The Washington Post - 13.08.2019

(Kiana) #1

Kashmir clampdown Hundreds of politicians


and party workers were detained as India


seeks to maintain control in the region. A


Newark water crisis New Jersey’s largest city


began giving bottled water to residents after


struggling with lead issues for two years. A


HEALTH & SCIENCE
‘My entire scalp
was on fire’
Her pain was called a
headache; it wasn’t. E

STYLE
Neighborly advice
for parents
Fred Rogers was for kids
— and adults, too. C

In the news


THE NATION
The trial of a former
Obama White House
counsel involving his
work for Ukraine high-
lights a crackdown on
the foreign-influence in-
dustry. A
At the Def Con confer-
ence, hackers and law-
makers came together to
examine holes in U.S.
election security. Their
instructions: “Please
break things.” A
A friend of the gunman
who killed nine people
outside a Dayton, Ohio,
bar told authorities he
bought body armor and
equipment for the at-
tacker. A

THE WORLD
A 13-year-old Kenyan
chess prodigy has invita-
tions to compete in tour-
naments around the
world. But the govern-
ment won’t issue her a
passport. A
Two experimental
Ebola treatments signif-
icantly increase survival
rates for those infected
with the often deadly
disease, scientists an-
nounced, providing
hope for containing an
outbreak that has rav-
aged eastern Congo. A
Russia held funerals
for five nuclear workers
who died while testing a
new missile. A

THE ECONOMY
CBS and Viacom are
getting closer to a merg-
er, as the two companies
look to compete with
larger media industry
players. A
Retailers reported in-
creased demand for bul-
let-resistant everyday
products such as back-
packs and jackets for
children. A
Stocks continued to
sink amid fears that the
ongoing U.S.-China
trade dispute is making
a global recession more
likely. A

THE REGION
Stung by online sale
sites and changing
tastes, the Brass Knob
antiques store in Adams

Morgan is set to close af-
ter 38 years. B
In increasingly liberal
Northern Virginia, offi-
cials pushed back on
federal plans to open a
shelter for unaccompa-
nied minors in the re-
gion. B
As rodent complaints
soar, D.C. health offi-
cials educate property
managers, private
exterminators and local
government employees
at an annual rat acad-
emy. B

SPORTS
To break the monotony
of rehab, Milwaukee
Brewers pitcher Brent
Suter set out to help save
the planet through envi-
ronmental advocacy. D

Inside


DANISH SIDDIQUI/REUTERS

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

DAILY CODE, DETAILS, B
The final paper code will be Friday,
the last day to earn PostPoints.

CONTENT © 2019
The Washington Post / Year 142, No. 251

ABCDE

Prices may vary in areas outside metropolitan Washington. SU V1 V2 V3 V


Severe t-storm 89/75 • Tomorrow: T-storm 86/73 B8 Democracy Dies in Darkness TUESDAY, AUGUST 13 , 2019. $

1284

BY ABIGAIL HAUSLOHNER,
NICK MIROFF,
MARIA SACCHETTI
AND TRACY JAN

Immigrants here legally who
use public benefits — such as
Medicaid, food stamps or housing
assistance — could have a tougher
time obtaining a green card under
a policy change announced Mon-
day that is at the center of the
Trump administration’s effort to
reduce immigration levels.
The new criteria for “Inadmis-
sibility on Public Charge
Grounds,” due to take effect
Oct. 15, will set stricter standards
for applicants seeking legal per-
manent residency in the United
States, criteria that will skew the
process in favor of the highly
skilled, high-income immigrants
President Trump covets. Since its

first days, the Trump administra-
tion has been seeking ways to
weed out immigrants the presi-
dent sees as undesirable, includ-
ing those who might draw on
taxpayer-funded benefits.
Wealth, education, age and
English-language skills will take
on greater importance in the
process of obtaining a green card,
which is the main hurdle in the
path to full U.S. citizenship. U.S.
immigration law has long-
standing provisions to screen out
foreigners who might be a burden
on society, but the rule change
amounts to an expansion of the
SEE IMMIGRATION ON A

Poor immigrants


face higher bar on


path to citizenship


BY DARRYL FEARS

The Trump administration
took its final step Monday to
weaken the Endangered Species
Act, a bedrock law that brought
the bald eagle, the American alli-
gator, the California condor, the
humpback whale and the grizzly
bear back from the brink of ex-
tinction.
New rules will allow the ad-
ministration to reduce the

amount of habitat set aside for
wildlife and remove tools that
officials use to predict future
harm to species as a result of
climate change. It will also reveal
for the first time in the law’s
45-year history the financial costs
of protecting wildlife.
The long-expected changes,
jointly announced by the Interior
and Commerce departments,
were undertaken as part of Presi-
dent Trump’s mandate to scale
back government regulations on
corporations, including the oil
and gas industry, that want to
drill on protected land.
“The revisions finalized with
this rulemaking fit squarely with-
in the president’s mandate of eas-
SEE ROLLBACK ON A

BY JENN ABELSON,
ANDREW BA TRAN,
BETH REINHARD
AND AARON C. DAVIS

B


y the time Clinton County Coroner Steve
Talbott arrived at the scene of an over-
dose in southern Kentucky, the bottles of
prescription pain pills usually had vanished.
Friends and relatives of the dead rarely had
answers to Talbott’s questions: What kind of
pills did they take and where did they come
from?
A toxicology report often answered the first
question. It was the second one that typically
eluded Talbott. As overdose deaths soared,
Talbott repeatedly called the state police,
hoping they could identify the source of
opioids poisoning his community, nestled in
the foothills along the Tennessee border.
SEE OPIOIDS ON A

BY TIMOTHY MCLAUGHLIN
AND ANNA KAM

hong kong — Thousands of
protesters shut down Hong
Kong’s international airport
Monday, defying an intensifying
police crackdown, as China is-
sued ominous warnings that de-
scribed the protests as “terror-
ism” and began massing a para-
military force in a southern
border city.
Fears have been mounting
that Beijing — squeezed by a
trade dispute with the United
States and approaching a nation-
wide celebration of the founding
of the People’s Republic of China
— will soon resort to military
action to quell the pro-democra-

cy protests in the semiautono-
mous territory. Chinese officials
and state news media actively
stoked those fears Monday.
“The radical demonstrators in
Hong Kong have repeatedly at-

tacked police with extremely
dangerous tools in recent days,
which constitutes a serious vio-
lent crime, and now they are
descending into terrorism,” said
Yang Guang, a spokesman for

the Hong Kong and Macao Af-
fairs Office in Beijing. It was the
first time the office had por-
trayed the protests in Hong
Kong as “terrorism.”
“We should relentlessly crack
down on such violent criminal
acts without mercy, and we firm-
ly support Hong Kong police and
judicial authorities in bringing
the criminals to justice as soon
as possible,” Yang told reporters
from state and Hong Kong me-
dia.
The nationalist Global Times
tabloid tweeted a video showing
Chinese armored personnel car-
riers heading toward the south-
ern city of Shenzhen, which
borders Hong Kong, ahead of
what the paper called “large-
scale exercises” by the People’s
Armed Police, a paramilitary
unit. “The tasks and missions of
the Armed Police include partici-
SEE HONG KONG ON A

Protests close Hong Kong airport


MANAN VATSYAYANA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

THOMAS PETER/REUTERS
TOP: A sit-in forced Hong Kong’s international airport to
cancel all flights. ABOVE: A protester wears a bandage in
solidarity with a demonstrator injured in clashes with police.

China calls actions


‘terrorism,’ moves troops


toward border


TRUMP TO EXPAND ‘PUBLIC CHARGE’ POLICY


Rule favors highly skilled over those needing help


New U.S. rules weaken


protections for wildlife


Power to shrink habitats,
ignore climate models
will face legal challenge

BY MATT ZAPOTOSKY,
DEVLIN BARRETT
AND RACHEL WEINER

Attorney General William P.
Barr on Monday decried what he
called a “failure” by federal deten-
tion center officials in New York
to secure Jeffrey Epstein, point-
ing to unspecified “irregularities”
there that preceded the wealthy
sex offender’s apparent suicide
while in government custody.
Barr’s comments underscored
the increasing scrutiny on the
Federal Bureau of Prisons and the


Metropolitan Correctional Cen-
ter in Manhattan, where Epstein,
66, was found hanging in his cell
Saturday morning, according to
officials familiar with the matter.
The Bureau of Prisons is part of
the Justice Department and falls
under Barr’s authority, and he
seemed to be blaming officials
there for what happened.
The FBI and the Justice De-
partment’s inspector general
have been aggressively investi-
gating Epstein’s death, focusing
on apparent breakdowns of pol-
icy at the facility in the hours
before staffers discovered him
unresponsive.
Barr made clear, too, that fed-
eral prosecutors’ investigation of
those who might have facilitated
Epstein’s alleged sex abuse of
minors will continue, even if
SEE EPSTEIN ON A

Barr: ‘Failure’ at prison


where Epstein died


Hanging is scrutinized;
attorney general vows to
continue sex abuse case

THE OPIOID FILES

For small fraction of pharmacies, huge role in crisis


Almost half of pills handled by
just 15% of stores, records show

MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST
This Kentucky pharmacy bought about 2.9 million pain pills from 2006 to 2012.

Q&A: What you need to know
about the Hong Kong protests. A

Rumor mill: Trump’s retweets keep
conspiracy theories in the news. C

At heart of crisis: Inside border
facility accused of caging kids. A
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