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The Technology 202: Facebook could soon be hit with antitrust lawsuits. Here's what you need to know.

Greene reports. But the agency won't force a sale either, it said. Instead, the two parties will continue to work on ironing out a deal that would meet regulatory approval, the Treasury Department said. TikTok has been in talks to launch a new company with investments from American companies Oracle and Walmart. The deal appeared to have the president's blessing but negotiations stalled. A Treasury-led interagency committee determined earlier this year that the company's Chinese ownership posed a national security risk, and ByteDance would have to divest if the app wanted to continue U.S. operations. Trump threatened to ban the app by executive order, but the effort has been tied up in the courts. The U.S. government claims TikTok could be compelled to share U.S. user data with the Chinese government, a claim it denies. Chula Vista, Calif., the first city in the country to adopt a first responder program using drones, uses the technology to respond to as many as 15 emergency calls a day, Cade Metz at the New York Times reports. Three other cities have recently launched similar programs. The cost is dramatically lower than owning and operating helicopters for the same job. But like with other surveillance technologies, civil rights advocates worry that the technology could give police officers a way to target certain communities or violate the privacy of citizens not suspected of a crime. “Communities should ask hard questions about these programs. As the power and scope of this technology expands, so does the need for privacy protection,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Project on Speech, Privacy and Technology. “Drones can be used to investigate known crimes. But they are also sensors that can generate offenses.” Police departments argue that the technology has been a boon during the pandemic. “We’re just trying to limit our exposure to other people,” Rahul Sidhu, an officer in Redondo Beach, near Los Angeles. “Sometimes you can send a drone without sending an officer.” Becerra has led the effort by Democratic states to prevent the Trump administration from overturning Obamacare, Michael Balsamo and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar report at the Associated Press report. As Attorney General, Becerra spearheaded the enforcement of California's landmark privacy law and has investigated tech giants including Facebook, Google and Amazon. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) The only thing more cringe-worthy than another election sketch.

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Tighter coronavirus restrictions would save thousands of lives, but elected officials are wary of economic, political costs

Thousands of lives could be saved in coming months if Washington-area officials tightened restrictions on indoor gatherings and other activities that encourage the spread of the coronavirus, health experts say. But elected officials are wary of acting too aggressively for fear of the economic and political costs. The recent record surge in coronavirus cases led D.C., Maryland and Virginia to reverse course on reopening last month, including lowering the number of people allowed to assemble in homes, restaurants and businesses. Now public health experts say governments should pull back even further in light of the dramatic increase in cases that the region and country are experiencing — even before the impact is felt of the widespread flouting of health guidelines by many over the Thanksgiving holiday. “If we’re heading in the wrong direction [in cases], then we need to restrict [the reopening] further,” said Boris Lushniak, dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Health and an acting surgeon general during the Obama administration. “Maybe we should go to zero occupancy.” Lushniak noted a recent nationwide lockdown in Britain achieved a 30 percent drop in cases in its first three weeks. “If we do the right things, we will save thousands of lives until the vaccine is ready to go,” Lushniak said. Lynn R. Goldman, dean of George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, called for “extremely stringent controls around assisted-living facilities, prisons and other congregate settings.” Eric Toner, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said recent “horrible” infection numbers indicated Maryland should tighten further. “Those places that we know have been sources of infections — bars, eating indoors in restaurants, gyms — those are all things that I think should be high priorities for further ratcheting down,” Toner said. The stakes are measured in mass human mortality. On Friday, the District, Maryland and Virginia reported a record single-day total for new coronavirus cases, with 6,985 infections. At current rates, those cases will lead to more than 100 deaths. Without a significant, rapid reduction in the caseload, the region can expect thousands more deaths before vaccines become widely available next year. Some Democratic elected officials in Maryland are joining health experts in urging a return to restrictions instituted during the state’s shutdown. Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot (D) said the state has money to provide relief to those who would suffer most economically from

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D.C. to give $1,200 stimulus payments to some jobless residents as region’s virus cases set record

restaurants and places of worship. Since then, coronavirus metrics in D.C. and the region have worsened. On Monday, the District reported four new virus-related deaths, bringing the city’s total to 701 fatalities, while adding 183 new daily infections. Its caseload has increased 40 percent since last week, with the seven-day average hitting a new high of 252. The city unveiled new data Monday about coronavirus outbreaks in the nation’s capital, shedding light on which types of gathering places have been most problematic. Officials define an outbreak as two or more coronavirus cases stemming from one location within a 14-day period. City data showed universities, schools, day cares and restaurants have been the leading sources of outbreaks between Aug. 1 and Nov. 26. In that time, the city identified 109 outbreaks, including 30 at universities, 19 at D.C. schools and 15 each at day cares and restaurants. Only two outbreaks were linked to places of worship during that time, and one was linked to nonessential retail. The data provides the most comprehensive look yet at coronavirus clusters and is collected through case investigations and interviews with infected residents. It does not specify locations and names of establishments where clusters occurred. In Virginia, the Department of Health on Monday cited “substantial levels of community transmission” in urging local health departments to prioritize contact tracing for certain groups — indicating how surging caseloads are straining the limited time and resources of workers. Health officials said contact tracers should prioritize those diagnosed with the coronavirus within the past six days, plus their household members. Other groups receiving priority will be people who live, work in or visit congregate living facilities; those tied to a known outbreak; and people at increased risk of severe illness. Tracers might not be able to contact others who test positive, health officials said. “As cases of covid-19 increase across the commonwealth, this change will allow us to deploy resources where they will have the most impact,” said Virginia State Health Commissioner M. Norman Oliver, referring to the disease the virus causes. Also on Monday, Bowser and hospital officials continued to plead with the federal government for more vaccine doses for front-line health workers, saying the city is likely to be shortchanged based on the proposed distribution formula. She has said about 80,000 health-care employees work in the District, with about 75 percent commuting from Maryland and Virginia. Under the

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National Zoo’s giant pandas will head to China in three years

The National Zoo said Monday that all three of its giant pandas will be going to China at the end of 2023, according to a new agreement struck with Chinese officials. The agreement grants a three-year extension to the stay of the adult giant pandas, Mei Xiang, a female, and Tian Tian, a male, who have been at the zoo for 20 years, the zoo said. But they and their 4-month-old cub, Xiao Qi Ji, a male, are to go to China by the end of the extension on Dec. 7, 2023. The agreement means the zoo and the adoring public will have the popular black and white animals for three more years. But it leaves the future of the National Zoo’s almost 50-year giant panda program unsettled. Zoo Director Steve Monfort said he was confident, despite international tensions, that Chinese officials would consider sending more giant pandas to Washington in the future. He said he was thrilled to have Mei Xiang and Tian Tian for three more years. The current agreement that has allowed them to stay expires Monday. Giant pandas are native to China, and it owns all giant pandas in U.S. zoos. As with earlier extensions, the zoo will pay the Chinese government $500,000 per year of the new stay, the zoo said. “We have . . . three more years to really prepare ourselves also for saying goodbye,” Monfort said. “These animals are beloved not just by the people who work and care for them, but by millions of people.” “It’s great to have them for a little longer but it also is a reminder that that’s ephemeral, and they will return to China,” he said. “This gives us three years to celebrate that and to get ready for it.” “It’s going to be a heartbreak for us,” he said. Some keepers have been with the adult pandas their entire careers and will be “absolutely crushed when these animals go away. Lots of tears will flow.” But there will also be a sense of pride at how well the zoo has cared for them, he said. Monfort, who has been studying giant pandas for 33 years, said the zoo’s relationship with Chinese panda experts is solid. “I went over there in January . . . to Beijing, and we had an excellent meeting with our counterparts there,” Monfort said. “It was all good, and we’ve just

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National Zoo’s giant pandas will head to China in three years

zoo will pay the Chinese government $500,000 per year of the new stay, the zoo said. “We have . . . three more years to really prepare ourselves also for saying goodbye,” Monfort said. “These animals are beloved not just by the people who work and care for them, but by millions of people.” “It’s great to have them for a little longer but it also is a reminder that that’s ephemeral, and they will return to China,” he said. “This gives us three years to celebrate that and to get ready for it.” “It’s going to be a heartbreak for us,” he said. Some keepers have been with the adult pandas their entire careers and will be “absolutely crushed when these animals go away. Lots of tears will flow.” But there will also be a sense of pride at how well the zoo has cared for them, he said. Monfort, who has been studying giant pandas for 33 years, said the zoo’s relationship with Chinese panda experts is solid. “I went over there in January . . . to Beijing, and we had an excellent meeting with our counterparts there,” Monfort said. “It was all good, and we’ve just been having positive interactions since then.” “We have a 48-year history with pandas, and we’d like to have another many decades of additional collaboration with Chinese colleagues,” he said. “There’s no question that, when the time is right, we will approach them and begin discussions about the future of the program after this pair,” he said. “It is our hope that we will have pandas for decades to come,” he said. The zoo’s relationship with its Chinese counterparts is “such a good and strong partnership that we hope that that could be made possible.” But tensions between the United States and China are ongoing, and President Trump has repeatedly blamed the Chinese for the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. (The zoo is closed because of the virus.) Monfort said he is not worried. “There’s a lot of concern that people have about the relationship between our two countries, on the political side of things,” he said. “That’s all very fraught.” “But . . . the relationships that we have with our colleagues on the ground there . . . are very strong professional relationships . . . very productive, very collegial, friendly,” he said. “On that level, everything’s really great.”

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Careful purchasing can protect the planet — and people

Thanks for the great Dec. 1 Health & Science article “Want to shop sustainably? Here’s what to consider.” In addition to protecting the environment, careful purchasing can protect people as well. Often, people are exploited in the production of what we consume — think child labor in chocolate and laborers making nonliving wages, either in Asia or the United States. Immigrants who process our food often do backbreaking work on sub-minimal wages in pesticide-filled fields. Some coffee growers often don’t even break even, being forced to accept what Big Ag has to offer. Labels such as “fair trade” and “cage free” can be misleading unless you’ve done the homework. Deliverers of our goods are also at risk and are often under stress, and there’s the energy used to pack and make the deliveries. When we buy at discount stores, think about why they are so cheap. Buy used if you can, and fix those appliances. Surely some entrepreneur will repair our lawn mower. Christine Matthews Read more letters to the editor.

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American history is about outcomes. Will we pass the covid-19 test?

in how the battle ends than in how it got started. In that respect, the fight begins now. As many experts predicted, the approach of winter finds us drowning in a new wave of covid-19 cases. Precisely how large a wave is hard to say. Confirmed infections — now averaging more than 200,000 per day in the United States — are carefully tracked and widely reported. Yet evidence shows that most infections are never diagnosed because they produce few, if any, symptoms. Nor is the number of deaths a perfect measure of the pandemic. Of 2,000-plus victims reported on a recent day, some were people already close to death from other causes. Ending covid would not have saved those lives. But those two measures point to the same conclusion: The pandemic is as bad or worse than ever, further evidenced by widespread overcrowding in medical facilities — especially the little hospitals and clinics of rural America. History will elide many of the missteps of last winter provided that we make a better showing from now on. Take, for example, the fiasco of the face coverings. When the novel coronavirus emerged, hospital managers immediately worried they would run short of personal protective equipment, including face masks. To protect existing supplies, authorities assured the public that we’d be fine without masks. That was a mistake. Masks have proved to be the first line of defense, along with social distancing and clean hands. Even on the cusp of a vaccine, these simple measures are not only our best options against the pandemic; they continue to be the only ones available to engage the nation to meet this challenge. We’re at a critical point. A magnificent effort by medical researchers has sped us to the beginning of a months-long process of mass vaccinations. With enough patience and cooperation from the public, this offers a real hope of taming the pandemic. In the meantime, however, hospitals and morgues are as taxed by covid-19 as ever. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, used data analysis to explain recently in The Post that infections are so widespread that hospitals across the country are sending home patients who, in normal times, would be admitted. The same issue can be illustrated by anecdote rather than analysis. The Associated Press found Eric Lewallen, a radiological technician in rural LaCrosse, Kan., who moved into an

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Amtrak launches new digital payment options

Amtrak customers can now pay their train fares with popular tap-and-go payment options such as Apple Pay, the railroad announced Tuesday. The company has upgraded its mobile app and Amtrak.com to allow customers to use Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal to complete transactions, Amtrak said, offering customers an alternative to traditional credit and debit card payments. “We know every minute counts for our customers and now purchasing tickets is as simple as the touch of a button,” Amtrak’s chief marketing and revenue officer, Roger Harris, said. “These updates to the Amtrak app and website will offer customers enhanced flexibility and convenience as they book and pay for train tickets.” The technology that enables tap-and-go mobile payments is increasingly ubiquitous in other areas of commerce. It is already being used in the booking systems of some airlines and transit services in the U.S. Tuesday’s announcement comes as the railroad is on a major mission to lure back passengers and rebound from its worst financial crisis. The company has seen stunning revenue losses because of decline in ticket sales during the covid-19 pandemic. Ridership plummeted by 97 percent at the onset of the pandemic and remains down 75 percent compared to a year ago. Amtrak says it wants to make booking easier for customers, and keep travel “contact-free” during the pandemic. Passengers are encouraged to make their Amtrak transactions online, from booking trips to checking the status of their train. Conductors can scan boarding e-Tickets shown from the Amtrak app. Amtrak passengers can now get notification on the Amtrak app about gate and track information at some stations. Before booking, they can see how many seat are taken on a given train, a feature that allows customers to book a train that is less crowded. Amtrak’s app is available on Apple and Android platforms. Users can save their preferred digital payment method as a default payment in their accounts for easier checkout. Other transportation companies and agencies around the country and the world have introduced mobile digital payment systems. In the Washington area, Metro in September launched a system where customers can reload their SmarTrip accounts with Apple Pay and a new Metro mobile app.

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The Energy 202: House Democrat concerned Biden's future interior secretary is already being undercut

slightly warmer than 2016 is all the more remarkable. In the coming weeks, other temperature-tracking agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, will report their temperature rankings, which could diverge slightly. “However, there is near unanimity among climate scientists about the specifics of the long-term warming trend, as well as its causes and increasingly devastating consequences,” Freedman writes. A lack of rainfall is contributing to a period of high fire risk in Northern and Southern California. “California’s worst wildfire season on record, which has torched 4.2 million acres and killed 31 people, just won’t quit,” Andrew Freedman and Diana Leonard report for The Post. December red flag warnings for fire risk are rare in Northern California, although they are more common to the south. But even in Southern California the extremely dry conditions and parched vegetation are not typical. ExxonMobil was set to embark on the construction of one of the world’s largest carbon-capture-storage facilities in the LaBarge field in Wyoming. The cost of construction for the project, which would capture and bury carbon produced at the site, was estimated at $260 million — money the oil giant hoped to recoup in part through tax credits for safe storage, Bloomberg News reports. In April, however, Exxon, reeling from cratering oil prices, put the project on hold indefinitely. Even so, the company is continuing to invest in traditional oil and gas projects. "In September, for example, Exxon announced plans to expand crude operations off the coast of Guyana at a cost of $9 billion — 35 times the cost of implementing CCS at LaBarge,” Bloomberg writes. Meanwhile, documents obtained by Bloomberg show that if LaBarge had gone ahead, “it would have been one of the largest carbon-capture projects operated solely by Exxon, making up almost 20% of the company’s new emission-reduction efforts out to 2025.” The National Zoo in Washington will keep giant pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, as well as their 4-month-old cub, Xiao Qi Ji, for another three years after signing an extension with Chinese officials. The pandas are set to return to China in 2023, our colleague Michael E. Ruane reports. “It’s great to have them for a little longer but it also is a reminder that that’s ephemeral, and they will return to China,” Zoo Director Steve Monfort told The Post. “This gives us three years to celebrate that and to get ready

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7 winter tips to improve your spring garden

and shade the forest floor. They quickly send up their leaves, flower, get pollinated, produce seed and then disappear by summer, only to return the following year. Installing these natives that bloom in early spring extends your gardening season for an additional four to six weeks. Along with spring bulbs such as crocus, daffodils, hyacinths, scilla, tulips — fall in love with Virginia bluebells, trout lily and trilliums. 4. Plan in winter, build in spring. Planting plans should be developed in winter with orders to nurseries and growers scheduled for spring installation. Arguably spring planting is a bit more favorable as nature assists us with frequent precipitation. 5. Think adaptability. Choose plants that are adaptable, and if you can, plant native. Plant species with a wide hardiness range and avoid choosing species outside of their hardiness zone or just on the edge. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. The map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into 10-degree-Fahrenheit zones. Understanding microclimates within your garden may tempt you to plant a fig tree on a sunny New York City terrace garden but there is great risk — with temperature extremes, one or two very cold winters may kill the plant. 6. Don’t leave garden soil naked. In the forests, leaves fall in autumn and break down under winter rains and snow, composting to humic acid which enriches the soil. During the fall, instead of bagging fallen leaves, leave them in place and turn them into leaf mulch. If you are concerned with leaves flying away, throw some heavier natural cedar mulch on top. Don’t cut back perennials, grasses and shrubs until spring. Avoid a sanitized garden. Bees nest in hollowed out stems. There are insects’ eggs attached to those fallen leaves and that provides food for birds. Birds will use much of the detritus for nest building as well. Using your own homemade compost also doubles as a form of recycling that not only reduces methane emissions from landfills but also improves your garden’s soil. For terrace dwellers, mulch planters heavily to provide a “winter coat” for your plans. Recently planted trees on a windy roof may need to be wrapped to reduce the impact of winter winds. As the weather grows colder, plants still need access

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The Washington Post names Siobhán O’Grady its Cairo bureau chief

Announcement from Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl, Deputy Foreign Editor Eva Rodriguez and Middle East Editor Alan Sipress: We’re thrilled to announce that Siobhán O’Grady will become Cairo bureau chief early next year. Siobhán, who has extensive experience reporting from difficult places, brings energy, versatility, an original eye and a confident voice to the role. Her responsibilities in the heart of the Arab world will stretch from Yemen to Morocco, a region of 225 million people, and she is committed to covering not just politics and policy, but people — the “rebels and autocrats, jailed journalists and pioneering artists, human smugglers and arms dealers, desperate migrants and gender equality reformers, ambitious scientists and struggling farmers,” as she described them in a memo. Since joining The Post in 2018, Siobhán has demonstrated a knack for bringing characters to life, even against daunting obstacles. She has delivered memorable work from everywhere she has traveled: from Central Africa, reporting on a divide between English- and French-speakers that threatens to tear Cameroon apart; from Afghanistan, during three fill-in tours, reporting on the race to preserve a remarkable film archive from the country’s pre-Taliban past; and from Lebanon, where she told the story of last summer’s devastating explosion through the eyes of a baker who “owes his life to the humble manousheh,” the irresistible Levantine flatbread. As a newsroom-based staff writer in Foreign, Siobhán has excelled in a breaking-news mission that prioritizes quick-turn explainers and other stories that fill gaps in our overseas coverage. Since February, from Washington and Hong Kong, she has been a pillar of our round-the-clock coronavirus coverage. She is a graduate of Dickinson College and studied abroad in Morocco and Cameroon. Siobhán began her career at Foreign Policy, then spent 18 months freelancing across Africa from Nigeria, Togo, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and elsewhere for the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic and other news outlets. She speaks fluent French and elementary Arabic. In Cairo, Siobhán will join a Middle East team that includes Post correspondents in Baghdad, Beirut, Istanbul and Jerusalem.

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The Health 202: Fresh supply concerns emerge as Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine is on the cusp of approval

deemed essential. Black children are losing more ground than their peers because of school shutdowns, and Black workers have been devastated by pandemic-related job losses,” The Post’s Lola Fadulu reports. “Yet fewer than half of Black Americans say they would get a coronavirus vaccine, compared with 63 percent of Hispanic people and 61 percent of White people, according to a December report from the Pew Research Center,” she continues. Reed Tuckson, the founder of the D.C.-based Black Coalition Against Covid-19, said that the mistrust stems from a history of mistreatment in the medical system and that many Black Americans are scarred by the legacy of the Tuskegee Study, in which federal health officials lied to Black men and denied them treatment for syphilis as part of an experiment. “We are taking great pains to help folks understand that what existed in the 1930s is very different today, in 2020,” said Tuckson, a doctor and former D.C. health director. Some Democratic lawmakers have been caught violating the spirit, and sometimes the letter, of the public health guidance that they’ve promoted. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has come under fire for dining at the French Laundry restaurant, even as he was urging Californians not to meet with people outside their household. Austin Mayor Steve Adler, meanwhile, called his decision to travel to Mexico in November for his daughter’s wedding a “lapse in judgement.” Some politicians tripped up over Thanksgiving, including Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, who flew to Mississippi for the holiday and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who gathered with five households. Ashish K. Jha, a physician, health policy researcher and the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, writes in an op-ed for The Post that the decline in hospitalizations stems from the fact that they are admitting fewer patients as they run out of capacity. “Critically ill patients will always be admitted. But as hospitals start to fill up, less sick patients — younger covid patients, or those whose oxygen levels haven’t yet sunk critically low — get sent home. These patients would be safer in a hospital bed, but there isn’t one available for them anymore,” he wrote. There won’t be quite enough vaccines to cover all front-line medical professionals and long-term care residents, so hospitals are having to prioritize who should go first. The December vaccine deliveries are expected to cover 20 million people, slightly less

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Going it alone: In two agricultural towns, small farmers and ranchers cope with the pandemic without a safety net

sell to restaurants and at farmers markets, or at a reduced price to wholesalers. Most of Salinas’s organic growers sell their products to a single distributor: Coke Farm, an organic grower/shipper in nearby San Juan Bautista. Celsa Ortega, Rigoberto Bucio and Javier Zamora each have taken a new route to independence. Immigrants from Mexico, all three began as workers on large farms, going through programs with the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA), a nonprofit that trains limited-resource and aspiring organic farmers and then equips them with land. Ortega farms only an acre, Bucio farms 12 and Zamora a little over 100 — small farmers battling the “get big or get out” ethos that has taken root in agriculture since the 1970s. Small farmers, new farmers and farmers of color, struggling in the shadow of Big Ag, have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and are often not eligible for federal relief — many didn’t qualify for Paycheck Protection Program loans or the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program payments, which excludes those who rely on direct-to-consumer sales. And while tens of billions of dollars have been funneled to large-scale ranches and meat processing companies and commodity row crop farmers in the South and Midwest, those who grow “specialty crops,” the fruits and vegetables humans eat, have frequently not qualified for support. Much in the way the Dust Bowl of the 1930s prompted one of the largest migrations in our history, the adversity has changed lives and spurred many small farmers and ranchers to think entrepreneurially about new markets. About 60 miles from the tech epicenter of Silicon Valley, the Salinas Valley, often called "the Salad Bowl of the World,” is home to about 90,000 farmworkers. With an average wage of $25,000, housing is expensive and farmworkers often crowd together in apartments. Celsa Ortega, 33, lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her four children, Kaivey, 14, Michael, 12, Lucero, 9, and Rafael, 6. She grew up in a small town in Oaxaca, finishing junior high school in Mexico and immigrating to the United States in 2006. “I started in the fields, picking strawberries, then harvesting cilantro. That’s what I felt most comfortable doing,” she said through a translator. She went through an agricultural training program and now farms her own acre, half of which is planted with romaine lettuce, which, like many farmers her size, she sells to organic wholesaler Coke Farm.

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Going it alone: In two agricultural towns, small farmers and ranchers cope with the pandemic without a safety net

be on a contract to produce for Pilgrim’s Pride. We’ve chosen to go our own way and take our own risks.” — Rick Woodworth For Woodworth, the pandemic has presented challenges but also opportunities. His 65-seat restaurant, where he sells burgers and hoagies, with prime-rib specials on the weekend, had to shut down for a while. But sales direct to consumers have stayed strong. “Consumers have more awareness about the source of their product” since the pandemic, he says. The virus has wreaked havoc on the industry’s supply chain, with some plants shutting down amid coronavirus outbreaks and work slowing to a trickle in others as safety measures were put in place. Commodity beef prices fell as ranchers searched for capacity at slaughterhouses. But independent ranchers aren’t tied to the vicissitudes of the nation’s cattle auctions and Woodworth said his prices remained firm. “There’s a lot of talk about farm to table, but when the rubber meets the road it comes down to price,” he says. “I won’t change my price.” In the peak of harvest season this summer, Monterey County became an epicenter of the state’s coronavirus cases. A recent University of California at Berkeley study shows that 13 percent of Salinas Valley farmworkers tested positive for the virus between July and November, compared with about 3 percent of Californians overall. Latino workers make up 93 percent of the state’s agricultural laborers, some H-2A visa workers from Mexico, but many more of them permanent residents or undocumented migrant workers. Unlike outbreaks in American meat processing facilities, farmworkers’ mobility and immigration status often made it hard to document how many of their lives were affected or curtailed by the virus. Small farmers also have had trouble keeping enough workers to harvest what is frequently an ephemeral crop — a lag of even a few days can mean the difference between solvency and ruin. In California and elsewhere there were reports of fruits and vegetables rotting in the fields. Rigoberto Bucio, 32, grew up in Michoacán, Mexico, and came to the United States on his own at age 16. “I needed a job and people were refusing me work because of my age. I got a job with one of the ALBA farmers, growing strawberries, zucchini and tomatoes,” he said of the nonprofit farm education and business incubator program. “I had no prior knowledge about farming and vegetables, other than how

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No, coronavirus vaccines aren’t made from aborted fetuses or created to control the population — and more lessons about fake news

an aspirational yardstick against which to measure all news and information. Just as important, it provides the next generation with an appreciation of the First Amendment and the role of a free press. Here’s material from the Dec. 7 Sift: Disinformation immunity As countries around the world await the mass distribution of two promising vaccines for the coronavirus, researchers and fact-checkers are warning that a surge of disinformation could threaten their acceptance and the efforts to immunize a larger percentage of the population. A Dec. 2 report from the misinformation research organization First Draft warned that those who create and circulate vaccine-related falsehoods often exploit “data deficits,” or the imbalance between the intense public demand for information about the injections and the limited supply of verified information about them that is also clear and accessible. For example, the complexity of the mRNA technology behind the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines has made it easy for bad actors to insert the false claim that the shots alter human DNA. (They do not.) The report lists some of the false vaccine narratives that have recently gained traction on social media: While medical experts cannot be sure yet about the exact percentage of people who need to take the vaccine to successfully stop the spread of the coronavirus, Anthony S. Fauci, the top infectious-disease expert in the United States, recently said that the “overwhelming majority” of Americans need to be vaccinated to achieve widespread immunity. About 60 percent of Americans say they would definitely (29 percent) or probably (31 percent) get a vaccine for the coronavirus, according to a Dec. 3 Pew Research Center survey. But 21 percent say they do not intend to get vaccinated and are “ ‘pretty certain’ more information will not change their mind,” the survey found. Note: Also note Related: “Social media must prepare for flood of covid-19 vaccine misinformation” Idea: Use the covid-19 disinformation narratives identified in the First Draft report to create a student project. For example, students could poll their peers and family members to see how many have been exposed to or believed the false narratives. Students could also work in teams to trace these narratives on various social media platforms or create their own social posts with accurate information about the vaccines to counter disinformation Viral rumor rundown NO: YES: YES: YES: YES: Note: NO: YES: NO: YES: NO: Note: ★ Featured rumor resource:

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Kristi Noem hails South Dakota as a coronavirus success story — using badly cherry-picked numbers

Back in June, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page published a now pretty infamous op-ed from Vice President Pence. The thrust: There was no “second wave” of the coronavirus, and the U.S. government had the problem well in hand. The claim was highly suspect at the time, and it has proved even more dubious since then as the pandemic situation has spiraled out of control. Olivia Troye, once a Pence aide, who says she participated in drafting it, has called the claim “ludicrous.” But when it comes to all-is-well op-eds in the Journal, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) is giving Pence a run for his money. Noem clearly harbors national political ambitions, keeping up a packed travel schedule even as her state deals with one of the worst — if not the worst — coronavirus outbreaks in the country. As cases in South Dakota began to rise in September, Noem posted a video making light of social distancing. But to hear Noem tell it in her new op-ed in the Journal, her state is some kind of a success story. It’s avoidance of strong mitigation measures, according to Noem, has benefited its economy, and its problem isn’t all that bad, relative to other states. Just as with Pence, though, she offers some highly suspect arguments to back up this claim — even when it comes to the few numbers she cherry-picked. “Many in the media have criticized this approach, labeling me ill-informed, reckless and even a ‘denier,’ ” Noem said. “Some have asserted that South Dakota is ‘as bad as it gets anywhere in the world’ when it comes to covid-19 — a demonstrably false statement.” It is most definitely not a demonstrably false statement. Data from the Federation of American Scientists in mid-November showed South Dakota’s per capita death rate was the third-highest of any hot spot worldwide in its data set. And Washington Post data show South Dakota has by far the highest per capita death rate in the country — 18.7 deaths per 100,000 people over the past seven days. Next highest is Kansas, at 10.2. Noem doesn’t bother with that data, though. Instead she homes in on a few other states with tougher mitigation measures that she suggests offer favorable comparisons to her state. “Despite harsh lockdowns in Illinois, coupled with a mask mandate since May 1, that state experienced a new single-day record

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Biden picks Xavier Becerra as nominee for health and human services secretary

President-elect Joe Biden has chosen California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, a critical position in the coalescing administration for which fighting the coronavirus pandemic looms as the most urgent mission once Biden takes office next month. In selecting Becerra, a 24-year member of Congress before taking the attorney general post, Biden picked someone with an unorthodox background for HHS secretary. The job running the sprawling department often has gone to governors, and public health officials have been urging the Biden transition team to select someone with expertise in medicine, given that the raging pandemic will remain front and center for many months. But Biden had also been under pressure to select more Latinos in his Cabinet. Becerra becomes the second designated nominee who is Latino, after Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s pick for homeland security secretary. The choice of Becerra, first reported by the New York Times, was confirmed Sunday night by three individuals familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the selection. Also, three individuals with knowledge of Biden’s choice said he has picked Rochelle Walensky, an infectious-disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, for the job of director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, she is well-respected for her work, including on the comparative effectiveness of treatment for HIV and AIDs. A spokesman for the Biden transition declined to comment Sunday night. The HHS position is the third role at the helm of the incoming administration’s pandemic response to be filled in the past few days, though none has been publicly announced by Biden. Last week, the president-elect offered an expanded version of the job of surgeon general to Vivek H. Murthy, a co-chair of the administration’s covid-19 advisory board, who would reprise a role he held during the Obama presidency and a few months into President Trump’s tenure. And Biden is looking to Jeff Zients, co-chair of the transition, as the White House’s coronavirus coordinator. Zients led the White House’s National Economic Council under President Barack Obama. Becerra’s selection is a break from a pattern in which the president-elect is selecting people as his right-hand advisers who have lengthy working relationships with him from earlier in his career, including his eight years as Obama’s vice president. But The idea of Becerra as HHS secretary “all

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Gonzaga puts its top-ranked basketball program on hold after positive coronavirus tests

disappointed to not be able to play one of the most-anticipated games of the season, but we are following the advice of public health officials,” Few and Baylor Coach Scott Drew said in a joint statement. “When we decided to play during a pandemic, our priorities were protecting the health and safety of student-athletes and following public health guidelines, and we’re proud of how both programs have held true to those promises. There are much greater issues in this world than not being able to play a basketball game, so we’re going to continue praying for everyone who has been affected by this pandemic.” The player and staff member remained in Indianapolis under coronavirus protocols while the team returned home Saturday after a 13-day trip to Fort Myers, Fla., and Indianapolis. “It’s a cumulative thing, Baylor has experienced it themselves,” Roth said Saturday (via the Spokesman-Review), referring to Drew’s positive test days and the Bears’ on-the-fly rescheduling to start the season. “There’s no denying the numbers [nationally] have jumped significantly. As great as it would have been to play the [Baylor] game, the safety and in some ways societal view of this is important.” While competing in the Fort Myers Tip-Off last week, one Gonzaga player and one staff member who tested positive were isolated in their hotel rooms, and one player and two staff members identified through contact tracing were in quarantine, according to the Spokesman-Review. The team’s medical staffs, tournament officials and Florida health officials determined that the games could proceed and Gonzaga beat Kansas and Auburn. Gonzaga traveled to Indianapolis on Monday and beat West Virginia on Wednesday. Of the four team members still in Florida, two were expected to return to Washington on Monday and two on Tuesday, the newspaper reported. One player was cleared to drive from Florida to Indianapolis and to fly home with the team Saturday. The virus had already precipitated a big change in college basketball. The NCAA announced in mid-November that it will hold its annual tournament at one site, possibly in Indianapolis, rather than following its usual practice of staging early-round games at 13 locations around the country. Read more college sports coverage: Perspective: The college football teams of the year, befitting a most unusual year Mask-free President Trump confers medal to mask-free Lou Holtz, who’s recovering from covid-19 Sarah Fuller made history. Her parents understand why her moment matters.

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FCC announces billions of dollars in awards to provide rural areas with broadband access

coverage of the populated world by 2021,” according to its website. The funding gives SpaceX an even bigger lead over its competitors in the race to build the Internet in space. Recently, OneWeb emerged from bankruptcy and appointed a new CEO. Jeff Bezos’s Amazon also intends to flood Earth’s orbit with its own satellites in a project it calls Kuiper that it has said would bring broadband to “unserved and underserved communities around the world.” (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) In a statement, Pai said the awards would bring “welcome news to millions of unconnected rural Americans who for too long have been on the wrong side of the digital divide. They now stand to gain access to high-speed, high-quality broadband service.” The winning bidders must provide financial statements, coverage maps and certify that their network is capable of delivering “to at least 95% of the required number of locations in each relevant state,” the FCC said. The announcement comes as Democrats and President-elect Biden are pushing to dramatically increase funding for Internet spending next year, helping to connect families and businesses that have been especially hurt during the coronavirus pandemic. Biden has endorsed a relief bill that passed the House, which included $4 billion for low-income Americans struggling to access the Internet for work or school. Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), who led a broadband task force, has said he expected the issue to be one of the top priorities for the incoming administration and that Congress would act. “Broadband in this century must be treated as electricity was in the 20th century,” he said. The biggest winners of the FCC’s awards, which would be given out over 10 years, were LTD Broadband, Charter Communications and the Rural Electric Cooperative Consortium, each receiving a little over $1 billion. SpaceX finished near the top with a massive infusion of cash that could provide the financial underpinning its Starlink project needs. In the past, several companies tried and failed. Teledesic, a company funded in part by Bill Gates in the mid-1990s, collapsed after costs soared. Attempts by Iridium and Globalstar ended up in bankruptcy. SpaceX has the advantage that it can launch its own satellites. And by using reusable rockets, the cost has come down dramatically. Its most recent launch of 60 Starlink satellites last month, for example, was the seventh time that particular Falcon 9 rocket had been used, a

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Amid history of mistreatment, doctors struggle to sell Black Americans on coronavirus vaccine

hall in October, organized by the D.C.-based Black Coalition Against Covid-19 and other groups, sparked a flurry of sign-ups to be considered for a vaccine trial through the Covid-19 Prevention Network. But volunteers trying to promote the vaccine outside a nonprofit group’s offices in Southeast Washington last week found many people unconvinced. “There’s a group that is pretty much anti-vaccine of any kind,” said Barrett Hatches, chief executive of the Chicago Family Health Center, which serves a predominantly Black and Latino community and is promoting the vaccine while administering flu shots or coronavirus tests. “There is a group that is still in a little bit of covid denial, and then there is the group that is skeptical and has its wait-and-see perspective.” Reed Tuckson, founder of the D.C.-based coalition, said some African Americans are still deeply scarred by the Tuskegee Study, in which federal health officials conducted a secret experiment on Black men to study the progression of syphilis. The men were told they were being treated for “bad blood” but never actually given medicine as they suffered blindness and other severe health problems from the disease. Tuckson’s group is composed of physicians, faith leaders and other advocates, and it has tentacles in virtually every health group in Washington. Its town halls featured some of the nation’s top health officials answering questions about why the vaccine process was fast tracked, whether Black people were participating in clinical trials, and whether research like the Tuskegee Study could happen in modern times. The group is hosting a third town hall Tuesday, during which Fauci will speak. “We are taking great pains to help folks understand that what existed in the 1930s is very different today, in 2020,” said Tuckson, a doctor and health consultant who is a former D.C. health director and sits on the Howard University Board of Trustees. “That there are research scientists of color who are in positions of authority all across the research and medical enterprise.” The National Institutes of Health helped fund the town halls, and sent some of its top Black scientists to participate, including Gary Gibbons, head of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, who emphasized the importance of having “trusted messengers” provide “accurate, credible, authentic messages.” “It’s in these dialogues with which we’ve gotten a sense of what is the level of knowledge, awareness, as well as misinformation and concerns,” Gibbons said. “And

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High school sports in D.C. will not begin before February

One week before winter sports practices were set to begin in D.C., the city announced it is suspending high school athletics until February. Under revised coronavirus-related restrictions unveiled Monday, all athletic activities for high-school-aged residents, both scholastic and recreational, are prohibited. D.C.’s long-held return-to-play date of Dec. 14 has been shifted to Feb. 1. The D.C. State Athletic Association still plans to hold three condensed seasons, but that schedule is now more compact. Under the new plan, winter sports practice will begin Feb. 1, and the season will run from Feb. 8 to March 27. For fall sports, football practice will begin March 1, and other activities will begin March 8. Fall competition will run from March 15 to May 1. Spring sports will begin practice April 26, and competition goes from May 3 to June 12. “While it is disappointing to delay the start of the athletic season, our focus remains on getting student-athletes on the field and court and back to competition,” DCSAA Executive Director Clark Ray said in a news release. “We know the positive impact that athletics have on our youths and look forward to getting back in action. Of course, we will continue to monitor the situation and maintain the flexibility to return to play as soon as we can.” The previous plan, set forth in midsummer, had always been described by DCSAA officials as a wait-and-see approach. Under that proposal, teams would have three weeks of practice and six weeks of competition. With the updated schedule, that has been changed to one week of practice and seven weeks of competition, with considerable overlap between the winter and fall seasons. “When we made the decision to push back the start of the season, we were aware of the possibility that the new schedule might not be met,” Ray said. “Our goal was that if the data and science supported returning to play in December, that’s what we would do. Unfortunately, at this time, the risks associated with playing simply are too high.” Monday’s announcement made a distinction between high-school-aged athletes and those younger. While high-school-aged athletes are sidelined until February, children who are middle school age and younger can continue to partake in organized drills and clinics as long as the athletes are in groups of no more than 12 and the activities do not involve contact with another person. “The decision to do this

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The Technology 202: Facebook removes some pages appearing to coordinate to push health misinformation

online can erode public confidence in authoritative health information. In January 2019, one of the websites identified in the network, Healthy Food House, published an article with the misleading headline “Elderberry Syrup Is Better Than Any Flu Shots, And Safe!” In March, an article on the same site falsely claimed “outdoor air acts as a natural disinfectant, that can kill the flu and other harmful germs.” Another website researchers flagged, The Hearty Soul, ran an article that initially claimed “THC chemical in cannabis could help prevent and treat deadly COVID-19 complications.” Yet these dubious claims found a powerful megaphone via a series of health and lifestyle Facebook pages, which had a combined following of more than 65 million people. That allowed them to have greater reach online than top health resources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization, GMF researchers found. The five websites — which have been found to publish false claims by the nonpartisan news-rating organization NewsGuard — received 71.1 million comments, likes and shares across Facebook in the first 11 months of 2020, according to the research by the German Marshall Fund's Digital New Deal project. In contrast, the CDC and WHO had about one-tenth as much engagement, collecting a total of 7.9 million interactions in the same time period as these sites, per GMF. Facebook and other tech companies have taken unprecedented steps to limit the spread of misinformation about the coronavirus. But the German Marshall Fund's findings underscore how much more needs to be done to ensure that people have access to accurate information about their health online. “More transparency is needed so that people can know who is benefiting from the information showing up in their Facebook and other tech companies could take more aggressive steps to ensure that pages or websites that repeatedly share false information are penalized, Kornbluh said, also advocating for creating a kind of “circuit breaker” that would prevent articles from going viral when they're shared by repeat offenders. For months, public health officials have warned of an “infodemic” that is exposing people to unreliable information about the spread of covid-19. As vaccines become available amid rising cases, it will become critical for public health officials and the Biden administration to find engaging ways online to counter misinformation about it. Kornbluh says that's essential, especially as many Americans continue to say they are

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How will the covid-19 vaccines affect your travel?

The news about coronavirus vaccines has given travelers hope that the pandemic will end in the foreseeable future and they’ll be able to hit the road. But how will the vaccines affect your travel next year? In the short term, experts say, not much. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged Americans to avoid traveling for the holidays. Quarantines and other restrictions will probably last through the middle of next year as the vaccine is distributed. Leisure travel might resume later in 2021, and even then it is unlikely to return to normal. Still, travelers are optimistic. “The promising reports about two early covid-19 vaccines are music to travelers’ ears,” says Lisa Lee, a research professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Population Health Sciences and a former CDC official. But she doesn’t expect authorities to have fully distributed the vaccine until mid-2021 at the absolute earliest. So what to do in the meantime? The pandemic has “weighed heavily” on travelers like Louis Brill, a retired pharmacist from Finksburg, Md. “So far this year, my wife and I have canceled a spring trip to the Netherlands and Belgium, a June trip to Yellowstone, a September trip to Sicily and a November trip to Tahiti for a cruise,” he says. “We are both somewhat skeptical about the first covid vaccines that come out, although from what I have read about the Pfizer and Moderna ones, I am starting to feel a bit better about them.” The Brills, both of whom are in their 60s, have put off their travel plans until late 2021, just to be safe. In September, they plan a redo of the trip to Italy, followed by a wine tour in France. They also rescheduled their Tahiti cruise for next December. This should give them time to be vaccinated. “Realistically, it doesn’t seem like either vaccine will be scaled up to reach the general population much before May or June,” says Brill, who is both a traveler and a former health professional. Public health experts say his timeline is about right. Karl Minges, who directs the University of New Haven’s master of public health program, warns travelers against booking a trip too soon. Although officials have suggested that some groups could receive a vaccine as early as December, he says, large-scale availability is unlikely before the second or third quarter of next year. “So you may want

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The Pentagon needs more civilian control over the military now, not less

told me, “People tend to turn to their rolodex of known quantities for advice and support when they get into these senior jobs. … The problem is if you have been in the military for 40 years, guess who is in your rolodex? Mattis was a failure as SecDef … largely because he insulated [himself] amongst a staff of former Marines and Naval officers.” During my own time working at the Pentagon from 2009 to 2011, I saw firsthand how easy it was for civil-military misunderstandings to cause tensions and lead to bad policy decisions. And since Mattis resigned in December 2018, conditions at the Defense Department have reportedly deteriorated even more dramatically than during his tenure. Trump has left a whopping 40 percent of Senate-confirmed civilian positions unfilled, and the locus of policymaking has reportedly shifted to the uniformed Joint Staff, leaving the civilian staff decimated and demoralized. The Pentagon is a vast but delicate machine: It cannot run effectively without both military expertise and civilian expertise, and if either is weakened, the whole thing starts getting shakier. Today, as the changing security environment presents the military with a range of novel and boundary-crossing challenges, blurring the lines between traditional military and traditional civilian spheres, diversity of opinion and background within the department is more important than ever. Austin’s selection also seems an odd choice for Biden. Biden’s team reportedly delayed the announcement of his choice for defense secretary to send the message that Biden planned to elevate diplomacy and de-emphasize the military. Selecting a recently retired general seems to undermine that message, particularly when several other widely respected candidates were on Biden’s shortlist, including Michèle Flournoy, for whom I worked while I was at the Pentagon, and Jeh Johnson, who served as Defense Department general counsel and secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama. Flournoy would have made history as the first female defense secretary, while Johnson would also have been the first Black defense secretary had he been selected — and, unlike Austin, neither of these other potentially pathbreaking nominees would have required a congressional waiver. In an indication that he recognizes the troubling issues raised by Austin’s selection, Biden just published an unusual essay in the Atlantic assuring readers: “I respect and believe in the importance of civilian control of our military and in the importance of a strong civil-military working relationship at DoD —

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Maryland crime report

Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, •Destruction to a vehicle •Destruction of property/vandalism •Theft from a vehicle •Thefts of vehicle parts and accessories •Tampering with a vehicle •Attempted vehicle theft •Credit or debit card theft •Identify theft •Lost property •Telephone misuse •Trespassing The following were among incidents reported by Anne Arundel County police. For information, call 410-222-8050. Crofton Area Davidsonville Rd., Gambrills Area Conway Rd., Glen Burnie Area Ritchie Hwy., Aviation Blvd., Ellwell Ct., Severn Area Parham Ct. and Stillmeadows Dr., Severn Hills Way, Tracy's Landing Area West Bay Front and Solomons Island roads, Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, the police department has implemented a policy of telephone reporting for relatively minor and nonviolent crimes. Callers will be screened, and when appropriate for telephone reporting an officer will collect information. The non-emergency phone number is 410-268-4141. State Cir., Bay Ridge Rd., Croll Dr., Hilltop Lane, Lafayette Ave., Lafayette Ave., Maryland Ave, Shaw St., Tyler Ave., Copeland St., Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, citizens are encouraged to report certain incidents online at hcpd.org or by calling 410-313-2200. These were among incidents reported by Howard County police. Columbia Area Dobbin Rd., Columbia Rd, Harpers Farm Rd., Little Patuxent Pkwy., Oakland Mills Rd., Single Wheel Path, Spiral Cut, Swift Stream Pl., Tamar Dr., Gerwig Lane, Rumsey Rd., Tamar Dr., Yellowrose Ct., Elkridge Area Montgomery Rd., Barnett Lane, Washington Blvd., Washingto Ellicott City Area Baltimore National Pike, Cotoneaster Dr., N. Chatham Rd., Shady Path Pl., Walking Stick Rd., Jessup Area Washington Blvd., Washington Blvd., Laurel Area Washington Blvd., Savage Area Baltimore St., Woodstock Area Birmingham Way, Sussex Way, Turn Berry Way,

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Amid the pandemic, over 500 people in India suddenly fall ill, and it has nothing to do with the coronavirus

district official. “This is all we know for now.” Perplexed by the peculiar nature of the illness and the high number of patients, local health officials are racing to test water, milk, vegetables and fish samples to identify the possible source. Teams from the World Health Organization, molecular biologists, virologists and nutritionists are also part of the investigations. The toxins found in blood samples included lead and nickel, but it is not clear how they got there. Organochlorine, which is normally found in pesticides, was also found in some of the water samples that were tested. Industries are a major source of air and water pollutants in India, and accidents are not uncommon. In May, a toxic gas leak from a chemical plant killed 11 people and sickened hundreds in the port city of Visakhapatnam, in the same state. India was also home to the world’s worst industrial disaster when a gas leak in the central city of Bhopal killed thousands of people in 1984. When the first patients began to arrive at the Eluru government hospital on Saturday evening, many were in a panic, recalled A.V.R. Mohan, the medical superintendent. By the next morning, the numbers had only grown. Mohan immediately roped in nearby private hospitals to accommodate those streaming in. “Most patients recovered within a day,” he said. “They were given anti-epileptic and antiemetic treatment.” Several patients also had psychological trauma, he added. Things are now under control, said Shukla, the district official. “This is a point-source epidemic,” he said. “Whatever happened occurred for one particular day and some people got affected. The number of new patients has dropped.” On Wednesday, just 16 new patients were admitted to the hospital with the telltale symptoms, a drop from the previous days. To monitor those who have recovered and detect new patients, the district administration has set up about 80 medical camps in the area. A few patients reported repeat seizures after discharge, Mohan said. The illness struck Teku Venkateshwar Rao suddenly and without warning. A 38-year-old who ekes out a living by ironing clothes, he suffered an epileptic fit on Saturday morning. "He screamed loudly," said his wife, Teku Varalakshmi. "I was very scared at that time. Never in his life has he suffered epilepsy or seizures." Fear and confusion still plague the family of 56-year-old Jagadheeshwar Rao, who had fainted at the temple. Two days after being discharged,

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Coronavirus vaccine from China’s Sinopharm is 86% effective, UAE officials say

criticism for rolling out the vaccines so widely before clinical trials were complete. Sinopharm said in late November it had applied for final approval with Chinese regulators. The UAE’s Health Ministry announced Wednesday that it had registered a Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine for general use, following emergency-use approval in the country in September. A number of top UAE officials have gotten a shot. UAE health officials said they reviewed the company’s interim analysis of the vaccine’s Phase 3 trial results that gave it an 86 percent efficacy rate. “The analysis shows no serious safety concerns,” the UAE Ministry of Health said, adding that the findings showed the vaccine was 100 percent effective in preventing moderate and severe cases of covid-19. The UAE approval sets the stage for the Sinopharm vaccine to be used widely in the developing world. Unlike the vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech­, which require super-cold storage, Sinopharm’s vaccines can be stored in regular refrigerators, making them a more attractive option for some developing nations. Morocco has ordered 10 million doses of Sinopharm vaccines. The company’s vaccines remain in Phase 3 testing in Egypt, Bahrain, Peru and Argentina. A second Chinese company, Sinovac, also has a coronavirus vaccine in late-stage trials in Brazil, Indonesia and Turkey. Starting in September, the Sinopharm vaccine was used to inoculate UAE health workers deemed most at risk of infection. Phase 3 trials for the vaccine have been conducted in several countries, including the UAE, where 31,000 people across 125 nationalities took part. The state news agency described the registration of the vaccine as “a significant vote of confidence by the UAE’s health authorities in the safety and efficacy of this vaccine.” The UAE has experienced a surge in coronavirus cases in recent months. The country went from reporting just a few hundred new infections a day in August to more than 1,200 a day by November. There have been over 180,000 registered cases since the pandemic began but fewer than 600 reported deaths. Sinopharm officials have made bold claims about the vaccine’s performance in the past few months. The company’s chairman, Liu Jingzhen, said at a conference in November that out of 56,000 people who received a Sinopharm coronavirus vaccine before traveling overseas, none became infected. He said 81 of the 99 employees in Huawei’s Mexico office were vaccinated and did not contract the coronavirus, while 10 of the unvaccinated employees became infected.

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Winners and losers from 2020 state battles

board, as we’ll get to below. Some of the most conservative states in the country now allow some form of legal marijuana use. South Dakota legalized marijuana, with a sizable chunk of Trump supporters voting in favor of it. Mississippi legalized medical marijuana with the same political dynamic. Arizona, Montana and New Jersey also legalized marijuana in some form. That means 15 states have legalized recreational marijuana, and 36 allow at least medical use. The changes helped give momentum to a House Democratic push to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. For the first time ever this month, the House voted in favor of that. (It has little to no chance of passing a Republican-controlled Senate, but if Democrats retake the Senate in two Georgia runoff races, that could change since President-elect Joe Biden supports decriminalization.) Florida became the first state in the South — and the first state that voted for Trump — to require a $15 minimum wage, after voters easily approved this ballot initiative this November. Eight states now require or will soon require workers get paid at least that. Having Florida among them raised hopes among minimum wage advocates that they can expand their fight into other purple or conservative-leaning states, too. After hoping to flip as many as a half-dozen state legislative chambers this year, Democrats ended up losing two. Democrats needed to get a foot in the door in states by 2021, when many state politicians get to redraw congressional maps. These are lines that will last for the next decade and help determine which party controls Congress. Instead, Republicans will go into yet another redistricting effort controlling a majority of chambers — 53 to Democrats’ 31. The battle for state legislatures was also historically static. You have to go back to the 1940s to find an election when so few chambers flipped parties, said Tim Storey, the executive director of the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. Voters were just not that motivated to make big changes in who represents them. In addition, Storey says lawmakers will have some practical limitations to legislating next year in a pandemic — virtual sessions, or plexiglass between lawmakers, or limited access to state capitols — that could make big, bold legislative changes hard to come by in 2021. In yet another example of how unwilling voters were this year for change with state leadership, every single

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D.C.-area forecast: Seasonably cold today with a few flakes possible, then a warmer stretch into the weekend

A somewhat subjective rating of the day’s weather, on a scale of 0 to 10. 5/10: Our cold snap, as seasonably appropriate as it may be, is coming to an end. But not before one more rather chilly day today, minus the recent winds, but with the chance of a few flurries or a snow shower. Tomorrow begins a noticeably warmer stretch with highs headed for near and past 50 through the weekend. We’re dry until shower chances return Saturday night and Sunday. Get our daily forecasts Today (Wednesday): Tonight: Follow us on Tomorrow (Thursday): Tomorrow night: The warming trend continues Friday and Saturday. High pressure sitting offshore sends a southerly breeze our way. That means highs both days in the mid-50s to near 60, with the main difference being mostly sunny skies on Friday versus mostly cloudy skies on Saturday. Friday night and Saturday night lows fall to the 40s, with a nearby warm front bringing a chance of showers Saturday night. Confidence: Medium Shower chances continue on Sunday as a cold front moves through. Probably not a washout, but forecast confidence is low at this point. Sunday highs should reach the 50s to near 60. Confidence: Low Read more about Capital Weather Gang’s confidence rating

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The world’s rich need to cut their carbon footprint by a factor of 30 to slow climate change, U.N. warns

The world’s wealthy will need to reduce their carbon footprints by a factor of 30 to help put the planet on a path to curb the ever-worsening impacts of climate change, according to new findings published Wednesday by the United Nations Environment Program. Currently, the emissions attributable to the richest 1 percent of the global population account for more than double those of the poorest 50 percent. Shifting that balance, researchers found, will require swift and substantial lifestyle changes, including decreases in air travel, a rapid embrace of renewable energy and electric vehicles, and better public planning to encourage walking, bicycle riding and public transit. But individual choices are hardly the only key to mitigating the intensifying consequences of climate change. Wednesday’s annual “emissions gap” report, which assesses the difference between the world’s current path and measures needed to manage climate change, details how the world remains woefully off target in its quest to slow the Earth’s warming. The drop in greenhouse gas emissions during this year’s pandemic, while notable, will have almost no impact on slowing the warming that lies ahead unless humankind drastically alters its policies and behavior, the report finds. Instead, nations would need to “roughly triple” their current emissions-cutting pledges to limit the Earth’s warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the preindustrial average — a central aim of the Paris climate agreement. To reach the loftier goal of holding warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the report found, countries would need to increase their targets at least fivefold. That goal in particular would require rapid and profound changes in how societies travel, produce electricity and eat. “We’d better make these shifts, because while covid has been bad, there is hope at the end of the tunnel with a vaccine,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said in an interview. “But there is no vaccine for the planet.” Global carbon dioxide emissions are likely to fall by about 7 percent during 2020 — a significant change driven by the spread of the coronavirus and the shutdowns that accompanied it, which had a particularly strong impact on travel. But that temporary dip probably will have only a “negligible long-term impact” on climate change in the years ahead, the U.N. report found. If the drop in emissions caused by the pandemic proves an isolated event rather than the beginning

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Elon Musk’s Starship launches successfully but lands hard, explodes in what SpaceX calls an ‘awesome test’

A prototype of the massive spacecraft Elon Musk’s SpaceX is building to take people to the moon and Mars exploded upon landing Wednesday after a seemingly successful launch and flight. Still, the company called it “an awesome test,” and Musk said the company “got all the data we needed.” The Starship rocket has been Musk’s passion for years, a vehicle that has gone through multiple design changes as SpaceX has worked to develop a craft that could eventually fly people to deep space. Before the test flight, SpaceX cautioned that there will probably be setbacks during the ongoing development of the vehicle. And before Wednesday’s flight, it said that “with a test such as this, success is not measured by completion of specific objectives but rather how much we can learn, which will inform the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances development of Starship.” Starship, made of stainless steel, with aerodynamic flaps to help control its trajectory, was supposed to fly to an altitude of nearly eight miles, then fall back through the atmosphere in a belly-flop position before reorienting itself, reigniting its engine and touching down softly. It appeared to complete all of those milestones, except for the landing, which sent a fireball and a plume of smoke over the Gulf Coast. No one was on board and no one was injured. After the flight, Musk tweeted that it was a “successful ascent” and that the vehicle performed well. There was low pressure during the landing, “causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD,” he wrote, using an acronym for “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” “Even reaching apogee would’ve been great, so controlling all way to putting the crater in the right spot was epic!!” he wrote adding: “Mars, here we come!” In various presentations over the years, Musk has championed the need for a massive, heavy-lift spacecraft that could refuel in space and be fully reusable. At times, Musk has given grandiose presentations of the rocket and his plans to one day build a city on Mars. During an interview with The Washington Post in 2016, when Musk was calling Starship the “Mars Colonial Transporter,” he said his goal was “having an architecture that would enable the creation of a self-sustaining city on Mars with the objective of being a multi-planet species and a true space-faring civilization and one day being out there among the stars.”

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We are over-cleaning in response to covid-19

that smoke by scrubbing down countertops, doorknobs and all the other surfaces in the room? Not much. Shared air is the problem, not shared surfaces. Transmission of a disease through “fomites” — the name given to any inanimate surface that can be contaminated with a virus — is certainly possible. Many viruses, such as rhinovirus and norovirus, are transmitted through contaminated surfaces. But that’s just not really the case for covid-19. We don’t know exactly how much fomite transmission occurs for covid-19, but evidence suggests it’s not common. To see why, let’s walk through the steps. First, the virus must be transmitted to a surface, either by a sick person touching it or a respiratory droplet landing on it. Once on the surface, the virus starts to decay, and the only studies that show that the virus can survive on a surface for a long time used unrealistically large amounts of it — as in, someone spits a blob of saliva on the surface. The coronavirus’s genetic material has been found on all kinds of surfaces in hospitals and in the air, but, interestingly, it has only been successfully cultured from the air. No data studies that we are aware of have cultured the virus from surfaces. Even if you were the unfortunate person who immediately grabbed a door handle right after an infectious person sneezed on it, there would be a significant reduction in how much is transferred from the surface onto your hand. Then, time is your friend again, inactivating the virus, even while on your hand. But what if you touched that contaminated doorknob and then immediately touched your mouth? Not all of the virus on the hand would get transferred to the mouth, and that’s not even the end of the story. The virus that did make it into your mouth would need to find an appropriate receptor there or make it to your respiratory tract. When we look at this entire causal chain, it’s easy to see that if fomite transmission is happening, it’s minor and certainly not driving the pandemic. Meanwhile, we have plenty of examples of airborne transmission. Consider the choir practice that infected nearly 90 percent of socially distanced members. It’s hard to explain that from shared surfaces. Most important, we can prevent fomite transmission through regular hand-washing or use of hand sanitizer. Cleaning every surface after every touch is an impossible

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Dissecting athletic greatness: Nature, nurture, lucky breaks and a ‘quiet eye’

he somehow ended up in a river with no socks and shoes, trying to play the ball from there. Van de Velde lost the tournament in a playoff. “When athletes are anxious, they reinvest attention on the technical execution of the skill, those aspects of the movement that have generally become automated — ‘paralysis by analysis,’ ” the authors write. (It is a phrase they repeat often.) And it relates to the “quiet eye” concept: “Athletes weighed down by anxiety also use their eyes less efficiently, in both dynamic and static tasks.” Although the lessons here are widely applicable, a caveat: This book does have a distinct British accent. When talking about the National Basketball Association in the chapter on neighborhood pickup games, the authors refer to them as “ad-hoc games.” They call a playoff game a “match.” There is football (never soccer) and American football. And spellings have not been changed for American readers, so we have the British versions of some words: practise and defence. And there is a whole lot of cricket. The authors couldn’t include everything, yet there is only a half-page mention of doping. It comes in a brief section on mental health. Athletes cheat for reasons beyond internal pressure; they often face financial incentives and government mandates. Then again, this game within the game could be — and has been — worthy of many separate books. Part Three concludes with training methods and the science of success. I was pleased to see the authors include the famous team-bonding dinners led by Gregg Popovich, the oenophile coach of the five-time champion San Antonio Spurs, and the intense practice techniques of Women’s National Basketball Association star Elena Delle Donne, who led the Washington Mystics to their first WNBA championship in 2019. In “The next frontier,” the final chapter about technology, the authors leave us, appropriately, with an eye to the future. Analytics make the scene, but the discussion of how teams are using virtual reality to assist injured players and simulate pressure situations left me thinking of the next generation of champions. Still, for all the technological advantages of the Nike Vaporfly shoe, which has transformed the running world, the authors include the benefits of a low-tech training solution for any athlete: naps. Finally, something attainable for us mere mortals. How Elite Athletes Are Made By Mark Williams and Tim Wigmore Nicholas Brealey. 353 pp. $24.95

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The Paris agreement survived the Trump administration. What happens now?

hosts managed to assemble a unanimous declaration reaffirming the goals of the Paris agreement. Even after Trump announced, in June 2017, that he would indeed withdraw the United States from the agreement, cooperation did not break down. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Trump said in 2017. But the person actually elected to represent Pittsburgh, Mayor Bill Peduto, clapped back on Twitter with a promise to follow the Paris guidelines, heralding an extraordinary mobilization of support for the treaty from U.S. states, cities, businesses and other groups. President-elect Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the Paris agreement on the first day of the Biden-Harris administration — which would make every country in the world a signatory. As this week’s summit aims to show, climate cooperation has not moved backward under Trump. Instead, it has crept forward, although emissions continue to rise. Rethinking how to get collective action To explain this seeming paradox, and to understand how the Paris agreement will operate going forward, means taking a closer look at the concept of collective action. We typically see climate as a “tragedy of the commons,” in which no one has an incentive to act unless there is a guarantee others will act as well. That is why previous environmental treaties, such as the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, focused on collectively negotiating specific, legally binding emissions cuts. But many aspects of climate politics depart from the traditional model of collective action. Countries, cities, states and provinces, and businesses often act unilaterally, driven by pro-climate citizens, consumers or investors — or motivated by “co-benefits” like reducing air pollution or improving energy security. Costs and benefits also change over time. As various leaders adopt new policies and deploy more technologies, they alter the cost-benefit calculus for others. Here’s an example of how these “increasing returns” play out. Early investments in renewable energy by leaders like California and Germany reduced prices so much that renewables now compete with fossil fuels in many applications, in both cost and performance. Under these conditions, a model of “catalytic cooperation” more plausibly describes how countries, cities, states or companies behave. In this set up, the chief barrier to cooperation is not the threat of free riding but the lack of incentive to act in the first place. International institutions can support cooperation in this context, but not through bargaining around collective agreements. Instead, “catalytic institutions”

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Humanitarian workers must be allowed to help in Ethiopia without fear of attack

delivering babies or providing dialysis treatment. We have also received reports of women dying during childbirth — preventable deaths — due to the lack of adequate services and supplies. The conflict is escalating and threatens to spiral out of control. There are reports that militias from non-Tigrayan backgrounds, armed with competing agendas, are now involved in the fighting. The last thing needed is external agitators pouring fuel on the fire. So what can be done? The United Nations and other humanitarian agencies need immediate and unfettered access so we can scale up urgently needed assistance and protection for vulnerable civilians, and get supplies to our teams on the ground. We’re talking to the federal government of Ethiopia and others on a daily basis to grant safe passage to humanitarian workers and supplies to the affected region, in line with the globally agreed principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and operational independence. Access needs to go hand in hand with security for aid workers. Humanitarian workers must be able to deliver aid without fear of attack. Tragically, we have received reports of aid workers, who courageously stayed behind to support their communities, being killed during the course of this conflict. The government of Ethiopia has confirmed that a U.N. convoy was shot at on Dec. 6 as it carried out security assessments in Tigray. What’s happening in Tigray right now is fundamentally a political problem. It won’t be resolved by violence. In the meantime, it is civilians who are bearing the brunt of the conflict. This must stop. There’s a lot at stake. People should not be sanguine about the risks. Chaos in the Horn of Africa is in no one’s interest. The United Nations strongly urges all parties to the Tigray crisis to seize the initiative led by the chairperson of the African Union, President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, to facilitate peaceful solutions and de-escalate tensions. Conflicts like this are hard to stop once they get out of control — the lives they extinguish cannot be brought back, and the grievances they create are long-lasting. Read more: Samuel Getachew: Ethiopia sees reminders of its dark days as ‘Abiy-mania’ fades Michelle Gulino and Malaak Jamal: Ethiopia’s leader won the Nobel Prize. But he’s got a long way to go for peace. The Post’s View: Abiy Ahmed’s Nobel Peace Prize is deserved, but he still has work to do in his country

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The Daily 202: Taylor Swift’s new album ends on a hopeful note – with echoes of Emily Dickinson

widely respected lawyer in El Paso, always wanted to be a judge. She was expected to achieve her goal on Saturday in a runoff election, in which she was the favorite,” the Times reports. “Ms. Blancas died at a hospital in the city on Monday. She was 47. The cause was Covid-19, her brother Moises Blancas said. … Her death came too late to remove her name from the ballot. If she wins, the City Council would appoint a replacement. … Among her many friends, who called her Lila, was her opponent in the runoff, Enrique A. Holguin, who met her in 2013 when he joined the district attorney’s office. … Ms. Blancas tested positive for Covid on Halloween; three days later, she won 40 percent of the vote in the election, sending her and Mr. Holguin to a runoff. … After the election, Mr. Holguin, her opponent, texted her his congratulations. “You’re going to have a head start, because I have Covid,’ Mr. Holguin said she responded. ‘I was ready to lose this election,’ he said, ‘but I wasn’t ready to lose a friend.’” "Stephanie Lynn Smith and Jamie Bassett were looking forward to getting married Nov. 13. They had planned for Smith's older brother to officiate the wedding in front of their parents at a scaled-down ceremony in a field in Lubbock, Texas, where Bassett had proposed,” NBC News reports. “But the couple did not marry. Smith spent her wedding day in a hospital where she had tested positive for the coronavirus and was diagnosed with pneumonia. … Five days later, Bassett and Smith's family would rush to the hospital, only to learn that she had died. She was 29.” Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) imposed a statewide curfew to keep residents home late at night and an extended mask mandate. The measures, which will take effect on Monday, lower the number of people allowed in social gatherings but do not change rules for restaurants, stores or houses of worship. (Laura Vozzella, Rachel Chason, Erin Cox and Michael Brice-Saddler) D.C. says it is being shortchanged on vaccines for health-care workers, but federal officials are sticking with their decision to allocate doses based on a jurisdiction’s population instead of its workforce. Around 75 percent of the District’s 85,000 health-care workers commute in from Maryland and Virginia. As a result, the District expects to receive just 6,825 doses of the

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Air travel was down significantly this year. Climate activists hope it stays this way.

it’s less stressful,” she said. “It’s something that I think will not jump back to previous levels.” Climate scientist Peter Kalmus, founder of the site NoFlyClimateSci, said he has urged the American Geophysical Union in the past to hold its big fall meeting at least in part virtually. “Now it’s a completely virtual meeting by force,” he said — and he thinks there’s potential to do the same in the future, maybe even a hybrid with regional groups meeting in person and others joining remotely. “I think we can even do virtual meetings better than this,” Kalmus said. “This is a place where technology really should be shining.” As hard-hit airlines continue to seek help from governments after receiving billions of dollars in aid earlier in the pandemic, Heuwieser cautioned that bailouts should come with climate change in mind. “We worry that this will jump back to pollution as usual if structural changes are not imposed right now — if we don’t rather use this bailout money for recovery packages to finance living wage basic income for workers who are losing their jobs, social protection, retraining programs, creation of jobs in climate safe sectors and foster safe alternatives to flying,” said Heuwieser, who is based in Germany. She said governments should be investing in better, more comfortable and attractive train services, for example. Once the pandemic is over, the fly-less community hopes trains and other forms of slower travel will appeal to those who are eager to get out and explore again. “This is not the optimal situation for flying less,” said Kalmus, who lives in Southern California and hasn’t flown since 2012. “Hopefully we can fly less in a more joyful way than this because we’ll still be able to travel, we’ll still be able to meet in groups. This is flying less superimposed onto all this other stuff that makes life so difficult for us.” Travel during the pandemic: Tips: Coronavirus testing | Sanitizing your hotel | Using Uber and Airbnb | Traveling tools Flying: Pandemic packing | Airport protocol | Staying healthy on plane | Fly or drive | Best days to fly Road trips: Tips | Rental cars | Best snacks | Long-haul trains Holidays: Parades and light shows | Safe holiday travel | Planning a ski trip | Canceling flights Destinations: Hawaii | Dubrovnik | Private islands | 10 covid-free spots | Caribbean | Mexico

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Three D.C. area private school leagues scuttle plans to begin sports in January

Three of the Washington area’s largest private school athletic conferences announced Friday that they will not hold a winter sports season in January. The Independent School League and the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference released similar statements saying they will not provide league-sanctioned competition at all this winter, while the Interstate Athletic Conference said it will not begin league competition in January as proposed and will “reassess conditions in the new year.” This leaves the door open to member schools to participate in some kind of outside competition. The potential for fall and spring sports will be reevaluated by the ISL and the MAC in February. “The pandemic has created a need for flexibility for all schools both academically and athletically,” the MAC statement reads. “It is our hope that this decision will provide that flexibility for schools under these very difficult circumstances.” The three leagues comprise 20 private institutions across D.C., Maryland and Virginia. They took a unified approach to athletics in late July, when the conferences issued statements saying they would adopt a condensed, second-semester athletics calendar that would begin in January. But implied in that proposal was a wait-and-see caveat dependent upon the area’s battle against the coronavirus. Cases and deaths have spiked again this month, prompting state officials to impose increased restrictions. Governing bodies across the D.C.-area sports landscape are sending mixed signals about the viability and safety of holding a winter sports season in the face of ever-worsening coronavirus metrics. On Monday morning, the D.C. State Athletic Association pushed its winter sports season to February at the earliest. That afternoon, school districts in Virginia and Maryland held their first winter practices. On Tuesday, Prince George’s County canceled its winter season. Thursday brought news that the Virginia High School League would require all athletes to wear masks during competition. Exceptions will be made for cheerleading, gymnastics, wrestling, and swimming and diving. Read more: Excitement and uncertainty on the first day of high school sports practice High school sports in D.C. will not begin before February A local hockey team endures the complications of high school sports during a pandemic After one player’s assault of a referee, a Texas high school team wonders why it was sidelined

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Chinese national held in global $2.2 million turtle smuggling scheme

“typically college students from China seeking to make extra money on the side,” court documents said. One of those students, Haixi Sheng, pleaded guilty to smuggling native turtles under Kang’s guidance while enrolled at Pennsylvania State University. He is in federal prison. Kang’s extradition marks the culmination of a multiyear international investigation that traced the path of turtles from American marshes to Asian markets and included undercover work by agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The work was made more complex because the United States and China do not have an extradition agreement, officials said. “This was our lunar landing,” said Connors, referring to what it took to intercept Kang outside of China’s jurisdiction. “We cleared a lot of hurdles early. We coordinated extensively with police departments and even airlines.” U.S. authorities surveilled Kang to track his vacation plans to travel from China to Indonesia and then Malaysia, where an American extradition request had already been processed, Connors said. In January 2019, the Royal Malaysian Police, assisted by U.S. federal agents, intercepted Kang at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where he had landed with his girlfriend for a vacation. After nearly two years in Malaysian custody, Kang was flown to the United States. “The difficulty we have is that a lot of these illegal wildlife shipments are going to people in China and Hong Kong. And we don’t have direct extradition treaties with those places,” said assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Holliday, who is not involved in the Kang case but has prosecuted domestic poachers of protected turtles from America’s wetlands. “The top criminals can be out of reach sometimes,” said Holliday, “so we do what we can on U.S. soil.” Once in custody in Malaysia, Kang told investigators that his turtle business had helped him pay for medical school and the beach-hopping vacation through Southeast Asia, which is how authorities were able to intercept him. Kang first came to the attention of authorities several years ago when a herpetologist tipped off a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent. The agent, Ryan Bessey, posed undercover as a middleman, buying and shipping endangered turtles at Kang’s direction. Between June 2017 and December 2018, Bessey shipped more than 300 turtles, most from a supplier in North Carolina, to Asia on behalf of Kang, according to Bessey’s affidavit. In return, Kang sent Bessey 40 payments totaling about $80,000 over two years, including

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The Finance 202: U.S. wealth just hit a new record, even as more people steal in order to eat

spending bill Wednesday to fund the government for one week and avoid a shutdown deadline Friday night. The Senate must pass an identical bill — and have Trump sign it — to avoid a shutdown, but as of Thursday afternoon, lawmakers still weren’t sure how to do that with unanimous consent.” Checking in on the leaders: Meanwhile, the bipartisan group of lawmakers still doesn't have an actual bill: States Try to Rescue Small Businesses as U.S. Aid Is Snarled (NYT) Traders continue to weigh stimulus negotiations: “Verizon and IBM each fell at least 1 percent to lead the Dow lower. Industrials dragged down the S&P 500, pulling back by 0.9 percent.” Airbnb is shining in its debut: “Airbnb’s soaring stock market debut comes at the tail end of a year that has been both disastrous and triumphant for the short-term-rental company.” Corporate America’s Borrowing Binge May Be Ending (WSJ) The first Americans could start receiving inoculations as soon as next week: “The committee voted yes, 17 in favor, four against and one absention. Panel members did not have an opportunity to explain their votes, but at least two dissenters objected to inclusion of 16- and 17-year-olds, given what they described as the low risk of severe disease in that age group and how few had participated in the trial.” The president-elect encounters his first major fight with the party “More than 200 organizations — including the American Federation of Teachers, the N.A.A.C.P. and others that were integral to his campaign — have joined the push … Many economists, including liberals, say higher education debt forgiveness is an inefficient way to help struggling Americans who face foreclosure, evictions and hunger.” SEC and CFTC to lose top officials: Biden named Susan E. Rice and Denis McDonough to top jobs: Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are named TIME's 2020 Person of the Year: Criminal charges could await the president “The interviews with people who work for the lender, Deutsche Bank, and the insurance brokerage, Aon, are the latest indication that once Mr. Trump leaves office, he still faces the potential threat of criminal charges that would be beyond the reach of federal pardons. It remains unclear whether the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., will ultimately bring charges. The prosecutors have been fighting in court for more than a year to obtain Mr. Trump’s personal and corporate tax

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New Mexico activates ‘crisis care’ standards for hospitals overwhelmed by covid

New Mexico on Thursday suspended all nonessential surgeries and activated “crisis care” standards, a move that clears the way for a system of rationing amid a coronavirus surge that has overwhelmed the state’s capacities. Under the twin orders by the state’s health department, elective surgeries will be banned until Jan. 4. Health-care providers, meanwhile, will be permitted to begin implementation of a statewide plan for stretching the state’s increasingly scarce health-care resources. The system ultimately could allow doctors to determine which patients receive care, depending on who is likeliest to survive. The crisis-standards measure announced Thursday, which was deemed necessary by the “unsustainable strain on health care providers and hospitals,” will allow physicians and other health-care providers to treat covid-19 patients even if it is outside their practice area. Leaders of the state’s largest hospitals have said that the system is a last resort but will probably be needed given an acute shortage of intensive care unit beds. Nearly 1,000 New Mexicans are hospitalized for coronavirus treatment, triple the total from the start of November. Officials expressed confidence Thursday that standards will not suffer as a result of the shift. But they also warned that the state’s health-care system is operating on the brink and that relief is desperately needed. “We are serving every New Mexican who needs us,” Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) said at a news briefing Thursday. “But we are getting to a place where it’s really dire, and we have to do better.” Lujan Grisham had told The Washington Post of plans to activate crisis care in an interview last week. New Mexico’s move came as hospitals nationwide face the extreme pressures of a pandemic that is spreading from coast to coast at unprecedented levels, with cases hitting new highs almost daily. Since the pandemic began, New Mexico’s governor has taken dramatic action to try to limit the spread of the virus in her state, implementing some of the most restrictive measures in the country. Last month, she shut down nonessential businesses, ended in-person dining and implemented a host of other measures as part of an attempt to “reset” the virus’s then-accelerating transmission across New Mexico. Lujan Grisham on Thursday said that two-week effort had been a success: While cases had been growing exponentially at the time of her order, they have fallen by a third in the past two weeks. The state’s positivity rate has

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New Mexico activates ‘crisis care’ standards for hospitals overwhelmed by covid

restrictive measures in the country. Last month, she shut down nonessential businesses, ended in-person dining and implemented a host of other measures as part of an attempt to “reset” the virus’s then-accelerating transmission across New Mexico. Lujan Grisham on Thursday said that two-week effort had been a success: While cases had been growing exponentially at the time of her order, they have fallen by a third in the past two weeks. The state’s positivity rate has also declined significantly, while the growth in hospital admissions has slowed. “All of this is exactly what we were looking for in a reset,” she said. But she emphasized that the state remained vulnerable: New Mexico has fewer hospital beds per capita than nearly any other state in the country, as well as an unusually large population of elderly and low-income residents among its 2 million citizens. “We are still in an extreme risk situation,” she said. “That’s true in New Mexico. That’s true in the rest of the country.” Lujan Grisham said the strains on the system could affect not only covid patients but anyone needing health care, including expecting mothers, accident victims and cancer patients. She urged residents to stay home for Christmas, and to wear masks and maintain social distancing. New Mexico reported an additional 23 covid deaths Thursday, bringing its total since the start of the pandemic to more than 1,800. The state had nearly 1,800 new cases on Thursday, with 916 people in the hospital. Lujan Grisham called that “a frightening number.” Statewide, there were only 33 ICU beds available in hospital covid wards. The state’s decision to activate crisis standards was welcomed by hospital leaders Thursday. But it remained unclear how far they would go in using the more flexible rules to meet surging demand. “Our team continues to be flexible and creative in creating capacity to treat those in need of care,” said Alexandria Sanchez, public information officer for University of New Mexico Health, one of the state’s largest health-care providers. “We appreciate the governor’s declaration, and will continue to do our best to care for our community.” Lujan Grisham said the expected launch of a vaccination campaign next week represented a “huge bright spot in our fight against the pandemic.” But she said spikes from Thanksgiving and Christmas travel could mean the worst stretch of the pandemic could still lie ahead. “We are bracing,” she said.

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Surging coronavirus cases in D.C. region shut down libraries, museum and football viewing

The Washington region ended a week that included new restrictions meant to confront the surging coronavirus pandemic with additional closures and cancellations. In Prince George’s County, where officials on Thursday halted indoor dining and ordered new caps on crowds in retail businesses and casinos, the library system said Friday it too would shut down. The National Museum of the U.S. Army is temporarily closing, while NFL games at FedEx Field will be without spectators the rest of the season. The greater Washington region added to its growing list of restrictions and closures this week — days that also coincided with the largest number of coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic. The seven-day average of new cases across Virginia, Maryland and D.C. stood Friday at 6,887, down slightly from Thursday’s record high. In Prince George’s, library staff members who had been working in buildings to check out books to customers via curbside pickup service will work at home from Dec. 21 to Jan. 12, the library system announced. “The public health conditions right now require that we adjust operations to keep staff and customers safe during the surge,” the county said in a statement. Patrons can still check out e-books and audiobooks virtually, but cannot check out or return printed books or other physical materials. The Prince George’s County library system, like others in the region, has offered curbside pickup but has not allowed patrons into buildings during the pandemic. D.C. is an exception: Many of its library branches have been open for limited book pickups and computer use since the summer, although librarians have expressed concern about their safety. Infections have risen sharply across the region throughout the fall and as temperatures have turned colder. As of Friday, the steepest weekly caseload rise was in Virginia, where 60 percent more infections were reported than the week before. The state’s average new daily case rate per 100,000 residents hit an all-time high of 46, with Maryland recording the same rate of spread. The District’s rate per 100,000 residents was 39 on Friday. Virginia reported 3,395 new daily cases and 35 deaths from the virus Friday. Maryland reported 2,616 cases and 52 deaths, and D.C. reported 259 cases and one death. The region’s leaders have responded to the surge in infections by introducing new restrictions throughout the week. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced a nighttime curfew Thursday. D.C. Mayor

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Surging coronavirus cases in D.C. region shut down libraries, museum and football viewing

Prince George’s County library system, like others in the region, has offered curbside pickup but has not allowed patrons into buildings during the pandemic. D.C. is an exception: Many of its library branches have been open for limited book pickups and computer use since the summer, although librarians have expressed concern about their safety. Infections have risen sharply across the region throughout the fall and as temperatures have turned colder. As of Friday, the steepest weekly caseload rise was in Virginia, where 60 percent more infections were reported than the week before. The state’s average new daily case rate per 100,000 residents hit an all-time high of 46, with Maryland recording the same rate of spread. The District’s rate per 100,000 residents was 39 on Friday. Virginia reported 3,395 new daily cases and 35 deaths from the virus Friday. Maryland reported 2,616 cases and 52 deaths, and D.C. reported 259 cases and one death. The region’s leaders have responded to the surge in infections by introducing new restrictions throughout the week. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) announced a nighttime curfew Thursday. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) banned high school sports and recreational contact sports Monday. Some Maryland jurisdictions announced bans on indoor dining and lower caps at retail establishments in a week that included a joint call with leaders of the state’s eight most populous localities. In Virginia, Army officials announced Friday that a coronavirus outbreak at the National Museum of the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir will force it to temporarily close the facility, starting Monday. In a statement, the Army said “a small number” of museum employees recently have tested positive. The museum sees as many as 560 visitors daily, officials said. The museum will remain open Saturday and Sunday, with precautions that include timed entry tickets to reduce capacity. A museum guard, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for his job security, said he is one of four guards who have tested positive since late November. His symptoms, including a fever and chills, have begun to subside. “I’m in constant contact with the public,” said the guard. The Washington Football Team also joined the parade of cancellations Friday, announcing that after discussing the safety of allowing fans in the stadium with the Prince George’s County Health Department, the team decided to play its remaining two home games in front of empty seats.

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The Washington Post names Gerry Shih its India bureau chief

Announcement from Foreign Editor Douglas Jehl, Deputy Foreign Editor Eva Rodriguez, and South Asia and Africa Editor Jennifer Amur: We’re thrilled to announce that Gerry Shih will become our next India bureau chief, effective in June. From New Delhi, Gerry will operate across a massive canvas as India is projected to become the world’s most populous country within a few years. He will chronicle the paths Indian leaders take to confront climate change, poverty, intolerance, a rivalry with China, and other challenges that will carry enormous weight in shaping the world over the next decade. Gerry has already demonstrated his ability to tackle big stories that play out on a staggering scale, having reported from China for the past six years, including two with The Post. He won the Asia Society’s Osborn Elliott Prize in 2019 for work that captured how China’s breakneck-speed growth had upended ordinary lives through accidents, injuries and disease. He reported widely across China, including courageous on-the-ground work at the height of the coronavirus outbreak in February. He even ventured to Tajikistan to reveal the existence of a previously unknown Chinese military base. After effectively being expelled from China in March, when Gerry was among a dozen U.S. correspondents who were stripped of accreditation because of tensions between Beijing and Washington, he has been covering China from a base elsewhere in Asia while serving as interim Beijing bureau chief. In his new role in Delhi, Gerry will work closely with Niha Masih, our India-based reporter. In addition to India, the bureau is responsible for Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Gerry began his career as a James Reston reporting fellow at The New York Times. He later worked for the Bay Citizen and then Reuters, covering California politics and Silicon Valley. He moved to China, reporting for Reuters and then the Associated Press. He speaks Chinese, Japanese and Spanish.

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This isn’t the first time Army played Navy in a moment of crisis

students and cemented the loyalty of alumni, who displayed their “old school spirit” with fat donations. The outbreak of war, however, threatened the cozy arrangement. Hundreds of thousands of healthy male undergraduates raced off and enlisted. Millions more were ultimately drafted. By the beginning of the spring 1942 semester, college campuses were noticeably short on men, and football faced a moral and numbers crisis. If an undergrad was strong and healthy enough to run, block and tackle, shouldn’t he be in uniform toting a rifle? And if this was the case, where were all the boys needed to play a football game going to come from? A partial solution to the football manpower dilemma actually came from the armed services. The Army, Navy and Marines desperately needed junior commissioned officers, and what better place to teach and train thousands of them than on college campuses? After all, schools like Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan and Purdue had instruction and training at the core of their mission. As a result, throughout the nation men returned to campuses, and universities and colleges began to grind out ensigns and lieutenants in the thousands. Just having men on campus, however, didn’t solve the player shortage for teams. Under Gen. George Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson, in November 1942 the War Department established the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), which eventually included 241 schools. A lean, focused, no-nonsense program, it prohibited trainees from playing any intercollegiate sports, a decision that effectively sounded a death knell for schools such as Alabama. (The Crimson Tide didn’t even field a team in 1943.) Americans interested in the fate of football expected Navy Secretary Frank Knox similarly to bar his service’s trainees from participation in varsity sports. But after a vigorous internal debate, naval authorities decided that football was too important to put on the scrap heap of the war. Cmdr. Thomas J. Hamilton, the driving force behind Navy’s decision, argued, “Competition is as old as the Navy itself and it is just as traditionally Navy as John Paul Jones.” For Hamilton, the holy trinity was: “Football! Navy! War! At no time in history have these words been more intermeshed than they now are.” And so, while ASTPs banned participation in intercollegiate sports, their Navy counterparts embraced football as an instructive, even vital part of their training program. The Navy established “V-Programs” at 131 schools. The V-12

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Uncovering the cause of a baffling illness can require tenacity and toil

a retired administrative assistant who lives in Maryland, learned in her six-year search for the cause of intractable hip pain. Her internist and two orthopedists she consulted had diagnosed bursitis, osteoarthritis and sciatica. But in 2017 after Holland tripped over a dog and landed on her affected hip, the pain suddenly vanished. When an X-ray revealed a mass the size of a robin’s egg, a third orthopedist told her it might be malignant. Holland, a breast cancer survivor, was terrified. A few weeks later an orthopedic oncologist in Maryland diagnosed synovial chondromatosis, a benign disorder caused by small nodules of cartilage that become unmoored and can result in severe disability. Holland’s fall had dislodged a large calcified body that was pressing on her sciatic nerve. She subsequently underwent successful surgery to remove the nodules and the egg-sized body. Buried in records Holland took to the fourth specialist was an MRI report from 2013 that noted the presence of “calcified/ossified bodies,” also spotted on an earlier CT scan, that the radiologist said were “suspicious for an underlying synovitis.” Sipos had a similar experience. Among the records he obtained from the oncologist who erroneously told him he didn’t need treatment was an old pathology report that had mentioned his unusual cancer as the possible cause of his symptoms. Some people are reluctant to seek treatment at an academic medical center sometimes called a major teaching hospital fearing it is too big or impersonal or that their problem isn’t serious enough to warrant it. But anyone who’s not improving, isn’t sure what’s wrong or wants a second opinion should consider a visit. Large teaching hospitals are referral centers with expertise treating people with uncommon or unusual diagnoses that community physicians may never see. And teaching hospitals employ teams of experts in multiple specialties. While not a requirement, it may be faster and more efficient if a doctor makes a referral. “When patients call a referral center now they are asked ‘What’s your diagnosis?’ and ‘What specialty do you want to see?’ ” Fajgenbaum said. People whose diagnosis is unclear or incorrect may be stymied. “We like to group people into whether you should see rheumatology or immunology or oncology. But it’s clear more and more that the old silos really don’t work” well, he added. Diagnosis and treatment can involve multiple specialties. That was the case for Pennsylvania software engineer Ram Gajavelli, who

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Covid-19 is spreading wildly in prisons like mine. We should get the vaccine early.

but we have not been sentenced to suffer or die from a virus. If the standard for vaccine distribution involves helping the most vulnerable, as officials insist, then we ought to be near the top of the list. A recent study found that prisoners were nearly four times as likely than the average citizen to get the coronavirus and — adjusting for age, sex and ethnicity — twice as likely to die from it. (The discrepancy was even higher earlier in the pandemic, narrowing only as the virus spread aggressively in the general population.) One of the largest coronavirus clusters of any kind occurred at Avenal State Prison, in California’s San Joaquin Valley, with more than 2,800 infected incarcerated people. Nationally, there have been nearly 230,000 covid cases in prisons, and more than 1,500 people have died, according to the Marshall Project, a nonprofit criminal justice news outlet. Recognizing that the virus can rip through crowded prisons, officials have taken modest steps to shrink prison populations and reduce density: In April, in my state, Gov. Jay Inslee (D) ordered prisoners who had not committed violent crimes, and who were nearing the end of their sentences, to be released. Other governors have issued similar edicts, and several states have reduced jail populations by cutting or eliminating bail, among other measures. But many prisons were wildly overcrowded to begin with: Nebraska's were at 150 percent capacity in July, when the state accelerated its parole program. Everything about prison life makes social distancing difficult, and protections are paltry. Masks are required, but the last time my unit received any was Sept. 1. We’ve each gotten six masks during the entire pandemic. And while all prisoners are required to wear our ragged masks or risk getting an infraction, guards often wear theirs improperly. Our temperatures are taken twice daily, but that is an ineffectual measure against asymptomatic spread. This past week, my unit entered its third quarantine since March, because two prisoners tested positive — meaning classes and other activities are canceled. Still, to retrieve meals from the chow hall — which is closed for in-person eating — I must walk shoulder to shoulder with 20 to 50 other men up and down two stairwells that are about five feet across. For a half-hour a day, I am let out of my cell with 20 other prisoners to make a phone call. If I’m

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Geminid meteor shower, among most prolific of the year, to dazzle this weekend

the night sky every hour, a spattering of interstellar pebbles raining down and burning up in the upper atmosphere. There’s no specific time or place you need to look, although viewing will be favored from midnight into the predawn hours of Monday morning. That’s when the constellation Gemini, the meteor shower’s radiant point, or where they appear to be emanating from, is high in the sky. Beaches, ballfields, parks and other wide-open spaces with panoramic views are ideal. The less light pollution you encounter from city lights, the better your chances of catching a meteor. You can access a map of satellite-derived light pollution to plot viewing opportunities near your area here. You won’t need telescopes or binoculars to see the Geminids. In fact, there’s nothing better than the naked eye. That’s because your eyes cover a broader field of view compared to a telescope. Don’t bother trying to capture the show with your cellphone; their cameras are not sensitive enough to detect the pinpricks of light commonplace with meteors. A DSLR-style camera would be better suited for the task, and it would require a long exposure. Meteor showers result when pieces of debris left in the wake of comets or asteroids burn up due to friction upon entry into Earth’s outer atmosphere. In the case of the Geminids, the source of the light show is a 3.6-mile-wide asteroid called 3200 Phaethon. A trail of pebbles deposited by the comet during its 1 year and 5 month elliptical orbit through the solar system provides the necessary material to spark the annual display. Most of these granules of debris are only the size of a grain of rice. As Earth plows through the debris stream, the small pieces of debris enter the atmosphere at speeds as high as 37 miles per second. Extreme friction against air molecules ignites the compounds in the meteor, heating them up and producing a brilliant spark of light. Geminid meteors are composed largely of magnesium, sodium and iron, yielding shades of white, orange-yellow and green-blue. During some years, a bright moon spoils much of the show by outshining fainter meteors, but not this year. The new moon occurs on Monday morning, meaning the sky will be nice and dark. The Geminids are a skywatcher favorite, reliably putting on a good show year after year. Others, like the Leonids, feature a few sporadic shooting stars most years,

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Study explores link between public transportation and spread of seasonal flu

not have the highest rates of deaths; if anything just the opposite,” William A. Petri Jr., a professor of internal medicine and associate director of microbiology at the University of Virginia Medical School, said via email. “The authors are careful to point out the limitations of the analysis, but it really argues against conventional wisdom, and suggests that with proper safeguards of masking and social distancing that public transportation could be used safely.” However, Donald Milton, an expert on aerosol transmission, who is a professor of environmental health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, questioned the research. “The value of this ecological analysis is not clear to me,” he said in an email. “The finding, after controlling for population density, that having a lot of people on public transportation isn’t associated with greater rate of people dying of influenza and pneumonia (many of whom are elderly and may not be working and riding public transportation at times when the trains and buses are congested) doesn’t help me understand the risk of public transportation.” Glied said with the current pandemic it can be hard for people to wrap their heads around the idea that personal, intimate relationships may put them more at risk than quick encounters with strangers on a subway car. Melissa Perry, an epidemiologist who chairs the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health, said one of the strengths of the study was the large data set it used to draw its conclusions. “That’s very powerful,” she said. “It’s a bigger picture, rather than a snapshot.” Perry said if there is one disconnect, it’s that the data only allowed researchers to look at deaths, not actual infections. Since a variety of factors can impact the severity of an infection, deaths offer an imprecise proxy for infections, she said. (The researchers noted that limitation in their study.) Even so, Perry noted that other studies examining the connection between public transportation and disease transmission have drawn similar conclusions. Still, she emphasized the importance of following CDC recommendations when riding public transportation, such as wearing masks, using hand sanitizer or washing hands before and after arriving at a destination, and riding at low-traffic times to avoid crowding. Said Perry: “The more routine and commonplace these [behaviors] become, the more impact we can have on reducing transmission and slowing the epidemic.”

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The best Christmas gift you can give: Wear a mask, avoid other covid-19 risks

we are craving something to rejoice and celebrate. Many of my colleagues have not seen their families in months. We have been deprived of so much interpersonal connection and human touch, hiding behind goggles, face shields, N95 masks and surgical masks. For many of us, those relationships and connections to our patients are the best part of working in health care. But I’m also scared. I’m scared to expose my parents, my grandmother, or my fiance to the virus. I’m scared on behalf of the families of my future patients with covid-19. I’m scared of what’s going to happen during these next few months if people gather with their extended families for the holidays. The spirit of Christmas is one that celebrates joy, love, compassion, generosity, kindness and sacrifice. Of course, we aim to demonstrate these virtues all year long, but the holiday season is an important reminder to us that we can be better. We must not falter. This holiday season, I think about my father, an internist, dropping off a pulse oximeter outside the door of one of his older patients with suspected coronavirus infection during the height of the pandemic. I thank the nurse practitioner whom I first met when we were redeployed to a newly constructed covid ICU who showed me how to care for the skin breakdown on my nose from the continuous wearing of N95 respirators. I remember the doctors and other medical staff who traveled from Georgia, Montana, California and other places to help support us in the surge in New York. At the same time, I reminisce about my long-standing patient with heart failure who never left her house and did everything right. She took all of her medications and spoke to me on the phone for her appointments. But despite her best efforts, she died in the emergency room of covid-19. I reflect on the doctors, nurses and other health-care workers of all ages and backgrounds across the country who died of covid-19 while fighting on the front lines. I recall the months I spent away from my fiance, both of us practicing medicine in two different states, trying our best to keep ourselves and our patients safe. I think about the families who were devastated by covid-19, losing multiple family members and being unable to say goodbye because of visitation policies. I think about all of the empty seats at

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Explosion from ‘external source’ strikes oil tanker in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia; port shut

ISTANBUL — An explosion from an "external source" struck an oil tanker while it was in port in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, early Monday, the ship's owner said in a statement. It caused hull damage but no injuries and was the latest in a series of attacks on tankers or oil installations in and around the kingdom amid a civil war in neighboring Yemen. The Singapore-flagged ship, the BW Rhine, was conducting discharging operations when it was struck at 12:40 a.m. local time, according to Hafnia, the ship’s owner, which said it was possible that “some oil had escaped from the vessel.” A fire that broke out on board was extinguished and all 22 crew members were safe, the company said. An alert Later on Monday, the state-run Saudi Press Agency quoted an unnamed official in the Energy Ministry as saying that the explosion was caused by a boat loaded with bombs, without saying who was responsible. The official said the incident was a criminal act and “a terrorist attack” and noted that it came shortly after an attack on another ship in Shuqaiq in northern Jiddah on Nov. 25. Yemen’s Houthi rebels have in the past claimed attacks on Saudi Arabia’s energy infrastructure, including a cruise missile strike on a plant in Jiddah last month operated by the Saudi oil giant Aramco. The Iranian-allied Houthis and Saudi Arabia are adversaries in Yemen’s war, which intensified in March 2015 after the intervention of a Saudi-led military coalition. The war has saddled Yemen with one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and raised concerns for the safety of ships in the Red Sea, off Yemen’s western coast. An attack last year

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Scientists pinpoint genes common among people with severe coronavirus infections

interferon response could allow the virus to quickly proliferate. That, in turn, may result in a potentially deadly overcorrection when later immune defenses kick in. The study reveals “genetic variants, particularly near genes that are involved in the so-called interferon immune response play an important role in causing a life-threatening covid-19 infection,” said Lude Franke, a statistical geneticist at the University of Groningen, who was not involved in the Nature report. Experts cautioned these types of investigations rarely produce evidence for direct cause-and-effect relationships between specific genes and disease severity or susceptibility to infection. “A chunk of the answer is in our genes” but “it’s unlikely that a single element is fully responsible for the development of severe covid-19,” study author Sara Clohisey, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh, pointed out. “It’s more likely to be a combination of factors,” she said, which may include genetics as well as age, obesity, gender and other characteristics. (Although men are more likely to die of coronavirus infections than women, the scientists did not detect genetic variants linked to sex in this study.) Yet Baillie said this work provides “causal evidence,” specifically for the IFNAR2 gene, and another, called TYK2, that “the products of those genes change a person’s chance of becoming critically ill with covid.” Karlsen said “very rare, but more deleterious genetic variants in the same genes, may provide a stronger driver towards severe disease, as seen for IFNAR2.” Interferon has been tested as a possible covid-19 therapy in clinical trials, although one large trial found giving interferon to hospitalized patients did not reduce mortality. The study authors also noted that the anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and being tested in covid-19 patients, can inhibit the protein encoded by the TYK2 gene. The researchers plan to continue to analyze DNA samples from coronavirus patients — not only those who were severely ill and in intensive care, but also from people who had milder symptoms. There’s no shortage of potential donors as the outbreaks continue. “The pandemic is still raging,” Clohisey said. Since they began writing this paper, she said, the researchers have tripled their DNA samples of people who have had the coronavirus. Read more: This coronavirus mutation has taken over the world. Scientists are trying to understand why. Why the coronavirus is killing more men than women How genetic science helped expose a secret coronavirus outbreak

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What a fig tree taught me about the fragility of life

done things differently,” he said. “Okay, you can plant a new fig tree.” In an African household that was the closest I would get to a parental apology. Why, in this time of loss, did a damaged tree sting so much? So many thousands of people have been losing their lives. A long-time family friend of ours had died from covid-19 several weeks before. In my shock and grief over his death, the harm to my beloved tree was another blow. Life is precious and precarious. This year has taught me the power of appreciation and gratitude for the beauty in this world — and to share that with others. During this pandemic, so many of us have found refuge and healing through connecting with nature. Plant-happy friends are getting into flower arrangements, and there is a huge demand for plants. Others take hikes and photograph what they see, or have taken to planting more fruits and vegetables. I hung a hummingbird feeder on the patio during the summer and was thrilled every time one of those tiny little fighter jets came to fill up on sugar solution. When I shared this on social media, others posted photos and videos of their hummingbird friends, too. Then I noticed praying mantises close to the feeder. On #InsectTwitter people pointed out that they have been known to hunt hummingbirds — a reminder that nature, including humans, can be beautiful and vicious at once. The pandemic has shown us that we are not the earth’s masters, we are just her guests. As the season changes, and the crisp clarity of the winter sunlight sets, may we do our best to cultivate our awareness of the light and beauty in this world so that we can learn to safeguard our earthly home and each other from the darkness of ignorance and cruelty. I did eventually buy a little fig tree in a container. I named her Celeste. I’ll do my best to protect her from clueless men with power tools. Read more: Fareed Zakaria: The pandemic upended the present. But it’s given us a chance to remake the future. Daniel Willingham: We can help shape how our children remember the pandemic — and foster their future happiness Molly Roberts: The man who tried to bring us together, shoe by shoe José Andrés: What the pandemic can teach us about treating hunger Watch Opinions videos:

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The United Kingdom and the United States: A comparative autopsy

of this newspaper. Upon further reflection, however, there is a clear answer: There are multiple reasons to believe that the United Kingdom is facing the darker horizon. For one thing, Brexit turned out to be the bigger self-own than the election of Trump. To be sure, the Trump administration has wreaked all kinds of policy carnage over the past four years. Its foreign economic policy was particularly boneheaded, leading to a lot of economic coercion but not a lot in the way of concessions. Plunging the United States into a pre-coronavirus industrial recession to negotiate a trade deal with China that has fallen well short of 2017 or even 2020 expectations is not a sign of winning. Trump’s post-electoral decompensation, and the stranglehold he continues to possess over much of the GOP, is extremely disconcerting. With all of that acknowledged, however, Brexit is still worse. The referendum decision triggered an exodus of the financial sector away from London and toward myriad E.U. destinations. As predicted, the United Kingdom experienced three years of reduced inward foreign direct investment as a result of Brexit. That trend reversed itself but other European countries experienced an even larger surge in FDI. A hard Brexit at the end of this month will merely add to the economic trauma. And all of this ignores Brexit’s deleterious effects on British control over Scotland and Northern Ireland. To be blunt, however, the United Kingdom is in the worse position compared with the United States for two simple reasons. The first is that the United States is the wealthier and more powerful country, which means it can afford to make serious mistakes and keep on chugging. Britain must now deal with the fact that it has much less bargaining power compared with either the United States or the European Union. The second reason is that the U.S. mistake proved to be more ephemeral in nature. A majority of British voters approved Brexit. In two subsequent elections, British voters awarded the Conservative Party with majorities — the second time by a considerable margin. The United Kingdom will continue to be governed by Boris Johnson, a human approximation of an Avenue Q muppet. In contrast, Trump won with a minority of the U.S. electorate in 2016 — and that was the high point of his popularity. His party faced a blue wave in the 2018 midterms. Polling repeatedly showed that a

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Year’s only total solar eclipse swept across Chile, Argentina today

an effort to limit the crossflow of individuals. Travel on other roadways into the Lakes Region, including near Villarica and Pucón, are restricted on a case-by-case basis. Chilean officials are encouraging those partaking in eclipse viewing to enter the region early and become settled to avoid a chaotic exodus/crowding. Officials also plan to bolster random checks for “health passports” to ensure inbound travelers are complying with all health protocols and not traveling from a higher-risk region. A burn ban was implemented Thursday to discourage outdoor camping. The path of totality in Chile passes directly over rich, verdant landscapes brimming with geological landmarks, including hot springs and volcanoes. Unfortunately for astrotourists, Villarrica National Park has closed its entry to its Puesco sector, which includes a trio of volcanoes, as well as lakes, valleys and roaring rivers. A number of tour groups had originally offered hiking and climbing excursions promising breathtaking photo-ops during totality. The moon’s shadow passed overhead around 1 p.m. local time Monday, cruising east at speeds exceeding 1,500 mph. During the total solar eclipse that darkened a sliver of Chile and Argentina on July 2, 2019, the shadow propagated east at near 10,000 mph. That means this year’s show will feature a slightly less abrupt flip from day to dusky twilight. Shadow bands — or an odd, wavelike interference pattern caused by refracted, or bent, sunlight in the moments before totality — have persisted slightly longer. The path of totality this year is also slightly narrower, meaning that the sky won’t be quite as dark during the eclipse. Since the shadow is smaller, it took less time to pass overhead, cutting down the duration of totality. Last year’s eclipse in South America lasted up to 4 minutes 33 seconds over the open ocean, but closer to 2 minutes 30 seconds over land. Monday’s eclipse has been even more fleeting, lasting only 2 minutes 9 seconds. A swath of Argentina is also in the path of totality. There are no major cities in line, however. The moon’s shadow will be trekking through the northern Patagonian Desert and encountering sparsely populated territory most of the way to the coast. Much like last year’s eclipse, no other countries will enjoy the breathtaking show after the shadow lifts out of Argentina. The next total solar eclipse to visit Earth will occur over Antarctica on Dec. 4, 2021. Good luck booking a flight there.

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Parasites may not be cute and cuddly, but they need saving too, scientists say

and National Museum of Natural History. “But you can’t have a healthy ecosystem without having parasites in it.” Could this be a ploy to steer precious grant dollars to parasitologists? If so, it’s a long con. Cries for conserving parasites have rung out for decades — not that a lot of folks were listening. “When a biologist sends something to an editor about being nice to parasites, the editor just figures, ‘What the hell? This guy’s a crackpot,’ ” says Donald A. Windsor, a biologist in Upstate New York who has published many seminal parasite conservation papers, such as 1997’s “Equal Rights for Parasites.” Nowadays, we know of several reasons to cherish the humble parasite. The “hygiene hypothesis,” for example, attributes healthy human immune systems to past worm infestations. Parasitoid wasps are thought to save the U.S. agricultural industry billions of dollars each year by implanting crop pests with babies that then devour the insects alive. Charles Darwin said he could not “persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created” such gruesome killers, but without them farmers would spray tons more pesticide, and who wants that? Then there’s the fact that less than 1 percent of all known parasite species infect people. The rest are just out there, doing their own freaky things in freaky ways. “They are regulators of population, they constitute a lot of the links in food webs, and they make up a lot of the biomass in ecosystems,” says Colin Carlson, an author of the plan and a global-change biologist at Georgetown University. “They’re sort of like dark matter — moving through ecosystems, connecting to things and having impacts, and we never see them.” Take the trematode preying on the California killifish, a normally secretive bait fish that hangs out in western salt marshes. The parasite creates a cyst on its brain that completely changes its behavior. “They swim close to the surface of the water, flash their shiny side upward, and make a complete spectacle of themselves,” says Chelsea Wood, a parasite ecologist at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “Infected fish are between 10 and 30 times more likely to be eaten by a bird than uninfected fish, and that means when you scale it up across the whole salt marsh that parasites are driving fish into the beaks of these birds.” In the D.C. area,

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Parasites may not be cute and cuddly, but they need saving too, scientists say

parasite species. It’s something Phillips has firsthand knowledge of, having helped discover a new kind of leech in Southern Maryland last year after making herself bait. “You roll up your pants legs and move around a little bit, and then if the leeches come to find you, that’s a pretty easy day’s work,” she says. “These are big leeches; they will come after you.” The thought that parasites might not slither and burrow for perpetuity is painful for parasitologists. It’s not a baseless worry: These organisms are subject to increasing stress from habitat loss, climate change and co-extinctions when host animals die out and leave the parasites that depended on them stranded. “The reality is every time a Tasmanian tiger goes extinct, you’re not losing just the tiger and one species. You’re losing a suite of them,” says Kevin Lafferty, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. One 2017 study predicts we could lose as much as a third of all parasitic worm species by 2070. Some scientists have toyed with the idea of fighting parasite extinctions by bringing them back from the dead. “There’s a really interesting paper that asks if we’re going to bring back mammoths, will we have to bring back mammoth parasites, as well?” says Skylar Hopkins, one of the plan’s authors and an assistant professor at North Carolina State University. “Because if you bring back mammoths but they don’t have any of the ecological interactions they had when they existed, did you really bring back mammoths?” To preserve parasites still with us, though, the plan calls for an ambitious public relations campaign. Mind you, we’re not talking about polishing the image of flesh-crawling Guinea worms, malaria-transmitting mosquitoes and other scourges of humanity. “I have no moral or scientific objection to driving the Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae mosquito to extinction. Those would be landmark victories for global health,” says Carlson. It’s all the others that could use more love, which might not be as implausible as it sounds. The “Alien” movies made blockbusters out of parasitic monstrosities, as did popular video games like “Half-Life” (headcrabs). There’s even a crabby-looking Pokémon with a parasitic mushroom on its back. “I mean, some parasite species are cute. Some have eye spots and smiley faces, and I think that’s adorable,” says Hopkins. Wood believes tapeworms in particular are ripe for prime-time TV. “To the naked eye they’re just

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U.S. sanctions NATO ally Turkey over its purchase of Russian missile defense system

The Trump administration imposed sanctions Monday on NATO ally Turkey’s main military weapons procurement agency as punishment for its purchase of a Russian-made missile defense system. The sanctions were mandated under a 2017 law requiring them against any entity that engages in “significant transactions” with Russian defense or intelligence sectors. The announcement came after Congress last week overwhelmingly passed the annual defense funding bill, which includes a provision ordering that the sanctions be imposed within 30 days. President Trump has threatened to veto the bill. Lawmakers of both parties had criticized the administration for delaying the sanctions following Turkey’s $2.5 billion purchase of the S-400 system in 2019, inaction that some attributed to Trump’s disinclination to offend Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Senior State Department officials who briefed reporters denied that the administration’s hand was forced by passage of the defense measure. “Any decision to impose sanctions . . . requires a thorough, deliberative process” and had taken a long time to properly consider, said Matthew Palmer, deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. “That’s particularly the case when we’re talking about a NATO ally, one that is deeply integrated into NATO supply chains.” In a harshly worded statement, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry condemned the measures, which it called “completely senseless” and “unfair.” Turkey, it said, “will take the necessary steps against this decision, which will negatively affect our relationship,” and pledged to “retaliate in a manner and timing it deems appropriate.” It called on the United States to reconsider and to “address this issue through dialogue and diplomacy.” The sanctions, although lighter than what the law allows, include a ban on U.S. export licenses and authorizations to Turkey’s Presidency of Defense Industries and asset freezes and visa restrictions against the organization’s president and three other senior officials. “I would in no way underestimate the importance of cutting off the main military procurement entity of a military ally from items coming from the U.S. defense industrial base,” said Christopher Ford, assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation. “I think this is a very significant, significant step.” Both Palmer and Ford emphasized that, in addition to what Ford said was the desire to “send a strong signal” to Turkey and make its defense organization “clearly feel the consequences of its choice to be involved in this transaction,” the goal was also to punish Moscow and warn

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A new Trump rule could shrink protected habitat for endangered wildlife

The Trump administration adopted a rule Tuesday that could shrink the historic habitats of plants and animals threatened with extinction, an action that opponents say will make it more difficult for them to recover. On their way out of office, the directors of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service established a rule that changed the definition of what determines a habitat under the Endangered Species Act. It was the second major rollback the administration has made to the signature wildlife protection law. Under the new definition, only “critical habitat” that can sustain the species in question can be protected, as opposed to a broader habitat the plant or animal might one day occupy if it is suitable. “This action will bring greater clarity and consistency to how the Service designates critical habitat,” Rob Wallace, assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, said in a statement. “Making the Endangered Species Act more effective at conserving imperiled wildlife and more transparent and user friendly for stakeholders represents a win-win for everyone.” Conservationists immediately denounced the change as favoring developers over wildlife that has been put at risk by human activity. Under the previous rule, the immediate living space of species designated as endangered or threatened was protected. It also could include areas that species once inhabited but that became unsuitable after development or climate impacts altered the ecology — these were recognized as areas that scientists could try to restore. But the new rule will is more likely to open such areas to agriculture, logging or other development. “This is yet another blow to endangered species from an administration that subscribes to a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ approach to bedrock wildlife laws,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and chief executive of Defenders of Wildlife, a liberal conservation group. “This clearly favors developers and industry, making it easier for the most vulnerable wildlife to slip through the cracks.” Two years ago, the Interior Department made key changes to the act, including allowing officials to consider economic impacts such as losses of jobs and revenue in deciding whether a species should be classified as endangered or threatened. Clark, a director of the Fish and Wildlife Service under President Bill Clinton, said the new definition of habitat contradicts the purpose of the Endangered Species Act of 1973, which seeks to save wildlife from extinction by preserving and

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Xi’s China is preparing for a new world order

You’re reading an excerpt from the Today’s WorldView newsletter. On Sunday, runners from around the world participated in a marathon through the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou Almost a year ago, China was ground zero of the coronavirus. In the first couple of months of 2020, some American commentators argued the spike of infections and the initial bungling response by local authorities in the Chinese city of Wuhan could constitute China’s “Chernobyl” — an epochal disaster that would expose the fundamental failings of Beijing’s opaque, autocratic, one-party state. But as 2020 draws to an end, it’s in the United States where the shadow of Chernobyl looms, hovering over a politically-divided nation that passed 300,000 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday amid a mammoth onslaught of new cases. Whatever China’s original sin in the emergence of the disease — and the questions that still surround its official accounting of deaths and infections — its leadership has reason to believe it handled the situation markedly better than geopolitical adversaries in the West. After the outbreak in Wuhan, Chinese authorities clamped down on the spread of the virus and curtailed further community transmission when it flared up in pockets of the country. Beijing’s relative success is not widely discussed in the rest of the world. That’s a reflection of growing concerns over Chinese President Xi Jinping as the driving force of a dangerous, emerging hegemon. His regime responded ruthlessly to perceived threats in 2020, quashing civil liberties in Hong Kong, entrenching a dystopian lockdown on ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and rattling the saber at Taiwan. Tensions exploded along China’s disputed border with India, while Chinese diplomats abroad sparred with journalists and local officials from Australia to Brazil. Shadowing all was the steady decline in U.S.-China relations Faced with such hostility and suspicion, Xi is hunkering down as he takes his country into a propitious new year. 2021 marks the centennial of the Chinese Communist Party and the advent of a new five-year economic program rolled out by Beijing’s central planners. China’s economy may have rebounded faster than any other major country during the pandemic, but its growth is getting more sluggish and Xi recognizes the need for a deeper pivot. In speeches through the year, capped by high-level meetings this past week, Xi stressed that China should beef up its domestic market and shift away from decades of export-oriented growth. That would be in keeping

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Arrest made in October homicide in Anacostia, D.C. police say

A man was arrested Monday in connection with a homicide in October in the Anacostia area, D.C. police said. Police said Kevin Goggins, 20, of Southeast Washington, was charged with first-degree murder while armed in the death of Yisa Jeffcoat, 28, of Southeast. Jeffcoat was found suffering from apparent gunshot wounds on Oct. 9 in the 1600 block of W Street SE, police said. He died at a hospital, they said.

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Spotted owls could go extinct without more federal protection. But they’re not going to get it, Trump officials say.

the best available scientific and commercial information, we find that reclassification of the northern spotted owl from a threatened species to an endangered species is warranted,” Fish and Wildlife said. But a lack of congressional funding and other listing considerations for other animals and plants is keeping its ecologists from devoting attention to the owls. “We will develop a proposed rule to reclassify the northern spotted owl as our priorities allow,” the agency said. Competition for food with invasive barred owls is “the stressor with the largest negative impact on northern spotted owls through competition of resources.” Barred owls are less picky eaters than spotted owls and have adapted better to the shrinking habitat. When the northern spotted owl was first listed as a threatened species in 1990, about 7 million acres mostly managed by the Bureau of Land Management in the Pacific Northwest was designated as its habitat. The habitat was revised at least three times to the frustration of loggers. In 2013, the timber industry sued, saying that not all of the territory was used by spotted owls. A court battle raged until the Trump administration, a friend of the industry, settled the case early this year. The bureau would stop managing more than 200,000 acres but would attempt to create contiguous spaces to keep spotted owls connected for mating, breeding and caring for their young. For some conservation groups, that’s not enough. “Fish and Wildlife knows what dire straits the spotted owl’s in but under Trump can’t be bothered to pull it out of its downward spiral into extinction,” said Ryan Shannon, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation group. “What the owl needs is more old-forest habitat and much stronger protections for the forests that are still left after decades of logging. And neither the owls nor the people need another handout to the timber industry.” “On the one hand, you have biologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledging that northern spotted owls are extremely close to extinction and more must be done to prevent the extinction of the species,” said Susan Jane Brown, attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “On the other, you have the Trump administration catering to the demands of … [the] timber industry. Placing commercial interests ahead of the continued existence of this iconic species is shameful, and … not permitted by the Endangered Species

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The disturbing values driving the GOP’s handling of covid relief

supervisors “took bets on how many workers would get infected with Covid-19, even as they took measures to protect themselves and denied knowledge of the spread of the illness at work." Despite such stories, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has proposed that workers and customers be forbidden from suing businesses for allowing them to contract covid-19 unless they can prove “gross negligence." That standard is so high that almost no one would be able to reach it; you’d practically have to prove that your employer gave you covid on purpose. This is necessary, McConnell and the Republicans say, because without it there will be a wave of frivolous lawsuits that will unjustly victimize businesses and hamstring the economy. But if they were right when they contend that without a liability shield then workers and customers will begin suing businesses willy-nilly, it already would have happened. After all, there’s no liability shield in place now. So where’s the wave of frivolous lawsuits? It doesn’t exist. According to a tracker maintained by the law firm Hunton Andrews Kurth that monitors suits related to the pandemic, there have been 23 commercial personal injury complaints, 118 employment claims for things like failure to provide PPE, and 108 wrongful death claims. While I can’t vouch for how complete their data are, given that over 16 million Americans have contracted covid and 300,000 have died, if that’s the magnitude of the lawsuits we’re seeing, it’s almost nothing. In fact, lawsuits filed by people angry at public health measures — which of course wouldn’t be affected by the Republicans’ bill — seem far more numerous. But heaven forbid the family of a dead meat-packer might be able to sue his employer and get their case heard in court. Perhaps we should be thankful that Republicans may allow any aid at all to go to struggling Americans — the unemployed, the business owners on the verge of bankruptcy, the schools trying to open safely, the families desperate for food assistance, the millions in danger of being evicted, and more. But in the worst national crisis of our lifetimes, once again, Republicans have shown us who they are. Read more: Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin: How we compromised on covid-19 relief Karen Tumulty: President Trump has become a delusional character out of Monty Python Colbert I. King: I am thankful that Trump will be out of office. But

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The Health 202: Some Americans will refuse coronavirus vaccines. Who and where they are matters.

public health powers. Amid the backlash, some public health leaders have retired or moved to other roles, resulting in what experts call the largest public health exodus in American history. “The departures are a further erosion of the nation’s already fragile public health infrastructure ahead of the largest vaccination campaign in U.S. history," the Associated Press’s Michelle R. Smith and KHN’s Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Hannah Recht and Lauren Weber write. Amid declining spending for public health, “at least 38,000 state and local public health jobs have disappeared since the 2008 recession.” A team of scientists examining more than 2,000 covid-19 patients across Britain pinpointed spots on chromosomes where certain genetic variants were more common among covid-19 patients in intensive care. While it’s not possible to prove cause-and-effect with this study, researchers think that the genes may play a role in making people more susceptible to the virus, perhaps by interfering with the immune system’s response, The Post’s Ben Guarino reports. The researchers hope the findings, published in the journal Nature, can help develop better treatments for the virus, although they stress the identification of genetic variants is just a starting point. “Translating results from these types of investigations into successful therapies has, generally, been a struggle. The process often requires lengthy research even before drugs are ready to be tested in people,” Ben writes. The research aligns with earlier reports that also found genetic variations among patients who suffered severe illness from covid-19, but the latest report is the biggest of its kind published to date. “California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed suit against Amazon on Monday, accusing the e-commerce giant of months of foot-dragging as the state seeks information about the outbreak of coronavirus cases and safety measures at warehouses in the state,” The Post’s Jay Greene reports. The lawsuit claims that Amazon has failed to provide detailed information related to the number of warehouse workers who have contracted the virus, as well as steps the company has taken to reduce risk for its workers. Becerra, who was recently named as President-elect Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, alleges that Amazon made no mention of employees who died of covid-19 and worked in facilities in Irvine. Amazon claims that it has been working with Becerra’s office and that the lawsuit took it by surprise. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

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The Washington Post’s By The Way, Webbys 2020: Websites, General Websites, Email Newsletters

By The Way Since the pandemic started shutting down the world in March, By The Way has answered important questions about how the coronavirus will shape the way we travel. We told readers how to get tested before traveling and when Americans might be allowed into Europe again, and broke news on how covid-19 spread on cruise ships and shut down Disney parks. Each Thursday, we delivered these stories and more in a highly curated and designed newsletter. We’ve highlighted interactive tools, such as a guided quiz on how to travel as safely as possible this holiday season and a fall foliage map for travelers planning a socially distant trip. View one of our newsletters in full. When readers are ready to travel again, By The Way has more than 200 guides to nearly 70 cities around the world written by hometown journalists. Every newsletter features a selection of these guides to help travelers plan for future trips or explore their hometowns in new ways. By The Way’s newsletter has built a community, where readers share photos from their own travels, send questions to our reporters and submit their travel memories for UGC projects.

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How an ‘atmospheric river’ spoiled Monday’s total solar eclipse in Chile

TALCA, Chile — Astronomers and skywatchers alike had looked forward to Monday, Dec. 14, for years — a total solar eclipse would darken a swath of Chile and Argentina, the moon blotting out the sun for just over two minutes as the sun’s breathtaking atmosphere emerged to the naked eye. Unfortunately for many, myself included, the long-awaited celestial spectacle largely flopped. Chile, one of two countries fortunate enough to be crossed by the narrow swath of totality, was socked in beneath cloud cover thanks to a soggy “atmospheric river.” While some in Argentina were treated to the indescribable elegance and beauty of the solar corona promenading outward from behind the moon, the only thing visible in Chile was a brief night-like darkening of the ambient overcast. For those of us who had spent months of planning, forked out thousands of dollars and devised a detailed itinerary in accordance with the latest evolving health guidance from the U.S. and Chilean governments, it marked a hefty letdown that seemed consistent with the running theme of 2020. Total solar eclipses are arguably the most serene, otherworldly and scientifically spiritual scene visible on our planet. They happen once every year and a half or so, but the thin sliver of real estate they visit often carves out a track in remote or inaccessible areas. Umbraphiles, or those infatuated with basking in the moon’s shadow, go to great lengths to put themselves in position for each solar eclipse they can. I caught the eclipse bug in 2017, when my friend and meteorologist colleague, Dan Satterfield, and I drove to the vast emptiness of the Nebraska Sandhills and set up shop, not knowing what to expect. When the sky faded to twilight and the delicate, luminous solar corona, or atmosphere, appeared, we vowed to never miss another one. On July 2 last year, we traveled to La Serena, Chile, where we rendezvoused with the sun’s corona one again, perched atop a mountain for the 2 minutes 32 seconds of splendor. Dan and I knew we’d be back in South America for Monday’s total solar eclipse, and we had tossed around the idea of flying to Chile and crossing into Argentina, where the weather prospects were historically favored to be better. Our tickets were booked in early 2020. Then a global pandemic ensued, and we were forced to cancel. But in late November, the Chilean government announced

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Lawsuits by U.S. victims accuse top Qatar banks and charity of financing terrorism in Israel

Rayan Bank, which the suit asserts is controlled by the government and family members on its board; and Qatar National Bank, in which Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund purportedly holds a 50 percent interest. The suits claim that the charity solicited donations worldwide and used both banks to access the U.S. financial system and dollars. Funds were distributed by Qatar Charity to its affiliates in Palestinian-controlled territories, including at least $28 million between March and September 2015, according to the lawsuit. It says money went to support Hamas and PIJ, including “martyr payments” to the families of convicted or killed militants. The complaints do not disclose the sources of information but include details such as account numbers, account opening dates, holders’ birth dates and addresses, and other identifying information. “By allowing Qatar Charity to use accounts at the banks to funnel money to Hamas and PIJ, the banks were joining a conspiracy intended to commit acts of international terrorism, including the kidnapping and murder of Americans in Israel,” states the lawsuit filed Tuesday by the family of Pinches Przewozman, an American who was among those killed in rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip on May 5, 2019. “No family should have to endure the loss we have experienced,” said Stuart and Robbi Force, the lead plaintiffs of the initial suit and parents of Taylor Force, a U.S. military veteran who was fatally stabbed near Tel Aviv in 2016. Force’s death prompted Congress to enact a law in his name in 2018 to cut some U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority until it ends its financial support to convicted terrorists and their families. “In addition to holding the banks and illegitimate ‘charities’ who enable terrorism accountable, our fervent hope is that this lawsuit serves as a deterrent to those who might engage in similar actions,” the Forces said in a statement released by a spokesman for 57 plaintiffs and 11 victims of attacks since 2014. “We believe that the best way to honor our son’s memory is to help prevent future attacks.” A spokesman for the Qatari government did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did information offices of the banks and Qatar Charity. The defendants have not yet formally responded to the June case. President Trump in 2017 criticized what he said was Qatar’s support for terrorist organizations, including the millions of dollars annually it provides

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What wild animals walk through your yard? A trail cam can help you find out.

A small backyard nestled between houses on a well-used residential street in Alexandria, Virginia, seems like an unlikely spot for a wildlife “highway.” But during one evening in March, Evan Kosinski’s neighbor told the 6-year-old about seeing two foxes, two raccoons, a rabbit and one opossum between midnight and 6 a.m. His neighbor doesn’t crouch outside all night watching for critters and never leaves food to attract animals. Instead the neighbor uses a trail camera, or trail cam, as an extra pair of eyes observing wildlife activity without human interference. Trail cams — small, motion-triggered, weatherproof cameras that operate with batteries — take videos or still photos. These easily operated devices are popular with nature lovers, educators and researchers. Daytime images are in color. Night images, relying on infrared lights that minimally affect animals, are in black-and-white. Trail cams offer an amazing look at the natural world of urban wildlife. Wanting to learn more, Evan began looking for any animal signs in his fenced yard. Noticing a small hole under the steps of his family’s deck, he borrowed a cam and recorded a family of chipmunks coming and going. A “wow” moment occurred when, with permission, he put the cam facing a hole under the neighbor’s shed. “It showed a litter of raccoons living there,” Evan told KidsPost. A fox, seen passing earlier, spooked the mom into moving her five babies (called kits) that night, taking each by the scruff of the neck. Evan noticed that each move took about 10 minutes, so he figured that her next hiding place was nearby. Tempted to go hunting for the raccoons, he wisely decided not to. “The mom moved them because she was scared,” he said. “We might scare them more.” Since receiving his own trail cam last summer, Evan has seen bunnies’ ears twitching as they munch on grass, a young opossum in search of ticks and insects, and cats on nighttime prowls for mice or other prey. “It’s a great hobby for someone Evan’s age,” said his dad, Shane Kosinski. “He tries different spots and angles and thinks about where the animals might go, and then if he doesn’t catch anything, he tries again.” The use of trail cams in urban backyards provides year-round entertainment, as well as an education in animal behavior. What is creating mysterious holes in your yard, getting into your trash cans or eating your plants?

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The U.S. government spent billions on a system for detecting hacks. The Russians outsmarted it.

Russian targets of U.S. sanctions. At NIH, they may be interested in information related to coronavirus vaccine research. As the investigative work continues, some lawmakers are focused on probing why and how federal cybersecurity efforts have fallen short despite years of damaging hacks by Russian and Chinese spies and major federal investments in defensive technologies. Einstein, which was developed by DHS and is now operated by CISA, was supposed to be a backbone of federal protection of civilian agency computers, but the 2018 GAO report found significant weaknesses. The capability to “identify any anomalies that may indicate a cybersecurity compromise” was planned for deployment by 2022, the report said. It also said that network monitoring by individual agencies is spotty. Of 23 federal agencies surveyed, five “were not monitoring inbound or outbound direct connections to outside entities,” and 11 “were not persistently monitoring inbound encrypted traffic.” Eight “were not persistently monitoring outbound encrypted traffic.” “DHS spent billions of taxpayer dollars on cyber defenses and all it got in return was a lemon with a catchy name,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Despite warnings by government watchdogs, this administration failed to promptly deploy technology necessary to identify suspicious traffic and catch hackers using new tools and new servers.” It wasn’t just this administration. Bossert, who worked on the original Einstein concept in the George W. Bush administration, said the idea was to place active sensors at an agency’s Internet gateway that could recognize and neutralize malicious command-and-control traffic. “But the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations,” he said, “never designed Einstein to meet its full potential.” CISA officials told congressional staff on a Monday evening call that the system did not have the capacity to flag the malware that was signaling back to its Russian masters. The officials said federal agencies had not given CISA the information necessary to identify agency servers that should not be communicating with the outside world, said one congressional aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “To CISA, all internal agency computers look the same, and so Einstein only flags samples of known malware or connections to ‘known bad’ IP addresses,” the aide said. Other cybersecurity experts say the breaches highlight the “desperate” need for a government board that can conduct a deep investigation of an incident such as that involving SolarWinds, whose corrupted

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Biden picks former EPA chief Gina McCarthy as White House climate czar

first volunteers in Barack Obama’s New Hampshire office during the 2008 presidential campaign, Zaidi rose through the ranks during the Democrat’s eight years in office. In 2014, he became the associate director for natural resources, energy, and science at the White House Office of Management and Budget, where he oversaw a portfolio of nearly $100 billion in federal programs. He also served as OMB’s lead official in implementing the administration’s climate action plan. He helped oversee a report OMB released in November 2016 outlining the risks climate change posed to the federal government, including the cost of crop insurance, wildfire suppression, flood and hurricane-related relief and health care. It projected that annual climate-related costs across four of those five programs would total $34 billion to $112 billion by late century, while simultaneously curbing the nation’s economic output by up to 4 percent. “In short, climate change is already costing taxpayers,” Zaidi wrote in a blog post. “But the costs we are incurring today will be dwarfed by the costs that lie ahead. Without action, taxpayers will face hundreds of billions of dollars in additional costs every year by late in this century as the effects of climate change accelerate.” Michael Lewis’s 2018 book “The Fifth Risk” highlights the experience of Zaidi, who emigrated to the U.S. at age 5 and was a young Republican, as an example of how the most wonkish jobs in Washington can have an enormous impact on ordinary people. In the book, Zaidi described how the Agriculture Department he helped oversee was “weird” because it encompassed so many things. “It was weird because so many Americans had no idea how much their lives depended on it,” Lewis wrote. “And it was weird because of the sheer sums of money sloshing around the place, dispensed by government employees no one had ever heard of.” Now, McCarthy and Zaidi will coordinate policies across the entire U.S. government. In an interview last month, Biden’s campaign policy director Stef Feldman told The Post, “From the very beginning of the campaign, when President-elect Biden rolled out his climate plan, he made it clear he sees this as an all-of-government agenda, domestic, economic, foreign policy.” Under Biden’s plan, Feldman said, the new climate office will “develop an ambitious climate policy and be the place where accountability resides to ensure that climate ambition is built into every agency’s plan. And that they’re executing

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His staff cleans covid-19 hospital rooms. He got the vaccine to build trust in the shot.

scourge of covid that has just been taking lives, day after day,” Anita Jenkins, the chief executive of the hospital, said before getting her shot. Howard University College of Medicine, founded three years after the end of the Civil War to train doctors to care for newly freed Black people in the nation’s capital, is working alongside the nation’s three other Black medical colleges to build community confidence in the vaccine. Howard University set up coronavirus testing sites early on in the pandemic in Ward 7 and Ward 8, which have the city’s largest populations of Black Americans. And Howard’s medical school and hospital will soon be running the clinical trial of a vaccine that has yet to reach the market, spokeswoman Alonda Thomas said. “We have a legacy of leadership in science and developing insights into new science approaches to treating health, and in applying science to the benefit of people of color,” said Reed Tuckson, a doctor and Howard University trustee who is the founder of the Black Coalition Against COVID-19. Tuesday’s vaccinations, he added, were “a further example of this history.” Shelly McDonald-Pinkett, the hospital’s chief medical officer, who got vaccinated just before Dunlap, said: “We’ve all heard the statistics about what happens in the African American community and communities of color. And so it’s important for those who are in leadership roles to demonstrate our willingness to take the vaccine.” Dunlap was eager to do so. He said he decided to get the vaccine weeks ago, after Jenkins announced she was going to be vaccinated. “The early stage [of the pandemic] was really rough for me, so that’s why I felt that I had to be at the forefront to lead,” Dunlap said. The housekeeper who died of covid-19 did not contract the virus at the hospital, Dunlap said. In all, 10 of his staff members have tested positive, Dunlap said. Some workers quit, some refused to clean rooms inhabited by virus patients. His hours, and those of his remaining staff, grew longer. The virus disrupted his personal life as well; among other things, he was unable to travel to Florida for the funeral of a pastor who was one of his childhood mentors and had died of cancer. “I feel this day is historic because this is the beginning stages of making covid-19 decline,” Dunlap said after being vaccinated. “And somebody has to be the

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Europe wanted to keep schools open this winter. Coronavirus surges have disrupted those plans.

BERLIN — Surging coronavirus outbreaks in a number of nations are forcing governments to close schools, despite initial promises to keep them open this winter. The latest country to change course is Germany, where most schools will move to distance learning Wednesday as part of tougher new lockdown rules. Widening outbreaks have also triggered the closure of schools in the Netherlands and in Asia, where the South Korean capital, Seoul, opted for similar measures this week. The school closures in Germany and the Netherlands mark a notable turnaround in Europe, where governments said this fall that keeping schools open would be a priority, arguing that they aren’t significant drivers of coronavirus outbreaks. Numerous studies have shown that the virus spreads less readily among children, with one recent Icelandic research project concluding that those under 15 are only half as likely as adults to become infected with the virus and to spread it. France Still, researchers warn that surging infection rates can turn schools into transmission hot spots, with secondary schools posing a particular risk. “When you look at the infection rate, it goes up linearly with age, from 10 to 20 years,” said Kari Stefansson, CEO of Icelandic biopharmaceutical company Decode Genetics, which recently concluded a large-scale analysis of coronavirus infections among children in the country. In collaboration with Iceland’s Directorate of Health, the researchers compared children’s and adults’ likelihood of catching and transmitting the virus, based on a large data set of quarantined Icelandic residents who had been exposed to the virus. Even though young children were found to be far less vulnerable, the researchers concluded that older students in particular can contribute to clusters. Stefansson said the decision by Germany and the Netherlands to close schools “is understandable” in light of those findings and given the countries’ surging outbreaks. More regions of Europe could reach a similar conclusion in the coming weeks. In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan called on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday to close the city’s secondary schools, saying students were now responsible for a “significant” share of infections in the British capital. The European closures bring the continent more in line with the United States, where schools in parts of the country postponed reopening plans or closed in recent weeks. But whereas U.S. school closures have in some areas preceded tougher restrictions on other fronts — including the closure of bars or restaurants

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Happy 250th birthday to Beethoven, one of the greatest composers of all time

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (MOTE-sart), who later told friends to “keep your eye on him; someday he will give the world something to talk about.” Indeed. Over a 45-year career, Beethoven wrote more than 700 works, including nine symphonies, 32 piano sonatas and one opera. Amazingly, Beethoven continued composing even though, in his late 20s, he began losing his hearing. The ringing in his ears became so painful that he stuffed them with cotton and avoided going out in public. By his mid-40s, a decade before his death, he was deaf. But it didn’t stop his composing. He “heard” his music in his mind and wrote it down. He also reportedly cut the legs off his piano so he could feel the vibration of the notes on the floor. “It’s a pretty empowering story,” said Wesley Thompson, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestra’s string orchestra. Thompson, who also teaches in Howard County, Maryland, said classical music “gets a bad rap for being stuffy and boring. But there’s so much going on . . . all the different sounds and different instruments and energy.” Musically, Beethoven bridged the gap between two eras — classical, which featured order, simplicity and balance; and romantic, which stressed individual freedom, emotions and drama. Beethoven’s music can be difficult to play, a challenge many performers enjoy. But it also can appeal to the youngest musicians. Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” part of his Ninth Symphony, is “a great tune to teach,” Thompson said. Even third-grade students may know the gentle, five-note opening melody. “It doesn’t have to be dumbed down for them,” she said, “and they feel really cool” when they are playing Beethoven. One of Thompson’s students, Tina Battaglia, was asked at her university music audition to perform a piece without much time to prepare. “Oh no, what am I going to play?” she thought. Then she remembered an intro to “Ode to Joy” that features her instrument, the double bass, and the cello. Over the years, she has practiced it a lot. “It’s very operatic, very lyrical,” she said. Her on-the-spot performance was a success, and she is now a music performance major at James Madison University in Virginia. Battaglia urges kids to give Beethoven a try. “He’ll open your world and inspire you,” she said. “He’s going to be 250 years old. If his legacy has been around that long, he’s not going away.”

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Covid-19 has created new jobs — for scammers preying on the unemployed

If the devastation of losing your job because of the coronavirus pandemic isn’t enough, imagine being conned by scammers capitalizing on the spread of covid-19 and your desperation to generate some income. Income-based scams have increased significantly because of the pandemic. In the first nine months of 2020, people looking for ways to earn money were cheated out of $150 million, according to new data from the Federal Trade Commission. “Scammers have been even bolder during the covid-19 pandemic,” said Andrew Smith, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “So many of us are unemployed or underemployed, stuck at home and badly in need of income. In fact, the number of income scams reported to the FTC reached the highest level on record in the second quarter of 2020. These scammers are taking advantage of a desperate situation to rip money from the hands of those of us least able to afford it.” In a crackdown the authorities are calling “Operation Income Illusion,” the FTC — along with 19 federal, state and local law enforcement partners — is focusing on shutting down fake employment, work-at-home, multilevel marketing and investment scams. In Maryland, Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) announced enforcement actions against several companies pitching franchise opportunities. In another scheme, promoters targeted members of the African immigrant community, promising huge returns on their investments in a cryptocurrency, a highly risky proposition even when it’s a legitimate investment. “The past year has been especially difficult for many families who’ve lost their source of income due to the covid pandemic,” Frosh said during a news conference call. “In some cases, families are desperate to make ends meet, pay for much-needed health care or simply put food on the table. And, in addition to all the other pain this pandemic has caused, it made many Americans become especially vulnerable to income scams and unwise investment opportunities.” The FTC has taken legal action against a number of bogus income cons, many of which are just preposterous. — A Florida-based scam lured people in by promising they could earn between $500 and $12,500 in commissions in a digital income scheme. People paid for various levels of membership — $1,000 to $25,000 — and in return they could “earn” the right to make money off the recruitment of other people into the program. For example, someone paying $1,000 for an entrepreneur-level membership could make $500

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The Army can’t repeat the mistakes of the 1990s if it wants to end sexual assault

Last week, the independent review committee investigating the murder of Spec. Vanessa Guillén by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood issued its final report. The report detailed systematic leadership failures that produced a permissive environment for sexual harassment and assault at the sprawling Texas army post. It also detailed the shocking lapses on the part of the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division (CID) that led to it taking over two months to establish what had happened to Guillén. As a result, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy fired or suspended 14 commanders, including two major generals. But the Army’s recent history suggests the institution needs to do much more to tackle its culture of sexual violence. The problem isn’t a new one. In the 1990s, the Army also faced sexual assault scandals. Then too, Army leaders were shocked by independent reports that detailed systemic failings and pledged to do better. However, they failed to create a healthier environment for women in the Army. In fighting off demands for an end to gender-integrated basic training, Army leaders lost any momentum they initially had for trying to promote cultural change. In November 1996, the Army announced three male instructors at the basic training center in Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Md., had been charged with rape, abuse and harassment of female soldiers under their supervision. Eventually, 12 male drill instructors were charged with a variety of crimes, exposing a pattern of sexual exploitation and the abuse of authority. News of the Aberdeen scandal broke just five years after the Navy’s infamous Tailhook scandal, where more than 40 male Navy and Marine aviators were charged with sexual assault and other crimes. The Army, determined not to suffer similar damage to its reputation, moved quickly to commission several inquiries about sexual abuse within the service. It set up a hotline for soldiers to report sexual harassment, which was soon overwhelmed with over 4,000 calls in 10 days. Surveys of women in the Army revealed at least 55 percent of female soldiers had been sexually harassed, and political pressure for action grew. At the center of these demands for action was Army Chief of Staff Gen. Dennis Reimer. A Vietnam veteran with a background in recruit training, he was dismayed by the abuses at Aberdeen, which he saw as a grave violation of the trust placed in commanders. When it came to broader culture around sexual harassment in the military,

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The Army can’t repeat the mistakes of the 1990s if it wants to end sexual assault

Sen. Charles Robb (D-Va.) declaring “we ought to question whether we may be pushing in a direction that is simply not productive.” Faced with this critique, Reimer conceded “there’s probably a need for a more detailed look in this particular area.” A group of female officers warned Reimer that this focus on gender-integrated training was an exercise in victim-blaming. They were concerned that “a move to ‘study’ the issue of mixed-gender training may not only be misplaced but might also be a setback” because it would focus attention on the wrong issue and reopen old debates that had been closed. This warning proved prescient. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) introduced legislation in the House that would require the Armed Forces to offer gender-segregated training for all recruits, while Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) tried to attach a similar amendment to the annual defense appropriations bill. Secretary of Defense William Cohen had created a commission in response to the Aberdeen scandal and in December 1997, it published its findings, which included a recommendation that the Army, Navy and Air Force resegregate aspects of their basic training. Ultimately, the military — including the Army — wisely rejected this report’s findings on gender-integrated training and refused to segregate men and women in basic training. Nonetheless, a controversy that had begun a year previously with an outcry about the treatment of women had ended up focusing on whether progress on gender integration should be reversed. The opportunity to tackle the root of sexism and violence against women was lost. As a result, the problem persisted. According to retired Major Gen. Robert Shadley, commander of the Ordnance School at Aberdeen during the scandal, in the 20-year period after the scandal, over 400,000 service members were the victims of sexual assault. The trajectory of the 1996-1997 debate about sexual assault within the Army demonstrates that the initial public outcry over the Fort Hood report will do little to reduce the number of women victimized in the Army if military leaders do not follow up aggressively with broad-based action. Declarations of contrition and of a determination to fix things on the part of military leaders are a start. But these promises will only work if military leaders keep the focus where it belongs: on a misogynistic Army culture and the lack of consequences for sexual misdeeds that have enabled men in the Army to victimize female colleagues for far

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D.C. closes 5 schools as more students return to classrooms and asymptomatic testing begins

classrooms, the school system thinks the safeguards prevented the virus from spreading, though it is still too soon to know for sure. “Our response to the presence of individuals with confirmed cases of COVID-19 has proven DCPS’ health and safety protocols are working,” Ferebee said in a statement. “The at-school asymptomatic convenience testing pilot, which is just about a week underway, will inform public health data and help guide DCPS on the path to reopen more schools and welcome back additional students this winter.” Across the country, school districts are taking different approaches to testing. New York City, for example, frequently tests a random selection of students at schools to monitor how school infection rates compare to city infection rates. Friendship Public Charter School in the District, which is educating a few hundred students in person, is testing students every two weeks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that schools consider a testing strategy if their jurisdictions have enough tests, particularly at schools serving populations disproportionately affected by the virus. Studies exploring how children spread the disease have come to different conclusions, but Aaron Milstone, pediatric infectious-disease physician at Johns Hopkins University, said communities should assume that children spread the virus the same way adults do. Masks, social distancing and other safeguards are critical in any reopening plan, he said. The latest D.C. school virus data represents the first batch of student testing, and Milstone cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from tests taken at a single point of time — especially if it is the first time widespread testing is occurring. He said students, for example, who tested positive over the summer could still be testing positive even though they are no longer contagious. This data alone, he said, is not enough to determine whether schools are contributing to the spread of the virus in the District. “It’s hard to assess a single point of time,” Milstone said. Staff reporting to work in-person are expected to receive tests in the mail this week that they can administer to themselves in person as part of the pilot program. Local health officials released data this month showing schools and day cares as a major source of outbreaks in the city. But the data came with big caveats, including that an outbreak is defined as two cases, which are not necessarily connected, tied to a location over a 14-day span.

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Vaccine news has led to a spike in travel bookings for 2021 and beyond

encompassing cruise lines, tour operators, travel agents and resorts — told The Washington Post that they are seeing bookings pick up for the second half of next year after a brutal stretch that brought the world to a standstill. “With the most challenging environment comes the biggest opportunity for a return,” said Brad Tolkin, co-chairman and CEO of World Travel Holdings, a travel company that sells cruise, villa and resort vacations. “And I think it’s going to be thunderous.” At his own company, bookings are “heavily skewed” toward the second half of next year and into 2022. “We are taking an unprecedented amount of business now for 2022 relative to how much we took last year for 2020, pre-pandemic,” Tolkin said. “It’s just amazing how far in advance people are booking.” At Sandals Resorts, bookings for summer are spiking, deputy chairman Adam Stewart said in a statement. The company is grappling with a coronavirus outbreak at its Grenada resort, but it is still pulling in big numbers for next year. “Summer 2021 is seeing a double-digit percentage gain in overall occupancy when compared with previous summer booking trends, including summer 2019,” Stewart said, adding that the increase stretches into 2022 and 2023. “There is no doubt that we’re seeing an upward bookings trend as a testament to the pent-up wanderlust we’ve all experienced this past year.” Virtuoso, a travel agency network, is seeing the most bookings for September and October of next year, with increases especially pronounced for international trips. “All along, we’ve been saying that Q3 2021 is when we expect to see travel making a meaningful comeback and these numbers support that premise,” spokeswoman Misty Belles said in a statement. Some of those bookings were clearly spurred by vaccine developments. The first doses in the United States were given earlier this week to health-care workers; so far in the United Kingdom, more than 130,000 people have been vaccinated. Black Tomato, a luxury travel company, recorded 300 percent more sales this week than the last, and 200 percent more honeymoons have been booked this week. Customers have been bringing up the vaccine in conversations with experts. Alex Sharpe, president and CEO of Signature Travel Network, said business has picked up since the distribution of the vaccine started last week, with people booking trips that start as early as June. “We’ve seen the phones ringing more,” he said. Customers are

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Maryland football cancels Michigan State game after 15 players test positive for coronavirus

to reschedule some matchups that were canceled earlier in the season. Maryland was originally scheduled to play the Spartans on Nov. 21, but another coronavirus outbreak in the Terps’ program prompted the school to cancel the game. Only four games in the Big Ten are still scheduled to be played this weekend. Purdue’s game against No. 11 Indiana and Michigan’s game against No. 16 Iowa were canceled because of the virus. The Big Ten’s title game between East Division winner Ohio State and West Division champion Northwestern is still on for Saturday in Indianapolis. This weekend marks the end of the regular season around the country, with the College Football Playoff committee announcing its final rankings Sunday. Some teams have opted out of playing in bowl games because of the mental strain this season has placed on players. With a win over Michigan State, the Terps would have improved to 3-3 and positioned themselves to earn a spot in a bowl game for the first time since 2016. The NCAA waived the usual requirements for bowl eligibility, so there is still a chance that Maryland could be selected despite a sub-.500 record. But the Terps now only have two wins, and it’s unclear whether they would have enough available players or will have controlled the outbreak in time for a late-December bowl game. In the Terps’ overtime loss to Rutgers last weekend, they played without four key players — quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, linebackers Chance Campbell and Ruben Hyppolite II and defensive back Jakorian Bennett. All of those players have started at times this season and could not play against Rutgers for medical reasons. Locksley declined to comment when asked whether those players tested positive for the coronavirus. Maryland does not release the names of players who test positive. The Big Ten’s protocols require players who test positive for the virus to sit out for 21 days. Maryland canceled games against Ohio State and Michigan State last month because of an outbreak in the program. Twenty-three players and seven staff members, including Locksley, tested positive during a two-week span in November. Numerous players could not play when Maryland returned against Indiana. The following week, Michigan canceled its game against Maryland because of coronavirus cases in its program. At the University of Maryland, 154 of roughly 550 athletes have tested positive for the virus since teams began returning to campus this summer.

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The Health 202: Or should we say Coronavirus 202? Here's our year-end review

with Alexandra Ellerbeck It’s been a year, readers. I expected to spend 2020 writing about topics like drug prices, insurance reforms, the opioid epidemic and health policy fights in the election. Instead, I spent most of the year trying to understand and explain one particularly pernicious virus — and the havoc it wreaked on the United States. I wrote a lot about the coronavirus. Far more than any other topic, in fact: We tried all year to bring you the newest and smartest reporting on the pandemic, even as scientists’ and researchers’ understanding of the novel coronavirus evolved. Our Washington Post colleagues contributed immensely, providing in-depth reporting on everything from testing to vaccines to state shutdowns and more. And while the pandemic raged, all the other issues we normally cover were still in the background. The nation elected a new president who will shift the government’s approach to health policy. The opioid crisis raged on — and may have worsened. The Supreme Court considered whether Obamacare is constitutional yet again. Our first Health 202 about the coronavirus was on Jan. 23, with this headline: “Coronavirus may not get as bad as SARS, but U.S. officials are on alert anyway.” I wrote this: Is this new More than 500 people — most of them in Wuhan, China — have been sickened by the illness, and at least 17 have died, Part of that is because we — and the experts we talk to — can’t see into the future. And while we try to include historical perspective, that's not always a predictor of how events will unfold. That was apparent in the case of vaccine development, which moved much faster than most had predicted based on timelines for past vaccines. A Twitter follower recently suggested that news outlets could increase trust in journalism by doing a year-end listicle of stories where they were wrong. That’s not a bad idea, considering Americans’ trust in media has declined over the past two decades. So we’re taking her advice. Here are a few Health 202s that didn’t age so well: “Liberals fearing yet another Supreme Court vacancy for President Trump to fill have some cause for relief: It doesn’t appear that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is going anywhere anytime soon,” Uh — not so much. Justice Ginsburg died in mid-September, setting up a worst-case judicial scenario for Democrats in the waning months of the

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Mientras la seguridad en México se deteriora, el poder de las fuerzas militares crece

Read in English CIUDAD DE MÉXICO— Cuando el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador asumió su cargo, sus asesores principales fueron brutalmente honestos. El sistema de seguridad de México estaba “en ruinas”, advirtieron. Los homicidios habían alcanzado niveles récord. Las fuerzas policiales locales estaban infiltradas por grupos criminales. Decenas de miles de personas habían sido desaparecidas a la fuerza. El país, concluyeron en un análisis enviado al Congreso, se había “convertido en panteón”. López Obrador, un ícono de la izquierda mexicana, fue crítico durante mucho tiempo de la guerra contra el narcotráfico apoyada por Estados Unidos. “Que regresen los soldados a los cuarteles”, había insistido. Sin embargo, cuando tuvo que enfrentarse a los niveles más altos de violencia en los últimos 60 años, respondió de la misma manera que sus predecesores: convocó a las fuerzas militares. Tras dos años de gobierno de López Obrador, las Fuerzas Armadas de México han asumido un papel más amplio en los asuntos del país que en cualquier otro momento desde el fin de los gobiernos liderados por militares en la década de 1940. El gobierno ha desplegado un número récord de tropas para hacer frente a la deteriorada situación de seguridad. Las Fuerzas Armadas patrullan ciudades, allanan laboratorios de drogas y protegen instalaciones estratégicas. Pero eso no es todo. Los militares están siendo cada vez más la fuerza a la que recurre el presidente para tareas previamente gestionadas por agencias civiles, desde administrar puertos hasta remodelar hospitales y construir aeropuertos. El Ejército se encuentra ahora en medio de una de las mayores crisis en las relaciones entre Estados Unidos y México en los últimos años. Indignado por el arresto en Estados Unidos del exsecretario de la Defensa Nacional de México por presuntamente ayudar a un poderoso cártel de drogas, el Congreso mexicano aprobó el martes un proyecto de ley que probablemente obstaculice la cooperación en materia de narcotráfico y otros asuntos penales. López Obrador propuso la legislación. El distanciamiento muestra cómo las autoridades estadounidenses subestimaron el papel cada vez más importante que desempeñan las fuerzas militares de México. Lo que pareció una acción en pro de la justicia para los fiscales estadounidenses fue percibido en México como una acción para debilitar a un aliado. El dramático arresto del general Salvador Cienfuegos en Los Ángeles alarmó a una amplia gama de políticos, a quienes les preocupó que los agentes antidrogas estadounidenses estuvieran penetrando profundamente las instituciones

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The Technology 202: Here are the winners and losers in the tech industry in 2020

with Tonya Riley Programming note: The Technology 202 will be taking a break for the holidays. Tomorrow is our last day of publication, and we'll return to your inboxes on Monday, Jan. 4. We hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday season and happy new year. 2020 was the year tech became undeniably essential. The coronavirus pandemic transformed our lives — and made us more reliant on tech than ever before. The pandemic disrupted the industry in unprecedented ways that could have lasting consequences on how people work, gather and entertain. Here are the tech industry's winners and losers: Amazon’s empire extended as foot traffic dwindled to malls and physical stores. The company seized on the opportunity to expand its logistics network to more directly compete with UPS and FedEx. And it embarked on a hiring spree unprecedented in modern history, adding more than 400,000 employees in ten months. (Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) The boom in e-commerce also bolstered other retailers with strong online operations, including Walmart and Target. And even smaller players including Etsy, eBay and Shopify saw a pandemic-related boost in sales.. The Analysts were skeptical that a host of new streaming services would find their footing, especially in a market where Netflix and Hulu were already performing strongly. But if there was ever a year when the public clamored for more options as they channel surfed, it came when a global pandemic confined everyone to their couches. Already, Disney Plus has more than 86 milion subscribers, approaching half of Netflix's massive subscriber base in just over a year. The Zoom was the breakout app of the pandemic, as lives shifted online thanks to widespread stay-at-home orders and limits on in-person gatherings. An app many Americans had never even heard of before March was suddenly a lifeline. The company has continued to see its ranks of free users surge, especially as it removes its time limits for free calls on holidays. And the company reported in its recent earnings call it is seeing usage surge among businesses. The company had 433,700 customers with more than 10 employees as of Nov. 30, a 485 percent spike from the year before. FaceTime, Google Meet, Facebook Live, Slack and other services that bolstered our homebody lifestyles saw similar boosts. The trade-off: Even as Zoom helped us stay connected, we all lost the

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The Technology 202: Here are the winners and losers in the tech industry in 2020

benefits of in-person contact. Muted microphones, unstable Internet connections and grainy grids were reminders the tech industry still hasn’t developed a suitable substitute for gathering in person. Airbnb had a rough spring, as travel restrictions and government-imposed shutdowns blew up the travel industry. But the rental company found its footing and ultimately had the largest tech IPO of the year. Airbnb's darkest period came in April, when bookings dropped more than 72 percent from the previous year, Rachel Lerman reported. The company, however, rebounded more quickly than other travel operations, in part because its platform allows greater flexibility. Hosts adopted new deep cleaning standards and opened their homes to longer stays. The trade-off: Food-delivery companies surged in popularity. With restaurants shuttered, people turned to Doordash, UberEats and other food delivery apps in record numbers. Doordash even managed to gain a narrow profit in one quarter this year – a surprise in an industry that many were skeptical of because it was known to heavily burn cash. The 2020 exposed the growing chasm between white-collar tech workers and the shadow workforces that power some of the world’s largest companies. Many engineers and other corporate tech employees enjoyed some of the most flexible work-from-home arrangements, and benefits such as bonuses, during the pandemic. Meanwhile, Amazon reported nearly 20,000 of its employees, largely working in warehouses, contracted covid-19. Content moderators had to deal with a surge in harmful content related to the 2020 election and the coronavirus, and in many instances risked their health and reported to an office while other full-time social media employees worked from home. As demand for Uber and Lyft rides dried up, drivers saw began to understand how precarious their jobs and financial protections actually were. Meanwhile, Uber, Lyft and other tech companies scored a key victory as California voters passed Proposition 22 Mark Zuckerberg had another rough year. Hating Facebook was one of the few issues that united the political parties this year. Zuckerberg was hauled in front of Congress multiple times — testifying on issues ranging from antitrust concerns and the company's handling of content during the 2020 election. And his company was just hit with a pair antitrust lawsuits, which set the stage for the courts to force the tech giant to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp. Travel booking sites were suddenly unnecessary. TripAdvisor, Expedia and others weren’t prepared for the sudden drop-off in global

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The ecstasy and agony of adaptation during a pandemic

Spoiler Alerts will be on hiatus for the next two weeks, returning Dec. 31 with the announcement of this year’s Albie award winners. This requires a slightly-earlier-than-usual update to my pandemic diary, but an awful lot has happened in the past few weeks. To recap the dominant themes of the past 10 months: This month is all about the nature of human adaptation, for good and ill. I know a little something about how people react to catastrophes and crises. In disaster flicks, people are usually depicted as selfish, panicky nitwits. Human fallibility and weakness are at the core of the modern zombie canon. The truth is more complicated. It is certainly the case that some humans do react that way, particularly to immediate threats. But it is also true that our species can adapt quickly to any new normal, once that new normal comes into focus. Ordinarily, one would think that adaptability is a good quality to possess. The upside is readily observable in how Americans are adjusting to the news that one coronavirus vaccine has been approved, another one will soon be approved and more are in the pipeline. I have never seen people happier about videos of trucks rolling out for delivery. The celebratory, synchronized dancing by my local health-care workers has been above and beyond the call: Little wonder that, as predicted, more and more Americans are receptive to taking a novel coronavirus vaccine now that it is a reality. Adaptation has its downsides, however. It also means adjusting to trends that are horrific. A week ago I heard CDC Director Robert Redfield discuss the state of the pandemic at a virtual Council on Foreign Relations meeting. He said that, as feared, the Thanksgiving travel combined with colder weather forcing many people indoors have led to a surge in infections. That, in turn, is now leading to a surge in deaths. According to Redfield, for the next 60 to 90 days the United States will experience daily death tolls that exceed the casualties on Sept. 11, 2001. The vaccine approvals will have no effect on those numbers. Almost 3,000 people died from the Sept. 11 attacks. That translates into an additional 180,000 Americans dead by the middle of February and possibly 270,000 Americans dead by the end of winter. Tack that onto the 300,000 confirmed dead from covid-19 so far and that means that the odds

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As Mexico’s security deteriorates, the power of the military grows

domestic operations has increased by around 20 percent, to nearly 66,000 on average during the first half of 2020, according to Samuel Storr, a consultant to the citizen security program at Ibero-American University. There’s been a 75 percent jump in navy personnel deployed domestically, to 27,000, he said. Some of the forces’ increase was in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, there are now about 100,000 national guard members stationed around the country, a force nearly triple the size of the disbanded national police. López Obrador has broadened the mandate of the armed forces considerably. They have been tasked with fighting rampant fuel theft and refurbishing hospitals to treat covid-19 patients. Former military leaders now run the federal migration offices in more than half of Mexico’s 32 states, according to the National Human Rights Commission. The armed forces are also in charge of many of the president’s signature infrastructure projects. “The Defense Ministry has more contracts than the biggest construction companies in the country,” said Eduardo Ramírez Leal, leader of an association of 12,000 construction businesses. Aides say López Obrador believes the military works faster and is less corrupt than private firms. While the government has slashed most departments’ budgets because of the recession, the Defense Ministry got a 20 percent boost for 2021. Much of it is for building the airport outside the capital, which it will also operate. Military leaders emphasize that they are simply obeying orders. “It’s evident that we are not seeking power, because we depend on the executive branch and we are subordinate to its authority,” said Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval, a general. But civic groups and security experts warn that López Obrador’s reliance on the troops could threaten Mexico’s civilian-military balance. An opaque, insular institution is assuming more control over government activities, potentially resulting in less scrutiny, they say. “It’s as though the civilian part of the Mexican state didn’t exist in some areas,” said Raúl Benítez, a security analyst who teaches at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Mexican military officers “certainly pride themselves on very loyal subordination to civilian authority,” said Craig Deare, a former Pentagon official who teaches at the National Defense University in Washington. But the military doesn’t answer to a civilian defense minister or strong congressional oversight committees. “It’s really only one guy” the armed forces respond to, said Deare — the president. López Obrador often refers to

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Maryland crime report

Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, •Destruction to a vehicle •Destruction of property/vandalism •Theft from a vehicle •Thefts of vehicle parts and accessories •Tampering with a vehicle •Attempted vehicle theft •Credit or debit card theft •Identify theft •Lost property •Telephone misuse •Trespassing The following were among incidents reported by Anne Arundel County police. For information, call 410-222-8050. Annapolis Area Sunwood Ct., Brooklyn Park Area Hillview Dr., Glen Burnie Area Nolpark Ct., Linthicum Heights Area Nursery Rd., Severn Area Sandy Farm Rd., Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, Madison St., Annapolitan Lane, Bay Ridge Ave., Bay Ridge Rd., Dewey Dr., Hilltop Lane, West St., Captains Cir., Due to concerns over the novel coronavirus and social distancing, Clarksville Area White Pebble Beach Way, Columbia Area Dobbin Center Way, Monarch Mills Way, Snowden Square Dr., Berger Rd., Cobblefield Dr., Columbia Rd., Copperwood Way, Columbia 100 Pkwy., Rivendell Lane, Swift Stream Pl., Sandalfoot Way, Tamar Dr., Tamar Dr., Wild Bees Lane, Elkridge Area Gateway Overlook Dr., Landing and Montgomery roads, Washington Blvd., Dorsey Rd., Highland Area Highland Rd., Jessup Area Washington Blvd., Laurel Area Horsham and Chippenham drives, Washington Blvd.,

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In Biden’s Delaware hometown, economic pain enters new phase as pandemic rages on

a mandatory 14-day quarantine, forcing her to stay home from her $31,000-a-year job as a medical office assistant. “I’m on my own,” she said. “I’m scared for the next couple of months.” Washington’s delay in approving additional aid has been especially hard on families: Forty-two percent of adults with children said they found it “somewhat” or “very” difficult to pay routine bills in the past seven days, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The pressures are proving too much for some. Case workers at Child Inc., a nonprofit social services provider, began seeing an increase in domestic violence complaints within weeks of the first business closures in March. In July, the organization sheltered 70 women and children in emergency facilities and local motels, up from 34 in the same month in 2019. “Domestic-violence victims are staying with us longer because they have no option. They literally have nowhere to go,” said Lori Sitler, the group’s executive director. At Faithful Friends Animal Society, the number of people using the drive-through pet food bank has risen by 50 percent, according to Jane Pierantozzi, the founder. The no-kill shelter has seen an increase in the number of owners who cannot afford to keep their pets, though people are not yet surrendering them en masse as they did in the 2009 financial crisis. “People need their animals more than ever. It’s bad for their mental health to give them up,” she said. Washington’s initial pandemic response helped keep alive numerous Wilmington restaurants, dentist offices, commercial real estate firms, manufacturers and printing companies — though not without leaving scars. The city’s Grand Opera House, nine blocks from the Joseph R. Biden Jr. Amtrak station, received $765,000 in government loans. When the federal money ran out, about half of the 34 staff members were laid off, and the rest accepted 20 percent pay cuts. The venue hasn’t held an indoor performance since March. Mark Fields, executive director of the nonprofit Grand, which operates three downtown venues, has staged outdoor events, including a drive-through holiday light show. But he needs to raise $5 million to compensate for lost revenue. “We still don’t know — and nobody does — when we’re going to reopen,” he said. “It’s really hard to plan for a future when you don’t know when that future is going to start.” The pandemic

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Russia remains barred from Tokyo Olympics after court reduces doping ban to two years

The Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced Russia’s four-year ban from international sports competition by half, but the country still will miss the next two Olympics and the World Cup. The decision was announced Thursday morning by the Swiss-based court. A panel of three arbitrators held a four-day hearing last month behind closed doors to consider the Russian Anti-Doping Agency’s appeal of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s ban, which was handed down last December. The court ruling means that Russia won’t have any formal presence — no flag, no anthem — at the Tokyo Olympics next summer or the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. It also will be barred from most major international competitions through 2022, including the FIFA World Cup, the Youth Olympic Games, Paralympics and world championships. Many of its athletes will still be eligible to compete, though not under the Russian flag. “This Panel has imposed consequences to reflect the nature and seriousness of the noncompliance and to ensure that the integrity of sport against the scourge of doping is maintained,” the arbitrators wrote in their decision. “The consequences which the Panel has decided to impose are not as extensive as those sought by WADA. This should not, however, be read as any validation of the conduct of RUSADA or the Russian authorities.” While the panel reduced the punishment, it agreed with WADA in allowing Russian athletes who have not been implicated in the country’s state-sponsored doping scheme to compete in Tokyo and Beijing as unaffiliated athletes. They can wear Russian colors, but if their uniforms bear the name of their country, it also must say “neutral athlete.” At the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, 168 Russians competed as “Olympic Athletes from Russia.” In addition to the ban on international competition, the panel agreed with WADA’s recommendation that Russian officials be barred from sitting on any boards and committees related to international sports governance. Russia also will not be permitted to host any major sporting event or even apply for hosting duties, and the Russian flag would not be allowed to fly at any major event. The two-year punishment is expected to go into effect this month and will run through 2022. The court ruling also states that no Russian government representatives, including President Vladimir Putin, may attend any major international events for two years, including the Olympics. The panel also laid out terms for reinstatement, requiring Russia to pay

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Top U.S. anti-doping official calls reduced Russia ban ‘a charade’

summer’s Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing. The Russian flag can’t be flown by Olympic organizers and the country’s anthem can’t be played, but those athletes can wear Russian colors and can be recognized as a “neutral athlete from Russia.” The three-person panel of arbitrators that issued Thursday’s ruling also weakened the scope of the punishment. WADA’s initial penalty included any event subject to the World Anti-Doping Code. The court ruling, however, covers only the Olympics, Paralympics and any world championships. It does not apply to qualifying events. So, for example, the Russian national soccer team can compete under the Russian flag in any World Cup qualifiers next year, but if it advances to the 2022 World Cup, the same players will be allowed to compete in Qatar, but they will have a different name and would have to remove the flag from their uniforms. “That’s just a rebranding,” Tygart says, “How can you call it anything else?” Other U.S. Olympic officials expressed similar disappointment in Thursday’s ruling. Han Xiao, the chair of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s Athletes Advisory Council, said the panel’s decision “waters down previously recommended sanctions against Russia.” “It is a devastating blow to U.S. athletes’ faith in the international anti-doping system and its ability to hold bad actors accountable,” he said. And in a statement, the USOPC said: “With all other organizations and advocates who value clean sport and clean athletes, we need to understand further what will transpire next in this dark chapter for international sport. What is clear at this point is that the blatant disregard shown for the rules and purpose of anti-doping regulations in this case has harmed clean athletes and gone further to erode confidence in the international anti-doping construct.” While WADA declared Thursday’s decision a victory, Tygart says it won’t serve as a deterrent. He said the sanction is similar to measures put in place before the 2018 PyeongChang Games, where the country was barred but 168 Russians still competed as “Olympic Athletes from Russia.” The data manipulation that triggered WADA’s proposed four-year ban occurred less than a year later. “If anything, this incentivizes others who may want to take similar brazen steps to dupe the world and think they can get away with it, as the Russians have done here” Tygart said. While WADA’s initial sanction from last December put the burden on Russian

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Hogan issues order requiring negative coronavirus test or self-quarantine after out-of-state travel

Thursday said they were grappling with a surge in new infections amid vaccination rollouts that will slow its spread. But officials cautioned that the need to practice virus-related precautions isn’t going anywhere in the short term. Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D) noted Thursday that Maryland’s most populous jurisdiction reported 14 new virus-related fatalities — the most in a single day since May. It pushed the county’s death toll since the start of the pandemic above 1,000. “Today’s #COVID19 case count is sobering,” he tweeted. “Until the vaccine is widely available, we must be vigilant and follow the guidance to slow the spread.” Northam carried a similar message about Virginia, hailing the beginning of vaccine delivery as a reason for optimism while reminding residents not to let down their guard. “This has been an exciting week,” Northam said in an interview with Fox 5, noting the state received 70,000 doses of the new Pfizer vaccine and is administering them to health-care workers at 18 hospitals. He said he hoped a new vaccine from Moderna would win federal approval by Friday. “We’re making progress, but . . . we are still seeing concerning numbers in Virginia,” the governor said. Citing more than 40 new deaths reported Thursday, the governor said that “the coronavirus is alive and well, and Virginians really have to be vigilant.” He urged residents to continue wearing masks, practicing social distancing and washing hands as vaccines become more widely distributed. The greater Washington region on Thursday reported 6,298 new coronavirus infections, including 228 in the District, 2,217 in Maryland and 3,853 in Virginia. The region also reported 99 new fatalities connected to the virus. The seven-day average number of deaths across the three jurisdictions stood Thursday at 77, up sharply from recent weeks to a level not seen since May. The high caseloads continue to stress hospital systems, with several major hospitals in Maryland out of space in their intensive care units. Roughly 88 percent of the staffed ICU beds in the state were occupied as of Thursday with covid and non-covid patients. ICUs were completely full at 15 of Maryland’s 44 hospitals, including Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, University of Maryland Medical System’s Baltimore campus and Doctors Community Hospital in Lanham, according to state data. The National Park Service announced Thursday that the Washington Monument will close temporarily because of a reduction in workforce after possible

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Biden’s promises to give Jamal Khashoggi justice will be tested soon

One month before the election, Joe Biden promised to ensure accountability for the murder of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who two years ago was lured into the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, where he was killed and dismembered by Saudi government agents. This vicious crime was intended to silence a prominent critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, but the result was to turn most of Washington into champions of Khashoggi’s calls for reform and a reset of the U.S.-Saudi relationship — including the incoming president. “Jamal Khashoggi and his loved ones deserve accountability,” then-candidate Biden said in an official statement in October. “Under a Biden-Harris administration, we will reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end U.S. support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure American does not check its values at the door in order to sell arms or buy oil.” The Trump administration spent two years doing everything possible to hide what the U.S. government knew about who was responsible for the murder. President Trump issued a statement in 2018 saying that Mohammed bin Salman (often known as “MBS”) might have been directly involved, but that he essentially didn’t care and didn’t want to disrupt arms or oil sales. In 2019, Congress passed a law requiring the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to hand over an unclassified report naming the individuals U.S. intelligence agencies believed were involved, but ODNI gave them a classified report instead, hiding the information from the public. Just weeks after he is inaugurated, Biden’s campaign promises to end the coverup will be put to the test in several arenas. Thanks to the persistence of lawmakers and human rights lawyers, the drive to press the U.S. government to publicly disclose what it knows about Khashoggi’s murder never stopped. If he chooses, Biden can make good on his promises and bring crucial facts of the case to light. The administration’s first opportunity may be at the confirmation hearing for Avril Haines, who promised to “speak truth to power” when she accepted Biden’s nomination to be the director of national intelligence. Senate Intelligence Committee member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told me he intends to ask Haines whether she will follow the law and provide an unclassified report on who was responsible for Khashoggi’s murder. “Donald Trump buried the truth to protect authoritarians and murderers in Saudi Arabia,” Wyden said. “The Biden team has a

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Remote Pacific islands escaped the coronavirus this year. It devastated their economies anyway.

For some, the pandemic prompted a return to traditional economic practices. In Fiji and Samoa, the government distributed seeds so that people could grow their own food, to eat or trade via informal barter systems. The measures were a relative success. Regina Scheyvens, co-author of a study on the practice, said her research showed that these systems could serve as a “social and economic safety net.” But some measures have left analysts concerned. Under state-of-emergency laws in Samoa, the government banned not only alcohol on Sundays, but also swimming. In the Solomon Islands, lawmakers proposed banning Facebook to ensure “national unity.” Most Pacific islands cannot remain cut off indefinitely. The number of virus-free nations has dwindled as countries repatriated nationals and tried to resume trade. “There’s a certain inevitability about it all,” said Tukuitonga. Unlike other regions, Pacific islands are not expecting a quick economic rebound. Both Palau and Samoa may see their economies shrink more next year than they did in 2020, according to the Asian Development Bank. International ties will also be vital for vaccination programs. Because of its historical ties to Washington, Palau is expecting to receive doses from the U.S. rollout, although the remoteness of the island nation will make vaccines that require cold-chain storage unsuitable, Whipps said. The pandemic is only the latest reminder that the actions of countries far away can wash up on island shores. Climate change remains an existential threat for many Pacific island nations. Amid the pandemic, Fiji has needed to rehouse families because of erosion from climate change. The coronavirus has only made the problem more urgent. “The talk of global action may have slowed down, but impacts being felt in the Pacific haven’t gone away,” Newton Cain said. In the long term, Whipps said he hopes to strengthen ties with Palau’s most important allies, in Washington and Taipei. There’s already talk of opening a travel bubble with Taiwan next year. But Whipps argued that the pandemic shows that tourism alone is not the answer. Palau has reached out to the United States to ask if the islands could host a military facility. A new undersea fiber-optic cable might allow the country to become a financial hub for firms fleeing Hong Kong, Whipps said. A million tourists or new luxury hotels may sound appealing, he added, “but is that sustainable? Is that going to help us in the long run?”

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‘Dance in DC’ short films capture the city’s spirit of entrepreneurship

a boutique with products that reflect the African diaspora. Alignments of style and mission, visual considerations and dancer preference were factors in the pairings, Evans says, noting that the businesses did not pay for the films. “Dance in DC” is part of “Mars Arts DC: Virtual,” an online version of Washington Performing Arts’s signature community engagement project. Not surprisingly, given the pandemic and the nontraditional artistic venues, extensive planning was required. “The business locations are not film sets, and they’re not stages. So we had to come in and really curate the shot,” says Evans, who did walk-throughs of the locations and prepped the artists on what they’d encounter. The shoots unfurled with coronavirus protocols in place, largely outside the businesses’ regular hours of operations. Despite the forethought, on-the-ground conditions presented challenges. Not only was the Ben’s Chili Bowl space on the cozy side, Pearson says, it also has carpet, which left him and Davis more tired than usual because of the drag on their shoes. But the duo adapted. “Because we’re professionals,” he says. They improvised their choreography on the spot, executing such classic Beat Ya Feet steps as the Three Step Kick, as well as Pearson’s namesake step, the Crazy Legz Reset, a burst of crisscrossing leg movements with twists and turns. As Ben’s Chili Bowl was getting ready to open, Campos-Lopez captured footage of food preparation, and when it came to recording the hoofin,’ he concentrated on “translating for the audience how fun and joyful it is to see these guys dance.” Having Ben’s Chili Bowl host Crazy Legz was a no-brainer, given the local-icon status of both the restaurant and Beat Ya Feet’s musical soul mate — go-go. Plus, says Ben’s Chili Bowl co-owner Kamal Ali, the U Street area “was always an entertainment corridor back in the Black Broadway days, so we’ve always had an affinity for the arts in our community.” Apt in a different way was the assignment of flamenco to Republic Restoratives. The bar/distillery’s chief financial officer, Sarah Mosbacher, says that her company has partnered with Washington Performing Arts before but that under coronavirus restrictions there is less convertible space. Republic Restoratives has closed its bar and pivoted to delivery, pickup and national sales, so the distillery floor is crammed with supplies. The only suitable dance site was the room where barrels of spirits sit to age. Fortunately, that milieu resonated with

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Washington Monument shuttered after interior secretary tests positive for the coronavirus

with the coronavirus and entered quarantine. Interior’s leaders had planned a rooftop gathering Thursday, with propane heaters financed by donors, but canceled it after Bernhardt’s diagnosis. The shuttering of the Washington Monument, where visitors normally crowd into a small elevator to ascend to the top, has implications for D.C.'s tourist industry. The administration first closed it in mid-March, then reopened it in October. Under pandemic procedures, a limited number of people are allowed in the elevator at any one time, and they must be spaced six feet apart. “I hate to say it, but I told you so,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s representative in the House. "Think about the elevator in the monument and how closed-in it is. Who was thinking about the staff that was giving tours with the secretary?” At least four Park Service employees in the region have tested positive for the virus, one of them requiring hospitalization, said Norton, who wrote to acting Park Service Director Margaret Everson nine days ago asking that she close the monument and all other enclosed park sites in the capital region out of concern for employee health. She did not receive a response. A notice posted on the Park Service’s website reads, “Consistent with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance and in coordination with the NPS Office of Public Health, the Washington Monument is temporarily closed due to a reduction in its workforce resulting from a potential COVID-19 exposure.” “NPS is working to staff the Washington Monument at the appropriate levels to maintain the safety of its operations for visitors and employees,” it adds. Bernhardt has led one other private tour of the monument since it reopened, on Nov. 16. Some Park Service staffers and conservation groups have criticized the secretary’s push to keep parks open during the pandemic. When virus infections first surged in March, the agency closed sites with interior spaces such as the Washington Monument, Statue of Liberty National Monument, Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Independence National Historic Park. But many of the most popular national parks, including Joshua Tree and Grand Canyon, remained open. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez joined a park superintendent in requesting NPS close the Grand Canyon in March. “The Navajo Nation is fighting an outbreak of Covid-19 on the Navajo Indian Reservation ... in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah,” Nez wrote administration officials. The park

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Covid-19 is devastating communities of color. Can vaccines counter racial inequity?

covid-19 — not because of their skin color but because they are health-care workers. “Look at how hospitals are staffed,” said Williams, who sits on the state panel making recommendations about vaccine allocation. “The people in their uniforms, getting on the train or bus after their shift — there are a lot of people of color in that group.” Whether the people operating the buses go next is a more difficult question — and one even more freighted with issues of race and equity. “The deeper you get, the more complexity there is,” said Nancy J. Cox, a virologist and former CDC official. “A lot of essential workers don’t have the same voice, they don’t have the same political pull, and those kinds of things may be coming into play here.” Transportation is among the front-line occupations in which workers of color are most overrepresented, accounting for 56.7 percent of bus drivers and other transit workers, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a D.C. think tank. More broadly, about 4 in 10 front-line workers are Black, Hispanic, Asian American or Pacific Islander, the group estimated. Many, like Bruce Caines, also have underlying health conditions. The 61-year-old, who has diabetes, works at a Trader Joe’s on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. During his shift, from 3 to 11 p.m., he unloads deliveries, stocks shelves, rings up customers. The elderly are not the only ones at risk, said Caines, who suffered a mild case of covid-19 in February and does not want to get sick again. “In my store, we already lost one crew member, a young guy in his early 20s,” he said. Targeting front-line workers such as Caines, who is Black, “will be taking an equity approach,” said Richard Besser, who is chief executive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy focused exclusively on health, and a former top CDC official. “It would be a tragedy if communities of color that have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic are not viewed as a priority for receiving the vaccine.” The CDC advisory group estimates there are about 87 million essential workers, and states may choose to prioritize some over others. Many states, meanwhile, are building more-granular priorities into each phase, seeking to dodge the choice between front-line workers and elderly people. Tennessee’s draft plan makes adults with chronic conditions a priority before “critical infrastructure workers” and

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U.S. bans technology exports to Chinese semiconductor and drone companies, calling them security threats

trade rules and is detrimental to the interests of both Chinese and American companies,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said. The Trump administration began restricting exports to SMIC in September by notifying some U.S. companies that they would need a license to export to the chip maker. Inclusion on the Entity List is a broader sanction. SMIC, which was founded in 2000 in Shanghai, is among the top five semiconductor manufacturers in the world, according to a report from the United States International Trade Commission, or USITC. Industry experts say that SMIC’s technology lags behind that of chip manufacturers in Taiwan and the United States but that Beijing is pouring billions into the industry to help SMIC and other Chinese companies catch up. SMIC has enjoyed generous government financial support, including low-interest loans, tax breaks and investments to help the company build manufacturing facilities, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris said in a report last year. Commerce said that the export ban will apply to technology “uniquely required” to produce advanced semiconductors with silicon transistors sized at 10 nanometers or smaller. There are 1 billion nanometers in a meter. Chip-industry experts say SMIC and other Chinese companies are not yet able to make such advanced semiconductors and will for now need software and equipment from the United States and other Western countries to reach that capability. SMIC started as a private company, but state ownership has steadily grown over time to more than 45 percent of SMIC stock as of 2018, according to the OECD report. SMIC’s shares used to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange, but the company removed its stock from the NYSE last year. The shares now trade on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges. SMIC’s stock, held by some Western investors, fell 5 percent in Hong Kong trading Friday. The additions to the list also include some lesser-known Chinese companies, such as NucTech, which makes luggage- and cargo-screening equipment. The Trump administration said it had determined that “NucTech’s lower performing equipment impair[s] U.S. efforts to counter illicit international trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive materials.” NucTech couldn’t immediately be reached to comment. The administration also added several Russian entities, including OOO Sovtest Comp and Cosmos Complect, to the list, saying they appear to have used a front company to acquire “sensitive electronic components” for use in Russia without obtaining required licenses.

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Maverick astrophysicist calls for unusually intense solar cycle, straying from consensus view

a similarly quiet cycle 25. They’re calling for that peak to occur in July 2025, give or take about eight months. But McIntosh, who is now NCAR’s deputy director and previously directed its High Altitude Observatory, estimates a sunspot number more than double what the joint panel is predicting. The scientists on the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel produced their outlook by reviewing and vetting a number of predictions across the solar science and astrophysics community. Among them is Doug Biesecker, the panel’s co-chair and a scientist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Among the diverse panel, different ideas were discussed and debated. Disagreements often stemmed from the state of the science, Biesecker explained, and how poorly understood the underlying physics of the sun are. “We concluded it would be similar in strength to the cycle that’s just died,” said Gordon Petrie, a scientist at the National Solar Observatory. “This is a comparatively weak number. [Cycle 23] was about 50 percent stronger than [cycle 24], and going back to the 1950s, the cycles were much stronger [still.]” In stark contrast to the panel’s forecast are the prophecies of McIntosh, who anticipates that the upcoming solar cycle could be the most active in half a century. He has developed a prediction technique he says foreshadows a coming period of solar volatility. “If the relationship, [which] was developed off 24 cycles, holds, the number [of sunspots] coming out is double what the consensus prediction was from the various panel members was,” McIntosh said. His group pinned their forecast at “233 [sunspots] with error bars” during the peak of Solar Cycle 25. “And those error bars are not huge,” McIntosh added. “The data just smacks you in the face.” Predicting discolorations on the surface of a star 93 million miles away might seem like an abstract art, but it’s actually a vital exercise. That’s because the Earth is susceptible to “space weather,” or the effects of “storms” launched from the sun. The storms hurl high-energy particles toward the Earth, along with intense spurts of magnetic energy. That can have a pretty visible manifestation in the form of the aurora borealis and australis, but other impacts can be much more severe. “Big [solar] cycles cause things to fall out of low Earth orbit more quickly,” explained Biesecker. That can be problematic for satellites, which are integral for global economies and commerce. “[Energy from solar

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Japan had ordered enough vaccines for the whole country. Now it has to overcome a history of vaccine mistrust.

here. At least 22 people later developed interstitial pneumonia and nine died — a problem that has barely been observed in the West. “It was later discovered that the dose of the drug used in Japan was a little too high for the Japanese people,” said Masayuki Miyasaka, an emeritus professor of immunology at Osaka University. Pfizer and AstraZeneca have both conducted small-scale clinical trials of their coronavirus vaccines in Japan, but a large-scale final-phase trial is impractical given the relatively low incidence of the coronavirus in the country. Still, the government is likely to fast-track the approval process to meet its midyear vaccination ­target. Takashi Nakano of Kawasaki Medical School, a member of a Health Ministry advisory board on vaccines, said the vaccination program could begin in March. “This is the dilemma, between the need for intervention as soon as possible, and the need for more time to convince people the vaccine is safe and effective,” Iwata said. Japan’s parliament amended the vaccination law this month to make the coronavirus vaccine free to residents. The government also promised to cover medical costs and disability allowances in case of serious side effects, and shoulder any damages on behalf of vaccine suppliers. The problem is that Japan’s government doesn’t enjoy high levels of public trust, especially over its coronavirus policy. “Openness and transparency are things the government lacks,” said Iwata. “They try to avoid discussion, and they are very good at avoiding criticism.” That means the government may struggle to reassure people when the inevitable setbacks occur. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee will strongly encourage athletes to get inoculated before competing in the Games. The Japanese government is likely to encourage spectators to do the same, especially if they are coming from abroad. Confidence may rise if vaccines work well in the West. Impatience to return to a normal life may also motivate people to get vaccinated, and some companies might encourage employees to do so. Still, experts say it will be tough to get enough people vaccinated to stamp out the pandemic by the time the Games take place. Nakano said the Olympics can still go ahead in that environment, based on frequent and rapid testing of athletes and spectators. But a normal Olympics? Miyasaka calls that “unrealistic.” “Maybe you will have a limited number of people in the stadium or gymnasium,” he said. “Otherwise the Games can’t be held.”