The Washington Post - 13.08.2019

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

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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