The Washington Post - 18.09.2019

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Taliban bombings Suicide attacks targeted

Kabul and a presidential rally in the deadliest

day for civilians since peace talks ended. A

Frustrating testimony Corey Lewandowski

dodged House Democrats’ questions about the

president’s potential obstruction of justice. A

FOOD

A balm for depression A cookbook author shares recipes that helped her bounce back from a low point. E

STYLE Online, trying to normalize hate Extremist groups are targeting children who are in a vulnerable developmental stage. C

In the News

THE NATION

The Justice Depart ment is seeking pro ceeds from Edward Snowden’s new book, al leging the exNSA con tractor violated nondis closure agreements. A The Supreme Court is closing ranks around Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh amid mis conduct allegations. A Tennessee unveiled a plan to turn Medicaid into a block grant, be coming a test case of how far the Trump ad ministration is willing to go on health care. A Construction of a bor der fence imperils more

than 20 sites within Ari zona’s Organ Pipe Cac tus National Monu ment, the National Park Service found. A Jeffrey Epstein’s dona tions to top universities helped him expand his elite circle of relation ships and is provoking uncomfortable talks at those institutions. A Bomb-detection dogs provided by the United States to foreign nations had poor care and living conditions. A

THE WORLD Two political outsiders advanced to a runoff to determine Tunisia’s

next president. A Hong Kong activists pressed Washington for tougher action, includ ing sanctions, to counter China’s erosion of the territory’s freedoms. A

THE ECONOMY Saudi Arabia said out put of crude oil will be restored by the month’s end after attacks on its oil industry. A Facebook unveiled its blueprint for an inde pendent oversight board to review the company’s content decisions. A

THE REGION The Washington Mon ument, which reopens Thursday, got a visit from the benefactor who

made the repairs possi ble. B D.C. authorities said a gunman shot and killed by officers Monday in Southeast Washington had fatally shot his brother before firing on police. B A Republican running for Loudoun County commonwealth’s attor ney defeated a challenge to her residency. B Amazon’s first Career Day drew thousands to Arlington, where the re tail giant plans a second headquarters. B A high-level D.C. staff er said the District’s new lottery and sports gam bling contract is fine, even as questions con tinue to swirl. B

Inside

RAHMAT GUL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

BUSINESS NEWS ....................... A COMICS ....................................... C OPINION PAGES ........................ A LOTTERIES...................................B OBITUARIES ................................ B TELEVISION ................................. C WORLD NEWS............................A

BY CAROL MORELLO

AND KAREEM FAHIM

The Trump administration an-
nounced that Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo would fly to the Per-
sian Gulf on Wednesday to discuss
a response to an attack on Saudi oil
facilities, as Iran’s supreme leader
ruled out any direct talks with the
United States.
Pompeo’s spur-of-the-moment
trip, which will include stops in
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, underscores the danger
that tensions with Iran could spiral
into a military conflict. President
Trump has said that Iran was prob-
ably responsible for the attack, but
that he would “like to avoid” a war,
while Pompeo has assigned blame
more directly.
The weekend attack, which the
United States says it believes origi-
nated in Iran despite claims by
rebels in Yemen that they carried it
out, appears to have dashed all
hope that Trump might meet with
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
at the U.N. General Assembly in
New York next week.
“A ll the officials in the Islamic
Republic unanimously believe that
there will be no negotiations at a ny
level with the United States,” Iran’s
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, said in remarks pub-
lished on his website.
U.S. forensics experts have been
dispatched to Saudi Arabia to as-
sist in an investigation of where the
SEE SAUDI ON A

BY JULIET EILPERIN

AND BRADY DENNIS

The Trump administration plans this week to revoke Califor- nia’s long-standing right to set stricter air p ollution standards for cars and light trucks, the latest step in a broad campaign to un- dermine Obama-era policies aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, two senior administration officials said. The move threatens to set in motion a massive legal battle be- tween California and the federal government, plunge automakers into a prolonged period of uncertainty and create turmoil in the nation’s a uto market. The Environmental Protection Agency declined to comment on the matter. But in a speech Tues- day to the National Automobile Dealers Association, EPA Admin- istrator Andrew Wheeler made his intentions clear. “We embrace federalism and the role of the states, but federalism does not mean that one state can dictate standards for the nation,” h e said. Already, 13 states and the Dis- trict of Columbia have vowed to adopt California’s standards if they diverge from the federal government’s, as have several major automakers. California leaders on SEE CALIFORNIA ON A

EPA to

curtail

Calif.

air rules

Pompeo

flying to

Mideast

for talks

BY HARRISON SMITH

Cokie Roberts, a journalist and political commentator who be- came one of the most prominent Washington broadcasters of her era and championed young women in media during a long career at NPR and ABC News, died Sept. 17 in Washington. She was 75. The cause was complications from breast cancer, according to a family statement provided by ABC. Ms. Roberts earned three Emmy Awards, was inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame in 2000 and was named a “living legend” by the Library of Congress in 2008. The consum- mate Washington insider, she had covered Capitol Hill since the Carter administration and was eulogized after her death by former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who called her “a constant over 40 years of a SEE ROBERTS ON A

BY LAURIE MCGINLEY,

NEENA SATIJA,

JOSH DAWSEY

AND YASMEEN ABUTALEB

Juul Labs did everything in the power players’ handbook to ce- ment its status in Washington. The Silicon Valley s tart-up worked to make friends in the nation’s capital. It hired senior White House officials wired into Presi- dent Trump and the first family. It sent politically connected o fficials to the West Wing to extol its products. It spent big on lawmakers in both parties. But last week, the e-cigarette giant, along with the rest of the vaping industry, was caught off guard when President Trump de- cided to take drastic action, ban- ning almost all flavored vaping products. “We can’t have our youth be s o affected,” h e said in t he Oval Office. The scope of the announcement stunned most of t he i ndustry, even

big companies like Juul that have carefully nurtured relationships with policymakers to gain influ- ence. But lately, those companies have also been undercut by a stream of reports about teen e-cigarette use and a mysterious lung illness tied to vaping — with a seventh death, in California, an- nounced Monday. Now some are going into crisis mode to try to protect against a ban that would p robably put small operators out of business and re- sult in m illion-dollar losses for the giants. Some companies have har- nessed staffers and lobbyists with ties to the White House and Capi- tol Hill to gather information about the still-unfinished policy and figure out how they might navigate a path forward, according to current and former admin- SEE VAPING ON A

Vaping industry goes into

crisis mode after Trump ban

COKIE ROBERTS 1943-

Pioneer, champion of women in media

MARVIN JOSEPH/THE WASHINGTON POST Cokie Roberts, at home in Bethesda in February, joined ABC News in 1988 after stints with CBS, NPR and PBS. She anchored “This Week” from 1996 until her 2 002 cancer diagnosis.

Secretary plans stops in Saudi Arabia, UAE amid tensions with Iran

MOVE TARGETS DEAL TO CAP EMISSIONS

Legal fight, turmoil in auto market are likely

BY ASHLEY PARKER

AND ANNIE LINSKEY

The battle began on the first
full day of Donald Trump’s presi-
dency, when the newly elected
president instructed his minions
to publicly exaggerate the size of
his inauguration crowds.
The fight raged on as Trump
continued to obsess and fret over
crowd size — boasting, touting
and sometimes inflating his own
adoring masses at campaign ral-
lies and presidential events.
Then finally this week, the
Democrats — who have long
tried to ignore Trump’s bigger-is-
better ethos — offered a tangible
response o f their o wn in the f orm
of Elizabeth Warren’s Monday
evening rally in New York City’s
Washington Square Park, where
the senator from Massachusetts
showed that she, too, could
match the spectacle of Trump,
right down to the large cheering
throngs.
SEE CROWD ON A

New focus on

crowd size as

Warren rally

rivals Trump’s

HEIDI LEVINE/POOL/REUTERS Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz, left, votes Tuesday in Rosh Haayin, Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu casts his ballot in Jerusalem. If the election results fall in line with exit polls, Israelis could be in for weeks of political uncertainty.

BY STEVE HENDRIX,

JAMES MCAULEY

AND RUTH EGLASH

tel aviv — Voters in Israel’s do-over election on Tuesday left both of the two main parties well short of a majority in the parliament, unofficial exit polls showed, likely teeing up weeks of political horse-trading and prolonged uncertainty over Prime Minister Benjamin Ne- tanyahu’s future. After a frantic final push by the candidates to get voters to the ballot box for the second time since April, Netanyahu’s Likud party appeared tied with or narrowly trailing its main rival, the Blue and White party led by former army chief of staff

Benny Gantz, exit polls showed. If confirmed by official results, the outcome would be a clear disappointment to Netan- yahu, an indomitable cam- paigner who blitzed the country through the final hours of the race. With two of his allied right-wing religious parties fall- ing short, political analysts could identify no ready path for Israel’s longest-serving prime minister to continue in office. When Netanyahu finally ap-

peared at 3 a.m. Wednesday in his largely empty election night headquarters in Te l Aviv, he was defiant. He told the few remain- ing supporters that he would fight on to ensure that Israel’s Arab citizens, whose party f ared exceptionally well at the polls, would not figure in the next government. “Better to lose your voice than lose the country,” a hoarse Netanyahu said. “A t this time, the State of Israel needs a Zion- ist government. There will be no government based on anti- Zionist Arab parties that deny the very existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” Hours earlier, the official Li- kud election celebration had begun loudly — some support-

ers rushed in carrying a “Trump 2020 ” banner to celebrate Ne- tanyahu’s close ties to the U.S. president — but the hall grew quieter after the release of the polls, soon emptying out. “It doesn’t look good,” said Henry Kadosh, 73, from the city of Rishon Lezion. Few Likud members, though, were willing to count out Netan- yahu, who has proved himself one of Israel’s great partisan combatants and is a vaunted political escape artist. “We know there is wishful thinking that Netanyahu will step down, but that’s not going to happen,” M inister for Region- al Cooperation Tz achi Hanegbi said over loud pop music in the SEE ISRAEL ON A

In Israeli exit polls, no clear winner

Likud’s close finish with main rival could spell trouble for Netanyahu

SEBASTIAN SCHEINER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Another patient dies California officials say the man had a vaping-related illness. A

People are ‘fed up’ Homeless people hurt “prestige” of California, Tr ump says. A