nervous.” The challenge, he said, is “we don’t have as a nation,

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As covid-19 cases surge, global study paints grim picture for elder-care homes

system. At least 30 fatalities have been linked to Hong Kong’s care home network, roughly a quarter of all covid-19 deaths in the city. Terry Lum, a professor at the University Hong Kong, said that the big worry was that covid-19 could slip into facilities through seemingly healthy staff members. “We worry about infected staff who do not have symptoms,” he wrote in an email this summer. It’s not all gloom. Despite their aging populations, South Korea and Japan have avoided large-scale deaths in care homes. China, where the coronavirus first emerged, has not reported a large number of deaths in elder-care homes. A number of nations that initially saw large-scale deaths in care homes have performed better as their outbreaks went on. At least some current hot spots in the U.S. Southwest have so far avoided the scale of care home deaths that the Northeast saw in spring, alongside a broader decline in mortality rates. But it can be hard to isolate tactics that work. In some facilities in Spain and Britain, having staff live on site and submit to frequent testing appears to have helped keep the virus out. In the United States, rapid response teams that isolate patients and take them to hospitals have been helpful in limiting the virus’s spread. Even proven tactics, though, can exact a cost in quality of life. Without visits from families and friends, many residents can suffer emotionally. “We are well aware of the mental problems facing the patients in nursing homes, as a consequence of their loneliness,” said Trabucchi, who added he saw no alternative. Having staff live on site would be difficult in many nations, where private agency staffers often work at multiple facilities. Even the expense of testing staff members regularly could affect the margins of an industry often based on cheap, easy labor. Many tactics have a significant financial cost. In South Korea or Hong Kong, where the state is heavily involved in long-term care facilities, the government may cover them. But in nations where private ownership of elder-care homes is common, such as Britain and the United States, companies must keep expenses down. “They have to provide a lot more staff, they have to provide a lot more equipment, they have to have more space,” said Shereen Hussein, a professor of care and health policy at the University of Kent. “This means profit margins are reduced.”

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Africa’s largest dam powers dreams of prosperity in Ethiopia — and fears of hunger in Egypt

restricted, and Abdelkhaleq has already had to pay a $600 fine for over-planting. Irrigation Ministry officials enforce a rule that limits farmers to four days of water at a time from canals, followed by at least two weeks without, the strictest rationing in years, farmers say. “They are rationing the water because the Nile’s waters are already down,” said Ali Mohamed, 42, Abdelkhaleq’s son. “It’s lower this year, and every year is less and less.” He blamed the dam, but Mostafa al-Naggari, head of the rice committee of Egypt’s Agriculture Export Council, said the current rice production restrictions are primarily driven by the need to satisfy the growing population’s demand for water and meet national development goals. Egypt’s politicians and pundits have jumped at the chance to portray Ethiopia as the cause of this crisis, accusing Addis Ababa of negotiating in bad faith on filling the reservoir and in turn threatening to plunge millions of Egyptians into darkness and poverty. That rhetoric is popularized on talk shows in hyper-nationalist terms. “This is our right,” said Ahmed Mousa, one influential TV personality. “No one treats Egypt this way.” Whether the dam will contribute to water shortages in Egypt is largely a function of the eventual water-sharing agreement that Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia sign. “It all comes down to how much water Ethiopia will agree to release during and after a drought,” said Kevin Wheeler, a hydrologist at Oxford University who has co-written multiple papers on the dam. “During the onset of a drought, Ethiopia will decide whether to continue releasing water at the same rate, thus continuing to generate power and provide downstream countries with water, or else fill its reservoir to ensure longer-term energy production.” Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, sought to assuage Egyptian concerns in his speech at this year’s U.N. General Assembly. “I want to make it abundantly clear that we have no intention to harm these countries,” he said. “What we are essentially doing is to meet our electricity demands from one of the cleanest sources of energy. We cannot afford to continue keeping more than 65 million of our people in the dark.” In Egypt, even mild comments that might seem in favor of the dam require anonymity. One U.N. official in Cairo, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely about a politically sensitive issue, said that the dam had “not so far

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Md. House work group votes to propose banning chokeholds, restricting no-knock warrants

A legislative work group appointed by Maryland House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones voted to recommend repealing the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights, a controversial statute that protects police accused of wrongdoing and has been cited by critics as a major roadblock to holding officers accountable. Five months after George Floyd’s killing sparked a national outcry for police reform, the panel — composed of 10 Democrats and four Republicans — also voted Thursday to recommend independent investigations of officer-involved killings and a police use-of-force standard that includes a ban on chokeholds; a restriction on the use of no-knock warrants; and a requirement that officers intervene if they see a colleague using unreasonable force. Violators should be subject to criminal penalties, the work group said. “I think we have made some really strong recommendations that are going to move Maryland forward on police reform and police accountability for, particularly, minorities,” said Del. Vanessa E. Atterbeary (D-Howard), the chairwoman of the work group. While some of the proposals endorsed by the panel have been discussed in the General Assembly before, they now will probably have the backing of Jones (D-Baltimore County), who ascended to the speaker’s position last year after the death of longtime Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel). The legislature has moved considerably to the left in the past two years and has been energized by the protests following Floyd’s death. Still, any significant overhaul would draw strong pushback from the Maryland Fraternal Order of Police, which wields considerable authority in Annapolis. And while Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) is more aggressive about policing changes than the man he succeeded in January, President Emeritus Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), the Senate itself remains more politically moderate than the House. The vote to repeal the officers bill of rights, which is the oldest statute of its kind in the country, was 9 to 5, with Del. Michael A. Jackson of Prince George’s the lone Democrat to vote no. Approved in 1974, the law allows officers to wait before cooperating with internal misconduct inquiries, scrubs records of complaints after a certain period and ensures that only officers — not civilians — handle complaints. Jackson, a former county sheriff, said he wanted the work group to consider replacing some of the language in the statute instead of pursuing a complete repeal. But other lawmakers were insistent. “I was on a police

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State asked to halt sale of three Baltimore Museum of Art paintings

Former trustees, committee members, donors and docents of the Baltimore Museum of Art have asked Maryland officials to halt the institution’s plans to sell paintings by Andy Warhol, Clyfford Still and Brice Marden, and to investigate what they describe as irregularities and conflicts of interest surrounding the sales. In an eight-page letter to Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh and Secretary of State John C. Wobensmith, the 23 signatories charge that the museum’s plan is a breach of the public trust and should be stopped. The Baltimore Museum of Art announced Oct. 2 that it expected to generate $65 million from the sale of three paintings — Warhol’s “The Last Supper,” Still’s “1957-G” and Marden’s “3.” It plans to use $10 million for new art acquisitions and about $1 million for diversity and equity programs, and will set aside the remaining $54 million in an endowment for other expenses, including raises for staff. In announcing the plan, Director Christopher Bedford said that the museum is financially sound and that the sale of three works by White men is intended to address systemic racism and injustice that “should have been addressed with determination centuries ago.” In a statement, the BMA said it is confident that there are no legal issues related to the proposed deaccessioning plan. In 2018, the museum sold seven paintings, including works by Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Kenneth Noland, for $16.2 million. It used the proceeds to purchase art by women and artists of color. These latest deaccessions take advantage of a rule change that allows greater flexibility for the use of proceeds from sales. In April, the Association of Art Museum Directors temporarily changed its guidelines primarily to help museums that are being hard hit by the pandemic. As a result, the BMA can use the interest generated by the sale for a broad range of expenses, including paying staff and funding diversity initiatives. Critics say the museum could fund these programs without selling these critical pieces. Laurence J. Eisenstein, a former trustee who signed the letter, said it is unclear how much money will be used for equity and inclusion work — efforts he supports — and he said there is nothing that binds the museum to continue to use the money that way in the future. “To the extent it’s being presented as an equal justice initiative, that is a smokescreen — the museum is,

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Choosing the suburbs over city life during the pandemic

the second quarter of 2020, Realtor.com’s quarterly Cross Market Demand Report found that 51 percent of property searches on the site from city residents in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas were for homes in the suburbs of those metro areas, a record high since the website began tracking that data in 2017. In addition, Redfin real estate brokerage reported that a record number (27.4 percent) of Redfin.com users were looking to move to a different metro area during the second quarter of 2020. “Covid-19 has acted as a catalyst for people who were already thinking of moving to the suburbs,” says Jamie Koppersmith, an associate broker with McEnearney Associates in the District. “Some of my clients are thinking that now that they don’t have to be downtown for work every day, maybe they can get more living space for the same amount of money in the suburbs.” Multiple factors are driving the interest in moving, including low mortgage rates that increase affordability for buyers; the ability of many people to work remotely; and concern that some city amenities will take years to be widely available again. The pandemic has also led many people to reevaluate their lifestyle, with some recognizing that they want to live closer to their family. Other city dwellers want to have more living space and expand their access to outdoor space, two features that are harder to come by and more expensive within city limits. “The past five months or so have been great for Greenwich and other Connecticut towns,” says Yashmin Lloyds, a real estate agent with Compass in Greenwich, Conn. “A lot of young families who planned to move from Manhattan in five years or so sped up their plans by two or three years because of covid-19. I’m also seeing a lot of buyers from all over the country who have moved to be closer to their aging parents because of the pandemic. Some of them are looking for properties with a private guest space or the ability to build a guesthouse for their parents.” More than 16,000 New Yorkers switched their mail to suburban Connecticut addresses from March through June, according to U.S. Postal Service data reported by the Hartford Courant newspaper. “We’ve seen a big volume of buyers since the pandemic started coming from Seattle and from cities in California to more rural areas outside Tacoma,” says Lindsay Weingart, a

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Regarding using a public bathroom in the middle of a pandemic

As the holiday season approaches, Americans preparing to travel hundreds of miles to see family or friends may notice a green mile marker off in the distance: Public restrooms are ahead. Using shared bathrooms at gas stations, train stations, rest stops and restaurants during long road trips is inevitable. But restrooms are typically small, poorly ventilated spaces — the exact type of environment public health experts say Americans should avoid to reduce the transmission of the novel coronavirus. The Washington Post has received dozens of questions from readers about ways to mitigate risks while using public restrooms during the pandemic, especially as states start to reopen and people begin to travel again. In the before times, public restrooms were already seen as tiled dens for germs. Now, we’re wearing masks, avoiding crowds and packing hand sanitizer wherever we go. The Post spoke with infectious-disease experts and epidemiologists about what you should consider when entering a public bathroom. — The virus is most likely to travel person to person via respiratory droplets. — Put on a mask before entering any shared restroom. — Avoid crowds, and try to make it a quick trip. — Wash your hands with soap and water before leaving the restroom. Bring hand sanitizer as a backup plan. Bathrooms first made a splash in June when scientists illustrated how a toilet flush can send a plume of aerosolized droplets up to three feet in the air — almost like a human sneeze, said Chuck Gerba, an environmental microbiologist and professor at the University of Arizona. Traces of viral RNA from the novel coronavirus have regularly been found in the feces and urine of covid-19 patients. But evidence of the virus’s genetic material doesn’t mean the virus is still infectious. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports it is “unclear whether the virus found in feces may be capable of causing covid-19.” Scientists have successfully isolated the virus from urine in laboratory settings. But other research suggests that the coronavirus is far less likely to be transmittable person to person after traveling through the human body, and specifically the colon. Emily Sickbert-Bennett, the director of infection prevention at UNC Medical Center, told The Post that regardless of how the virus may be transmitted — either through aerosolization or via surface contamination — preventive measures remain the same: Wear a mask and practice good hand hygiene. “Whether or

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Fall color is popping in D.C. area and will increase with the cool nights ahead

summer, this fall has delivered an abundance of sunny, mild days and clear, crisp nights — a great recipe for intense autumn hues. It will be a picture-perfect fall weekend, ideal for taking a hike at a local park or a road trip into the mountains. That said, you’re probably going to want to dress in layers. It will be a cold start, if you’re headed out early Saturday. Temperatures will be in the 30s over much of the area and even near freezing at higher elevations. Sunny skies will help temperatures rise to near 60 Saturday, except 50s in the mountains. On Sunday, it will be a little less chilly. Sunny skies will persist with highs from 60 to 65. After this weekend, much of next week appears warm without major storminess. By next weekend we may be talking about another cool down. Last week a reader wondered about the best places to see fall color. There are, of course, the well-known spots like the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia (which seems likely to be packed this weekend), but that’s just a small slice of what this region has to offer. I asked Capital Weather Gang photographer Kevin Ambrose about some of his favorite spots locally and where he might be headed soon. Kevin told me he was recently in Capon Springs, about 80 miles as the crow flies to the west of D.C. The colors looked fantastic. “That’s one of my favorite places to shoot foliage before fall color peaks in the D.C. area,” he wrote in an email. As we get deeper into fall, toward the end of the month and into early November, the show pushes into the immediate area. “My two favorite fall foliage locations are Great Falls and the Tidal Basin,” Ambrose wrote. As a carless city person myself, I agree with Ambrose about the Tidal Basin. Then there’s Arlington National Cemetery and many nooks within Rock Creek Park. It also may be the best time of year to wander neighborhoods taking in all the ever-changing sights, sounds and smells. Do you have any particular favorite fall spots? We would love to know. Perhaps they can be detailed further in a future post as peak color arrives in the immediate area during the weeks to come. Keep up with the leaf change through the government websites for

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‘Nobody has very clear answers for them’: Doctors search for treatments for covid-19 long-haulers

be told for sure: ‘This is what is going to happen to you. This is not what is going to happen to you.’ And that’s the part that’s difficult for us in medicine, because it’s not completely clear.” Clinicians have learned, for example, that a wide spectrum of patients experience long-term symptoms, from those who were hospitalized to those who had mild bouts, from the young to the old. Southern Connecticut was hit early in the pandemic, when the virus was overwhelming the greater New York City area and relatively little was known about the course of the disease. “The symptoms that they have span every organ system,” said Jennifer Possick, the Winchester Chest Clinic’s medical director. “It has so many more faces than I thought it would.” No one knows how many long-haulers there may be, although a British team recently estimated that as many as 10 percent of the people who contract the disease suffer prolonged symptoms. In July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 35 percent of people who had mild versions of covid-19 had not returned to their pre-disease state of health two to three weeks later. Many long-haulers have organized online support groups, such as Survivor Corps and Body Politic, to share tips and discuss symptoms. Chiluisa’s family moved from Ecuador to Connecticut when he was 11, and he grew up in the area. He worked as an EMT, owned a bakery and then went back to school to become a CT scan technician at Yale New Haven Hospital. He was in the hospital’s emergency department in early March when the virus struck the region. Exposed to a positive patient, he came down with mild symptoms — aches, low-grade fever and some sweating, he said. By the time he could get tested, the result came back negative. Lutchmansingh said she will never know whether Chiluisa was infected then by the novel coronavirus or some other pathogen. In May, however, there was no doubt. Chiluisa awoke sweating profusely, with a fever of 103 degrees. This time, he tested positive for the coronavirus. He was hospitalized for seven days, five of them in intensive care, where he directed doctors not to put him on a ventilator, regardless of how severe his illness became. He feared the consequences of sedation and intubation more than the alternatives, he said. Instead, physicians treated him with a combination

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‘Nobody has very clear answers for them’: Doctors search for treatments for covid-19 long-haulers

did not disappear as it has in some other covid-19 patients, has been altered. Most ominously, an MRI shows that the white matter of his brain is littered with tiny lesions that may be the cause of neurological problems, including memory lapses, trouble concentrating, difficulty finding words and stuttering. He has insomnia, depression and anxiety, and other symptoms that resemble post-traumatic stress disorder. The brain lesions are more commonly found in older people, or those with uncontrolled metabolic disorders such as diabetes or chronic high blood pressure, said his neurologist, Arman Fesharaki-Zadeh. Chiluisa has no such underlying conditions. If the brain is a series of interconnected highways, each lesion is a work zone that slows the flow of information, Fesharaki-Zadeh said. They also may make Chiluisa prone to dementia at an earlier age. “For someone without a history of metabolic disorder . . . for his brain to look the way it did to me was quite striking,” he said. No one knows whether Chiluisa’s dysfunctions are permanent or progressive, or whether his brain will find new paths around the obstacles and restore his ability to live and work normally. Chiluisa’s heart and lung problems present other mysteries. Despite some lingering bacteria in his lungs that have resisted antibiotic treatments, Chiluisa performs relatively normally on tests of pulmonary and cardiac function. But instead of progressing, his condition has fluctuated unpredictably as the months have passed. He becomes winded and exhausted quickly. His blood pressure rises rapidly. “He has a lot of symptoms that are ongoing, that are seemingly suggestive of an underlying heart condition, but our testing, for the most part, has been normal,” said Erica Spatz, an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Yale School of Medicine who is Chiluisa’s cardiologist. It’s possible, she said, that the virus has disrupted Chiluisa’s autonomic nervous system, which controls functions such as heart and respiratory rates. Or perhaps Chiluisa’s own immune and inflammatory response to the viral attack did the damage. The symptoms are probably not permanent, Spatz said, but it’s not clear how long they may last. “This feels very hard, because we don’t know,” she said. “And we’re learning as we go, and we’re learning from our patients and with our patients about their experiences. And that’s very unsettling as a physician, to not feel that you’re ahead.” Similarly, Lutchmansingh has no conclusive explanation for why Chiluisa can become

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‘Nobody has very clear answers for them’: Doctors search for treatments for covid-19 long-haulers

lingering bacteria in his lungs that have resisted antibiotic treatments, Chiluisa performs relatively normally on tests of pulmonary and cardiac function. But instead of progressing, his condition has fluctuated unpredictably as the months have passed. He becomes winded and exhausted quickly. His blood pressure rises rapidly. “He has a lot of symptoms that are ongoing, that are seemingly suggestive of an underlying heart condition, but our testing, for the most part, has been normal,” said Erica Spatz, an associate professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Yale School of Medicine who is Chiluisa’s cardiologist. It’s possible, she said, that the virus has disrupted Chiluisa’s autonomic nervous system, which controls functions such as heart and respiratory rates. Or perhaps Chiluisa’s own immune and inflammatory response to the viral attack did the damage. The symptoms are probably not permanent, Spatz said, but it’s not clear how long they may last. “This feels very hard, because we don’t know,” she said. “And we’re learning as we go, and we’re learning from our patients and with our patients about their experiences. And that’s very unsettling as a physician, to not feel that you’re ahead.” Similarly, Lutchmansingh has no conclusive explanation for why Chiluisa can become so short of breath that he briefly put himself on supplemental oxygen on two recent occasions. “Edison’s normal, run-of-the-mill lung-function testing is normal,” she said. “But he clearly doesn’t feel well. We’ve [examined] the usual already. Now we’re going to the unusual.” She said she is exploring whether the muscles that aid the lungs in respiration are working normally. For Chiluisa and his family, the disease — along with the worry it has caused, including over financial issues — has become exhausting. At one point in his convalescence, he said, he ran through his paid time off and Yale stopped paying him. Currently, the state of Connecticut’s medical insurance program is picking up his costs, but he believes Yale will eventually have to pay the tab because he was exposed in the workplace. Still, he frets that a financial burden will fall on him and his family. A spokeswoman for the hospital declined to discuss Chiluisa’s employment history. Worried about reinfection, an extremely unlikely possibility, Chiluisa is also uncomfortable working at the hospital, where he currently performs administrative duties. And since he is still coughing, he also doesn’t like being around other people. Encouraged by his family, he is contemplating

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The Daily 202: Town hall shows how deeply in denial Trump remains about coronavirus

a formidable obstacle to any deal passing Congress before Election Day. … [McConnell] spent much of Thursday doubling down on his opposition, publicly denouncing the White House deal taking shape and swatting away Trump’s directive to ‘Go big or go home!!!’ … McConnell said he didn’t think Pelosi and Mnuchin would reach a deal, anyway. And at an earlier event the majority leader all but ruled out a vote on a large-scale relief bill.” “U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence, according to four former officials familiar with the matter,” Shane Harris, Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller and Dawsey report. “The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence during a December 2019 trip to Ukraine, where he was gathering information that he thought would expose corrupt acts by … Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The intelligence raised concerns that Giuliani was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the president, the former officials said … “The warnings to the White House, which have not previously been reported, led national security adviser Robert O’Brien to caution Trump in a private conversation that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia “Several senior administration officials ‘all had a common understanding’ that Giuliani was being targeted by the Russians, said the former official who recounted O’Brien’s intervention. That group included Attorney General William P. Barr, [Wray] and White Counsel Pat Cipollone. … In a text message on Thursday, Giuliani said that he was never informed that Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russian lawmaker in Ukraine whom he met on Dec. 5 in Kyiv, was a Russian intelligence asset. … But Giuliani met again with Derkach in New York two months later.” "The link to the New York Post story will still be blocked under a policy that prohibits sharing people’s personal information,” Elizabeth Dwoskin reports. "Late Thursday night, Twitter executive Vijaya Gadde tweeted that the company made the decision after receiving ‘feedback’ over the past 24 hours that the policy on hacked materials as written could result in undue censorship of journalists and whistleblowers. Going forward, the company will remove content only if it’s directly posted by hackers or those acting in concert with them. It will

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Transcript: The Future Reset: Building a Healthy Food System

all of our energy programs and most local governments, states, and municipalities have developed goals for renewable energy that show a diversity of energy production. How does this relate to the food system? We currently have a very globalized, export-based food system. In most places about 10 percent of the food is local. If you were to increase that to a place where you have a meaningful percentage of local that can support the local food economy, then you have a diversity of producers. So, you have different ranges of producers from large to small, but more economic opportunity for the smaller and midsize farmers. If you increase that target and set a target as a local government, aggregating the purchasing power of your large institutions and saying, "We all agree. We are going to support our local food economies," create jobs along the supply chain in our local food economies; and bring different types of food production to the plates of our community, which would include the protective foods, the healthy foods, the produce that matters to them. You have local governments that can direct that but they can also take into account local means of production. So, a program could be developed from local government, as we did in Los Angeles, and you're also supporting urban agriculture. So, like in the World War II era, my grandparents had victory gardens, and that certainly seems to be coming back during the time of COVID. So, layering in all of those methods of production, but an important thing also is the methods of distribution. So, one of the things we saw was a supply chain disruption dependent on very opaque supply chains that were hardwired into the system. If you have a dedicated forum of distribution of food that serves local--is dedicated to serving the local farming community as well as food insecure populations and public serving institutions such as school districts, that can create some more diversity and mission into the supply chain that will help in times of crisis. There was one like that that did quite well during the pandemic; it's called The Common Market. That was started in Philadelphia; it's a nonprofit. And it also has facilities in Georgia and Chicago and Texas. So, it was able to support the local farming economy as well as serve schools and food banks, with that healthier food. So,

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Pubs, central to cultural life in Northern Ireland, close to control covid-19

BELFAST — Bittles, a destination whiskey bar in the center of this city, was firebombed during the decades of sectarian violence known as the Troubles. Proprietor John Bittles recalls being warned by police that he should get a weapon to protect himself, that militants might show up ready for a shooting. The coronavirus era, he said, has been worse. “This stuff with covid has actually had a bigger detrimental effect than all that there,” said Bittles, 59. “Maybe it’s because I was younger and it went over my head, but this here is completely unprecedented times.” The roughly 1,200 pubs of Northern Ireland were forced to close on Friday, again, to beat back the coronavirus. They will remain shuttered for at least a month, part of a “circuit breaker” to limit social contact and slow transmission. Schools will be closed for an extended half-term break, as well. It is possible the 7,000 pubs in the Republic of Ireland could follow, as health officials there recommended on Friday the country move to Level 5 measures, the most strict. The new restrictions are a heavy blow to establishments already bruised by a spring lockdown and the social distancing measures they’ve had to incorporate since. But as pub-goers in Belfast nursed their last drinks this past week, the conversation was less about finances than about the loss of a central part of cultural life. “The pub to me is home, really,” said flame-haired and tattoo-emblazoned Ollie Woodhouse, 24, sitting in the Sunflower, a pub popular with the arts and media crowd, the LGBT community, tradespeople, hipsters, hospitality workers — with everyone really. Suzanne Magee, 32, a manager at the Sunflower, said she is “devastated” by the closure. Pubs in Northern Ireland aren’t mere boozers, but way stations. For many living alone, including the elderly, the establishments can be a point of social contact, as vital as a daily stop at the rural post office or the church. It’s where people share life stories, bond, sing ballads and “have relief,” Magee said. “It’s not all about getting pissed,” said Magee, using the term for drunk. “It’s about people.” Among other things, her pub hosts Spanish language classes and a mental health group for heavy metal fans. She said the government should invest in community services during the shutdown — “anything that will get people through the loneliness.” Dean Quinn, 21, goes to the Sunflower

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The Technology 202: Silicon Valley's prized legal shield is increasingly in jeopardy as Republicans escalate attacks

enjoy under Section 230. Meanwhile, the companies are also dealing with the threat of increased antitrust scrutiny. Traditionally, Democrats have been more aggressive than Republicans in calling for the companies to be broken up or otherwise regulated. But some Republicans are more aggressively calling for antitrust action amid the controversy. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), one of the companies' most vocal critics, suggested that Facebook had monopoly power on Twitter. Note to readers: The Technology 202 won't publish Monday or Tuesday. We'll be back in your inbox on Wednesday, Enjoy the weekend! Trump claimed not to know much about the group when asked by NBC News host Savannah Guthrie at his televised town hall. “What I do hear about it is that they are very strongly against pedophilia, and I agree with that,” Trump said. The QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that Democrats and celebrities abuse children, has gained some traction in mainstream Republican politics has been labeled by the FBI as a terrorist threat. NBC's Ben Collins noted adherents of the conspiracy theory would celebrate the president's remarks: That could make it harder for Silicon Valley companies to follow through on their recent promises to crack down on QAnon. YouTube is the latest to change its policies, and it did not say how many videos and channels would be affected. Several of the most popular accounts pushing the conspiracy theory were removed yesterday, Elizabeth and Isaac Stanley-Becker report. YouTube began removing some of the content after updating its hate and harassment policies prohibit content that "targets an individual or group with conspiracy theories that have been used to justify real-world violence." YouTube will still allow discussions of the conspiracy theory that don't involve targeted harassment. Twitter made a similar decision this summer, resulting in the immediate ban of 7,000 QAnon accounts. Facebook most recently decided to ban the content entirely. YouTube previously acted against QAnon related videos and channels for violating its policies about Holocaust denial and covid-19 misinformation. The states will issue a statement that they are still scrutinizing aspects of Google's business and may not join the federal case, Tony Romm reports. The states leading the probe include Arizona, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee and Utah. The Justice Department's complaint is expected to focus on Google's search business. A group of approximately a dozen Republican attorneys general plan to join the lawsuit, which is expected

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Readers critique The Post: Thank you for space to breathe. Now back to reality.

the Ellipse, representing the more than 200,000 coronavirus victims in the United States, deserved to be on the Oct. 5 front page. Instead, the top headlines all described the confusion, mendacity and incompetence surrounding one specific case of the disease — the one who was under treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the one largely responsible for the tragic course of the pandemic in this country. The circus surrounding the president’s own illness reflected the administration’s approach to managing the virus, with stubborn denials and shockingly careless behavior leading us here, to a field of empty chairs. Patrick L. Phillips, ●● On the night of Sept. 24, two men were fatally shot in D.C. — one in Southeast and the other in Northwest. Each of the shootings received about four column inches of coverage in The Post’s Local Digest on Sept. 25 [Metro]. On Sept. 26, the Northwest death was detailed in more than an additional 20 inches of coverage [“Slaying might be linked to pot, police chief says,” Metro]. I saw not another word on the Southeast death. I find it terrible that The Post contributes to a climate that accepts as routine killings in Black communities, usually finding that it warrants no more than minimum notation. Though I understand that such crime is thankfully rare in Ward 3, where I live, I fear The Post’s pattern of coverage in effect serves to normalize killings elsewhere. Appropriate and equivalent coverage of killing, wherever it happens, would better inform all of us and could help generate the public and political will to address both the causes of crime and its punishment when it does occur. Mark Rosenman ● The Oct. 4 Election 2020 graphic “Where Trump and Biden stand on the issues” was very informative. I liked its format of “Yes”/“No” on topics with brief explanations. But it was very disappointing that there was not even the slightest addressing of labor rights. Does anyone at The Post work for a living? Kevin P. Creighan The writer is secretary-treasurer of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. ● In his Oct. 1 Thursday Opinion column, “Joe Biden outperforms the performer president,” Matt Bai used the words “the childhood stutter that has now returned.” As a person who stutters, I know that one does not outgrow this childhood-onset fluency disorder. We manage it with different coping techniques to communicate effectively. Cathy Henderson

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In-flight meals, bar carts and pajamas: Here’s what airlines are selling to grounded travelers

In a difficult year for airlines, carriers are getting creative with how they can still make some money off grounded travelers. Those travelers who won’t be able to fly at all this year are bringing the in-flight experience home through meals, snacks, clothing and even entire bar carts plucked from 747 planes. From meals to designer clothes, here is a selection of things airlines are selling to make ends meet. This week, Finnair announced it will begin selling its business-class in-flight meals in Finnish grocery stores. A Finnair spokesperson told The Washington Post via email that its “menu” will start with Nordic-Japanese main course options like “Finnish reindeer and beef in teriyaki-radish sauce,” smoked fish and mushroom risotto, and roasted carrots with blue cheese mousse, for $7 to $15 per dish. The dishes change every two weeks, and the airline is only selling the meals via K-Citymarket stores in Finland — starting at one location in Vantaa on Thursday. The grocer’s other locations have yet to decide if they will also carry the meals. The airline says the move is a way to support Finnair employees amid the coronavirus pandemic. “This is a new business opening for us and employs our chefs,” Marika Nieminen, vice president of Finnair Kitchen, said in a news release. “As so many of Kitchen’s employees are temporarily laid off, we can create new work and employment for our people.” Thai Airways is also targeting passengers who are missing in-flight meals. The airline recently opened a diner inside its Bangkok headquarters, complete with plane seats and cabin-themed decor. The company, which filed for bankruptcy in May, offers “Taste of Travel” meals made by its in-flight catering teams, with the menus showcasing its international chefs. Options have included grilled eel and ginger beef with rice by a Japanese chef, braised noodles with prawns by a Chinese chef, and lamb chops, tandoori chicken and grilled kebabs by French, Indian, and Middle Eastern chefs, respectively. The meals it has been serving since July have been a success, the airline said in a statement on its website in September, and it will continue operating Wednesdays through Sundays with new “specials meals” being added this month. Singapore Air also recently announced it will offer in-flight dining meals and experiences for locals called “Discover Your Singapore Airlines.” This includes repurposing an Airbus A380 as a runway restaurant serving up in-flight meals, as

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Partially true: ‘You’re the president. You’re not like someone’s crazy uncle.’

supporters, no matter how aberrant and reprehensible they might be. Trump still falsely insists that mail-in ballots are not legitimate, that we are “rounding the corner” on covid-19 (repeating his lie that we have a favorable death rate compared with other countries) and that Obama spied on him. He has not come up with a health-care plan despite repeated promises to provide an alternative to Obamacare, which he wants the Supreme Court to strike down in its entirety. And he wouldn’t say whether he took a covid-19 test on the day of the first debate (which was required by the debate rules). Independent of any specific answer, Trump’s ranting, bellicose and opaque responses only cemented the impression he gave in the first debate. “Crazy uncle” actually is not too far off the mark. It is tiresome to listen to the same lies, the same evasions, the same self-reverential proclamations. He has nothing new to say, just more whackadoodle accusations and insults. He is now equal parts repugnant and boring. Meanwhile on ABC, former vice president Joe Biden’s town hall lasted 90 minutes (compared with Trump’s 60 minutes) and offered long, policy-rich answers on criminal justice (acknowledging that parts of the 1994 crime bill were wrong); covid-19 and a potential vaccine (he’ll listen to the scientists); and the Supreme Court (he’ll clarify his position on adding seats and other reforms after the vote on Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who he accurately said did not answer many questions). On foreign policy, Biden said, "We find ourselves in a position where we’re more isolated in the world than we’ve ever been. Our ‘go it alone, America first’ has made America alone.” He continued: “You have Iran closer to having enough nuclear material to build a bomb. North Korea has more bombs and missiles available to it. We find ourselves where our NATO allies are publicly saying they can’t count on us.” He pledged to reverse Trump’s directive banning transgender Americans from serving in the military. Where Trump mocks masks, Biden promises to use persuasion. “I’d go to every mayor, I’d go to every councilman, I’d go to every local official and say, ‘mandate the mask.’” He added, “The words of a president matter.” His most compelling answer might have come on race, when he explained his devotion to criminal justice reform and wealth accumulation for Black Americans: Even after the debate ended, Biden

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Fact-checking the dueling town halls of Trump and Biden

with a person with known COVID-19 was more commonly reported among” the positive cases (42 percent) than the negatives (14 percent). Coronavirus-positive patients were more likely to have reported dining at a restaurant (any area designated by the restaurant, including indoor, patio and outdoor seating) “in the 2 weeks preceding illness onset” than those who tested negative, the study says. The study says that in the 14 days before illness onset, 71 percent of the positive cases and 74 percent of those who didn’t catch the virus “reported always using cloth face coverings or other mask types when in public.” The rate of mask-wearing is almost the same, so the takeaway from this study is that the positive cases had more contacts with a person known to be infected with the virus and dined out more. “Exposures and activities where mask use and social distancing are difficult to maintain, including going to places that offer on-site eating or drinking, might be important risk factors for acquiring COVID-19. As communities reopen, efforts to reduce possible exposures at locations that offer on-site eating and drinking options should be considered to protect customers, employees, and communities,” the study says. “We were expected to lose 2,200,000 people and maybe more than that. We’re at 210,000 people.” — Trump Trump loves to use the statistic. But it’s incredibly misleading. Trump is citing a possible death figure that was a worst-case scenario produced by Imperial College London, which assumed that 81 percent of the population became infected ­— 268 million people — and that 0.9 percent of them would die. It did so by also assuming people took no actions against the coronavirus — nobody avoided crowded elevators, wore masks, washed their hands more often, or bought gloves or hand sanitizer — which the study acknowledged was unrealistic: “It is highly likely that there would be significant spontaneous change in population behavior even in the absence of government‐mandated interventions.” Moreover, even the 1918 flu pandemic is believed to have infected no more than 28 percent of the population, making the 81 percent figure suspect, noted Alan Reynolds of the Cato Institute. Trump routinely mentions this figure to suggest he saved that many people from death, even as the actual death toll rises far above many of his earlier predictions. On March 29, he even said that a “very good job” would be if the death toll

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He was Mexico’s defense minister — but also a drug cartel ally, U.S. prosecutors say

group known as H-2, an offshoot of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel. It operated mainly in the western states of Sinaloa and Nayarit. The court documents lay out a devastating picture of a senior official who, prosecutors say, used his power to help a drug cartel at every turn. Cienfuegos ensured that the Mexican military did not carry out operations against H-2 but instead focused on its rivals, the documents say. He is accused of finding ships for the cartel’s drugs. Cienfuegos even tipped off H-2 about the fact that it was under investigation by U.S. law enforcement, according to the documents. Using that knowledge, H-2 killed one of its own members, a person who senior cartel leadership “incorrectly believed” was assisting U.S. officials, according to the allegations. The former minister’s actions were detailed in thousands of BlackBerry messages he sent and were corroborated by witness accounts, the documents say. He did not immediately enter a plea. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years on drug conspiracy charges if found guilty. Mexico’s governments have increasingly turned to the armed forces to take on criminal organizations because of persistent corruption in the police. Cienfuegos’s detention was a bombshell in Mexico, where the military is one of the most trusted institutions. “We are facing an unprecedented situation,” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told his daily news conference Friday, referring to the detentions of the two former ministers. “This is an undeniable sign of the decomposition of the regime.” Since 2007, the U.S. government has provided Mexico with about $3 billion in security and justice aid through the Merida Initiative. Yet the country remains the No. 1 source of heroin and methamphetamines reaching the United States and a major corridor for cocaine and fentanyl. The Trump administration recently warned that unless it shows progress, “Mexico will be at serious risk of being found to have failed” to meet its international drug-control commitments. It called for more efforts to dismantle drug organizations and crack down on fentanyl production. Corruption in Mexico’s armed forces has typically been construed as an issue of individuals, rather than the institutions, said Adam Isacson, a security analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America. But the arrest of Cienfuegos seems to point to a web of corruption that “goes all the way up” to the top of the military, he said. U.S. and Mexican security experts said Cienfuegos

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Former Mexican defense minister arrested on drug charges in U.S., officials say

MEXICO CITY — U.S. officials arrested a former Mexican secretary of defense on drug charges on Thursday, authorities said, a stunning development for a nation that honors its armed forces and has relied on them to fight narcotics traffickers. The detention of retired Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos in Los Angeles was announced in a late-night tweet by Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard. The minister said he expected to be informed by Mexican consular officials of the charges in coming hours. A Mexican government official confirmed the arrest was requested by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe information that was not yet public. Cienfuegos, 72, was secretary of defense from 2012 to 2018 under then-President Enrique Peña Nieto. Mexico’s military holds the lead role in fighting organized crime and has worked closely with U.S. anti-drug agencies. The Mexican armed forces have killed or arrested numerous top narcotics traffickers in recent years. But violence has grown and crime groups have penetrated towns and cities around Mexico, diversifying into an array of activities including kidnapping and extortion. The Mexican police have been riddled with corruption for years — but U.S. officials had deemed the military more trustworthy. Still, Falko Ernst, the senior Mexico analyst for the International Crisis Group, said that military officers posted in some parts of the country were known to cut deals with trafficking groups. “This myth of the cleanliness and incorruptibility of the armed forces has always been not really paired with reality,” he said. The arrest comes as the Trump administration has been pressing Mexico to take tougher steps against trafficking organizations. The country is the source of almost all the heroin and methamphetamines arriving in the United States, and a major transit route for cocaine and fentanyl. In September, Trump said in an annual drug finding that Mexico “must clearly demonstrate its commitment to dismantling the cartels” and work harder to seize chemicals used in the production of fentanyl. Cienfuegos was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport with his family. While charges were not announced, the Associated Press quoted an unidentified source as saying the arrest warrant listed drug trafficking and money laundering allegations. Cienfuegos is the highest-ranking Mexican official to be detained in the United States since the arrest in December of Genaro García Luna, on allegations of taking millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel. García

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Aim assist in the crosshairs

and keyboard and controller players in a single lobby isn’t a problem,” Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, a former CS:GO professional and one of the world’s most popular gamers, told The Post. “But when the stakes are high and you’re playing for money, there has to be competitive integrity and a level playing field. That means separate competitions for mouse and keyboard players and for controller players. This topic will remain controversial so long as mouse and keyboard and controller players are competing in the same competitions. When there will be separate competitions, this will be a nonissue.” But competitive integrity isn’t so easy to achieve when one considers the additional wrinkles that require smoothing to achieve complete fairness. The move to online-only tournaments during coronavirus, for example, introduces the variable of latency due to Internet connection speeds. The speed and consistency of a connection to a match is the difference between life and death for pro gamers — and the difference between a big payday and a pittance. Beyond latency, drug abuse, cheating and outright match-fixing have all impacted high-profile esports leagues and events. Addressing how technology unevenly impacts competitive play is not unique to esports. Motorsports has dealt with the problem of determining which technologies confer an unfair advantage for a long time. Driving aids like active suspension and traction control were banned in Formula One on the grounds that they helped the drivers too much. Since the initial ban, traction control was re-allowed for a few years — and then it was banned again. In competitive swimming, LZR swimsuits dominated at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but were then banned for giving an unfair advantage to the swimmers wearing them. Earlier this year, the world of elite running erupted in controversy when Nike Vaporfly shoes were allowed for the now-canceled Tokyo Olympics, equipment considered by many critics to be a form of “technological doping.” “Unless you make all athletes wear exactly the same shoe from the same brand that’s scaled to their own body size and abilities, you’re never going to be able to isolate or immunize the sport away from the influence of technology,” the sports technologist Bryce Dyer said on “All Things Considered.” For shooters chasing pure competitive integrity, getting rid of aim-assisted controllers solves only one variable in an endless equation of comparative advantage. In that sense, when addressing the question of whether it’s best for a

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‘Strangest time I’ve ever been in’: Music venues deal with the new normal

Phase 3. And on the same day of Bowser’s announcement, Anne Arundel County allowed entertainment venues, including Annapolis’ Rams Head On Stage, to reopen. But owners of the selected D.C. music venues say they hadn’t realized how restrictive the government rules would actually be. Chief among them: No more than 50 people are allowed inside a venue at one time — a number that includes performers, servers, bartenders and kitchen staff as well as audience members. Patrons must be seated at tables, and those tables must be 20 to 30 feet from the stage, depending on whether there’s singing, in addition to being six feet apart from other tables. Performers onstage must also remain six feet from each other. The capacity limit, which applies regardless of the venue’s square footage or pre-pandemic fire capacity, has proved the most controversial aspect of the District’s pilot program. “Once you have the band and the staff, we’ll have about 35 people in the joint,” says Pearl Street Warehouse’s Bruce Gates. “We’re not going to get through to April having 35-person concerts. But look, it’s a step. I’d like to think they’ll come out with a second pilot that will have slightly more workable rules.” Daniel Brindley has seen both sides, booking larger outdoor shows at Jammin Java, and now arranging for much smaller indoor gigs at D.C.’s Union Stage. “It does rub me the wrong way when there’s like this little bit of opening, and you’re like, ‘Ooh, a ray of light.’ But that kind of flips back into torture,” Brindley says. “You’re just giving me this little bit of hope, and then if you look at the ramifications of what you’re asking me to do, I’m very likely going to lose money doing this and not create an experience that is correct.” For others, the selection was a poisoned chalice: City Winery vice president of marketing Rachel Insler says the Ivy City winery and concert venue was “encouraged by the mayor’s announcement,” but declined to participate because City Winery wasn’t aware of the 50-person limit before the mayor’s announcement. “It is not economically viable for us to reopen with a capacity restriction of 50 people that includes attendees, performers, and staff,” she says. Despite venues worrying about the laundry list of do’s and don’ts, music fans seem eager to come back. The Hamilton has scheduled just three shows, all of which have

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The world is loud. These upcoming classical music performances will give you some comfort.

and access to streams, go to nationalphilharmonic.org. Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts Especially promising is an appearance by Avery Fisher Prize winner and MacArthur Fellow pianist Jeremy Denk (Oct. 25), who plans a program of works by Mozart, Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins, Tania León, Scott Joplin and Frederic Rzewski, and a birthday card in the form of Beethoven’s final piano sonata (Op. 111). For a schedule and tickets ($10-$125), go to caramoor.org. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra adds to its already ample “BSO OffStage” digital stage with “BSO Sessions,” a new weekly pay-per-view concert series that combines hi-def recordings from a freshly-mic’d Meyerhoff Hall with interviews, rehearsal footage and a documentary eye. Forthcoming episodes will feature the work of violinist, composer and educator Jessie Montgomery (Oct. 21); unpack a trio of “hidden treasures” by Florence Price, Irving Fine and Dmitri Shostakovich (Oct. 28); and explore works by Caroline Shaw, Bryce Dessner and Michael Abels. For schedule and tickets ($10), go to BSOmusic.org/OffStage. New York’s Baruch Performing Arts Center and Opera Omaha pair up to present the virtual premiere of “dwb (driving while black),” a new chamber opera in the form of a searing 50-minute sung drama, performed by soprano (and librettist) Roberta Gumbel, composed by Susan Kander and aimed squarely at the center of the nation’s ongoing reckoning with racial injustice. Chip Miller directs this stream-tailored adaptation, and New Morse Code — the duo of Hannah Collins (cello) and Michael Compitello (percussion) — provides a tense and clangorous setting. It’s viewable October 23 through October 29 (after a requested donation). Register to view at baruch.cuny.edu/calendar. With the new season comes another change as the Alexandria-based Classical Movements refreshes its series of socially-distanced chamber concerts with a new name and 22 more performances, starting on Halloween and continuing through December 19. On Oct. 31, magician and cellist Drew Owen — a.k.a. Musico the Magnificent — will be joined by special guest violist Elizabeth Pulju-Owen for a family-friendly and sufficiently spooky pair of afternoon concerts (1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m.) complete with a costume contest and plenty of “no-contact” treats. That evening, they’ll clear the cobwebs for “A Venetian Halloween,” featuring NSO musicians playing an autumnal chunk of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as well as Puccini’s “Crisantemi.” (If this isn’t a perfect opportunity to step up your mask game, I’m not sure what is.) For schedule and tickets ($40-$45) go to classicalmovements.com.

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America needs to reinforce the message to Putin that killing your critics is wrong

THE EUROPEAN UNION and Britain have now delivered a reminder notice to the Kremlin, saying, “The use of chemical weapons constitutes a serious breach of international law.” The global treaty banning chemical weapons was signed by Russia in 1993 and ratified by Moscow in 1997. So it is entirely appropriate that sanctions be imposed on Russian officials for the poisoning with a chemical agent of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The United States has yet to act, and must not delay. Mr. Navalny, the leading opposition figure to President Vladimir Putin, survived an assassination attempt in August after political organizing in Tomsk. He fell ill aboard a plane en route to Moscow; the plane made an emergency landing in Omsk. Recovering in Germany, where he was treated, Mr. Navalny has blamed Mr. Putin. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has confirmed that the substance used to poison him had “similar structural characteristics” to the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. In response to this, Russia’s reaction has been to deny and obfuscate rather than investigate. The attack on Mr. Navalny, an anti-corruption fighter who has demonstrated remarkable resiliency in leading the opposition, must have been approved at the highest levels. Novichok was a chemical weapon created by the Soviet Union near the end of the Cold War, and the OPCW report suggested the substance used to sicken Mr. Navalny may have been modified in some way from earlier compounds. Novichok was also used to poison former military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter in 2018 in England. These look like state-sponsored assassination attempts. As an E.U. statement said, Novichok “is accessible only to State authorities in the Russian Federation. In these circumstances and taking into account that Alexei Navalny was under surveillance at the time of his poisoning, it is reasonable to conclude that the poisoning was only possible with the involvement of the Federal Security Service.” The new sanctions — asset freezes and travel bans — are imposed on Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service, a successor to the Soviet KGB, and Andrei Yarin, a Kremlin official “whose role was to counter Alexei Navalny’s influence in Russian society including through operations meant to discredit him,” according to the E.U. statement. The others sanctioned are Mr. Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kirienko; a regional boss; two deputy defense ministers; and the Russian chemical weapons research

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President of St. Augustine’s University in North Carolina dies of covid-19 complications

university in July. McPhail self-quarantined about three weeks ago after he feared he may have been exposed to the novel coronavirus, said James Perry, a former Florida Supreme Court justice and the chairman of the school’s board of trustees. McPhail tested positive while still mostly asymptomatic, Perry said. But about two weeks ago, McPhail had difficulty breathing and was taken to the emergency room. His condition seemed to be improving while he was hospitalized, but about three days ago, he took a turn for the worse, Perry said. He died Thursday night. “We were very hopeful and prayerful,” Perry said, “But that’s the nature of this pandemic. Nobody knows what it’s going to do.” McPhail was an inspiration to the students, Perry said. “He had the Ivy League background — but he didn’t have the Ivy League arrogance.” McPhail was a first-generation college student, born and raised in Harlem, Perry said. “Our students could relate. “He was a good person,” Perry said. “That’s my ultimate compliment.” McPhail earned his bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, his master’s degree at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. He went on to hold numerous leadership roles in education and nonprofit organizations, including serving as the founding chancellor of the Community College of Baltimore County. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) mourned McPhail’s death with a statement on social media. The university plans a memorial on campus Oct. 27, with spacing and other safeguards, and a virtual event as well. The News & Observer reported that people gathered in the rain Friday for a prayer and to leave long-stemmed roses outside of McPhail’s house on campus. He told the outlet in August, as students were returning for the semester, that he ended every day driving around campus, checking on whether students were following public-health guidelines, and rolling down his window to remind them to stay safe. The school has only had a couple of positive coronavirus tests among students, Perry said. He said McPhail was a stickler for following health protocols, and made clear that anyone who didn’t comply would be sent home. Perry said St. Augustine’s students, like many at HBCUs, didn’t have the privilege to feel immune from the virus, or invulnerable. “Our kids know it’s real,” he said. McPhail “was very careful in what he did,” Perry said. “Life is tenuous — very tenuous.”

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Trust in science is crucial

The Oct. 12 front-page article “Another casualty of 2020: Trust in science” observed that covid-19 therapies and vaccines have become entangled in the presidential election-year politics and explained how this has compromised the public’s trust in the work of our health agencies. There is some positive news about public trust, however, suggesting that this relates far more to the circumstances surrounding covid-19 than to Americans’ views on the value of science itself. Our recently commissioned survey shows overwhelming bipartisan confidence in science. Seventy-nine percent of Americans expressed confidence that scientists are working on their behalf, and 80 percent believe it is important for elected officials to listen to scientists. Public trust in the covid-19 response can be regained. Not only must policymakers check their political aspirations at the door when lives are at stake, but also more scientists must convey information directly to the public about covid-19 and other urgent issues ripe for the spread of misinformation. Science is neither Republican nor Democratic. It is a dispassionate process. Science is also not static — when a new threat like covid-19 arises, the science will evolve and so will the advice associated with it. Scientists are the best positioned to de-dramatize science and instill trust in the scientific process. Let’s engage them. Mary Woolley The writer is president and chief executive of Research!America, a not-for-profit public education and advocacy alliance. Regarding the Oct. 15 editorial By most accounts, the American public’s perception of a covid-19 vaccine is tainted — with disinformation. To ensure that more people will take a new vaccine, social scientists must join the public debate on the safety and efficacy of an approved vaccine. The irony is rich; scientists are uniquely positioned to receive approval for a vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration. Still, soon after approval, the voices of scientists must fade into the white noise of the public debate. Because Americans have absorbed far too much disinformation during the race to approve a vaccine — much of which is related to it being an election year, and some that must be attributable to the lingering distrust of Operation Warp Speed. Regrettably, after months of partisan bickering, the public debate has been weaponized and a vaccine is increasingly becoming something to be feared, not celebrated. Mark M. Spradley Read more letters to the editor.

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Despite its 10-day assault in Helmand, Afghan Taliban accuse U.S. military of violating February accord

remained mired in disputes over procedural rules, as it has been since the talks started Sept. 12. The sides have yet to touch on the critical issues at stake: How to end the country’s 19-year civil conflict and combine two starkly different visions of a future government into one. In recent days, Afghan delegates to the talks said the Taliban was doubling down on its initial demands over the rules and terms to govern substantive discussions. The Taliban has insisted that all talks be conducted under the terms of the U.S.-Taliban pact, which did not include any Afghans, and under the authority of Sunni Muslim law, although Afghanistan has a sizable non-Sunni minority. Since Trump’s announcement, several Afghan delegates in Doha say, the Taliban’s initial stiff but polite reception has given way to sharper, dismissive rebuffs. One delegate said the Taliban is acting “as if they have defeated the United States” and the Afghan delegation is there to surrender. “We still want to act responsibly and find a way to end the war through negotiations, but as the violence rises, public pressure is mounting and people are starting to question why we are even at the table,” said delegate Nader Nadery, an Afghan government administrator. “We have to find a balance between the sense of urgency and the temptation to rush into a peace that cannot hold.” On Saturday, a Taliban spokesman in Doha said the group wants to keep negotiating and has actually reduced its attacks in recent months. Afghan delegates said they, too, will continue to participate, but they expected the talks to languish until after the Nov. 3 U.S. election. The Taliban appear to hope that a reelected Trump would abandon the war entirely, while Afghan analysts say a Biden administration would probably review U.S. policy and consult with military leaders, who advise keeping some troops here permanently. Few Afghans believe the insurgents could take over the country by force, but many expect it’s inevitable that they will play a significant role in any future government. Afghan and foreign experts have labored for months to come up with viable options for joint rule, but with the talks at a standstill, those efforts have been left on the drawing board. Instead, a flurry of informal proposals have emerged. At one extreme is an Iran-style regime, led by Muslim clerics with controlled elections and technocratic ministries. At the other

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Two Baltimore correctional officers died of covid-19 just months apart

In June, a group of Baltimore City correctional officers gathered outside the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center for a vigil honoring Karen Kennedy. The 60-year-old corrections officer had worked there and contracted the coronavirus in May, eventually succumbing to complications of covid-19. The close-knit group of officers told stories about their colleague, bonded over the difficult job they shared and said they wondered every day whether they could be the next to catch the virus. One of those in attendance was Barthphine Maduh, 68, a veteran officer who had trained and mentored new guards for years. Likable and respected, Maduh worked long hours and spent decades on the job. Last week, the officers gathered again, this time to honor Maduh. He had contracted the virus in July, fought it for months and died in late September, his wife said. Kennedy and Maduh worked at the same facility and are the only two correctional officers in the state to have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Their deaths underscore the dangers faced by officers and inmates as the state grapples with a virus that has plagued the corrections system for seven months and killed at least 11 inmates. That was on the mind of nearly 100 officers gathered outside the Central Booking and Intake Center for Maduh’s vigil Oct. 8. Balloons were tied together leading up to a podium, where his wife and two of their children sat in black chairs. In their hands they held Maduh’s uniform and images of him. Candles were given out. The two deaths of corrections officers appear to put Maryland on the low side compared with states such as Louisiana, which has recorded six deaths, or Texas, with more than a dozen, according to the website Corrections1, which focuses on labor issues related to prison workers. Most states on the list have more people behind bars than Maryland does, making exact comparisons difficult. “The loss of our two veteran correctional officers is devastating, and we are committed to honoring their memory and never forgetting their courage and dedication to the citizens of Maryland,” said Gary McLhinney, an assistant secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Latia Barney, vice president with AFSCME, the public services employees union, met Maduh when she was new to her job as a correctional officer. He was her trainer, and she recalled how

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Why the coronavirus is killing more men than women

Early in the coronavirus outbreak, hospital data from China revealed a startling disparity: Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, was killing far more men than women. That difference persisted in other Asian countries, such as South Korea, as well as in European countries, such as Italy. Then, it appeared in the United States. By mid-October, the coronavirus had killed almost 17,000 more American men than women, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For every 10 women claimed by the disease in the United States, 12 men have died, found an analysis by Global Health 50/50, a U.K.-based initiative to advance gender equality in health care. That disparity was one of many alarming aspects of the new virus. It bewildered those unfamiliar with the role of gender in disease. But the specialized group of researchers who study that relationship was not surprised. It prepared an array of hypotheses. One possible culprit was male behavior. Perhaps men were more likely to be exposed to the virus due to social factors; a disproportionately male workforce, for instance, could place more men in contact with infected people. Or men’s lungs might be more vulnerable because they were more likely to smoke in the earliest countries to report the differences. What has become more evident, 10 months into this outbreak, is that men show comparatively weaker immune responses to coronavirus infections, which may account for those added deaths. “If you look at the data across the world, there are as many men as women that are infected. It’s just the severity of disease that is stronger in most populations in men,” Franck Mauvais-Jarvis, a Tulane University physician who studies gender differences in such diseases as diabetes. In such cases, biology can help explain why. Women generally have stronger immune systems, thanks to sex hormones, as well as chromosomes packed with immune-related genes. About 60 genes on the X chromosome are involved in immune function, Johns Hopkins University microbiologist Sabra Klein told The Washington Post in April. People with two X chromosomes can benefit from the double helping of some of those genes. Akiko Iwasaki, who studies immune defenses against viruses at Yale University, wanted to see how sex differences might play out in coronavirus infections. She and her colleagues cast a proverbial net into the immune system to fish out schools of microscopic fighters. “We did a holistic look

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Why the coronavirus is killing more men than women

1662 that “men, being more intemperate then women, die as much by reason of their Vices” — that is, male behavior was to blame. Hawkes argues that “350 years later,” Graunt’s point still stands. “It is undoubtedly a mixture of both biology and behavior” responsible for the health differences in men and women, she said. The share of coronavirus deaths in women also rises with their share of the full-time workforce, according to a report by University of Oxford economist Renee Adams that used Global Health 50/50 data. “The more you have women participating in the workforce, the smaller your sex difference becomes,” Hawkes said. That lines up with gender inequalities — men are more likely to work in environments where they are exposed to air pollution and other harms, Hawkes said. When women start to enter those traditionally masculine spaces, she said, it “turns out, women can get as sick as men.” The gender disparities discovered in the response to covid-19 have sparked a surge of interest in such differences more broadly. “Almost nobody, apart from the people working in the field, were interested in that difference between men and women in disease until February or March,” when the first results showed that more men were dying, Mauvais-Jarvis said. Even agencies at the forefront of public health, such as the CDC, were initially slow to reveal sex-disaggregated coronavirus data, Hawkes said. The U.K. public health surveillance system was similarly late. Hawkes took those delays as a sign of just how unimportant people considered this data, since it is so readily available: When people die, their death certificates state whether they were male, female or, in some places, nonbinary. The CDC data finally made that information accessible in mid-April. The male-skewed patterns revealed in those deaths conform to what was seen in earlier outbreaks of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), both within the family of coronaviruses. And it is in line with other viral responses. “We know that women develop much better antibody response to flu vaccines,” Iwasaki said. Some of those experts are hoping to capitalize on this moment to shine a spotlight on other gender differences in health. The coronavirus, after all, isn’t the only problem to afflict men and women unequally — so, too, do cancer, asthma, heart disease and other common illnesses, as Mauvais-Jarvis noted in a recent paper in

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U.S. prosecutors claim cartels had reach into Mexico’s top security ranks

is no room for lies,” Cienfuegos said. “When there is a lack of honor, loyalty becomes complicity. The next year, he accompanied John F. Kelly, then the secretary of homeland security, on an overflight above poppy fields in the state of Guerrero, along the Pacific coast south of Mexico City. “The purpose of the visit was to discuss matters related to security and the fight against organized crime,” said Mexico’s news release on the visit. In 2018, the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies bestowed its highest award on Cienfuegos for his “advancement and cooperation of the international security environment, and for promoting sustainable capacity in the Americas.” But, according to court filings released Friday, during those years Cienfuegos “in exchange for bribe payments, assisted the H-2 cartel in numerous ways” — referring to the once powerful cartel with a presence along Mexico’s west coast. “Due in part to the defendant’s corrupt assistance, the H-2 cartel conducted its criminal activity in Mexico without significant interference from the Mexican military and imported thousands of kilograms of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States,” the indictment said. Between 2012 to 2018, when Cienfuegos was defense minister, the United States was attempting to improve a once tense relationship with Mexico’s military, which for decades had been more reluctant to work with the United States than other parts of Mexico’s government. Under Cienfuegos, that recalcitrance appeared to fade. In 2016, the head of the United States northern command, Adm. William E. Gortney, spoke glowingly about that progress. “This year, the military-to-military relationship between the United States and Mexico reached unprecedented levels of coordination,” Gortney said. “Today we are strategic partners.” Meanwhile, the indictment against Cienfuegos says, he had been “warning the H-2 cartel about the ongoing U.S. law enforcement investigation into the H-2 cartel.” Mexico’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has described corruption as a problem in previous administrations but not in his own government. Yet Mexican officials say a number of current security officials most likely maintain connections to organized crime. Asked if he expected acting members of the security establishment to be indicted, one senior Mexican official responded: “Without a doubt.” “This just confirms that the criminals can only act and flourish with the complicity of high-level authorities,” said the senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of his role in the current government.

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For a normal college experience during the pandemic, these students hopped continents

menial job sounded better than online classes. When the Washington campus decided to go all-virtual, the offer to study in Bologna was also extended to those students, most of whom typically spend the first year of the master’s degree program in Italy. Smith was registered to study in Washington with a lease and two jobs when the announcement came out. In less than two weeks, she had her escape plan: She applied to transfer, got an answer on whether her financial aid and scholarships would follow her (they did), found housing in Bologna and booked a flight. The timing was crucial: She needed to land before her Italian residence permit expired in late August, and with enough time to quarantine before classes. The exile plan didn’t just upend students’ plans, but also school operations. They had been thinking about how to forge closer connections between campuses, said Eliot Cohen, dean of SAIS. “Covid has forced us to do that.” The campus in China had always been more of an outpost, said Webb. But this year, with common challenges and better technology for communicating, all three SAIS campuses have been working closely. They are taking advantage of ramped-up virtual courses to allow students to take classes from multiple campuses. They’re also considering a new degree program and talking about having students interested in Sino-European issues travel between the Nanjing and Bologna campuses. “After this plague we’ll be stronger for it,” Plummer said. Meanwhile, in Bologna, things are a little different on campus. Fewer students are at school at any given time, and the bartender in the cafe is not allowed to serve alcohol this fall. Students tend to leave campus after their last class now, said Lorenzo Marchetti, a student from Italy. And there are now Chinese-language and bilingual events for students who had expected to have Chinese roommates and immersion in the language and culture. “It’s surreal,” said Nick Kaufman, a 23-year-old student from Boston whose Fulbright research in rural China was abruptly cut short by the coronavirus. He finished those studies in Massachusetts this spring. He, too, expected to be in Nanjing this fall. “Maybe I’ll be in South America next,” he joked, “to study China.” But he is grateful to be in Bologna and go to events on campus, such as a talk by a former Finnish prime minister about power dynamics between the United States, Europe and

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My elderly father spent 36 hours searching for urgent hospital care. It was entirely preventable.

throw them into panic mode and bring the health-care system to its knees. As a result, medical professionals are struggling to respond not only to covid-19 but also to car accidents, pneumonia, gunshot wounds, broken bones. Everyone suffers. This is happening right now in Wisconsin and elsewhere across the nation. This is happening to our parents, our spouses, our children, our friends. And it is all preventable. My dad lost 36 hours being shuffled between facilities that couldn’t admit him. If not for covid-19, however, he probably would have had a bed at the local hospital right away. He would have received the proper care immediately. His family would have been there to reassure him. And I would not have wondered when I would next see my father to say, “I love you.” It would be so easy for each of us to do our part and change the course of this pandemic. Things would be different if we wore our masks and stayed home as much as possible. If we assumed we were asymptomatic and potentially spreading the virus. If we took advice from medical professionals instead of politicians. If we acted with compassion instead of playing roulette with a contagious virus. Even if you don’t contract covid-19, you might need medical attention. Hospitals are full in much of Wisconsin and elsewhere. This unpleasant fact means people can’t get the care they need, regardless of whether they have covid-19. We all have covid-19 fatigue. I know. I have it, too. We’re tired of changing routines, canceling vacations, missing family events, attending school and meetings via Zoom. But, as much as we hate it, sacrifice is the only way to return to normalcy. If we keep on like we have been, your loved one could be the next person taking five ambulance rides before receiving proper medical treatment. Consider yourself warned. Read more: Fareed Zakaria: A pandemic should be the great equalizer. This one had the opposite effect. Fareed Zakaria: The pandemic upended the present. But it’s given us a chance to remake the future. Leana S. Wen: We should be just as careful about covid-19 in relatives’ homes as we are in grocery stores Helaine Olen: It’s clearer than ever that covid-19 will increase, not decrease, inequality Jessica Cohen, Sara Bleich, Joseph Allen and Benjamin Sommers: U.S. schooling during covid-19 doesn’t deserve a passing grade. Here’s the way forward.

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A zoo worker was mauled to death by bears as tourists watched in horror

A group of bears at an animal park in Shanghai mauled an employee to death as visitors watched in horror from a tour bus. The incident at Shanghai Wild Animal Park was recorded Saturday by panicked onlookers, some of whom posted footage on China’s popular Weibo platform. Witnesses inside the bus could be heard shrieking, “There seems to be a man” and “What’s going on?” the BBC reported Monday. The park activated emergency protocols and temporarily closed the area as officials attempted to find out what happened to the worker inside the zoo’s beast-of-prey zone, which is accessible to tourists who remain inside designated vehicles. Although details of the attack were scarce, park officials said they are working with investigators. Officials said in a statement that they were “extremely heartbroken” and offered their sympathy to the family of the victim, who was not publicly identified. Officials also apologized to the guests who saw the attack. Black and brown bears of all sizes roam freely in the drive-through area, which was designed to mimic their original habitat, according to the park’s website. Video footage posted to Instagram days before the attack shows one bear climbing up the side of a tourist bus as those inside stuff carrots into its mouth. “Dangerous! Keep away!” a sign inside the vehicle reads. The park spans almost 400 acres and is home to an estimated 10,000 exotic animals, including zebras, flamingos, giant pandas and tigers. Park officials said they vowed to learn lessons from the attack. Animal rights activists have long called for animals kept in wildlife parks, sea-life centers and zoos to be released. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia said the incident in Shanghai was unsurprising. “How many more people have to be hurt or killed by wild animals kept in confinement before we accept that these animals do not belong in captivity?” the group said in a statement to The Washington Post. The statement added that “no amount of time” spent in a zoo, cage or marine park would erase the predatory instincts of animals taken from the wild. “This incident illustrates the profound level of stress, anxiety, and agitation that these animals experience every day of their lives,” the organization said as it called for tourists and families to stop visiting establishments that detain animals for profit and entertainment. Despite its promise to visitors of a “magical experience”

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A zoo worker was mauled to death by bears as tourists watched in horror

bus as those inside stuff carrots into its mouth. “Dangerous! Keep away!” a sign inside the vehicle reads. The park spans almost 400 acres and is home to an estimated 10,000 exotic animals, including zebras, flamingos, giant pandas and tigers. Park officials said they vowed to learn lessons from the attack. Animal rights activists have long called for animals kept in wildlife parks, sea-life centers and zoos to be released. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia said the incident in Shanghai was unsurprising. “How many more people have to be hurt or killed by wild animals kept in confinement before we accept that these animals do not belong in captivity?” the group said in a statement to The Washington Post. The statement added that “no amount of time” spent in a zoo, cage or marine park would erase the predatory instincts of animals taken from the wild. “This incident illustrates the profound level of stress, anxiety, and agitation that these animals experience every day of their lives,” the organization said as it called for tourists and families to stop visiting establishments that detain animals for profit and entertainment. Despite its promise to visitors of a “magical experience” and “amazing performances,” the park has frequently made headlines for the way it treats its animals. In 2013 a video went viral after a bear pounced and attempted to mutilate a monkey during a bicycle race at the park’s “Animal Olympics” event. Both animals had fallen off their bicycles, and crowds could be heard gasping as staff members brandished sticks to try to free the monkey from the bear’s clutches. The incident was called “cruel” and sparked calls for such events to be banned. The zoo responded to the criticism by saying that the bear was wearing a muzzle and that the monkey survived the attack. Three years later, a video emerged appearing to show a worker at the park slapping the face of a tiger cub in a bid to get it to pose for photographs with visitors; that footage also triggered widespread condemnation and led to calls for the venue to be closed. In 2017, the park was included on the South China Morning Post’s list of “terrible zoos,” which highlighted concerns about poor conditions for animals in captivity. The report claimed that staff members at the park in Shanghai had been photographed riding ostriches and forcing elephants

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Key Palestinian official in critical condition with covid-19

JERUSALEM — Saeb Erekat, a top Palestinian leader who tested positive for the novel coronavirus this month, was placed on a ventilator Monday and is in critical condition at an Israeli hospital, the facility said in a statement. Erekat, well known to diplomats as the Palestinians’ chief negotiator and the leader most frequently quoted by Western media, was rushed from his West Bank home to a hospital in Tel Aviv on Sunday, then transferred to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center. The 65-year-old has a history of respiratory illness and underwent a lung transplant in 2017. Erekat is also fighting a bacterial infection, the hospital said. His daughter tweeted late Sunday that her father was stable in a coronary care unit, where he was receiving high flows of oxygen. But his condition worsened overnight, the hospital said. “His situation is not good,” his brother told Agence France-Presse. Erekat was not the only high-profile Palestinian leader to contract the virus in recent weeks. Longtime activist and official Hanan Ashrawi tested positive for the coronavirus Oct. 11. Erekat has played a central role in Palestinian politics and diplomacy for decades. Since the early 1990s, he has been a high-ranking member of or led negotiating teams in Madrid, Oslo and Washington and at Camp David in Maryland. Since 2015, Erekat has been the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee. A member of the ruling Fatah party and a committed proponent of an independent Palestinian state, he is considered one of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s closest allies. “Saeb Erekat has been the central figure in Palestinian negotiations with Israel, or in decisions to stay out of such negotiations, for over two decades,” said Dan Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “Outside of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas himself, there is no one who has had such influence on these decisions.” Erekat was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and traveled to the United States for a lung transplant three years ago. He made a nearly complete recovery and maintained a full professional schedule afterward. “I feel as good as I’ve ever felt,” he told a Washington Post reporter during a 2019 interview in Jericho, his hometown. Erekat spent the first weeks of his illness at his family home there. The West Bank has seen more than 4,200 positive cases of the coronavirus, with an estimated death toll of more than 350. Unlike