The Washington Post National Weekly - July 14, 2019

SUNDAY, JULY 14, 2019

. IN COLLABORATION WITH

ABCDE NATIONAL WEEKLY

Proponents in Brazil hail development as a lucrative opportunity. Scientists warn the area is on the brink of environmental crisis.

The price of ‘progress’ in the Amazon PAGE 12

Politics Epstein’s influential defenders 4

Nation Reclaiming Sandy Hook 8

5 Myths Chernobyl 23

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THE FIX

Trump aborts yet another plan A ARON B LAKE

Any of these last-minute about-faces could possibly be justified, by themselves. There was bipartisan praise for Trump’s restraint on Iran, ver the past month and a half, Presieven as Trump’s explanation didn’t exactly dent Trump has set in motion plans to make sense. (He said he called it off at the last strike Iran, ordered nationwide immiminute after asking for a loss-of-life assessgration raids, threatened punitive and ment, which should have been available at the imminent tariffs on Mexico and said he would start of the process.) The immigration raids fight to get a citizenship question on the census were delayed amid concerns by some that was rejected by the Supreme and hopes of a bipartisan deal but Court. appear to be on again in the next few Each time, he launched extensive days (for now!). The Mexico tariffs planning, created angst even among were called off after Mexico agreed to his own officials and some supporters help stem the flow of immigrants headand devoted significant government ed north, but Trump gave it (and the resources to preparation.

U.S. government) only about 10 days to And each time, he ultimately pulled figure things out. A deal was reached the plug. with less than two days to go.

Trump’s renewed push for a 2020 The totality of all of these things, Census citizenship question is the latthough, suggests a president who is est example of something he launched perfectly willing to set the government and then just as quickly scrapped. in motion on something that he either After the Supreme Court ruled two doesn’t intend to follow through on or weeks ago that the administration can’t make up his mind about. It doesn’t hadn’t been honest about its reasons really matter the scale or how many for the question, the Justice and Comgovernment servants might ultimately merce departments conceded defeat JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST waste time preparing for something — even doing so in court. But then big; everything is subject to change.

Trump tweeted that he would contin- President Trump, flanked by Secretary of Commerce Wilbur But what if he had just . . . decided ue to push for it, sending the Justice Ross and U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr, said Thursday he what he wanted to do before setting Department scrambling to rescue its would no longer pursue a citizenship question on the census. things in motion? The census citizenlegal case. ship question is a great example of something congratulating Trump for signing an executive Lawyers, one of whom called in from vacawhere there was really no need to send everyaction seeking to try to get citizenship data by tion to an emergency teleconference with a one running around setting their hair on fire. other means. judge, pleaded with the judge to understand Nor was there a need for nine days of Justice But this was clearly backing down. Things their dilemma. They admitted they weren’t Department lawyers being tortured while trywere left in almost exactly the same place they sure what their bosses, including Trump, actuing to make Trump’s apparent Twitter whim a were after the Supreme Court decision, except ally wanted to do, but said they would find out. reality. those Justice lawyers apparently get to explain Answers were slow in coming. The Justice It’s a recipe for a lot of people in very to the judge (again) why the thing they told him Department then tried to swap out its team of important positions being pretty upset at and before no longer applies. lawyers — apparently in part because of dissenfrustrated by the president they serve. n It’s a hell of a way to do business. sion about how the whole thing was being

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handled — but that effort was rejected by judges in two separate cases. It was a mess.

And it was all for naught. For the second time in nine days, the administration on Thursday waved the white flag on the census citizenship question. Trump and Attorney General William P. Barr tried to put a nice spin on it, with Trump saying he wasn’t “backing down” and Barr

This publication was prepared by editors at The Washington Post for printing and distribution by our partner publications across the country. All articles and columns have previously appeared in The Post or on washingtonpost.com and have been edited to fit this format. For questions or comments regarding content, please e-mail weekly@washpost.com. If you have a question about printing quality, wish to subscribe, or would like to place a hold on delivery, please contact your local newspaper’s circulation department. © 2019 The Washington Post / Year 5, No. 40

CONTENTS POLITICS THE NATION THE WORLD COVER STORY FOOD BOOKS OPINION FIVE MYTHS

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ON THE COVER A relocated home sits along the Xingu River in Altamira, Para state, Brazil. Photo

by JABIN BOTSFORD of The Washington Post

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POLITICS

A network of powerful defenders BY

M ARC F ISHER

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or decades, Jeffrey Epstein, the finance whiz who has been charged with sex trafficking, moved with open ease between the planet’s highest echelons of power and what prosecutors portray as a sordid world of recruiting and sexually abusing teenage girls.

He met with leaders of the top universities and research labs, traveled with presidents and princes, and managed money for leading business figures. He said the minimum investment he would handle was $1 billion.

Even as dozens of women were looking to police, prosecutors and courts to hold Epstein to account for his alleged sexual abuses, he was amassing a stunning list of contacts and, in some cases, defenders across the worlds of politics, Hollywood, medical research, diplomacy, finance and law.

From humble beginnings in Brooklyn’s Coney Island as the son of a parks worker, Epstein, a college dropout, became a crackerjack trader on Wall Street — a math genius who taught at a Manhattan private school until he was offered a job at Bear Stearns in 1976. He made lots of money for some of the firm’s wealthy clients, and in 1981, he set out on his own, becoming a financial adviser to Leslie Wexner, founder of the Limited retail empire.

Before long, Epstein, now 66, was not just helping the rich get richer but was also building his own fortune — and flaunting it with a dazzling array of properties and perks. His house in Manhattan was said to be the largest private home in the city, valued at $77 million; his estate in Palm Beach rivaled those of Donald Trump and other billionaires.

Epstein used his money to construct a worldwide network of contacts. He donated large sums toward neuroscience research at Harvard and a California lab. He flew former president Bill Clinton and actor Kevin Spacey to Africa to promote AIDS awareness. He was a member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on

UMA SANGHVI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jeffrey Epstein amassed an impressive list of boldface names Foreign Relations. Many influential people liked to be around Epstein. He was smart, curious, fun.

He wasn’t shy about his money.

Epstein’s black book of contacts — the directory that his Palm Beach butler, Alfredo Rodriguez, stole and later was obtained by the FBI — includes Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger; more than a dozen aides to Clinton; other celebrities such as Alec Baldwin, Naomi Campbell and Jimmy Buffett; media titans such as Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg; business magnates such as Richard Branson, Steve Forbes and Edgar Bronfman Jr.; Kennedys, Rockefellers and Rothschilds; lords and ladies; ambassadors and senators.

There are Democrats and Republicans, movie stars and movie moguls, an Israeli prime minister (Ehud Barak) and Saudi royals

(Bandar and Salman), prime ministers and fellow billionaires. The list includes Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and sex counselor Dr. Ruth Westheimer, comic John Cleese and director Julie Taymor, and TV journalists Barbara Walters and Mike Wallace.

“Celebrities, politicians and Hollywood producers hang out with Epstein for one reason . . . he’s got all the toys,” said Conchita Sarnoff, executive director of the Alliance to Rescue Victims of Trafficking and author of a book on the Epstein case, “TrafficKing.” “He has all the trappings — the yachts, the helicopter, the private island, the private jet.”

The right people were often quite wealthy, and the markers of their riches included having multiple homes, fleets of vehicles and, as his phone book from the time before smartphones details, a re-

Jeffrey Epstein, center, has been arrested in New York on sex trafficking charges. Epstein used his money to construct a worldwide network of contacts.

markable array of phone numbers. For example, Epstein’s primary client, Wexner, whose holdings included Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch, is listed with 25 car phones — ways to reach him in his various Mercedes, Range Rovers, Jeeps, Porsches and a Lincoln Town Car. (Wexner has said he severed ties with Epstein after allegations of sexual misdeeds surfaced more than a decade ago.)

Epstein also built relationships at Harvard. Although he never attended the university, he pledged a $30 million gift in 2003 to set up a program to use math to study molecular biology, and he served on the board of the school’s committee on Mind, Brain and Behavior. Epstein opened an office in Cambridge, Mass., to be near some of his allies at Harvard.

After Epstein was first charged

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JOE SKIPPER/REUTERS

with abusing women in 2006, Harvard said it would not return a $6.5 million donation.

Epstein pleaded guilty state court in Florida in 2007 to charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution, resolving allegations that he had molested numerous girls. He served 13 months in jail, though he was allowed out six days a week to work from his office in Palm Beach. He was also registered as a sex offender. On Monday, he pleaded not guilty to new federal sex trafficking charges in New York that accuse him of abusing dozens of underage girls in the early 2000s. He faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

At the time of Harvard’s decision, several politicians who had received contributions from Epstein returned them, including then-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

Epstein developed relationships with politicians in New York, Florida and New Mexico, where he had a ranch he named Zorro. He also knew and spent time with two presidents, Clinton and Trump.

“Epstein surrounded himself with politicians to gain leverage,” Sarnoff said. “They gave him protection, credibility and social mobility.”

If the black book is any guide to the proximity Epstein had to the many boldface names in its pages, then his relationship with Trump was a significant one. Epstein listed 14 phone numbers for Trump; his wife, Melania; his longtime personal assistant, Norma Foerderer; his houseman; and his security officer. Other Trumps in the book include the president’s

brother Robert and his wife, Blaine; the president’s ex-wife Ivana; and their daughter, Ivanka.

There is no implication that most of the hundreds of people in the book were involved in or aware of Epstein’s alleged abuse of young girls. Some people listed in the book said they barely know him.

But after federal agents obtained the list, Rodriguez, the butler, circled a few names in black and noted them as “witnesses.”

They included people who worked at Epstein’s Palm Beach estate and some other associates, including Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor, and Trump, both of whom have denied any knowledge of Epstein’s alleged sexual abuses.

Trump banned Epstein from his Mar-a-Lago estate after a teenage girl who worked in the club’s locker room was recruited to give Epstein a massage, according to David Boies, an attorney for one of Epstein’s alleged victims.

Flight logs show Clinton traveling on Epstein’s private Boeing 727 more than 20 times in the early 2000s, to destinations in Asia, Europe and Africa, and the former president described Epstein in 2002 as “a committed philanthropist with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science. I especially appreciated his insights and generosity during the recent trip to Africa.”

Clinton reached that judgment after spending a month with Epstein on a trip to Africa to boost AIDS awareness, according to a letter that attorneys Gerald Lefcourt and Dershowitz wrote to federal prosecutors in defense of Epstein in 2007.

DAVIDOFF STUDIOS/GETTY IMAGES

The letter, first reported in 2016

by Fox News, said Epstein was a founding donor to the Clinton Global Initiative. His name does not appear in public documents detailing CGI’S leadership.

Messages left for Clinton Foundation spokesmen were not returned Tuesday, but Clinton’s representatives issued a statement saying that he “knows nothing about the terrible crimes” to which Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida and that Clinton took “a total of four trips” on Epstein’s plane, with Secret Service agents accompanying the former president each time. Some of those trips included multiple stops.

The phone list is also a guide to Epstein’s globe-trotting lifestyle, with entries for his Paris apartment, his 100-acre Caribbean island, and a Manhattan property listed as “apt. for models.”

Under “Massage” in the book’s Florida section, there are phone numbers for 109 women, listed by first name only, except for one who is identified as “Janine (red head).”

Epstein’s influential allies have included a dream team of defense lawyers, such as Dershowitz; former special prosecutor Kenneth Starr; and white-collar defense attorneys Lefcourt, Roy Black and Jay Lefkowitz. Alexander Acosta, who resigned Friday as labor secretary, was U.S. attorney in Miami in 2007 and cut a non-prosecution deal that scrapped a federal indictment of Epstein. Acosta defended his handling of the case during a Wednesday news conference, but the scrutiny was still intense and by Friday morning he had decided to step down.

That legal battle began on a

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EMILY MICHOT/MIAMI HERAALD/ZUMAPRESS

From left: Epstein’s residences include this home in Palm Beach.

Donald Trump and Epstein at Mar-aLago in 1997; Trump later banned him from the estate after allegations that Epstein recruited a teenage employee to give him massages.

Epstein’s blue private jet, parked at the Palm Beach, Fla., airport.

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta was a U.S. attorney during Epstein’s 2008 plea deal.

spring day in 2005, when a Palm Beach woman called police to report that a rich man in a waterfront mansion sexually abused her stepdaughter, who was 14.

Yet even as Palm Beach police detectives pressed their investigation, and through years of legal wrangling over whether and how Epstein would be punished for his alleged abuses, many powerful people continued to defend him or minimize his acts, as they had for many years.

In 2002, when a writer described Epstein’s passion for young girls in a piece submitted to Vanity Fair magazine, that material was removed from the story, according to the author, Vicky Ward. The magazine’s editor at the time, Graydon Carter, has said that the story’s reporting did not meet the publication’s standards.

After Epstein donated $100,000 to Ballet Florida to establish a fund for the dancers to get massages, the ballet company’s marketing director said the “massage and therapy fund is excruciatingly important to us,” according to an account in New York magazine in 2007.

Some who had seen Epstein with young girls referred to his “peccadilloes,” and some who knew that teens were often guests at his Caribbean island estate would say they didn’t know that the girls were underage.

“When you have a lot of money, people act differently,” Sarnoff said. “They think they’re above the law. And they’re constantly worried about their money. Epstein made them think he could build their fortunes, and they protected him.” n

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Democrats aim to blame McConnell BY

R OBERT C OSTA

D

emocrats are increasingly focused on making Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a political villain as they attempt to win back control of the Senate in next year’s election and galvanize the party’s liberal base.

That effort gained new momentum on Tuesday as Amy McGrath, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and combat pilot, announced she would challenge McConnell (R-Ky.) and blamed him for turning Washington into “something we despise” in a campaign video that drew millions of views.

While McGrath faces a steep climb against McConnell in rubyred Kentucky, which President Trump carried by 30 percentage points in 2016, she is expected to raise significant funds from national Democrats and provide the party with a relentless and highprofile opponent.

McGrath’s entry comes a few weeks after Democrats succeeded in recruiting Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon to run against Sen. Susan Collins (R). Gideon previewed her campaign by putting McConnell front and center in her announcement video, showing several clips of him and criticizing Collins for working with the GOP leader and Trump to overhaul the federal judiciary and tax code.

“The majority leader has extraordinary power and is the primary obstacle to getting things done here in the U.S. Senate,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in an interview Tuesday. “He is also the face of acquiescence to Trump and the Republicans’ lack of a spine. The most effective arguments are often about a personality, a personal face and a story, and this story has the great virtue of being true.”

The latest critiques reflect a growing movement within Democratic ranks to make the 2020 election cycle not just a referendum on Trump, but also a purging of McConnell and entrenched Republicans who have given conservatives immense sway over

PHILIP SCOTT ANDREWS FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

They hope casting Senate majority leader as a villain will galvanize base, help party win chamber policy and judicial vacancies while enabling Trump’s priorities, from hard-line immigration policies at the U.S.-Mexico border to sweeping deregulation.

Republicans hold a 53-to-47 majority, and Democrats see opportunities to reclaim the Senate with an unpopular president at the top of the ticket and the GOP defending nearly twice as many seats. But a handful of marquee recruits, like former state legislative leader Stacey Abrams in Georgia, have declined to run, and a few presidential candidates have shown no interest in abandoning a White House bid for a Senate campaign.

Joining the anti-McConnell chorus are the presidential candidates, who have called the Republican a direct threat to making progress on signature party issues such as gun control, health care and climate change.

“We’re not going to get anywhere as long as Mitch McConnell has the keys to the car,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a

Democratic presidential contender, said earlier this year at a forum in Austin.

That sentiment was evident at last month’s Democratic presidential debates in Florida when 2020 candidates were asked by moderators about their plans to deal with McConnell if they win.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (DMass.), who favors getting rid of the legislative filibuster to eliminate obstacles if Democrats win the Senate, said she would push McConnell “from the outside, have leadership from the inside and make this Congress reflect the will of the people.”

McConnell later said he was “thrilled” with the mentions.

The fixation on McConnell has echoes of how Republicans used Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as a strategic bugbear in their 2010 campaign to capture the House majority, and consultants say it could help Democrats draw attention to contests that until recently have flown under the radar as the crowded presidential primary

Amy McGrath, shown after losing a 2018 House race, said Tuesday that she would challenge Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2020.

has heated up and Trump makes headlines.

“Whether Trump wins or loses, a Democratic Senate is the ultimate way of stopping him and his agenda, once and for all,” Jim Manley, a longtime Democratic senatorial aide, said. “And in a hyperpartisan environment, making McConnell a symbol could serve as a powerful inducement.”

Still, Manley said, Democrats must work to raise McConnell’s profile nationally and keep up sustained attacks because Trump’s overwhelming presence makes McConnell an effective but far lesser known foil.

McConnell, one of the nation’s highest-ranking leaders, is the polar opposite of Trump in terms of personality: an exceedingly dry, clipped and occasionally droll politician. He relishes his reputation as the “grim reaper” of the Senate who blocks Democratic legislation and liberal ambitions.

Democratic leaders, such as Pelosi, have worked to remind voters this summer that McConnell should be held responsible for his alliance with Trump and the conditions at migrant detention centers. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Monday that she is “appalled by the conditions” facing families who have crossed into the United States.

“Mitch McConnell doesn’t care about the children,’’ Pelosi said in a recent interview with the New York Times.

McConnell did not express any concern about McGrath on Tuesday, telling reporters it would be a “spirited race.”

“Particularly since I’ve become leader of my party in the Senate, I’ve noticed I get more attention than I used to,” he said. “I look forward to the contest,” and, he added, “I actually enjoy campaigning.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called McGrath a “great candidate” and said “she realizes this is a tough fight. She realizes that Mitch McConnell will throw the kitchen sink at her.” n

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NATION

Sandy Hook parents fight back BY

S USAN S VRLUGA

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t was just weeks after 26 people were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School when Lenny Pozner first saw people speculating online that the rampage had been staged, with crisis actors responding to a fake attack.

His 6-year-old son, Noah Pozner, who had gone to school that morning in a Batman sweatshirt, was one of the 20 children killed in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012.

Before the funerals had even concluded, an online conspiracy theory made targets of grieving family members. Strangers hurled insults at Pozner, asking how much he got paid to play his part in the government-sponsored hoax. They used photos of his son, with his tousled brown hair and round cheeks, on websites claiming the shooting was faked to generate urgency for gun-control laws. Then came the death threats.

It was the stuff of madness. But in a time of madness — in a world in which science can be dismissed as political ploy and videos might reflect truth or fabrication — Pozner found himself having to fight to prove, over and over, that his son had lived, and his son had died.

June marked a turning point: He won a lawsuit against the editors of a book that claimed no one was killed in the attack. A Wisconsin judge issued a summary judgment against James H. Fetzer and Mike Palecek, finding they defamed Pozner with statements that his son’s death certificate was a ruse.

In a separate settlement, the book’s publisher agreed to stop selling it.

Pozner has been trying to reclaim his son’s history for years.

To combat the hoaxers, he has used earnest pleas, official complaints, rhetoric, lawsuits. He and volunteers from the HONR Network, a nonprofit organization he founded to combat the harassment, have challenged targets obscure and gargantuan, from lone

FAMILY PHOTO

Targeted by online conspiracy theorists, families of those killed turn to courts to reclaim the truth conspiracy theorists to companies as powerful as Google.

Increasingly, families of others killed at Sandy Hook have started fighting back publicly. Relatives and prosecutors have brought at least nine cases against hoaxers, according to an attorney for a group of plaintiffs, including three in Connecticut consolidated by the court. In recent months, family members have started seeing real gains in a fight most were reluctant to wage.

In Connecticut, there was a turning point, too, with a judge imposing sanctions on Alex Jones, who runs the conspiracy-driven Infowars website, and agreeing to a trial in a defamation case.

Litigation is incredibly invasive and inconvenient and expensive, said Jake Zimmerman, an attorney for Pozner. It can also be a powerful weapon against rumor and innuendo, with rules of evidence and civil procedure built over hundreds of years.

“You have to rely on documents instead of things like hear-

say,” he said.

They handed the judge in the Wisconsin case Noah Pozner’s death certificate, with its raised seal, to disprove the allegation in the book that images of the certificate had been altered or faked.

They turned over 70 pages of pediatric medical records.

They asked the court to appoint an independent expert to compare a sample of Lenny Pozner’s DNA with a sample, obtained from the medical examiner, of Noah Pozner’s DNA. “Unimpeded conspiracy theories distort truth and erase history,” Pozner said afterward.

“They dehumanize victims. People like Fetzer who hide behind their computer screen and terrorize people grappling with the most unimagined grief, were put on notice,” he said, as were social media companies that allow their platforms to be weaponized.

Fetzer told The Washington Post in an email that he was dumbfounded by the ruling in Wisconsin. “The decision by the

Lenny Pozner holds his son, Noah, who was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.

Court was improper on multiple grounds and I am going to do whatever I can to correct the record. The American public has been played by one fake event after another and deserves to know the truth,” Fetzer wrote.

The lawsuit against him was never about defamation, Fetzer wrote online, “but about suppressing freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The Deep State does not want the American people to grasp the extent to which they have been bamboozled by their own government.”

In three cases against Jones in Texas — including one brought by Pozner and Noah’s mother, Veronique De La Rosa — Mark Bankston, an attorney for the parents, said Jones’s obsession with Sandy Hook had created “a seven-year open wound” for the families.

In one case, Neil Heslin sued Jones and other defendants for defamation in 2017 for statements made on Jones’s Infowars website that Heslin was lying when he recalled holding his son’s body after the shooting.

In another, Scarlett Lewis seeks damages because of the false narrative promoted on Infowars, with stories mocking her and other parents of victims as liars.

De La Rosa and Pozner’s case accuses Jones of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress — for harassing families for years and for claiming De La Rosa was an actor in a faked interview on CNN about the shooting.

A judge has denied motions to dismiss the cases brought by Heslin, De La Rosa and Pozner, and Lewis, and the defendants have appealed those decisions.

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he shooting happened on a Friday. By Sunday, Robbie Parker, whose 6-year-old daughter, Emilie, was killed in the attack, knew there were videos accusing him of being a crisis actor, because people were posting them on a social media page that friends created as a memorial to Emilie.

The page was quickly inundated. Parker was getting emails to

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NATION his personal and work addresses.

By the time of Emilie’s funeral, he had already been threatened.

The conspiracy theories affected much of Newtown. The school board and other agencies received relentless demands for public records. FBI agents, emergency workers and others were accused of participating in the hoax.

Strangers were showing up in town and videotaping children.

At first, Parker was confused, assuming the wild theories would quickly subside. He didn’t realize how social media would fuel those ideas and sustain them, providing a shroud of anonymity and making it easy for ideas to go viral.

“They were able to do a lot of really harmful things with no understanding of the consequences of it and without any threat of being held responsible,” he said.

It wasn’t until the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that the path forward became clear.

A friend asked Parker to talk to parents whose daughter had died in the Florida shooting. The mother, in shock, told him people were harassing the victims’ families in Parkland and claiming no one had died.

That’s when he realized, he said, that a lawsuit might not only help protect the memory of his daughter and keep his family safe, but also prevent other families from being victimized anew.

The Newtown families were bewildered at first, said Chris Mattei, an attorney for those families.

Then many hoped it would fade away. Instead, it intensified, he said, inflamed by Jones’s enormous public platform on Infowars. The families’ lawsuit filed in Connecticut argues that the stories Jones promotes are designed to create an audience and a market for his retail store that sells nutritional supplements and other items.

The case was brought by eight families of people killed at Sandy Hook and an FBI agent who responded to the scene. It was filed against Jones, several corporate entities, a conspiracy theorist who has been a guest on Infowars and his associate.

In June, Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis in Connecticut imposed sanctions on Jones, citing two reasons. First, she said his legal team failed to produce several documents, despite repeated

JULIO CORTEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS

orders that they be provided. Second, the judge referenced what she described as a 20-minute “deliberate tirade and harassment and intimidation” on Jones’s broadcast about the lawsuit, Mattei and the discovery of child pornography that had been included in electronic documents Jones’s attorneys submitted.

Bellis criticized the defendants’ delays in producing documents and noted that electronic records, when provided to the court, included images of child pornography.

She took sharp exception to Jones’s response to that on Infowars.

If Jones believed those images were planted in an attempt to frame him, she wrote, he should have alerted authorities and filed a motion alerting the court; his lawyers could have asked the lawsuit to be dismissed for that reason.

“What is not appropriate,” Bellis wrote, “what is indefensible, unconscionable, despicable, and possibly criminal behavior is to accuse opposing counsel, through a broadcast, no less, of planting child pornography, which is a serious felony.”

Bellis ordered Jones to pay some of the plaintiffs’ legal fees as part of the sanction and told the defendants they could not pursue a motion to dismiss. She set a trial date for November 2020.

Jones’s attorneys have asked the Connecticut Supreme Court to review Bellis’s decision.

Norm Pattis, an attorney for Jones, said an important principle is at stake in the case.

“Our contention is he violated no law in offering the opinions he did. To silence him because his views were unpopular might be easy in this case, given the public sympathy for Sandy Hook families,” Pattis said, but that could erode First Amendment protections. “Defending Mr. Jones’s right to speak involves defending all of our right to speak.”

Jones no longer doubts the shootings took place but had the right to ask questions about what happened, Pattis said.

People turn to Jones because a crisis of legitimacy afflicts the country, Pattis said, with suspicions about information from the government and the media.

“People don’t know who to believe,” Pattis said.

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ven in those first weeks and months after the shooting, in a haze of grief and shock, Pozner knew what was happening online. He had seen conspiracy theories grow and spiral online, drawing in the curious and the skeptical. He didn’t know yet what it was to be trapped in one.

He sent an email to Jones: “Haven’t we had our share of pain and suffering?”

Top: Officials are seen outside Sandy Hook Elementary School after the mass shooting.

Center: Lucy Richards was sentenced to five months in prison for making death threats against Lenny Pozner.

Bottom: Alex Jones has been sued for defamation by victims’ relatives.

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In the wrenching, chaotic year that followed, he knew the lies continued, but he had no emotional bandwidth to respond. Bit by bit, he started to try to reclaim the truth. He posted photos of Noah, his mother and sisters.

When people used the photos of Noah in blog posts claiming a hoax, Pozner and volunteers from the HONR Network asked that the pictures be removed, relying on copyright law when needed.

In December 2015, when President Trump was campaigning for office, he praised Jones’s “amazing” reputation while appearing on his show.

That same month, De La Rosa and Pozner wrote an opinion piece in the South Florida SunSentinel: It had been three years since their son died, they wrote, and people continued to badger them for proof of Noah’s existence.

They asked Florida Atlantic University officials to fire James Tracy, a professor who kept a blog with claims that the Newtown shooting had been staged.

They had filed a police report claiming harassment, they wrote, after Tracy sent a certified letter demanding proof they were Noah’s parents.

The university started termination proceedings against Tracy in January 2016.

That month, Pozner received threatening messages warning him death was imminent. “I was stunned,” he said. “I could hear her voice and the vitriol and hate in her words.”

In 2017, a Florida woman, Lucy Richards, was sentenced to five months in prison for making death threats against Pozner.

Pozner moves often and tries to keep his address secret.

Pozner and the HONR Network have been pushing companies to be more responsive to complaints about conspiracy theories, with change coming from major platforms such as WordPress, Facebook and Google. In June, YouTube announced that it would remove content denying the occurrence of well-documented violent events such as Sandy Hook.

Story by story, site by site, year after year, Pozner has been working to restore the truth about his son. If the hoax idea is a brush fire, he wants to control the burn — not extinguish it so no one can hear the idea, but limit its spread and destructiveness. n

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COVER STORY The Belo Monte dam in Altamira, Brazil, utilizes a “run of the river� design that diverts part of the Xingu River into a secondary reservoir.

Development in the Amazon has brought new homes, a new

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BY ANTHONY FAIOLA , MARINA LOPES AND CHRIS MOONEY

in Altamira, Brazil

Isolated indigenous tribes, three-toed sloths and stealthy jaguars still populate this corner of the Amazon rain forest.

But now, it is also the home of something else.

The Whopper.

Burger King is just one of many new arrivals since an enormous dam project brought a population surge, shopping malls with food courts and U.S.-style subdivisions to civilization’s edge. As the Belo Monte dam complex — envisioned to be one of the world’s largest by power capacity — approaches completion, experts call the outcome here an example of the kind of massive development that could critically wound the world’s largest rain forest — even though Belo Monte is among the less environmentally damaging megaprojects of its kind.

Scientists believe the Amazonian ecosystem is far closer to an existential tipping point than previously thought, with potentially grievous results for the region and the planet. Yet under Brazil’s new far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, the Belo Monte plant, which harnesses power through environment-altering dams, is a harbinger of the region’s future. Reversing a decision by the previous administration, Bolsonaro’s government has signaled its intention to put both large- and small-scale dams in the Amazon basin back on the table.

The new dams could flood and destroy riverbanks, alter animal breeding cycles and provide the catalysts for large-scale urbanization, as happened here in Altamira.

And even though they may generate renewable electricity, the huge projects will also spur greater deforestation because of the road networks and population surges that inevitably go with them. Many critics say the dams are not even needed to satisfy the nation’s power needs.

dam and a new wave of deforestation. Profit and a precipice PHOTOS BY JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST

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COVER STORY

Altamira

VENEZUELA

Atlantic Ocean

COLOMBIA .

Ama z o n R

BRAZIL

RU Lima

Brasilia BOLIVIA PA

R

A.

THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST stretches like a blanket of green velvet across nine countries in South America. But no nation is more a guardian of the forest than Brazil, home to

PAN.

PE

But for Bolsonaro’s Brazil, the dam network holds the irresistible potential of billions of dollars’ worth of investments in Latin America’s largest nation.

The hydroelectric plants will feed into national grids, powering distant megacities such as Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. They will also bring tens of thousands of jobs and easier access to electricity deeper into the jungle, realizing Bolsonaro’s dream of tapping the Amazon’s economic potential for the 209 million residents of the country.

“Let’s use the riches that God gave us for the well-being of our population,” Bolsonaro said on a recent visit to the Amazon, where he proposed opening an ecological reserve to mining.

Anchored by Belo Monte, this frontier city on the banks of the Xingu River is now a developer’s vision of the forest’s future.

Follow the red earth roads on the outskirts of town to the Trans-Amazonian Highway, then take a right at the billboard of a beaming couple who “found their dream” home at Altamira’s “New City” subdivision — built to take advantage of the dam-driven population growth. Squint, and you can still see a patch of jungle canopy rising beyond the asphalt parking lot of the city’s hottest hangout — the Golden Ridge Mall.

On a busy Saturday night, Brie Larson is saving the Earth on-screen at the new multiplex. Twenty-four-packs of Coca-Cola are on sale at the Costco-like megastore. And over at the food court, Douglas Pretas — one part franchise owner, one part Bolsonaro-era pioneer — is helping his staff work the weekend rush behind the register at Altamira’s newest institution: Burger King.

“Would you like to make that a combo?” a beaming Pretas asks a local woman in Portuguese. She flashes a quizzical look before replying, “Combo? What’s a combo?”

A 28-year-old Bolsonaro supporter, Pretas is accustomed to the uninitiated. Eleven months ago, he took advantage of the development sparked by the dam, moving here from Brazil’s industrialized south to open Altamira’s first international fast-food restaurant.

“My friends told me I’d either get shot with arrows or drink the sweet water” of success, he later joked, adjusting his black hairnet.

His bet is on track to pay off. Pretas said he broke even in May — faster than he thought.

Now he’s on the cusp of turning his first profit.

And profit, he says, means progress.

For him.

For the Amazon.

For Brazil.

“You get fries and a drink with the combo,” he says, turning on the charm. “Look, it’s a good deal.”

“Sure,” the woman agrees. “I’ll take it.”

Pacific Ocean

Sao Paulo

Rio de Janeiro

TINA

WEEKLY

ARGEN

KLMNO

Forested areas in Brazil 2000

Deforestation activity 2000 to 2017 Sources: Forested areas from University of Maryland’s Global Forest Change.

Deforestation data from Esri THE WASHINGTON POST

Top: Dying trees where the Belo Monte dam was built.

The project flooded or degraded a plot of forest larger than Chicago.

Above: Burger King franchisee Douglas Pretas, 28, moved 1,600 miles to Altamira for the opportunity to start his own business away from competitors.

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COVER STORY

“If that tipping point is crossed, it’s irreversible.”

Carlos Nobre, a senior researcher at the University of Sao Paulo, on the deforestation of the Amazon

Above: Rita Cavalcante and Alberto Benicio da Silva pose for a photo where their home once stood along the Xingu River, before the Belo Monte dam was built.

Top: A resettlement community in Altamira for people displaced by the dam.

KLMNO WEEKLY

60 percent of the Amazon basin.

Well before Bolsonaro, the Amazon faced serious challenges. Since the rubber boom of the 19th century, followed by the gold rushes, ranching, damming and logging of the 20th and 21st centuries, nearly 1 million square kilometers of the Amazon — about 15 percent — have been deforested.

And this rain forest may be in even more danger than most people think.

For years, scientists assumed that about 40 percent of the rain forest had to be lost before it would reach the dangerous point at which its ecosystem could no longer heal itself, creating drier, hotter weather cycles that could turn vast areas of the jungle into savanna.

But in recent years, scientists have delivered a more alarming verdict. Carlos Nobre, a senior researcher at the University of Sao Paulo, and Thomas Lovejoy, a noted ecologist at George Mason University, suggested that because of exacerbating factors such as climate change and worsening forest fires, such a red line could be crossed at a far lower threshold of 20 to 25 percent deforestation.

“If the rates increase — as one can see them increasing this year — it is likely that this tipping point will be reached between 20 and 30 years” from now, Nobre said.

The effect, scientists say, would be devastating. Vast areas of the rain forest would be indelibly altered by changing climate patterns, leading to higher temperatures in the immediate area and lower rainfall not only in Brazil but also in Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.

The global impacts could also be severe.

Unless deforestation is stopped before reaching the tipping point, some 50 or 60 percent of the Amazon will be lost, meaning the forest will no longer be able to pull carbon out of the air at the same rate, allowing about 550 million tons of carbon dioxide to remain in the atmosphere each year, according to Nobre. This amount is comparable to the annual emissions of a major economy, such as Canada or South Korea, dealing a potentially critical setback to the global effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

“If that tipping point is crossed, it’s irreversible,” Nobre said. “It’s an ongoing dynamic process that will really lead to savanna-ization of 50, 60 percent of the Amazon.”

For a time, there was reason for environmentalists to hope. Between 2005 and 2012, Brazil embraced a new sense of environmental protection that dramatically reduced the rate of deforestation. In 2004, 27,772 square kilometers of the rain forest were lost, according to official Brazilian government data. In 2012, the damage was just 4,571 square kilometers.

But now, Brazil is poised for a historic era of Amazonian exploitation under Bolsonaro.

During the final months of last year’s election campaign, illegal loggers apparently emboldened by Bolsonaro’s rhetoric — and aided by dispirited inspectors — sparked a threefold increase in deforestation in some parts of the jungle, destroying 1,674 square kilometers of forest. Since taking office, the former army

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KLMNO WEEKLY

COVER STORY captain has eliminated the country’s ministry of indigenous affairs and slashed the budget of Brazil’s environmental protection agency by 24 percent. During the first two months of Bolsonaro’s presidency, IBAMA — Brazil’s environmental regulatory agency — issued fewer fines than at any point since 1995.

In May, the agency created a body with the power to reevaluate and forgive fines, effectively neutralizing the work of its inspectors.

Perhaps most importantly, Bolsonaro’s cabinet has reopened the door to powering the nation through new hydroelectric dam projects in the Amazon — an idea the previous government nixed last year after weighing the impact in Altamira.

Dams that were once scrubbed — including the massive Sao Luis plant on the Tapajos River that would flood an area of jungle nearly twice the size of Miami — could be back on the table, authorities say. But what environmentalists see as the start of a new and dangerous assault on the Amazonian ecosystem is being hailed as a belated embrace of progress by Bolsonaro backers.

“Investment inevitably brings about degradation,” said Otavio Neves, an administrator at the Association of Gold Miners of the Tapajos River in Itaituba, who heralded the potential of a new dam to open more and deeper terrain to mining.

“Progress is not made from cotton candy,” he said. “It is hard; it demands a lot from nature. But it has to exist.”

THE PRICE OF PROGRESS is written on the banks of the Xingu River in Altamira.

Along the shoreline, rows of what were once tall and sturdy trees stand bleached white and

Above: People take photos in an area that used to be a beach along the Xingu River, before Norte Energia built a dam that flooded it.

dying. The frilly tops of acai palms bob like drowned corpses just below the waterline.

Dams built in Brazil during the country’s military dictatorship flooded mass swaths of land and blocked the flow of the river completely. By the mid-2000s, Brazil had become more environmentally conscious and had cut back on some practices known to damage the rain forest. But the Belo Monte dam was nevertheless greenlighted — long before Bolsonaro became president — because of a chronic energy shortage that had led to blackouts and rationing over the previous two decades. Belo Monte, while still an enormous dam, has a somewhat smaller ecological footprint in one sense — it has a smaller flooded area, due to a “run of the river” design that diverts part of the Xingu into a secondary reservoir, rather than damming it entirely.

Still, the dam flooded or degraded a plot of forest larger than Chicago. Locals say it also upended the ecosystem’s balance.

Experts say the slow flow of the water is killing the river’s 63 species of fish, including the pacu, a staple of the local indigenous diet, and altering the lifestyle of tribes that depend on them for nutrition. Construction of the dam also sparked deforestation in nearby indigenous reserves, as land values in the area soared.

In Altamira, construction of the dam added 35,000 temporary workers to the 99,000 people already living there. The influx fueled a stunning growth spurt, even as tens of thousands of rural dwellers upriver were displaced. Many ended up in planned communities in Altamira, some of which transformed into ghettos rife with drugs and crime.

Altamira’s mayor, Domingos Juvenil, dismisses the naysayers with a wave. If the dam brought anything, he says, it was a muchneeded boost to the city’s economy.

“Some people are against everything,” he said. “It’s the ideology of fear.”

The dam, he said, “brought many benefits. It generated commerce. It brought new people.

“It brought progress.”

That’s a disputed position. New dams in the Amazon aren’t needed in light of Brazil’s capacity to generate clean energy using technologies such as wind harnessing, says Roberto Schaeffer, a professor of energy policy at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Meanwhile, although the Belo Monte dam has less of an environmental imprint than the older generation of Amazon dams, the project is nevertheless sure to cause more damage to the rain forest, Schaeffer said. Roads had to be constructed, as did a vast stretch of transmission lines. Workers who originally came to build the dam may stay and exploit the landscape.

“Any big work in the Amazon leads to deforestation,” Schaeffer said.

An even bigger issue, according to Michigan State University anthropologist Emilio Moran, who has studied Belo Monte closely, is that the “run of the river” design of the dam means it can’t sustainably generate as much

power as promised. That, in turn, means there may be a clamor for more dams on the Xingu.

FOUR BLOCKS AWAY from the Golden Ridge Mall, which opened to great fanfare in 2017, Pretas, the Burger King franchisee, sat with his accountant in his new home. It’s a green and yellow bungalow, with a crescent on the door — a design reminiscent of the Brazilian flag.

He went over the payrolls for the 17 people in the region who now have jobs because of him.

“We’re providing work,” he said.

Later, as he pulled out of his driveway in his silver Toyota, fat drops of rain blanketed his windshield. “The rain,” he said, looking up.

“That’s one of the things you need to get used to out here. At home” — in Minas Gerais, a good 1,600 miles to the south, and a world away in one of Brazil’s wealthiest states — “it never rained like this. Out here, it’s always wet. And sometimes, it’s lonely.”

Back home, he was working for the company that built Golden Ridge, when his employers offered him an opportunity: Move to the Amazon and become a fast-food pioneer.

“To be honest, I was a little afraid,” he said. “I thought of the forest as mysterious. I associated it more with fear than with adventure. In fairy tales, bad things happen in forests.”

But the chance to start his own business — away from Brazil’s big cities already saturated with competition — was too tempting to pass up.

“I changed my life,” he said. “My mom and dad used to pay for everything, but I was uncomfortable with my reality. I wanted my independence.”

In the age of his political hero — Bolsonaro — Brazil, too, he says, is asserting itself. Other industrialized countries have already harnessed their land and resources. Why, he reasons, shouldn’t Brazil?

“It’s hypocritical,” he said. “The U.S. and the European Union say that the Amazon should be protected. But they destroyed all of their forests.” For too many years, he said, Brazilian leaders were too weak, too hesitant. Bolsonaro, he says, is an inspiration.

“We are seeing things changing concretely now — not just fairy tales, but business owners who believe in the economy now,” he said.

Across the food court from Burger King, there’s a mural of jungle animals and forest — now a popular backdrop for mall-goers to take selfies. He’s the only international fast-food chain here, but because of the dam and all it brought to Altamira, he’s sure, he says, that the city is on the cusp of great things.

Not far away, a Canadian company is angling to build a large-scale gold mine, the kind of project that was stalled in recent years because of environmental risks — but that Bolsonaro has signaled a willingness to fast-track.

“I know other investments are coming, in gold and mining. It will bring hotels, and the city will grow,” Pretas said.

He later added: “Because in the Amazon, you can make money. That’s how I’ve always felt. That the Amazon was a place where you could really make money.” n

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FOOD

KLMNO WEEKLY

Finally, a better ketchup bottle BY

L AURA R EILEY

R

emember when ketchup turned upside down? Or when half gallons of milk grew plastic screw caps on their sides? We are resistant to change in food packaging, attached to our squeezy honey bear, Toblerone’s triangular prism, the resealable paperboard tube that houses Pringles’s neat stack of hyperbolic paraboloid chips.

But what if there’s a better way? (Seriously, try going back to doing the pinchy-pully motion to open the cardboard wings of a milk carton without mauling things.)

Something new is coming and soon you will scarcely remember when it didn’t exist. It’s called the Standcap Inverted Pouch. Daisy brand sour cream led the charge, debuting their Daisy Squeeze in 2015: a soft-sided, inverted wedge shape with a flat, flip-top dispensing closure on which it sits jauntily. It rolls down like a toothpaste tube, uses gravity as an assist and minimizes the introduction of oxygen, thus slowing spoilage.

And now the pouches are coming fast and furious: Chobani whole-milk plain yogurt, Original Uncle Dougie’s organic barbecue sauces. A major player in the guacamole business will debut its version Aug. 1.

What’s behind the pivot? Money is a motivator, but so are minimizing mess, cutting down on waste and conferring a halo effect via sustainability claims. In the first year of its pouch, Daisy reported a 69.7 percent increase in sales (despite charging about 25 percent more per ounce than for the traditional tubs). Other companies took notice.

According to Ron Cotterman, vice president of corporate innovation and sustainability for the packaging-solutions company Sealed Air, some of the drive for innovative packaging is a turn away from glass. He says in the past decade there’s been a shift for three reasons: One is the cost of transporting and storing a

ORIGINAL UNCLE DOUGIE’S

Standup pouches, which slow spoilage and minimize mess, are changing condiments heavy product, the second is the perception of safety (consumers fear breakage and shards) and the third is that there are not a lot of end markets for the glass.

There has been a significant shift away from municipalities recycling glass because of the enormous cost associated with it.

“Part of it is consumer-driven,” Cotterman says. “But it’s also about sustainability. Walmart has its Project Gigaton goal to avoid 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases from the global value chain by 2030. And Amazon aims to make half of its shipments carbon neutral by 2030.”

The race is on to replace heavy, bulky cans and jars with flexible packaging that can be stored flat for shipment before being filled.

That flexible standup pouch requires significantly less water, and produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions and other waste, says Evan Arnold, the director of product development and engineering at flexible packaging

firm Glenroy, one of three companies that collaborated on the pouch.

“I just spoke at the Association of Dressings and Sauces technical meeting in Louisville, and I asked everyone if they wanted to save the world. And I meant it, kind of,” Arnold says.

Fine, world-saving. For now the body of the Standcap pouch cannot be recycled (they’re working on that), although the cap can be screwed off and recycled. But let’s talk about flips, drips, lips and other quotidian woes.

There’s the jerking motion required to coax a viscous liquid down the neck of an upright glass or hard plastic bottle (and the anguish of an unexpected deluge), then the wrist-flick flip back upright so gravity halts the flow.

There’s the goo that accumulates around the lip and cap of a regular bottle. And there’s the vexing last 10 percent of a product that clings stubbornly to the container’s innards, taunting you and wasting your money.

“There is a compelling sustainability story,” says Rob Johnson, chief executive of Original Uncle Dougie’s of the new Standcap Inverted Pouch recently adopted for the company’s barbecue sauces. “If we do this pouch there’s a dramatic amount of weight we’re not shipping around the country.”

Aptar is the company responsible for the Standcap’s silicone dispensing-valve technology.

Regular inverted bottles with dispensing valves have a re-intake of air after you squeeze (like a shampoo bottle). Aptar’s invention dispenses and cuts off the product without introducing air.

According to Rob Johnson, chief executive of Original Uncle Dougie’s, this feature dramatically extends shelf life.

But there are other reasons companies might be shifting to this kind of package. It’s about a cultural shift, taking a product like sour cream from an ingredient (the anchor to a casserole or coffee cake) to a condiment.

“All of the research going on would validate this,” Johnson says. “More and more people are using dipping sauces as a way for people to add flavor to food. A lot of restaurants are doing that.”

The New York Times took some heat several years back for suggesting that millennials were killing breakfast cereal because there was too much cleanup.

There is validity to this: Younger generations don’t want to dirty silverware if they don’t have to.

Thus, the condimentization of foods. Look for the Standcap soon for nut butters, salsas and jams, that Aptar valve adjustable for different thickness and chunkiness levels.

For now, the Standcap Inverted Pouch is a novelty that stands out, and up, in the condiment aisle. (The more elongated the package, by the way, the more consumers perceive they contain, so the Standcap may trounce squattier tubs for eye appeal.)

But companies may also be playing to consumer psychology.

Products that reside in the door of the refrigerator see more action. A tub gets pushed to the back of the fridge and into Siberia, green fuzz and solitude its inevitable fate. This new technology’s upright design makes it door-appropriate, living cheek to jowl with heavy-rotation items.

The Standcap Inverted Pouch may, in a sense, give companies a foot in the door. n

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KLMNO WEEKLY

BOOKS

Veterans, beyond the stereotypes N ONFICTION

l

REVIEWED BY

T ERESA F AZIO

C PLACES AND NAMES On War, Revolution, and Returning

By Elliot Ackerman Penguin Press. 232 pp. $26

UNBECOMING A Memoir of Disobedience

By Anuradha Bhagwati Atria. 321 pp. $27

ivilians often envision American veterans as either stoic heroes or broken victims. The truth, of course, is far more complex. To see it, you need look no further than a recent batch of excellent military memoirs that shed light on the diverse experiences of the men and women fighting our wars.

Elliot Ackerman’s lyrical memoir-in-essays “Places and Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning,” offers a personal narrative of his observations while deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and his travels in the region afterward as a journalist. A former Marine captain and CIA operative who earned a Silver Star for his actions in the Battle of Fallujah, Ackerman felt compelled to return to likely conflict zones. In “Places and Names,” he explores his friendship with a Syrian activist, meets a militant whose time in Iraq nearly overlapped with his own and revisits a scarred Fallujah building that he first encountered as a second lieutenant.

Anuradha Bhagwati’s “Unbecoming” is a raw, powerful reckoning that seeks to make sense of the author’s upbringing in an authoritarian household; her ordeal of Marine Corps sexism, racism and violence; and her post-service activism as the founder of the Service Women’s Action Network.

The number of 21st-century war memoirs has multiplied considerably since “One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer,” Nathaniel Fick’s 2005 combat memoir focusing solely on infantry action. Their themes and styles also have evolved, and more female authors are getting published. Nearly all of the women’s stories include episodes of gender-based harassment and/or sexual violence.

Bhagwati, who is bisexual, presents a unique, unvarnished exploration of the racism and homophobia that some military women endure. In her book, she argues that her story, as well as her

CLIFF OWEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Anuradha Bhagwati served in the Marine Corps and later founded the Service Women’s Action Network.

Now, she plans on teaching writing, with the aim of helping “women and girls . . . find a voice.”

post-service advocacy for female vets on Capitol Hill, lacks “the privilege of a platform that the heroic male experience was often granted.”

Ackerman, the author of the novels “Green on Blue,” “Dark at the Crossing” and “Waiting for Eden,” builds on the coming-ofage images of training, combat and homecoming in the military memoirs of writers such as Benjamin Busch, Brian Castner, Adrian Bonenberger and Brian Turner.

Fans of Ackerman’s nonfiction will recognize some previously published pieces in “Places and Names.” He refrains from delving deeply into his emotions and instead hints at them through the stories of friends. Ackerman’s tone suggests his deep feeling beneath the surface, when in his early years as a writer he asks to join aspiring entrepreneur Matt in the Middle East “not to work, just to be there.”

In “Unbecoming,” Bhagwati lays bare her victories — and missteps — as a young officer and takes us on her decade-long journey to use her voice as an advocate

for women. A dutiful overachiever, she had burned out and quit graduate school to join the Marines and drew energy from the masochistic culture. She muscled through the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program’s black belt course on a busted knee. But she broke with the Marine gospel of unquestioning obedience, flouting the military’s rigid 1950s-era sexual mores, which were only selectively enforced — and tacitly ignored when male troops visited prostitutes in Thailand. She writes frankly about her sexual affairs as a closeted bisexual woman under “don’t ask, don’t tell.” When she vociferously advocated for women in her chain of command who were sexually harassed or assaulted and sought to prosecute the perpetrators, she received only spotty support from superiors and peers. Disillusioned after leaving the Marine Corps in 2004, she co-founded the Service Women’s Action Network in 2007 to lobby against discriminatory military policies.

Ackerman’s and Bhagwati’s memoirs probe the complex

truths of their individual military experiences. They show us how the challenges they confronted during their service helped them discover a fresh purpose after deployment. Bhagwati turned to writing after years as an activist combating the misogyny that military women endure and frequently internalize. Today, she studies the art of memoir in Hunter College’s master’s of fine arts program, with plans to teach. Ackerman has translated his experience into literary acclaim. He has eloquently analyzed his military years and given us a thoughtful perspective on America’s role overseas. “Winning battles was not the U.S. military’s problem,” he writes. “The problem was always what came after, the rebuilding.”

As our veterans rebuild their lives in a society that often glosses over their experience, “Places and Names” and “Unbecoming” capture their humanity as contemplative, concerned Americans — not just as heroes or victims. n Fazio is a former Marine Corps officer and a freelance writer in New York.

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OPINIONS

KLMNO WEEKLY

TOM TOLES

We can save antibiotics MICHELLE A. WILLIAMS is dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

When the media covers antibiotic-resistant bugs, they typically describe them with a sense of alarm, fear and helplessness.

The Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, a project supported by the British government and the Wellcome Trust, predicts that, by 2050, drug resistance will claim 10 million lives a year worldwide. Closer to home, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 2 million people in the United States will suffer drug-resistant infections annually, and 23,000 will die.

So, yes, we should be scared. But we need not feel helpless.

Although the antibioticresistance problem is comple, there is a clear path to reversing the situation. We must summon the determination to choose it.

We are up against natural selection — Darwinian evolution itself. Antibiotics, especially when used improperly and profligately, create selective pressure on bacteria. The organisms most vulnerable to the drugs die quickly, while the most resilient bugs survive and replicate.

How can humankind prevail against nature’s ingenuity? We’ll do it the same way that public health has historically triumphed over infectious scourges such as smallpox and polio. We must marshal a sustained, coordinated, multifront campaign.

Here is one prescription to solve the antibiotic crisis: First,

prevent infections whenever possible. An infection prevented is a case of antibiotic resistance averted. Prevention is the essence of public health. In the fight against drug resistance, this means prescribing antibiotics only when they are necessary. It means halting the unnecessary use of antibiotics in farm animals.

And it means channeling more money to hospital infectioncontrol programs — which are often low-priority budget items.

Second, invest far more money in research and development.

Bringing a new antibiotic to market, from basic research through clinical trials, can take 10 to 15 years and cost upward of $1 billion. Yet the profits on these drugs are negligible compared with those for drugs that treat chronic conditions such as

hypertension, diabetes or heartburn.

To spur research and development, we urgently need new types of financial incentives.

One of the most innovative examples is CARB-X, a global partnership launched in 2016.

CARB-X is a “biopharmaceutical accelerator” funded by a mix of private philanthropy and international governments, including the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority at the Department of Health and Human Services. It offers 70 percent funding for the projects it selects; provides technical, business and scientific support; and lends its imprimatur to highquality, early-stage research that private funders and venture capitalists can consider investing in to bring the drugs to clinicalstage development.

Once new antibiotics come to market, we must break the conventional link between sales and profits. Unlike other drugs, new classes of antibiotics will need to be preserved as long as possible, through limited use.

That means their profitability should be tied not to sales but to their social value.

Earlier this year, Jim O’Neill, a former Goldman Sachs chief economist who chaired Britain’s

Review on Antimicrobial Resistance, suggested nationalizing antibiotics production, such as through a taxpayer-supported utility that would focus solely on drug manufacture and distribution.

Others have floated the idea of a for-profit company for which the core investors would be governments and charities, with the rest owned by the public.

Unlike large pharmaceutical firms, these utilities would not expect blockbuster profits on their products — just a steady 4 percent or 5 percent rate of return.

Finally, we must reframe the way we think about antibiotic drugs. Like our rivers and forests, they are precious resources. Like our highways and bridges, they are public goods that should be available to all. Put simply, we must bring a collective moral vision to this high-stakes battle.

Reversing the tide of antibiotic resistance won’t be easy. The issue is similar to climate change in that it seems distant, abstract and insidious, but is potentially catastrophic for those it affects.

Unlike with climate change, however, there are no “antibiotic resistance deniers.” Experts agree that this crisis is solvable with science and with money. The time to act is now. n

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