Our picksThe other Maria Butinas; cybersecurity legislation 'goes to die'; blocking Saudi Arabia’s path to the bomb, and more

Maria Butina is not unique (Joseph Augustyn, The Atlantic)
For years, countries including Russia and China have used their citizens who study in the U.S. as an intelligence-gathering resource.

Trump dismisses FBI data, asks followers to trust him when he says border fence made El Paso safer (Aaron Rupar, Vox)
The president takes gaslighting to new levels.

GreyEnergy malware has ‘massive amounts of junk code’ meant to confuse researchers (Sean Lyngaas, Cyberscoop)
The investigation of the network of hackers generally associated with the seminal 2015 cyberattack on the Ukrainian power grid continues. A researcher has reverse-engineered malware used by a subgroup of those attackers and found “massive amounts of junk code” meant to throw analysts off the trace.

New housing struggle emerges for those displaced by Hurricane Michael (Ed Offley, The News Herald, Panama City)
Spring tourism means the annual readjustment of daily, weekly and monthly rental rates, generally doubling in price from the winter season — and by extension displacing many Hurricane Michael survivors living in temporary housing on the Beach for a second time.

Scoop: Israel rejected 2014 Saudi proposal on Palestinian peace talks (Barak Ravid, Axios)
On the last day of the 2014 Gaza War, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a secret meeting with a special envoy from the Saudi king. In the meeting, Saudi Arabia proposed a joint diplomatic initiative on relaunching Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, rebuilding Gaza and confronting Iran, three sources briefed on the effort told me.

U.S. senate proposal would block Saudi path to atomic weapon in nuclear deal (Reuters)
U.S. senators from both parties introduced a resolution on Tuesday requiring that any deal to share U.S. nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia block the kingdom from making a nuclear weapon.
Under the measure, any U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, or 123 agreement, with Saudi Arabia would prevent enrichment of uranium or reprocessing of plutonium made in reactors - two routes to making nuclear weapons.
It is unclear whether a majority of the 100-member Senate would support the resolution of Democrats Jeff Merkley and Ed Markey and Republican Rand Paul. The resolution is also non-binding on the U.S. government.
But with significant support, it would signal concern in Congress over Saudi-led bombing campaigns in Yemen and over the killing of U.S.-based Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

The case for hiring more police officers (Matthew Yglesias, Vox)
A crime-fighting idea that actually works, and new exclusive polling shows it’s popular across all racial groups.

Where cybersecurity legislation ‘goes to die’ in Congress (Tim Starks and Eric Geller, Politico)
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson leads the committee with broad oversight over the nation’s most important cybersecurity issues, including protecting consumers and U.S. elections from hackers.
But he’s also a major reason little legislation on these topics ever passes, according to lobbyists, cybersecurity policy experts, lawmakers and congressional aides from both parties who spoke with POLITICO.