Reading newspapers in English P.4 ( Tạp chí The New York Times )

A14 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALMONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016clients from the United States are out-lined in extraordinary detail in the trove of internal Mossack Fonseca documents known as the

KABUL, Afghanistan — The children’sgathering point is the grave of one BibiJawaher She has been dead for 27 years,the inscription on her headstone so fadedthat you have to run your fingers over it tofully make out her name and the year ofher death

But the central location of her restingplace, on a little hill in the middle of thesprawling Kart-e-Sakhi cemetery in west-ern Kabul, gives the pack of young hustlers

a sweeping view of potential customersvisiting the thousands of graves dottingthe mountain skirt

There is the middle-aged jewelermaking his weekly pilgrimage to hismother, who died of cancer; he pays extra

to have her grave washed with the sion of a sponge bath There is the motherhaunted by nightmares that the grave ofher 15-year-old son, who killed himself overfailed love, is engulfed in flames Shecomes regularly to check on the head-

preci-stone, which bears a portrait of her son in ajacket and tie, and offers the children asmall amount to ritually sprinkle water onit

The sprinkling of water on graves is anold tradition in Afghanistan, believed tokeep the memory of the dead fresh and tohelp absolve them of the sins they commit-ted in life

Right over Bibi Jawaher’s body, the dren wait with their large buckets, filledfrom the well of a nearby shrine and car-ried in on their backs Once they spot a cli-ent, they rush in with smaller buckets, of-ten fighting one another along the way

chil-But in the end they always keep to theirunspoken code: When one reaches a client,the rest back off, immediately scanning thefield for the next opportunity

The children look for fun where they can,but their business is serious It puts food ontheir families’ tables They make about 10afghanis for each small bucket they pour

— the price of a loaf of bread, about 15

cents On lucky days, they will get muchmore in tips, some as big as $10 or even $20,forever marking that grave as auspicious,distinct in their memory

They have come to rely on a harsh

reali-ty of Afghan life: After decades of war andstaggeringly frequent tragedy, more andmore Afghan families have some business

or another in Kabul’s cemeteries, where anever-larger slice of everyday life is nowcentered

“Ajmal usually pours water without ing for permission,” said Jamshid, 10, whoteams up with him on busy days It is aneffective tactic: Once the water is poured,the mourner must pay

ask-“Who says I do that?” protested Ajmal,who is also 10 “O.K., maybe I did it once Ortwo times.”

Behind them, another boy was dling Bibi Jawaher’s headstone like a toyhorse

strad-“We don’t leave her dirty like that,”

Children earn tips by sprinkling water on graves, to absolve the dead of sins, at the Kart-e-Sakhi cemetery in Kabul, Afghanistan.

ADAM FERGUSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A Carnival of Life in a Field of the Dead

Children for Hire, Lovers and Cockfights Fill an Afghan Cemetery

By MUJIB MASHAL

Continued on Page A10

Over the years, William R soldt had earned tens of millions

Pon-of dollars building a string Pon-of cessful companies He had reno-vated apartment buildings in theNew York City area Bred Arabianhorses Run a yacht club in theBahamas, a rock quarry in Michi-gan, an auto-parts company inCanada, even a multibillion-dollarhedge fund

suc-Now, as he neared retirement,

Mr Ponsoldt, of Jensen Beach,Fla., had a special request forMossack Fonseca, a Panama-based law firm well placed in theworld of offshore finance: Howcould he confidentially shift hismoney into overseas bank ac-counts and use them to buy realestate and move funds to his chil-dren?

“He is the manager of one of therichest hedge funds in the world,”

a lawyer at Mossack Fonsecawrote when the firm was intro-duced to Mr Ponsoldt in 2004

“Primary objective is to maintainthe utmost confidentiality andideally to open bank accountswithout disclosing his name as aprivate person.”

In summary, the firm plained: “He needs asset protec-tion schemes, which we are trying

ex-to sell him.”

Thus began a relationship thatwould last at least through 2015 asMossack Fonseca managed eightshell companies and a foundation

on the family’s behalf, moving atleast $134 million through sevenbanks in six countries — little ofwhich could be traced directly to

Mr Ponsoldt or his children.These transactions and otherslike them for a stable of wealthy

DOCUMENTS SHOW HOW WEALTHY HID MILLIONS ABROAD

PANAMA PAPERS TROVE

Law Firm That Shielded Riches Had 2,400 Clients in U.S.

By ERIC LIPTON and JULIE CRESWELL

Continued on Page A14

Donald J Trump, who said last

week that a judge’s Mexican

her-itage should disqualify him from a

lawsuit against Mr Trump,

ex-pressed doubt on Sunday that a

Muslim judge could remain

neu-tral in the case, comments that are

unlikely to ease concerns among

his fellow Republicans who fear

his controversial remarks could

hurt the party in November

Mr Trump’s comments, made

in an interview with John

Dicker-son, the host of CBS’s “Face the

Nation,” followed his criticism of

Judge Gonzalo P Curiel, a federal

judge in California overseeing a

suit against the defunct Trump

University Mr Trump said Judge

Curiel had a “conflict of interest”

in the case because of Mr Trump’s

proposed border wall with

Mex-ico

Republicans, concerned about

how his contentious statements

could harm their ability to retain

control of the Senate and have a

detrimental effect in down-ballot

races, have struggled with how to

distance themselves from Mr

Trump’s language without

alien-ating his die-hard voters

In a series of interviews on

Sun-day television news shows,

Re-publicans repudiated Mr Trump’s

comments about Judge Curiel

But instead of softening his

stance, Mr Trump intensified it

Mr Dickerson asked Mr

Trump, the presumptive

Republi-can nominee, if a Muslim judge

would be similarly biased because

of Mr Trump’s call for a ban on

Muslim immigrants “It’s

possi-ble, yes,” Mr Trump said “Yeah

That would be possible

Abso-lutely.”

When Mr Dickerson said there

was a tradition in the United

Continued on Page A13

Your smartphone allows you toget almost instantaneous answers

to the most obscure questions Italso allows you to waste hoursscrolling through Facebook orlooking for the latest deals on Am-azon

More powerful computing tems can predict the weather bet-ter than any meteorologist or beathuman champions in complexboard games like chess

sys-But for several years, mists have asked why all thattechnical wizardry seems to behaving so little impact on theeconomy The issue surfacedagain recently, when the govern-ment reported disappointinglyslow growth and continuing stag-nation in productivity The rate ofproductivity growth from 2011 to

econo-2015 was the slowest since thefive-year period ending in 1982

One place to look at this nect is in the doctor’s office Dr

discon-Peter Sutherland, a family cian in Tennessee, made the shift

physi-to computerized patient recordsfrom paper in the last few years

There are benefits to using tronic health records, Dr Suther-land says, but grappling with the

elec-software and new reporting quirements has slowed him down

re-He sees fewer patients, and his come has slipped

in-“I’m working harder and ting a little less,” he said.The productivity puzzle has giv-

get-en rise to a number of tions in recent years — and divid-

explana-ed economists into technologypessimists and optimists.The most prominent pessimist

So Much Work Is Going Digital, But Productivity Remains Stuck

By STEVE LOHR

Continued on Page A3

Dr Peter Sutherland uses tronic records, and earns less.

elec-GEORGE ETHEREDGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

ERIK S LESSER/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

A group waited on Sunday for a tour of the boyhood home of Muhammad Ali in Louisville, Ky., where peo- ple left items, left, to pay respects The city will hold a public service for Ali, who died Friday, but it was not al- ways so appreciative of him SportsMonday, Page D1.

Once-Segregated City and Its Native Son

It’s time to stop calling Donald

J Trump’s presidential operation

“the Trump campaign.” It would

be far more accurate to call it

“Trump Productions Inc.”

Mr Trump is not

running a

cam-paign in the

mod-ern sense — or

what was the

mod-ern sense until

about yesterday Rather, he

over-sees a prolific content production

studio that has accomplished

what every major media

con-glomerate is trying to pull off

with mixed success

It has managed to produce a

huge amount of inexpensive

programming that has

consis-tently dominated the ratings and

the conversation across the

entire new-media landscape —

cable news, broadcast news,

radio, Twitter, Facebook and who

knows what else

With Mr Trump as its star,

show runner and chief content

officer, the operation has taken

over the vast media space with

multiple plotlines (War With

Megyn Kelly; Peace With Megyn

Kelly!), shocking comments (A

federal judge can’t be fair to me

because he’s of Mexican

her-itage!) and insults (Hillary

be-longs in jail; that reporter is a

sleaze!) that keep Americans

glued to their screens

These plots often lead to

nega-tive portrayals of Mr Trump

And the Trumpian content can at

times be contradictory or even

counterfactual, as in false But

Trump Show,

AHit for Now,

Faces Fall Test

Continued on Page B4

JIM

RUTENBERG

MEDIATOR

An American working for NPR and his

translator were killed in a Taliban

am-NPR Journalist Killed in Attack

The dwindling numbers in a South

Korean nursing home for Japanese

women are reminders of the countries’

INTERNATIONAL A4-11

A Korean Home for Japanese

Automakers and tech companies arecompeting to create the perfect self-driving car — and to keep others from

BUSINESS DAY B1-6

Driverless Cars Put to the Test

Members of the rock band are set totestify in a suit claiming parts of “Stair-

Led Zeppelin Song Dispute

The governor ordered agencies to vest themselves of companies alignedwith a boycott against Israel PAGE A18

di-NEW YORK A18-21

Cuomo Offers Support to Israel

Members of the creative team behind

“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”

discuss the origins of the production —called an eighth installment in thePotter canon — and working under

ARTS C1-5

Conjuring a Harry Potter Play

That the brilliant Yannick Nézet-Séguinwill become the next music director ofthe Metropolitan Opera is no surprise

The concern is the long wait for him,

A Long Wait at the Met

Joyce Carol Oates

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

The son of Abdihamid Yusuf, below, and

NATIONAL A12-16

Somalis Split Over a Verdict

The International Consortium

of Investigative Journalists is ing cutbacks, even as the PanamaPapers raised its profile Page B1

fac-Watchdog’s Financial Woes

Swiss voters soundly rejected a posal to guarantee a monthly income ofabout $2,560 to residents, whether or

INTERNATIONAL

Vote Against Assured Income

Draymond Green, above, scored 28points as the Warriors defeated Cleve-land, 110-77, to take a two-games-to-none

SPORTSMONDAY D1-9

Golden State Cruises to a Win

VOL CLXV No 57,255 © 2016 The New York Times NEW YORK, MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

Late Edition

$2.50

Today, periodic morning rain,

se-vere afternoon and evening

thun-derstorms, high 82 Tonight, cloudy, low 65 Tomorrow, clouds and sun,

high 81 Weather map is on Page B6

A2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

Inside The Times

INTERNATIONAL

Report Accuses Mexico

Of Crimes Against Humanity

A study by the Open Society JusticeInitiative concluded that indiscrimi-nate force — killings, forced disap-pearances and torture — and impu-nity are a part of state policy Thereport argues that the actionsconstitute crimes against humanity

PAGE A4

Covering War in Ukraine

A journalist has had guns pointed athim, slept in a shipping container,and walked past corpses, but untilnow had never been listed as aterrorist for doing his job

Reporter’s Notebook PAGE A6

Germany Expands Army

As Europe faces pressure from ISISand a more muscular Russia, Ger-many has embraced its role as theEuropean Union’s de facto leader,and pledged to bolster its military,reversing a decades-long policy ofinstinctive pacifism PAGE A11

NATIONAL

A Fight in Virginia Over Felons’ Right to Vote

Top Republicans in Virginia’s lature are seeking to block a sweep-ing order that re-enfranchised206,000 Virginians who have com-pleted prison sentences, probation

legis-or parole The suit has plungedVirginia into yet another raciallycharged voting rights battle

PAGE A12

NEW YORK

A Ukrainian Mainstay Approaches Its Final Days

The owner of Surma, a small shop

in the East Village that serves as acultural touchstone, said the busi-ness will close this month PAGE A18

A Peek at Europe’s Privacy

Computer scientists were able todiscover the names of roughly athird of the people who had askedthat online links about themselves

be taken down PAGE B3

OBITUARIES

Thomas E Schaefer, 85

He was a retired Air Force colonelwho had endured death threats,harsh interrogation and solitaryconfinement as the ranking militaryofficer among the 52 Americansheld hostage for 444 days in Iran inthe closing stages of the Carteradministration PAGE D10

SPORTS

Argentina Struggles

To Regain Its Footing

Despite the undisputed quality of itsroster and having the world’s bestsoccer player in Lionel Messi,Argentina has not won a majortrophy since the 1993 Copa América

The fear is that a generation ofoffensive talent has been wasted

PAGE D5

ARTS

A Surprising Wait For an Unsurprising Choice

That the brilliant Canadian tor Yannick Nézet-Séguin will be-come the next music director of theMetropolitan Opera is not much of asurprise However, Mr Nézet-Séguin will not officially begin histenure until the start of the 2020-21season Critic’s Notebook PAGE C1

conduc-Buddy Cops to Retire

The TNT police drama “Rizzoli &

Isles” enters its seventh and finalseason, still serving up prime-timecomfort food and still true to itsdevoted following — at least fourmillion viewers each week

PAGE C3

‘‘ We were left making these headstones because death is easy here.

’’

MUHAMMAD ZAHIR,

an artist in Kabul, ghanistan, on how his business came to specialize in head-

Af-stones [A10]

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OP-ED

Paul Krugman PAGE A23

KATHY WILLENS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Members of the Jewish Agency for Israel were not deterred by the pouring rain that fell at the start of the annual Celebrate rael Parade down Fifth Avenue on Sunday afternoon The parade was one part of a daylong unity festival.

Is-They Said Rain or Shine

TIM GRUBER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

John Kundla, 99, who was the coach of the first National Basketball Association dynasty, still keeps up on the game at his sisted living facility in Minneapolis, where he watched the Eastern Conference finals SportsMonday, Page D1.

as-‘A Forgotten Legend of Basketball’

“WHAT’S MY NAME?” Current and

former New York Times reportersand columnists talk about theirmemories of Muhammad Ali andhow he became an internationalicon nytimes.com/video

AMERICANA MANHASSET

THE WESTCHESTER THE MALL AT SHORT HILLS

GARDEN STATE PLAZA

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FERRAGAMO.COM866-FERRAGAMO

N A3

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

CHICAGO — Women with

early-stage breast cancer could

benefit from taking an

estrogen-suppressing drug for 10 years

rather than the standard five,

re-searchers reported here on

Sun-day, citing the results of a new

study

In the study, postmenopausal

women who took a drug known as

an aromatase inhibitor for an

ad-ditional five years lowered the

risk of their cancer returning or of

a new case of cancer occurring in

the other breast

“These data are important to

millions of women around the

world,” Dr Harold J Burstein, a

breast cancer expert and

spokes-man for the American Society of

Clinical Oncology, said in a

state-ment on Sunday The results

“sug-gest that longer durations of

widely available therapy reduce

the risk of cancer recurrence and

prevent second cancers from

aris-ing.”

The study is being presented

Sunday at the oncology society’s

annual meeting here and is being

published by The New England

Journal of Medicine

But some experts noted that the

women who took the drug an

ex-tra five years did not live longer on

the whole than those in the control

group They said it was far from

clear that the benefit of 10 years of

an aromatase inhibitor

out-weighed the risk of side effects

like bone loss and joint and muscle

pain

“It’s an option but not the

stand-ard,” said Dr Eric Winer, director

of the breast cancer program at

the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

in Boston and an author of the

study “I think this is one of thosesituations where you have a newapproach that probably makessense for some women and proba-bly doesn’t make sense for a lot ofwomen You have to be careful not

to over-treat everyone.”

Most breast cancers are mone receptor-positive, meaningtumor growth can be fueled by thehormones estrogen or progester-one Even after the initial tumor isremoved by surgery, women withthis type of cancer are thought tohave a risk of recurrence, albeitlow, that lasts indefinitely

hor-“There isn’t a point at which welook at the woman and say ‘You’redone, it’s not going to come back,’”

said Dr Lisa A Carey, a breastcancer specialist at the University

of North Carolina who was not volved in the study

in-So women typically take pills,either tamoxifen or an aromataseinhibitor, to block or suppress es-trogen in hopes of keeping thecancer from returning The aro-matase inhibitor used in thisstudy was letrozole, which is sold

as Femara by Novartis but is alsoavailable as a generic

The question is how long

wom-en should continue to take thesedrugs Guidelines from the oncol-ogy society recommend womentake tamoxifen for 10 years ratherthan five, because studies haveshown this prevents cancer recur-rence and improves survival Orthey can take five years of an aro-matase inhibitor after five years

of tamoxifen

But the majority of pausal women now start on anaromatase inhibitor, not tamox-ifen For those women, there hasbeen insufficient evidence to rec-ommend continuing beyond five

postmeno-years The new study providessome such evidence

The trial involved about 1,900postmenopausal women in Cana-

da and the United States who hadalready received about five years

of treatment with an aromataseinhibitor Many of the women hadalso taken tamoxifen for aboutfive years before that, meaningthey were entering the trial about

10 years after their diagnosis

Half the women were randomlyassigned to take letrozole once aday for five years and the otherhalf a daily placebo

After a median follow-up of a

lit-tle over six years, 67 women in theletrozole group, or 7 percent, hadexperienced either a recurrence

of their cancer or development of

a new cancer in the oppositebreast That was lower than the 98women, or 10.2 percent, in the pla-cebo group Using a statisticalmeasure known as the hazard ra-tio, the risk of a recurrence or ofnew breast cancer was reduced by

34 percent

The strongest effect of letrozolewas to prevent a new cancer in theother breast Only 1.4 percent ofthose taking the drug developedone compared with 3.2 percent ofthose on the placebo In terms ofrecurrence of the original cancer

— most of which occurred inbones, livers and other places out-side the breast — there was asmaller difference between thegroups, 5.7 percent for the letro-zole group versus 7.1 percent forthe control group

Dr Winer said it was most portant to prevent recurrence out-side the breast because that iswhat kills people The small effect

im-of the drug on such recurrencescould explain why there was nodifference in mortality, he said

Some 93 percent of the women

in the letrozole group were aliveafter five years, compared with 94percent in the control group

The drug increased the onset ofosteoporosis, with 133, or 14 per-cent, of the women taking thedrug suffering a bone fracture,compared with 88, or 9 percent, inthe placebo group

“It’s really bone versus breastcancer, is what it really comesdown to,” said Dr Carey of the Uni-versity of North Carolina She said

it was “not unreasonable to tinue therapy on patients who are

in the trial had previously had fiveyears of treatment with aro-matase inhibitors, meaning theywere already likely to tolerate thetherapy Many women do not stay

on the drugs for even the first fiveyears because of side effects likejoint and muscle pain

The study received fundingfrom the National Cancer Insti-tute, the Canadian Cancer SocietyResearch Institute and Novartis

Longer Use of Drug May Aid Breast Cancer Patients

A study finds that extending an estrogen suppressor could lower risks.

By ANDREW POLLACK

is Robert J Gordon, an economist

at Northwestern University His

latest entry in the debate is his

new book, “The Rise and Fall of

American Growth.” Mr Gordon

contends that the current crop of

digital innovations does not yield

the big economic gains of

break-through inventions of the past,

like electricity, cars, planes and

antibiotics

The optimists are led by Erik

Brynjolfsson and Andrew

Mc-Afee, co-directors of the M.I.T

Ini-tiative on the Digital Economy

They argue that there have

al-ways been lags between when

technology arrives and when

peo-ple and institutions learn to use it

effectively That has been true for

a range of technologies, including

the electric motor and the

inter-net, which contributed to the last

stretch of healthy productivity

growth in the late 1990s and early

2000s

The gains from current tech

trends like big-data analysis,

arti-ficial intelligence and robotics,

they say, will come Just wait

Some economists insist the

problem is largely a measurement

gap, because many digital goods

and services are not accurately

captured in official statistics But

a recent study by two economists

from the Federal Reserve and one

from the International Monetary

Fund casts doubt on that theory

Technology spending has been

robust, rising 54 percent over a

decade to $727 billion last year,

ac-cording to the research firm IDC

Despite all the smartphone sales

to consumers, most of the

spend-ing is by companies investspend-ing in

technology to increase growth

and productivity

But an industry-by-industry

analysis, published by the

McKin-sey Global Institute, the research

arm of the consulting firm

McKin-sey & Company, found that the

march of digital technology across

the economy has a long way to go

The McKinsey researchers

exam-ined 22 industries, measuring not

only investment but also the use of

technology to change how work is

done Some industries, like

tech-nology, media and financial

services, were well along, while

others, like health care and

hospi-tality, trailed

Only 18 percent of the American

economy is living up to its “digital

potential,” the report concluded

And if lagging industries do not

catch up, we will not see much of a

change in national economic

statistics, said James Manyika, a

director of the McKinsey Global

Institute

Since the financial crisis, the

Obama administration has moved

aggressively to push medicine

into the digital age As part of the

economic recovery package,

Con-gress enacted the Health

Informa-tion Technology for Economic and

Clinical Health Act of 2009 The

legislation provided for federal

in-centive payments of $44,000 a

physician to shift to electronic

health records

The billions of dollars in

subsi-dies were intended to accelerate

adoption And from 2008 to 2014,

the share of hospitals with

elec-tronic health records rose to 75

percent from 9 percent, while the

adoption rate in doctors’ offices

rose to 51 percent from 17 percent,

according to the most recent

sur-veys by the American Hospital

“The government funding hasmade a huge difference,” said Dr

Ashish Jha, a professor at the vard School of Public Health “Butwe’re seeing little evidence so farthat all this technology has hadmuch effect on quality and costs.”

Har-The electronic records, healthexperts say, represent only a firststep toward curbing costs and im-proving care “People confuse in-formation automation with creat-ing the kind of work environmentwhere productivity and creativitycan flourish,” said Dr David J

Brailer, who was the nationalhealth technology coordinator inthe George W Bush administra-tion “And so little has gone intochanging work so far.”

The government incentivescame with timetables for adoptingdifferent levels of use and new re-porting requirements, with theprospect of financial penalties fordoctors and hospitals that fell be-hind The early goals for adoptingelectronic records were reason-able, health experts say, but thelater stages were too aggressive

Overwhelmed doctors tested, and the administration re-cently shelved the previous time-table, stretching out schedulesand modifying some reporting

pro-Healthstar Physicians, the doctor group in Morristown,Tenn., where Dr Sutherland prac-tices, was spurred to go electronic

50-by those federal incentive ments, which now total $32 billion

pay-But the cultural adjustment todigital technology has been chal-lenging

Dr Sutherland and his leagues evaluated several tech-nology providers and chose Athe-

col-na Health, which does not sell ware but is paid a percentage of itscustomers’ revenue Healthstarstarted using Athena’s cloud soft-ware in 2012, first for billing andthen for electronic health records

soft-Athena’s share is less than 5 cent of the group’s revenue

per-Today, Dr Sutherland’s

person-al income and the medicperson-al group’srevenue are about 8 percent belowwhere they were four years ago

But in 2015, both his earnings andthe revenue of Healthstar, whichemploys 350 people in 10 clinics,increased slightly, by nearly 3 per-cent from 2014

Dr Sutherland decided he didnot want a computer screen sepa-rating him from his patients So heopted for a tablet computer,making it easier to keep eye con-tact

decided to use voice recognitionsoftware For six months, hestayed up until midnight mostnights, training the software untilits speech recognition enginecould transcribe his commentsinto text with few mistakes

Dr Sutherland bemoans thecountless data fields he must fill in

to comply with dated reporting rules, and he con-cedes that some of his colleagueshate using digital records

government-man-Yet Dr Sutherland is no hater

Despite the extra work the newtechnology has created and eventhough it has not yet had the ex-pected financial payoff, he thinks

it has helped him provide betterinformation to patients

He values being able to tap thescreen to look up potentiallyharmful drug interactions and toteach patients during visits Hecan, for example, quickly createcharts to show diabetes patientshow they are progressing withtreatment plans, managing bloodglucose levels and weight loss

He is working harder, Dr

Sutherland says, but he believes

he is a better doctor Bluntmeasures of productivity, he add-

ed, aren’t everything “My tients are better served,” he said

pa-As Businesses Go Digital, Productivity Remains Stuck

From Page A1

Dr Peter Sutherland, above, sees benefits to using electronic health records but says the system has slowed him down Below, two nurses, Mona Bentley and Sandra Johnson, work on patient records The government has paid billions in subsidies to usher medicine into the digital age.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEORGE ETHEREDGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

BROOKSBROTHERS.COM

Following in Dad’s footsteps requires

a great pair of shoes.

A4 N

MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

GYEONGJU, South Korea — She spends hours a day

watching the Japanese broadcaster NHK Her bedside

ta-ble is stacked with Japanese magazines and figurines in

kimonos The walls bear pictures of Mount Fuji

Shizue Katsura, 96, is among 19 Japanese women who

are spending their final days in an unlikely place: a

nurs-ing home in South Korea, where lnurs-ingernurs-ing anti-Japanese

sentiment has helped keep the women in obscurity

“There is no use looking back on my life,” Ms Katsura

said “Home is where you are living Japan is a foreign

country to me.”

Thousands of Japanese women like Ms Katsura

mar-ried Korean men during Japan’s colonial rule, which lasted

from 1910 to 1945 When World War II ended and Korea was

liberated, many stayed with their husbands in Korea,

while others fled back to Japan, fearing violence from

those looking to avenge the brutal colonial rule

Or, as in Ms Katsura’s case, they followed their

hus-bands from Japan to Korea

Once in Korea, these women often discovered that

their husbands’ families had found them Korean spouses

in their absence Many also lost their husbands during the

Korean War, which lasted from 1950 until 1953

By the time many tried to return to Japan, it was too

late Japan and South Korea did not re-establish ties until

1965, and, even then, some of the women had no relatives

to sponsor their return and resettlement

Emotions run high when South Koreans talk about

their country’s historical disputes with Japan, especiallythe enslavement of Korean “comfort women” in front-linebrothels for Japan’s Imperial Army during World War II

But society has paid little attention to these Japanesewomen, some of whom were abandoned by their families

in both countries and had to live with neither a Korean nor

a Japanese passport

“When they arrive here, they all have made-up

Kore-an names,” said Song Mi-ho, the head of the nursing home,Nazarewon, which takes its name from the biblicalNazareth “One of the first things we do is to call them bytheir Japanese names When this happens, they are intears, as if they are getting their life, their identity, back

“Once we give their real names back, it’s amazing howquickly they regain their Japaneseness, the decorum, theway they fold their hands before them when they greetothers,” Ms Song said

While sitting in a wheelchair, Ms Katsura perked upwhen telling a visitor how she met a “kindly” Korean manmore than seven decades earlier, when they worked in apower station in her hometown, Ebetsu, near Sapporo innorthern Japan

But she became taciturn when asked about her life inSouth Korea

Her husband died of alcoholism decades earlier, shesaid She once raised tobacco and livestock in southwest-ern South Korea, and then sold vegetables in the capital,Seoul, before failing health forced her to move into thenursing home nine years ago

“My son, he died early,” she said, declining to

elabo-rate

A South Korean philanthropist named Kim Yong-sungwas operating orphanages in Gyeongju in southeasternSouth Korea when he traveled to Japan and saw whatlooked like Korean women protesting in front of the Japa-nese emperor’s palace They turned out to be Japanesewomen with South Korean passports demanding that Ja-pan help them regain their citizenship and return home

Mr Kim opened Nazarewon in 1972 as a way station forthese women, providing them with lodging, as well as le-gal and financial aid A total of 147 returned home throughNazarewon, the last one in 1984

Nazarewon has since become a nursing home forwomen who either could not or did not want to return toJapan and had no family support

After 70 years in South Korea, some women preferredliving here to ending up at a nursing home in Japan “Theylike umeboshi,” Ms Song said, referring to the ubiquitousJapanese dish of pickled plums “But they can do without

it, but not without the Korean kimchi.”

More than 80 women have died at Nazarewon duringthe past 35 years The average age of the 19 current

A Korean Home for Japanese Who Have No Other

television with other residents at Nazarewon, a nursing home in Gyeongju, South Korea, for wom-

en who did not return to Japan after World War II.

Continued on Page A6

JEAN CHUNG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

MEXICO CITY — Two days after

Jorge Antonio Parral Rabadán was

kid-napped by a criminal gang, the Mexican

Army raided the remote ranch where he

was a prisoner and killed him As he

in-stinctively raised his hands in defense,

the soldiers fired over and over at

point-blank range

A brief army communiqué about the

event asserted that soldiers had

re-turned fire and killed three hit men at El

Puerto ranch on April 26, 2010

But Mr Parral had fired no weapon

He was a government employee, the

supervisor of a bridge

crossing into Texas,

when he and a

cus-toms agent were

ab-ducted, according to a

2013 investigation by

the National Human

Rights Commission

The case, which is still

open, has volleyed

among prosecutors,

yet his parents

per-sist, determined that

someone be held

ac-countable

“Tell me if this looks

like the face of a killer to you,” said Alicia

Rabadán Sánchez, Mr Parral’s mother,

pulling a photograph of a happy young

man from a plastic folder

In the years since the Mexican

govern-ment began an intense military

cam-paign against drug gangs, many stories

like Mr Parral’s have surfaced —

ac-counts of people caught at the

intersec-tion of organized crime, security forces

and a failing justice system

They are killed at military

check-points, vanish inside navy facilities or

are tortured by federal police officers

Seldom are their cases investigated A

trial and conviction are even more rare

But are these cases just regrettable

ac-government battle against drug lence? A new report by the Open SocietyJustice Initiative, which works on rule-of-law issues around the world, arguesthat they are not Instead, the study says,they point to a pattern of indiscriminateforce and impunity that is an integralpart of the state’s policy

vio-And in the framework of internationallaw, the study argues, the killings, forceddisappearances and torture constitutecrimes against humanity

The evidence is “overwhelming,” saidJames A Goldston, the executive direc-tor of the New York-based Justice Initia-tive, which will present the report onTuesday “In case after case, army actorsand federal police have been implicated.”

But in all but a few cases, the tions languish, are dismissed or are re-classified “The impunity is a loud signalthat crimes against humanity are beingcommitted,” Mr Goldston said

allega-The Justice Initiative report is the firsttime an international group has made apublic legal argument that the pattern ofabuses amounts to crimes against hu-manity The finding is significant, Mr

Goldston said, because under the lens ofinternational law, an investigation wouldseek to determine the chain of commandbehind the policy

The government of President EnriquePeña Nieto rejected the conclusions

“Based on international law, crimesagainst humanity are generalized or sys-tematic attacks against a civilian popula-tion which are committed in accordancewith a state policy,” the government said

in a statement “In Mexico the immensemajority of violent crimes have beencommitted by criminal organizations.”

The report does not dispute that lastpoint Its analysis, which covers the six-year administration of former PresidentFelipe Calderón and the first three years

of Mr Peña Nieto’s government, alsolooks at the Zetas, the most violent of

tions constitute crimes against humanity

as well, the report concludes

The government said that in the ceptional cases” in which public officialshave been shown to be involved in theuse of excessive force, human rightsabuses or torture, they have been triedand sentenced

“ex-But human rights and international ganizations have argued for years thatthese cases are not exceptional

or-Rather than ask the InternationalCriminal Court’s prosecutor to begin aninvestigation, the Justice Initiative pro-poses that the crimes be investigated athome

“One of the things that we havelearned is that Mexico is rich in financialresources and human capital in these is-sues,” Mr Goldston said The Justice Ini-tiative has been working in Mexico formore than a decade

But the investigations “simply haven’thappened because in our view the po-litical will is not there,” Mr Goldston said

The report “explains how we havereached this state of impunity,” said JoséAntonio Guevara, the director of theMexican Commission for the Defenseand Promotion of Human Rights The

highest level is that what they’re doing isthe right thing to weaken organizedcrime,” he said

The commission was one of five can groups that helped prepare the Jus-tice Initiative report

Mexi-To break that impunity, the report poses that Mexico accept internationalhelp from outside prosecutors with theauthority to investigate and prosecuteatrocities and corruption cases

pro-Mexico’s human rights crisis has manded international attention since 43students from a local teachers’ collegewere abducted by local police officersworking with a drug gang in the south-ern city of Iguala in September 2014 asthe federal police and military stood by

com-“The impunity in Mexico and the cuits of corruption are such that theygenerate pacts so solid that internationalintervention is needed,” said SantiagoAguirre, the deputy director of the Mi-guel Agustín Pro Juárez Center for Hu-man Rights

cir-One model for what the report gests is in neighboring Guatemala,where independent prosecutors un-covered a customs fraud scheme thatbrought down the president last year

sug-idea “Our country has the capacity andthe will to meet human rights chal-lenges,” it said

The government pointed to the drop incomplaints to the National HumanRights Commission, to 538 last year from1,450 in 2012

It also described recent changes signed to reduce abuses, including pro-posed laws and protocols to prevent tor-ture and investigate disappearances Anew law for victims is in effect, and thismonth courts will begin to switch fromwritten to oral trials

de-Critics are skeptical that the changeswill make much of a difference unlessthey are carried out effectively

As long as prosecutors in Mexico main subject to political power, said Mr.Aguirre, the impunity will continue

re-“What’s the incentive for a prosecutor to

be independent? None,” he said.Without real investigations, there arethousands of parents like the Parrals,who trudge from one government office

to another in search of answers

It was only through a case file numberthat appeared on an army document 10months after their son disappeared thatthey found his body

Tucked into the archives at the stateprosecutor’s office was their son’s gov-ernment ID, which had been found at theranch But his body had been tossed into

a common grave An army investigationdismissed the case, and it languishedwith federal prosecutors before it wasturned back to state prosecutors

“We think the army is hiding thing to protect the commanding officersfrom the atrocities they carry out,” said

some-Mr Parral’s father, Jorge ParralGutiérrez “We can see that theprosecutors are not free to act.”

“The message is that the army ,”began Mr Parral His wife finished thesentence: “ has obstructed justice in

A Report on Mexico’s Drug War

Cites Crimes Against Humanity

By ELISABETH MALKIN

Mr Parral’s parents, Jorge Parral Gutiérrez and Alicia Rabadán Sánchez Mr Parral, who had been kidnapped by a criminal gang, was killed by soldiers in a raid in 2010.

ADRIANA ZEHBRAUSKAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jorge Antonio

Parral

Rabadán

N A5

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

IT’S THE COURT, STUPID!

Confirm Judge Garland

Paid for by It’s the Court Stupid PAC Not Authorized by Any Candidate or Candidate’s Committee

A s a lifelong Republican, who has always

been realistic on social issues and conservative on fi scal and governmental issues,

I would be deeply dismayed if we lost control

of Congress because Republican hardliners in

the Senate, blinded by politics, have lost their

common sense They fail to acknowledge the

danger facing our country by holding hostage

the confi rmation of centrist Chief Judge

Merrick Garland of the United States Court of

Appeals for the District of Columbia

Let’s put aside the Presidential race and its hashtag campaigns Republicans in this country

need to grasp the broader implications of not

fi lling Justice Scalia’s Supreme Court seat I

have impartially looked at the credentials and

record of Chief Judge Garland, and I think he

would make a fi ne Justice given the high stakes

facing the Republican Party today He has

been fair in his rulings, and has shown none of

the ultra-liberal judicial activism that would

endanger the Supreme Court’s balance By

continuing to use the Garland nomination as a

political tool, Republicans in the Senate are not

only risking their credibility, but risking the loss

of the Senate, the ability to confi rm or reject

future Presidential nominations, and possibly

decades of an activist bench

There is no reason to drag this nomination out any longer It is far better to confi rm a

known variable than to risk everything on the

hopes that a long-shot Republican victory in

November — despite polls — will offer a better

nominee

According to popular online odds makers

— where people actually put their own

money at risk — Hillary Clinton has a 4-11

shot of winning the Presidential election The

Donald is 9-4 As a conservative investor, I

don’t like those odds By confi rming Judge

Garland now, before we are faced with a

far worse alternative, we can show that the

Senate, with Republican leadership, is smart

enough to make tough choices, and also send

a signal to independents, millennials, women,

minorities, and gay Americans that Republicans

in Congress are ready to work, and not just

perceived to be the party of no

We must hold on to six endangered Republican Senate seats this year: Florida, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania; fi ve of which are considered either “swing” or “battleground” states for the presidential election and all are states that Governor Mitt Romney lost in 2012

By continuing to block this confi rmation, we are not only giving Democrats an issue to use against these vulnerable Republican Senators, but worse, are potentially risking decades of

a possible liberal, activist Supreme Court If

we act judiciously, proceed intelligently, and use good political rationalization before the election — not after, Republicans can avert disaster, not just in the short-term but potentially for years to come

George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright and Nobel Laureate once said, “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world

The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

Republicans, it is time to stop being the unreasonable party, by being immovably on the right It’s time to show the country that, despite policy disagreements, we are fi t to lead and can make responsible choices

Let this serve as a wakeup call to Senator McConnell and GOP leaders to take a bold leadership stand and confi rm Judge Garland immediately; thus averting a devastating decision that could cost the Republican Party not only the Senate, but their own credibility and good standing Remember, it is not only conservatives who vote in general elections

The Senate and the Supreme Court are in your hands

Don’t let your legacy, the future of the Republican Party, and our country, suffer

Don’t let the tail wag the elephant

There could be more at stake here than the Presidency.

Earle I Mack is a successful real estate investor who served as U.S Ambassador to Finland under George W Bush He was Chairman of Victory

2000 in New York and Chairman Emeritus of the Benjamin N Cardozo School of Law.

Don’t Let the Tail Wag the Elephant

Reprinted with permission © Th e Hill 2016.

A6 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALMONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

I have had guns pointed at me,

slept in a shipping container and

walked past the corpses of

shelling victims since the

sepa-ratist insurgency in eastern

Ukraine began two years ago

But I had never been blacklisted

as a terrorist before

So when my name recently

appeared on a “terrorist” list of

journalists published by a

web-site with close ties to the

Ukrain-ian government, I viewed it with

a mix of trepidation and sarcasm

Trepidation because it

sug-gested powerful people in

Ukraine, a democracy that

as-pires to the free flow of

informa-tion, were going after me and

others on the list for simply

doing our jobs: reporting both

sides of the war, including the

pro-Russian rebel side

And sarcasm because, this

being Ukraine, the list was not

likely to have much credibility

elsewhere I have not, for

exam-ple, had any trouble flying after

appearing on what may be the

world’s first list of terrorist

jour-nalists

It is also not a secret that I and

other reporters have reported

from rebel territory; our

publications and broadcast

out-lets regularly use our names and

note where we are

The list, published by a

Ukrainian nationalist website

called Myrotvorets, or the

Peace-maker, appeared to have been

born out of a simmering

frustra-tion

Hard-liners in Ukraine have

been furious at the foreign press

for some time now, arguing that

any coverage of the rebels from

their home base in the east

played into Russia’s powerful

propaganda machine Russia has

portrayed residents in the

break-away regions as victims of an

unjustified Ukrainian military

assault by a Western-backed

“fascist” government in Kiev

The list is a compilation of

reporters and others who applied

for press passes to work in

terri-tory controlled by the Donetsk

People’s Republic, Ukraine’s

main enemy in the two-year-old

war in the east Applying for

accreditation from

Russian-backed rebels, according to the

website, was enough to be

branded a “terrorist accomplice.”

The website said it had

ob-tained the list of names, and

personal information including

emails, from hackers who hadstolen the rebels’ data

Groups supporting journalistsquickly condemned the publica-tion of the names — and in somecases home addresses — forseeming to invite violenceagainst reporters

A pro-Russian commentatorliving in Kiev, Oles Buzina,whose home address was publi-cized in a Myrotvorets post lastyear, was shot and killed on astreet not far from his home dayslater

But this time, the site waspublishing names and contactdetails for 5,412 journalists, driv-ers, fixers, soundmen and trans-lators Not all of us can berubbed out

Why were so many reportersaccredited to cover the war inDonetsk? Because it served themedia strategy of the Russia-backed rebels About two-thirds

of the journalists and supportstaff on the list were Russiannationals or locals from easternUkraine, who might be expected

to be sympathetic to the rebels

In addition, 1,816 foreignreporters showed up over thetwo years and were accredited,according to the list

The ease of accrediting sured, for example, broad cover-age of stray Ukrainian artillerystrikes hitting the city and some-

en-times killing civilians, helpingdiscredit Ukraine’s actions to winback territory The media strat-egy seems right out of Russia’smedia playbook; Western mili-tary analysts have noted Russia’ssavvy at what they have called

“hybrid wars” that blend lethalforce with aggressive (and pos-itive) press coverage

For reporters, press passes totravel in rebel-held territorywere invaluable for avoidingarrest, duct-taped hands or de-tention in a basement To get thecoveted slips of paper, journalistsvisited Angela, a witty womanknown as the “accreditationqueen.”

Angela worked in a floor office of the separatistheadquarters in central Donetsk

seventh-Reaching her space meant king up a dark stairwell fes-tooned with coarse propagandafor the anti-Western cause: Onedrawing showed President Oba-ma’s head on the body of a mon-key; another showed a Ukrainianpolitician, Arseniy P Yatsenyuk,dressed in a Nazi uniform

trek-With few exceptions, Angelacheerily printed out press passesfor anyone who asked — otherthan reporters from government-controlled Ukraine

Many Ukrainians remainoutraged that, as they see it, theRussian-backed groups have

been able to deftly amplify theirmessage with the megaphone ofthe Western media — despite therebels’ virulently anti-Westernagenda The war has now killedmore than 10,000 people

Still, Ukraine’s ombudsman,Valeria Lutkovska, condemnedthe release of the journalists’

names and urged the authorities

to shut down the Kiev-basedwebsite for revealing personalinformation President Petro O

Poroshenko on Friday called therelease a “big mistake.” Westernambassadors voiced concern

In the face of criticism, theMyrotvorets website has doubleddown, posting a sarcastic rejoin-der “Many journalists demanded

an apology from us, and now weunderstand the reason for this,”

the site wrote on May 20, twoweeks after publishing the list of

“terrorist accomplices” in themedia “The staff offer theirsincere apologies in regards tothe list not being fresh.” It thenadded new names

And the interior minister,Arsen B Avakov, appeared toendorse the leak, or at least didnot condemn it

“War is like war,” he wrote onFacebook “A friend sincerelyfighting is more important for methan opinions of liberals andlatent separatists who think toomuch of themselves.”

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

Blacklisted for Covering Two Sides of Ukraine War

Pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk in 2014 prepared to listen to President Vladimir V Putin of Russia.

MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS

By ANDREW E KRAMER

residents is 92 Many suffer fromAlzheimer’s disease and were notavailable for interviews

The nursing home’s existencerankles some South Koreans

“I still get angry calls, asking:

‘What do you think you are doing?

Don’t you know what the nese did to our comfort women?’”

Japa-Ms Song said “I hope what we dohere will, in its small and silentway, help heal the ties between thetwo nations.”

Chiyo Yagi, 90, said she was anurse in the Fukuoka prefecture

in southern Japan when she fell inlove with a Korean translator whowould bring injured Korean work-ers from the nearby Lizuka coalmines to her hospital When theywere married, her father did notattend the wedding

Ms Yagi, too, did not like to talkabout her life in South Korea,though her callused and crookedfingers appeared to reflect a life ofmenial labor

“Korea is a better place for me

to live because I at least have adaughter here,” she said “Mydaughter comes to see me once ayear.”

Japanese journalists havevisited Nazarewon since a bookabout the women there was pub-lished in Japan in the early 1980s

A church in Japan and the

Japa-nese Embassy in Seoul have vided aid to help Ms Song operatethe nursing home Japanesetourists who visit this city, the seat

pro-of the ancient Silla kingdom andhome to numerous Buddhist tem-ples and pagodas, often stop at thenursing home

But their numbers have clined sharply in recent years, asrelations between South Koreaand Japan have cooled over a ter-ritorial dispute and the issue of thecomfort women

de-On a recent afternoon, won was shrouded in silence.Women sat motionlessly in wheel-chairs, gazing at NHK on a largescreen A few played a card game,counting their scores in Japanesebut otherwise speaking Korean.Azaleas blossomed in the frontyard

Nazare-“I don’t know anything aboutpolitics,” said Ms Katsura, whodeclined to discuss Korean-Japa-nese relations “What I do know isthat if you do well to others, theywill do well to you, too That’s truebetween people, between na-tions.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES

A Korean Home Shelters Japanese With No Other

From Page A4

Reminders of the combative history between two nations.

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A8 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALMONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

JERUSALEM — In a sign of

growing cooperation, President

Vladimir V Putin of Russia has

agreed to return to Israel a tank

that was seized during a

disas-trous 1982 battle with Syrian

forces in southern Lebanon, an

episode that left three Israeli

sol-diers missing in action and has

haunted Israel for more than 30

years

The gesture of good will was

an-nounced before a visit to Moscow,

starting Monday, by Israel’s prime

minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to

commemorate 25 years since the

resumption of diplomatic

rela-tions between Israel and Russia

The Soviet Union had severed ties

in 1967, after the Arab-Israeli War

This will be Mr Netanyahu’s

third visit to Moscow since

Sep-tember After his most recent visit,

in April, Mr Netanyahu said the

two sides also planned to sign an

agreement dealing with state

pen-sions for tens of thousands of

im-migrants to Israel from the former

Soviet Union The April visit

fo-cused on security coordination

be-tween the Israeli and Russian

militaries to avoid any mishaps as

they operate in the Middle East

But it is the promised return of

the tank that will have symbolic

value for many Israelis “There

has been nothing to remember the

boys by and no grave to visit for 34

years now,” Mr Netanyahu said,

referring to the families of the

missing soldiers “The tank is the

only evidence of the battle, and

now it is coming back to Israel

thanks to President Putin’s

re-sponse to my request.”

Mr Netanyahu said last week

that Mr Putin had signed an order

to return the tank, which the

Syrians sent to Moscow for

ex-amination, and which has been on

display at the armored corps

mu-seum in Moscow Mr Netanyahu

said he had raised the issue during

his meeting with Mr Putin at the

Kremlin in April after a request

from the chief of staff of the Israeli

military, Lt Gen Gadi Eisenkot A

delegation from the Israeli

mili-tary’s armored corps has been in

Moscow discussing the logistics

for transferring the tank

The battle near the village of

Sultan Yakoub, in the eastern

Be-kaa, occurred in the opening days

of an Israeli invasion An Israeli

armored brigade entered a

nar-row valley, apparently unaware

that Syrian forces were positioned

in the surrounding hills

Survivors described scenes of

chaos as tanks were abandoned

and soldiers tried to escape on

foot A rescue mission was at-tempted, and about 20 Israeli sol-diers were killed in the clash One

of the captured Israeli tanks was later paraded through the streets

of Damascus, according to news reports at the time

The three Israeli soldiers — Zachary Baumel, Zvi Feldman and Yehudah Katz — were in two tanks when they were ambushed, according to relatives Mr Baumel was in one, and Mr Feldman and

Mr Katz were in another Israeli officials could not immediately specify which tank the Russians had pledged to return

Zvi Magen, Israel’s ambassador

to Moscow in the late 1990s, said

he had been shown the American-made tank at the museum The Syrians had transferred it be-cause the Soviets wanted to study its defense and weapons systems,

he said Mr Magen said he had asked for details about anything that was found in the tank, but had been told that it arrived without any signs of the soldiers who had been in it, or of any remains

Mr Magen, who is now a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said the more im-portant background to what he called the “confidence-building measures” of the return of the tank and the pension deal were Russian and Israeli interests

giv-en the “new reality” of Russia’s presence in Syria

Still, the families of the three soldiers have never stopped searching for information about their fate “They were probably taken in the battlefield,” Osna Ha-berman, the sister of Mr Baumel, said in a telephone interview on Sunday “There is still a chance that he could be sitting some-where in a Syrian jail.”

Mr Baumel, 22 at the time of the battle, also held American citizen-ship, having moved to Israel with his family from Brooklyn in 1970

Ms Haberman, a high school teacher who lives in Jerusalem, said Mr Netanyahu called her a week ago to tell her of Mr Putin’s promise

The families believe that it was the tank that Mr Katz and Mr

Feldman had been riding in, Ms

Haberman said “In any event,”

she said, according to witness ac-counts the three young men were captured after they abandoned their tanks “It doesn’t solve our problem,” Ms Haberman said of the Russian gesture “We are waiting for information Some-thing solid, like an eyewitness re-port Nothing else will serve.”

President Vladimir V Putin of Russia, left, with Benjamin

Ne-tanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, in Jerusalem in 2012.

ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Russia to Return to Israel

Tank Used in 1982 Battle

By ISABEL KERSHNER

GENEVA — Swiss voters on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected

a proposal to guarantee an income

to Switzerland’s residents, whether or not they are employed,

an idea that has also been raised

in other countries amid an in-tensifying debate over wealth dis-parities and dwindling employ-ment opportunities

About 77 percent of voters re-jected a plan to give a basic monthly income of 2,500 Swiss francs, or about $2,560, to each adult, and 625 francs for each child under 18, regardless of employ-ment status, to fight poverty and social inequality and guarantee a

“dignified” life to everyone

Switzerland was the first coun-try to vote on such a universal ba-sic income plan, but other coun-tries and cities either have been considering the idea or have started trial programs

Finland is set to introduce a pi-lot program for a random sample

of about 10,000 adults who will each receive a monthly handout of

550 euros, about $625 The intent

is to turn the two-year trial into a national plan if it proves success-ful

In the Netherlands, Utrecht is leading a group of municipalities that are experimenting with simi-lar pilot projects

In the United States, the idea of

a guaranteed income has gained some traction in the run-up to the presidential election in Novem-ber It has been promoted by some Democrats who are demanding more social justice, but it also has some right-wing advocates who see it as a better alternative to government welfare programs

In Switzerland, opponents warned that the proposal would derail an economic model that, far from showing signs of near-col-lapse, has allowed the country to remain among those with the highest living standards in the world, even with a growing and aging population Switzerland has

an unemployment rate of around 3.5 percent, less than half the av-erage in the European Union

The backers of the plan did not detail how it would be financed

But the Swiss government and al-most all the main political parties had urged voters to turn down the guaranteed income plan, warning that it would require raising an ad-ditional 25 billion Swiss francs a year through deep spending cuts

or tax increases

Some opponents of a Swiss guaranteed income also attacked

it as a return to Marxist econom-ics, even if the idea has far older roots, dating to the 16th-century writings of Thomas More and the 18th-century works of Thomas Paine

After World War II, the concept

of a guaranteed income was pro-moted as a way of redistributing income by some free-market economists led by Milton Fried-man, who in part argued that it would be more efficient than the bureaucracy of running dozens of separate programs to help the poor

Still, the current discussion, in Switzerland and elsewhere, has been not only about wealth redis-tribution but also about how mod-ern societies can continue to cre-ate jobs while pushing techno-logical advances such as factory robots and driverless trucks

Campaigners in favor of a guar-anteed income used robots as street stunts to warn what the job-less society of the future would en-tail Some people gave out 10-franc notes at the Zurich’s main train station while supporters in Ge-neva set up, on a public esplanade,

a giant banner that asked, “What would you do if your income were taken care of?”

“I understand that a new gener-ation is worried about how and where young people will next find work, but this proposal was pure nonsense,” said Curdin Pirovino, a Swiss industrial designer “You cannot give a society the idea that money is available for doing noth-ing.”

But at a Sunday market in Ge-neva, several people defended the proposal in the context of return-ing to a more equitable society

Some also presented their vote

as another challenge to indus-trialization, similar to their moti-vation for buying organic food from the stalls of local farmers

rather than cheaper supermar-kets A third of voters in Geneva backed the idea of a guaranteed income

“We’re losing all our values, cre-ating countries that no longer need workers but still need con-sumers, but how can we expect people to buy anything if they can’t earn a salary tomorrow?”

asked Olivier Duchene, a musi-cian and street entertainer

Despite the clear defeat, cam-paigners said the vote was a first step toward a fairer economic model

“One out of five people voted for

the unconditional basic income, so that is a success in itself,” Sergio Rossi, an economics professor who backed the initiative, told STA, the Swiss news agency

Switzerland’s model of direct democracy, in which citizens can collect signatures to force a na-tional referendum on a proposal, has helped turn the country into a laboratory for pioneering social and economic changes

In early 2013, the Swiss voted to impose some of the world’s most severe restrictions on executive compensation, following a pro-posal by a small entrepreneur in defiance of the country’s big busi-ness lobby

Later that year, however, the Swiss rejected another economic proposal, the “1:12” initiative, which would have limited the

sala-ry of top executives to 12 times the wages of their lowest-paid employees And in 2014, the Swiss rejected a proposal to introduce what would have been the world’s highest minimum wage, equiva-lent to nearly $25 an hour Referendums are gaining ground in other European coun-tries that normally rely on a sys-tem of parliamentary democracy Last year, Greece held a refer-endum on a bailout plan, and the Netherlands introduced a referen-dum law under which voters re-jected a European Union agree-ment with Ukraine in April Brit-ain is set to vote in a referendum this month on whether to leave the European Union a year after Scot-land voted to stay in the United Kingdom

But in Switzerland, the prolifer-ation of such votes has provoked a debate over the ease with which complicated or radical issues can

be brought to a referendum Low voter turnout has also become an issue About 46 percent of eligible Swiss voters went to the polls on Sunday, when four other national issues and several regional issues were voted on

Philippe Leuba, a regional poli-tician, said on Swiss national radio

on Sunday that it was positive that voters had followed the advice of their federal government But he still deplored the fact that the pro-posal for guaranteed income had gotten so far, calling it a “hyper-populist and demagogic” plan to give away money for nothing

Swiss Voters Reject Plan for Guaranteed Income

By RAPHAEL MINDER

Backers gathered in Basel, Switzerland, to celebrate the votes an income plan received Sunday.

ALEXANDRA WEY/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

A proposal to pay the equivalent of $2,560

a month, job or no job.

DHAKA, Bangladesh — Three attackers fatally shot and stabbed the wife of a police superintendent

in southern Bangladesh on Sun-day morning, the police said, the latest in a series of killings in which Islamist militants are the primary suspects

The woman, Mahmuda

Khan-am Mitu, 30, and her young son were walking through a narrow lane near their home in Chit-tagong on the way to a school bus stop when three men arriving on a motorcycle stabbed her and shot her in the head, said Mohiuddin

Mahmood, the officer in charge of the Panchlaish police station in Chittagong The son was unhurt

“We found nine wounds of stab-bing on her back and belly,” Mr

Mahmood said

Her husband, Babul Akter, a po-lice officer with a record of going after Islamist militants, was re-cently promoted to superintend-ent In December, Superintendent Akter led a raid on an apartment

on the outskirts of the city that the police said belonged to the banned group Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh, according to the local news media

In October, five people sus-pected of belonging to the militant group were arrested in Chitta-gong

Bahar, the commissioner of the Chittagong Metropolitan Police, said of the attack Superintendent Akter’s work “created threats for him.”

Superintendent Akter had been

in Dhaka, the capital, for the past few days after his promotion, the police said

Though Commissioner Bahar said it was not yet clear who had carried out the attack, he said Ja-maat-ul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh could have been involved

For the past two years, activ-ists, religious minorities, intellec-tuals and secularist writers, among others, have been targeted for death in Bangladesh, and the deaths appear to have accelerated

in recent weeks

some of the killings on social me-dia accounts linked to it, and oth-ers have been claimed by a faction

of Al Qaeda The authorities in Bangladesh have denied the pres-ence of foreign militants in the country

Also on Sunday, a Christian man, Sunil Gomez, 60, was hacked

to death in his grocery store in the Natore district in northern Ban-gladesh, in a style similar to re-cent attacks, said Moniruzzaman, subinspector of the Boraigram po-lice station in Natore, who goes by one name

The Amaq News Agency of the Islamic State claimed the killing, according to the SITE Intelligence Group But Mr Moniruzzaman said it was too soon to name

sus-Militants Suspected in Killing of Bangladeshi Officer’s Wife

By JULFIKAR ALI MANIK and NIDA NAJAR

Julfikar Ali Manik reported from Dhaka, and Nida Najar from New

LIMA, Peru — An economist who served as Peru’s prime min-ister held a razor-thin lead in the presidential contest on Sunday against the daughter of an im-prisoned former president who was seeking to return her family

to power

A partial count released by the government on Sunday night put Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, 77, with about a 1 percent advantage over Keiko Fujimori, 41, whose father, Alberto, ran the country in the 1990s Officials said the result amounted to a technical tie and said they would keep counting throughout the night

While both candidates cam-paigned on similar free-market platforms, many in the region saw the election as a referendum on the legacy of Mr Fujimori, whose rule turned authoritarian as he suspended the country’s Constitu-tion in a conflict with the Shining Path, a Marxist rebel group

Years later, while trying to re-turn to power, he was convicted of corruption and human rights abuses and sentenced to 25 years

in prison

Still, many Peruvians initially seemed to favor Ms Fujimori — who pledged not to give her father

a pardon — giving her the most votes in the first round of the pres-idential contest in April and hand-ing her Popular Force party a ma-jority in Congress

After the first round of voting, polls showed her widening a lead over Mr Kuczynski with populist appeals to working-class voters and a law-and-order message

Yet the Sunday result revealed

a country more evenly divided be-tween the two candidates, with a slight advantage for Mr Kuczyn-ski, a mild-mannered former World Bank official who appealed

to voters as a technocrat

On Sunday night before

supporters, a jubilant Mr Kuczyn-ski, who was prime minister from

2005 to 2006, stopped short of claiming a win, but said he be-lieved that victory would be his soon “I am sure that the election commission will come out tomor-row with a favorable verdict for us,” he said “We abhor dictator-ship and love democracy.”

Ms Fujimori said she would also wait for the final result

“We’re proud to know that we came out with the backing of 50 percent of the population,” she said

Cires Palomares Vicuña, 55, a nurse, said she had voted for Mr

Kuczynski “I identify with him, and we need to make a positive change and have someone experi-enced to correctly steer us,” she said

Jesús Ayala, 53, a construction worker, said he was fearful that crime was on the rise in his coun-try, something he thought Ms Fu-jimori was better equipped to han-dle

“I believed in Fujimori’s fight against terrorism back in the

’90s,” he said “He was the only one able to end that war Like now, delinquency has grown, and I think she’s best to combat it.” While her father’s legacy cut both ways, Ms Fujimori found herself on the defense against a number of corruption allegations Critics repeatedly accused her campaign of giving money to voters, and one of her running mates was disqualified by the country’s electoral commission for handing out food and water at

an election event

Ms Fujimori has denied any wrongdoing

The allegations were a factor for Alexander de Feudis, 45, a graphic designer

“At first, I thought Keiko would

be great because her party leads the Congress and this allows her

to make changes faster,” he said

“Now I changed my mind because

I see too many signs of corruption within her party and the people who surround her.”

Economist Holds Thin Lead in Peru’s Presidential Vote

Peruvian citizens in Santiago, Chile, voted on Sunday in an election between Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Keiko Fujimori.

ESTEBAN FELIX/ASSOCIATED PRESS

By ANDREA ZARATE and NICHOLAS CASEY

Andrea Zarate reported from Lima, and Nicholas Casey from New York.

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0 N A9

INTERNATIONAL

THE NEW YORK TIMES MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

WASHINGTON — There are

few relationships between

Presi-dent Obama and another world

leader more unlikely than the

one he has with Prime Minister

Narendra Modi of India

The two have a public warmth

— or “chemistry,” as the Indian

news media like to describe it —

and that is likely to be on display

Tuesday when Mr Modi visits

the White House for the second

time in two years It will be the

seventh time the two leaders will

have met

There are compelling reasons

the leaders of the world’s largest

democracies would find common

cause The United States is

en-couraging the rise of India as a

giant Asian partner to balance

China, and India is trying to

accelerate its economy with an

injection of investment from

American companies

“It is true that Obama and I

have a special friendship, a

spe-cial wavelength,” Mr Modi said

last month in an interview with

The Wall Street Journal

Ben-jamin J Rhodes, the president’s

deputy national security adviser

for strategic communication, said

on Saturday that the two leaders

“have each invested in

develop-ing a close relationship.”

It is worth recounting just how

unlikely such a friendship is

The nation’s first black

presi-dent, Mr Obama has made the

protection of minorities a central

pillar of his life And he has

ar-gued that criticism and dissent

are core tenets of democracy

Mr Modi, by contrast, spent

much of his life rising through

the ranks of the Rashtriya

Swayamsevak Sangh, a

right-wing paramilitary organization

that campaigns forcefully for

India’s Hindu majority Mr Modi

was in charge of the state of

Gujarat when rioting in 2002 cost

the lives of more than 1,000

peo-ple, most of them Muslims Just

last week, 24 people were

con-victed of massacring Muslims

during the riots, and pending

cases are attempting to prove

that Mr Modi, who has so far

escaped judicial censure, was

part of a high-level conspiracy to

encourage the killings

Generally poorer and less

educated than India’s Hindus,

Muslims are about 14 percent of

the population, about the sameproportion as African Americans

in the United States In India, Mr

Modi’s reputation among lims could broadly be compared

Mus-to that of a Southern regationist from the 1950s

seg-Perhaps just as troubling, Mr

Modi’s government has ingly used the country’s broadand vague laws restricting freespeech to stifle dissent, accord-ing to a recent report by HumanRights Watch Other laws havebeen used to intimidate and evenshut down nongovernmentalorganizations, such as Green-peace

increas-Neither Mr Obama nor Mr

Modi is given to displaying tion Both avoid the socializingcommon in their capitals Andwhile Mr Obama is a dotingfather and dutiful husband whomaintains close bonds with hischildhood friends, Mr Modiabandoned his arranged mar-

affec-riage decades ago and has nochildren or any public friend-ships

Some political analysts haveexpressed deep skepticism thatthe two leaders have any realfondness for each other

Mr Modi is part of a class of

“populist, electable, narcissisticright-wing autocrats whoseappeal is that they pander tomajoritarian anger,” said KantiPrasad Bajpai, a professor ofAsian studies at the NationalUniversity of Singapore

“Obama is the opposite of that,

so it is hard to see how close theycan be,” Mr Bajpai said

Others see similarities thatextend beyond political beliefs

Both men rose from modestcircumstances, had difficultrelationships with their fathersand were widely consideredtransformational figures whenelected (Mr Modi’s humbleorigins, largely corruption-freegovernment and intense focus onwinning foreign investment aresharp breaks from his predeces-sor.) And parts of Mr Modi’spolitical operation, in particularits effective use of social media,were based on Mr Obama’smodel

Ashley J Tellis, a senior ciate with the Carnegie Endow-ment for International Peace,said both men “are remarkablywarm and have a personal gra-ciousness about them that isvery evident in personalencounters.”

asso-Raymond E Vickery, a formerUnited States assistant secretary

of commerce who has met Mr

Modi, said both had grown up asoutsiders and valued frankness

“Modi is a really down-to-earthguy who tries to answer yourquestions and doesn’t just go totalking points,” Mr Vickery said

Mr Obama made the firstsignificant gesture in the rela-tionship when, during Mr Modi’sfirst official visit to Washington

in 2014, the president left hisWhite House staff behind to give

a personal 15-minute tour of theMartin Luther King Jr Memorial

Mr Modi responded by ing Mr Obama to be his guest atthe annual Republic Day celebra-tions in New Delhi in January

invit-2015 When Mr Obama arrived,

Mr Modi broke with protocol togreet the president at the airportwith a hug And at a later ap-pearance, Mr Modi referred tothe president as Barack and

thanked him for his “deep sonal commitment” to theirfriendship In a toast at a statedinner, Mr Obama called Mr.Modi “my partner and friend.”

per-“The hours they’ve spenttogether,” Mr Rhodes said Satur-day, “have allowed them to have

a good understanding of theirrespective worldviews and do-mestic circumstances, and made

it possible to deepen defense ties,advance our civil nuclear cooper-ation and achieve a break-through on climate change.”

He added, “It’s also an tion of how important PresidentObama thinks our relationship iswith India, as the world’s largestdemocracy and an increasinglyimportant partner.”

indica-On Tuesday, White Houseofficials said, the two leaders areexpected to discuss climatechange and clean energy part-nerships, security cooperation,and economic growth The offi-cials said the leaders mightannounce a new defense logisticsagreement, further progress onIndia’s efforts to phase outozone-depleting hydrofluorocar-bons and perhaps a deal forWestinghouse Electric Corpora-tion to build nuclear powerplants in India in a long-delayedfulfillment of a pact first struck

in 2006

A shared interest in cleanpower and climate change iscentral to their personal bond,some analysts said

“These two guys get very littlepolitical traction at home forbeing climate champions, butthey are anyway, and I thinkthey respect each other for that,”said Andrew Light, a formersenior adviser to the UnitedStates special envoy on climatechange

Tavleen Singh, an Indian mentator and admirer of Mr.Modi, said the prime minister’shigh-profile sanitation campaignand his efforts to improve thestatus of women would alsoendear him to Mr Obama Still,she said she doubted the twomen were truly affectionate.Zia Haq, an assistant editor atthe Hindustan Times in India,was also skeptical

com-“I refuse to believe the twomen could be very good personalfriends deep down, because Modi

is all things Obama can’t possiblybe,” Mr Haq wrote in an email

WHITE HOUSE LETTER

For Obama and Modi, a ‘Chemistry’ of Shared Objectives

A10 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALMONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

Jamshid said about their graveside base

“We wash the grave with the remaining

water before we go home.”

Elaborate Displays

Kart-e-Sakhi cemetery comes to life on

Thursdays and Fridays, the Afghan

weekend Specific grave markers have

become the landmarks for new

commu-nities, some transitory, others more

per-sistent

Children with chapped hands play

marbles by the grave of Zaher Turkman

Two men smoke a joint near the grave of

Sayed Rohullah Sadat (They turn out to

be policemen.) A university student

wearing a blue jacket, lecture notes in

hand, paces between graves, trying to

memorize them ahead of an exam

The cemetery is a godsend for young

lovers, a place of privacy where, with a

buffer of assumed mourning around

them, they can speak on their phones

un-interrupted by the harassment that is

otherwise too normal here In one

tucked-away corner, a pair of teenage

girls sit on the edge of a grave, one of

them on her phone, smiling and

blush-ing A cotton-candy seller moves around

on his bicycle

Every weekend, there are cockfights

by the grave of Sayed Faqir Hussain

Men sit in a ring, and the trained birds

are brought in under the arms of their

owners Presiding over the games, as

godfather and referee, is Said Gul Agha,

who goes by the nickname The

Mechan-ic, his weekday vocation

The Mechanic used to have 10 fighting

roosters of his own, but he had only two

left Sitting on the edge of a grave, he wasintently wrapped up with every move, atonce thrilled and anxious as the birdstangled their necks together and deliv-ered blows

“Bring it for the next round before itgets cold!” he called to one owner whowas wiping the blood from his bird’s face

“If the bird’s body doesn’t hurt, it won’tlearn how to fight.”

The graves at Kart-e-Sakhi have come remarkably ornate lately Therewere always poetry and flower patterns,but now there are massive headstoneswith etched portraits, and even posters

be-hanging on the railings closing the graves

en-On the edge of the tery, behind a row of smallshops and eateries, is thegrave of “The Martyr Com-mander Mahdi GhazniwalBakshi.” A police officer, hewas 23 at the time of hisdeath, ambushed by the Tal-iban in southwestern Af-ghanistan

ceme-Two flags fly over hisgrave, one of the Afghanstate and the other a martyr-dom banner, and betweenthem is a poster of him wear-ing black shades, a militaryradio in one hand and anAK-47 rifle in another

Inside the railing, right behind a stone bearing an etched portrait, hangsanother poster of Commander Mahdi He

head-is shown lounging on a couch, wearingLevi’s sneakers and a gold bracelet Atthe foot of the headstone is a witheredrose, most of its petals stolen by thewind

“He had 60 girlfriends,” said his uncleEzatullah Nabizada, who came one day

to crouch by the grave and pay his spects “And he was married.”

re-The new crop of ornate headstones islargely the work of one artist, Muham-mad Zahir, who signs his address andphone number at the bottom of eachwork

Mr Zahir spent 25 years as a laborer inIran, where he learned to build sculp-tures, fireplaces and fountains out ofstone Etching headstone portraits was asmall part of his business

When he returned to Afghanistanmore than a decade ago, he first tried thesculptures, the fireplaces and the foun-tains They sold during the gush of

money that came with the massive national military presence, but salesdropped, and then halted

inter-“We were left making these stones,” he said, “because death is easyhere.”

head-Depending on the size and the quality

of the stone used, a grave, which includes

a headstone and frames of stone for theslab, costs $250 and up The most expen-sive one Mr Zahir made, for more than

$3,000, was for a police general in thenorth

One late autumn morning at his door studio, his lead artist, covered in thewhite dust of sawed marble, was busywith the headstone of a 22-year-old po-lice officer, Cmdr Zabiullah Qasemi Inhis portrait, Commander Qasemi iswearing thick sunglasses Except forpuffs of hair on his temples, he is bald,which makes for extra work in etchingthe black marble

out-The women buried at the cemetery donot receive such luxuries

Even in death, they are hounded bymisogyny Their own names rarely ap-pear on their graves, let alone their por-traits or any poetry

“Here lies the late mother of mad Raza.”

“Here rests the daughter of mad Haidar.”

Muham-Running Out of Space

In a small but overpopulated and planned city like Kabul, the logistics ofdealing with death at such a rapid rateover three decades has broughtdilemmas

un-“We are facing a lack of space forgraveyards in the city,” said Abdul Rah-man Ahmadzai, the director of the de-partment of the Afghan Ministry of Reli-gious Affairs that oversees the roughly

30 cemeteries in Kabul, 12 of them hugeones like Kart-e-Sakhi

Since the civil war, which began in the1980s, unplanned graveyards havepopped up all across the city In the 1990s,when factional fighting intensified, peo-ple could hardly move out of fear of rock-ets, so they often buried their loved ones

in any plot of land they could find Now,each grave site is a land dispute for thegovernment to solve

“Our policy is that anywhere that ies are buried automatically becomesgovernment property,” Mr Ahmadzaisaid “If it is people’s property, the gov-ernment gives them property else-where.”

bod-Mr Ahmadzai’s department has beenworking to acquire land in the districtsoutside the city’s gates and move thecemeteries there And he has rigidly en-

forced the space limit for individualgraves: 1.5 meters by 2.5 meters, about 5feet by 8 feet, a dimension he says iscalled for under Shariah

One noon late in the fall, as the sure cooker at Mr Ahmadzai’s office incentral Kabul grew louder with the noise

pres-of a simmering beef stew, a worker fromthe presidential palace came with a de-mand He wanted a few meters aroundhis father’s grave enclosed for a mauso-leum of sorts, and he had written the de-tails on a piece of paper that also notedthe approval of the minister of religiousaffairs, Mr Ahmadzai’s boss

Mr Ahmadzai read the request, andthen apologized As a matter of policy, hecould not sign off that much space for onegrave

“My father was a university lecturer

on Islamic issues for 40 years,” the manargued “For his service, doesn’t he de-serve that much space?”

After the visitor mentioned a powerfulmember of Parliament, Mr Ahmadzaiseemed to cave in, assigning an inspec-tor to go check the site But later, in pri-vate, he said the inspector would makethe same recommendation: It cannot bedone

His inspectors are his eyes and handsacross the city, measuring the graveplots and reporting offenders It falls to

Denizens of Kabul

Bring Carnival of Life

To Field of the Dead

Top, the Kart-e-Sakhi cemetery in Kabul, Afghanistan Above, children washing the grave of a relative during a visit to the cemetery that also included a family picnic Left, a pile of stone slabs that are used to cover graves.

From Page A1

ANDREW QUILTY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

ADAM FERGUSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

0 N A11

INTERNATIONAL

THE NEW YORK TIMES MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

them to stop encroachment on cemetery

lands, and to try, however futilely, to

en-force proper behavior

Mr Ahmadzai knows about the

chil-dren’s water hustle in Kart-e-Sakhi, of

course That goes on everywhere, and

there is a comforting tradition behind it,

he said: “Spraying water is good,

be-cause if the dead had sinned, we know

that even the smallest plant praises God,

and the water may help plants and

weeds grow.”

Scramble for Cash

The young hustlers themselves,

rang-ing in age from 5 to 13, have more

tempo-ral concerns on their minds, mostly They

have been roughened by competition,

hard circumstances and the crowd they

mingle with

One Thursday evening late in the fall,

the children waited for business at Bibi

Jawaher’s grave The cemetery was

qui-et One boy, Edris, his clothes dirty, his

face chapped and snot dangling from his

nose, sat astride the poor woman’s

head-stone, rocking back and forth (On a visit

just a week later, Bibi Jawaher’s

head-stone would be found broken to pieces.)

Edris looked no older than 6, but when

asked how old he was, he counted his

fin-gers and said 22 What grade was he in?

“This much,” he said, showing the

fin-gers of both hands: “22.”

“He is here all day, and he goes home

with us in the evening,” Ajmal said

“When his family changes him into new

clothes, he doesn’t like it He changes

back into dirty ones and comes out here.”

Nearby, a boy named Imranai

sud-denly smacked one of his cousins in the

face Chaos erupted Several children

tangled up in a fight in the dirt, cursing

one another’s mothers and sisters, some

crying

“I told him to go to work and stop

wast-ing your time, and he cursed my sister!”

Imranai said, explaining the reason for

what would be one of several fights thatevening He wore bright yellow sweat-pants, and fixed a stylish kerchief aroundhis neck

“I have worked 60 afghanis today Howmuch have you worked?” the cousin shotback Imranai, bent on keeping up the in-timidation, jumped at the boy again Theyounger cousin dropped his bucket, wa-ter splashing everywhere, and picked uptwo small rocks, assuming a firing posi-tion

“They curse their own aunts, theirown mothers — as if they are not all fromsame family,” Ajmal said, happy to lookdown at them He was interrupted again

He wrinkled his nose up and sniffed theair

“Is that weed?” he said, stretching theword out over several beats as hescanned the graveyard to see who wassmoking it

At the end of the day comes the mostimportant ritual The children lay out alltheir bills on a dry grave for sorting

Their fathers are either poor, or abroadfor labor Ajmal’s father is a gatekeeper

at a university, for example Jamshid’s is

a gardener

Khushnuma, 6, is one of youngest ofthe group, and she comes to the ceme-tery with her sister, who is even younger

She said her father was in their town in Laghman, an eastern province,and would return soon The boys said shedid not know that her father was actually

home-in Iran

“He is bringing me a Galaxy phone,”

she said A dirty apple, an offering fromsome mourning family, bulged out thepocket of her pink jacket

Khushnuma has a go-to tactic thatnever seems to fail “If they don’t pay her,she just starts crying,” Ajmal said

Khushnuma smiled “I have worked 80afghanis today” — about $1.20 — “all on

my own,” she said, clicking her tongue insatisfaction

ADAM FERGUSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A family visiting Kart-e-Sakhi, a cemetery that comes to life on

Thursdays and Fridays, the Afghan weekend.

KABUL, Afghanistan — An can journalist for NPR was killed onSunday afternoon along with his Af-ghan translator in a Taliban ambush insouthern Afghanistan, the Afghan mili-tary confirmed NPR also confirmedtheir deaths on Sunday

Ameri-The victims were identified as DavidGilkey, a photographer and vid-eographer who was part of a four-per-son NPR team embedded with AfghanSpecial Forces in Helmand Province,and his translator, Zabihullah Ta-manna The other two American jour-nalists on the team were unhurt

Mr Gilkey was the first Americanjournalist not in the military killed dur-ing the 15-year-long Afghan conflict;

since 1992, at least 27 journalists havebeen killed in Afghanistan, according tothe Committee to Protect Journalists

In 2010, James P Hunter, a staffsergeant and journalist with the 101stAirborne Division, was killed by an im-provised explosive device

The journalists were in a five-vehiclespecial forces convoy driving on themain road from Lashkar Gah, the capi-tal of Helmand Province, to Marja whenTaliban insurgents fired at the convoywith heavy weapons, said Shakil Ah-mad, the spokesman for the Afghan Na-tional Army’s 215th Corps in Helmand

The vehicle carrying Mr Gilkey and

Mr Tamanna was destroyed, Mr mad said It was not immediately clearwhere the other two NPR journalistswere at the time of the attack

Ah-After a heavy firefight, the Afghangovernment forces recovered the vic-tims’ bodies and retreated to a nearby

Afghan police base, Mr Ahmad said

The bodies were then flown to CampBastion, the corps headquarters, whichwas once the major American andBritish base in Helmand, late Sunday

Mr Gilkey was an award-winningjournalist who had extensive experi-ence covering conflicts in Gaza, SouthAfrica, Iraq, the Balkans and Afghan-istan

After he covered the 2010 earthquake

in Haiti, Mr Gilkey talked about his fession in a video

pro-“It’s not just reporting It’s not justtaking pictures,” he said “It’s do thosevisuals, do the stories, do they changesomebody’s mind enough to take ac-tion?”

The NPR team’s most recent report,

Thursday on the network’s “MorningEdition” program, described AmericanArmy Special Forces troops workingwith their Afghan counterparts and us-ing drones to hunt Taliban insurgents

Mr Gilkey’s photographs accompanied

an online version of the report.The last foreign journalist killed inAfghanistan was Anja Niedringhaus, aGerman citizen and an AssociatedPress photographer, who was shot by arogue policeman when she was cover-ing the Afghan presidential election in2014

The NPR team also included MonikaEvstatieva, the director of the “AllThings Considered” program, and TomBowman, NPR’s Pentagon correspond-ent

Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Taliban Attack Kills NPR Journalist and Afghan

Zabihullah Tamanna, left, an Afghan translator, and David Gilkey, right, a journalist with NPR, were killed on Sunday in southern Afghanistan.

MONIKA EVSTATIEVA/NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

By ROD NORDLAND

BERLIN — You know times havechanged when the Germans announcethey are expanding their army for thefirst time in 25 years — and no one ob-jects

Back when the Berlin Wall fell, ain and France in particular feared there-emergence of a German colossus inEurope By contrast, Berlin’s pledgelast month to add almost 7,000 soldiers

Brit-to its military by 2023, and an earlierannouncement to spend up to 130 billioneuros, about $148 billion, on new equip-ment by 2030 were warmly welcomed

by NATO allies

It has taken decades since the rors of World War II, but Berlin’s mod-ern-day allies and, it seems, Germanleaders themselves are finally growingmore comfortable with the notion thatGermany’s role as the EuropeanUnion’s de facto leader requires a mili-tary dimension

hor-Perhaps none too soon The UnitedStates and others — including many ofGermany’s own defense experts —want Germany to do even more for Con-tinental security and to broaden de-ployments overseas

President Obama expressed tion in an interview this year that theUnited States’ European and PersianGulf allies were acting too often as “freeriders.” Donald J Trump, the presump-tive Republican presidential nominee,has been even more scathing in his re-marks, threatening to pull out of NATO

frustra-if he is elected

As a July NATO summit meeting inWarsaw approaches, Germany, Eu-rope’s largest economy, is now key tohow the alliance will face the twin perilsthat have transformed the strategic sit-uation in Europe: a more menacingRussia and the Islamic State’s expan-sion beyond individual acts of terrorismlike executions to seizing territory

In Europe, where NATO’s ternmost members, particularly Po-land and the Baltic States, haveclamored for permanent deployment ofAllied troops to deter Russian med-dling, Germany looks set to take com-mand of a brigade in Lithuania, joiningBritain and the United States in leadingthe effort to marshal a robust presence

eas-on Russia’s borders

Under Chancellor Angela Merkel,Germany is also playing a part in NATOprograms to pool resources of memberstates for greater collective security

Defense experts hold up increased man-Dutch cooperation as a model

Ger-The path to even a semblance of lective European defense is litteredwith unmet promises of better coopera-tion — for example, the quarter-cen-tury-old Franco-German brigade,which remains mostly a paper tiger,and the scramble ahead of the Warsawmeeting to find a fourth country to com-mand a unit in the new NATO deploy-ment in Eastern Europe Britain andFrance, both nuclear powers, continue

col-to set their own priorities

But whether on its own or with ers, Germany is showing signs of grow-ing more comfortable with embracing abigger military role, a gradual but dis-tinct shift away from an instinctivepacifism that took hold starting in 1945,and a post-Cold War tendency to shrinkthe nation’s military

oth-The shift started becoming publiclyapparent in 2014, when Germany’spresident and foreign and defense min-isters all urged an increased global se-curity role for the country at the annualMunich Security Conference Weekslater, Russia’s leader, President Vlad-imir V Putin, annexed Crimea fromUkraine

Since then, Germany has responded

by helping to build a NATO rapid sponse force in Eastern Europe, lead-ing the diplomacy efforts in Ukraine,and training and arming Kurdish peshmerga battling the Islamic State in Iraqand Syria

re-Now, a new government strategy

document, the first such “White Book”

in 10 years, is being prepared It is likelyboth to bolster Germany’s role on theworld stage — beyond its traditionalsphere of activity in Europe — and totalk explicitly of military contributions

How far this thinking has spread side the political and military elite isopen to question Polling shows that

out-“the general public is not very able with the military dimension,” saidSylke Tempel, the editor of Interna-tional Policy, the magazine of the Ger-man Council on Foreign Relations

comfort-The policy-making elite, on otherhand, know that “strategic thinking in-cludes the notion that you have to build

a force in order to be taken seriously,and that you have to spend on this di-mension,” Ms Tempel said

Germany is not moving fast enoughfor defense experts like Hans-PeterBartels, the parliamentary commis-sioner for the military, or Karl-HeinzKamp, the president of the govern-

ment’s Federal Academy for SecurityPolicy

Germany should expand its military

“as quickly as possible, as much as sible,” said Dr Bartels, a member of thecenter-left Social Democratic Party De-spite the announced expansion, henoted, military spending is in danger ofsinking to 1.08 percent of Germany’sgross domestic product, which he saidwould be its lowest ever — and well be-low the 2 percent that NATO memberstates committed to spend at thealliance’s last summit meeting, inWales in 2014

pos-Dr Kamp was more upbeat aboutGerman and NATO efforts, particularlythe plans for meeting any Russian chal-lenge on the alliance’s eastern borders

“We are almost at permanent ence, almost,” Dr Kamp said “More isbeing decided than Putin could everhave imagined.”

pres-The major danger he sees for theseplans is “the fact that we have theseanti-establishment movements on bothsides of the Atlantic — we have the Al-ternative for Germany, we have the Na-tional Front in France and in the U.S.A

we have Trump.”

Populists in such movements havelittle interest in knitting together trans-Atlantic interests and deploying Alliedforces for common goals, he said

“These anti-establishment ments stand in contrast to everythingwhich is NATO, and that is the onlypoint which really worries me,” Dr

move-Kamp said

In German politics, the post of fense minister has traditionally proveddifficult The job is prestigious, butplagued by difficulties in securing fi-nances and suitable, modern equip-ment

de-Neither the defense minister nor thechancellor is commander in chief of thearmy — another legacy of post-Nazi ef-forts to constrain Germany Control ofthe army belongs to the Parliament,and any military expense or deploy-ment is subject to its approval.Further, demographic decline andthe lure of good civilian jobs in Ger-many’s robust economy have made itdifficult to recruit an all-volunteerforce

Thomas Wiegold, an expert on fense affairs, noted that regular troopstrength — around 166,000 in April — al-ready lags the current target of 170,000and asked whether the defense min-ister, Ursula von der Leyen, could reachthat level and then keep her pledge ofmore soldiers by 2023

de-“The political message is that afterdecades of shrinking, we want to grow,”

Mr Wiegold said “But how that lates practically, nobody yet knows.”The defense minister has taken sev-eral steps to make the military a betteremployer They include hiring a senioraide from the business consultant McK-insey to examine structures, and sim-ply ensuring more contact between sol-diers overseas and their families backhome

trans-A new cyberwarfare unit is a priority.The Defense Ministry is trying to endequipment failures and malfunctions.Last year, a dispute erupted with thearms manufacturer Heckler & Kochover the standard issue G-36 machinegun, which the ministry said did not al-ways fire straight

Another major task is to convinceskeptical Germans, particularly in theeast, that NATO is keeping its 1997 bar-gain with Russia that alliance troopswould not be stationed permanently atRussia’s edge

And so, in another measure of howthings have changed in Europe, listen-ers of a Berlin broadcaster, rbb Infora-dio, heard an unusual early morning in-terview on May 19 On the line from thePolish port city of Szczecin was Lt Gen.Manfred Hofmann, a 42-year veteran ofthe German Army, who commands acorps that began in 1999 as a German-Danish unit to help Poland integrateinto NATO, which it joined that spring.Dialogue with Moscow has not shutdown, he said, and NATO is keeping itscommitments not to permanently sta-tion combat units on former Soviet blocterritory

But the general noted that the corpscommand is now a 400-person, 21-na-tion unit, overseeing rapid deployment

of NATO units if necessary, and flected that since the 2014 summit meet-ing in Wales, “an unbelievable amounthas happened.”

re-Germany’s Military Growth Met With Western Relief

By ALISON SMALE

Responding to security threats as the de facto leader of Europe.

Germany’s defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, visiting troops in March Long wary, the nation is starting to embrace a bigger military role.

CHRISTOF STACHE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

ADAM FERGUSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

MINNEAPOLIS — The day after his oldest

son was convicted of conspiring to join and kill

for the Islamic State in Syria, Abdihamid Yusuf

just wanted to go home and rest But bills were

stacking up, so on Saturday morning he and his

wife visited the jail and then reopened Hooyo’s

Kitchen, the small Somali restaurant where

they serve plates of chicken, rice and bananas

“We try to survive,” Mr Yusuf said

The trial of his son and two other young

So-mali-American men splintered

families and opinions here in the

country’s largest Somali

com-munity Former friends testified

against one another, describing

how they had watched

propa-ganda videos, bought fake

pass-ports and plotted their paths to

Syria Family members

squab-bled in the halls of the

court-house Some said they had been

threatened or shunned

When the jury came back on

Friday afternoon, Mr Yusuf did

not even get word in time to

reach the courtroom to see his

22-year-old son, Mohamed

Farah, and the two other defendants, Guled

Omar, 21, and Abdirahman Daud, 22, declared

guilty A total of nine men — including another

of Mr Yusuf’s sons, Adnan — have been

con-victed in the case

Federal prosecutors say the case shined a

light on the persistent problem of terrorist

re-cruiting here Law enforcement authorities

have said that more than 20 young men from

Minnesota have left to join the Shabab militant

group in Somalia and that more than 15 have

tried or succeeded in leaving to join the Islamic

State

But it also opened wounds among families,

and at the end of the trial, some in the

communi-ty praised justice served, while others pointed

to what they called another injustice

Deqa Hussen said she had learned the price

of cooperating: “They’ve been calling mesnitch.”

Her oldest son, Abdirizak Warsame, 21,briefly acted as the leader of a group of friends

as they planned to travel to Syria in 2014 Hepleaded guilty and testified for prosecutors,telling the jury how he had wanted the rewards

of martyrdom

Now, Ms Hussen said, longtime friends andstrangers have accused her of selling her son tothe government During the trial, she said, the

mother of another defendantthreatened her life

“I have to respect the ment and I have to respect myson,” she said “My culture is aculture of silence You cannotspeak your rights.”

govern-Some in the Somali

communi-ty praised the government Theysaid that the three defendantshad gotten a fair trial, and thatthey hoped the convictionswould prompt candid talks aboutextremism and its allure to someyoung men here

“This is good for the ty,” said Mohamed Ahmed, a gasstation manager who created an online cartooncharacter, Average Mohamed, to condemnextremism “It unmasks the fear, forces us tothink deeply We can either confront it or buryour heads.”

communi-Jibril Afyare, an IBM software engineer andcommunity activist, spoke of vigilance He said

he talked regularly to the United States ney about the threat of recruitment by terroristgroups, and has a local police captain’s number

attor-on speed dial

“We cannot afford even one Somali youth to

be recruited by extremists,” he said “It’s gerous for the country, and it’s dangerous forthe Somali community.”

dan-Abdihamid Yusuf in his family’s Minneapolis restaurant His son Mohamed Farah was one of three Somali-Americans convicted on charges of trying to join the Islamic State.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JENN ACKERMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Fair or ‘Conspiracy’? Trial Divides Somalis in Minneapolis

Above, evening

pray-er on Saturday at a mosque in Karmel Square Mall in Min- neapolis Left, Amina Ahmed shops in her friend’s store at the mall The shopping center is one of the largest collections of Somali businesses in the United States.

A case that highlights terrorist recruiting

in the U.S.

Continued on Page A16

By JACK HEALY and MATT FURBER

MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

RICHMOND, Va — On the night

Barack Obama became the nation’s first

black president, Leah Taylor, a fast-food

worker and African-American mother of

six, stayed up until 2 a.m watching the

election returns “I knew that was

his-tory, and I wanted to be a part of it,” she

said But she did not vote

Ms Taylor, 45, has never voted In 1991,

when she was 20, she was stripped of her

voting rights after being convicted of

selling crack cocaine and sent to jail for a

year So she was stunned when an

organ-izer from a progressive group, New

Vir-ginia Majority, showed up one recent

af-ternoon at the church soup kitchen

where she eats lunch and said he could

register her

“Your rights have been restored!” the

organizer, Assadique Abdul-Rahman,

declared with a theatrical flourish,

wav-ing an executive order signed in April by

Gov Terry McAuliffe Ms Taylor, so

moved she nearly cried, promptly signed

up

Thus did Ms Taylor join a wave of

newly eligible voters, all with criminal

pasts, signing up in Virginia But what

Mr McAuliffe granted, the Virginia

Su-preme Court may now take away

Top Republicans in the state ture are seeking to block Mr McAuliffe’ssweeping order, which re-enfranchised206,000 Virginians who have completedsentences, probation or parole Last

legisla-week, the Supreme Court announced aspecial session to hear arguments in July

— in time to rule before the Novemberelection

The suit has plunged Virginia and Mr

McAuliffe — a Democrat and close friend

of Hillary Clinton’s, the party’s likelypresidential nominee — into yet anotherracially charged voting rights battle InMay, a federal judge upheld a Republi-can-backed law requiring Virginia voters

to provide photo identification, while theSupreme Court let stand a court-im-posed redistricting map, drawn to ad-dress Democrats’ complaints of raciallymotivated gerrymandering

This next fight over restoring votingrights to convicted felons — an issueplaying out nationally — could affect thepresidential contest and Mrs Clinton’sfortunes in Virginia, a critical swingstate Ever since Mr McAuliffe’s order

on April 22, progressive groups havebeen waging a furious registration cam-paign; as of Friday, state elections offi-cials said, more than 5,800 newly eligiblevoters had signed up

“This could get really messy,” saidTram Nguyen, an executive director ofNew Virginia Majority, a leader in theregistration campaign “What happens ifthe executive order gets overturned?

There’s no precedent; 5,800 people areactively on the registration rolls now Do

nul-A teenage mother when she went tojail, Ms Taylor said her time there “gave

me clarity.” After her release in 1992, shesaid, she performed community service,folding clothes in a Salvation Army store,and paid the state $15,000 in fines, withmoney inherited from her mother Today,she has part-time jobs at McDonald’sand Kentucky Fried Chicken, and dab-bles in advocacy, lobbying lawmakers onbehalf of “Fight for $15,” a coalition push-ing to raise the minimum wage She likesboth Mrs Clinton and Senator BernieSanders, and counts herself a Democrat

“I did my time; I did everything I wassupposed to do,” she said “I paid thecourts, I paid the fines and got my lifeback on track.”

In issuing his sweeping order, Mr.McAuliffe made expansive use of hisclemency powers to effectively nullify aCivil War-era provision in the State Con-stitution that barred convicted felonsfrom voting for life — one of the harshestdisenfranchisement policies in the na-tion In an interview previewing his an-nouncement, Mr McAuliffe said his legal

Virginia at Center of Racially Charged Fight Over the Right of Felons to Vote

Assadique Abdul-Rahman helped Leah Taylor fill out a voter registration form last month outside Broomfield Methodist Church in Richmond, Va.

CHET STRANGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A16

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

0 N A13

NATIONAL

THE NEW YORK TIMES MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

E L E C T I O N 2 016

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif —

Senator Bernie Sanders defiantly

vowed again on Sunday to take his

campaign to the Democratic

Na-tional Convention this summer,

even as Hillary Clinton edged

closer to clinching the party’s

presidential nomination and the

final primary contests drew near

Two days before Tuesday’s

pri-maries in California and five other

states, Mr Sanders repeated his

pledge not to concede even if Mrs

Clinton acquires enough

dele-gates to reach 2,383, the threshold

for securing the nomination

A win in California is critical to

Mr Sanders’s plan to stay in the

race through the convention and

would give him a significant lift

But with her victory in the

Puerto Rico primary on Sunday,

Mrs Clinton is only 28 delegates

short of the threshold and will

most likely declare victory on

Tuesday

Mr Sanders, however, insists

that the convention will be

con-tested because he is still lobbying

superdelegates — party officials

and state leaders who cast their

fi-nal votes at the convention — to

withdraw support from Mrs

Clin-ton and back him instead He

plans to make the case that he is a

stronger candidate against

Don-ald J Trump, the presumptive

Re-publican nominee A number of

polls, he said, show he can beat

Mr Trump by larger margins than

Mrs Clinton can

On Sunday, Mr Sanders opened

a new line of attack against Mrs

Clinton, criticizing donations

made by foreign governments

while she was secretary of state to

the Clinton Foundation, the

orga-nization founded by former

Presi-dent Bill Clinton

When Mr Sanders, who greeted

fans in West Hollywood, was

asked by reporters if he remained

committed to pushing for a

con-tested convention, said he

“abso-lutely” was

A convention is typically seen

as contested when a candidatecannot reach the necessary dele-gate count using both pledged del-egates and superdelegates In

2008, Mrs Clinton conceded toBarack Obama shortly after the fi-nal primary and before the con-vention But Mr Sanders is prom-ising to break with tradition andextend his fight further than ini-tially expected

Mr Sanders reiterated hisstance on Sunday at a restaurantfilled with disco lights as he urgedsupporters to back him

“We need a real change in thiscountry,” Mr Sanders said to acheering crowd at the restaurant,Hamburger Mary’s, in West Hol-lywood, “and we need a govern-ment which represents all of us,not just the 1 percent.”

During a news conference onSaturday in Los Angeles, Mr

Sanders said it would be wrong forMrs Clinton to claim victory onTuesday based on her total dele-gate count News media outletsshould not call the race, he said,unless she reaches the thresholdwith only pledged delegates

“It is extremely unlikely thatSecretary Clinton will have therequisite number of pledged dele-gates to claim victory on Tuesdaynight,” Mr Sanders said “Now, Ihave heard reports that SecretaryClinton has said it’s all going to beover on Tuesday night I have re-ports that the media, after theNew Jersey results come in, aregoing to declare that it is all over

That simply is not accurate.”

Mrs Clinton leads Mr Sanders

in both pledged and total gates

dele-In a sign of his campaign’s gency to win in California, Mr

ur-Sanders criticized the ClintonFoundation during an interview

on Sunday on CNN’s “State of theUnion.”

“If you ask me about the ClintonFoundation, do I have a problemwhen a sitting secretary of stateand a foundation run by her hus-band collects many millions of dol-lars from foreign governments,governments which are dictator-ships?” Mr Sanders said

“You don’t have a lot of civil erties or democratic rights inSaudi Arabia,” he told the inter-viewer, Jake Tapper “You don’thave a lot of respect there for op-

lib-position points of view for gayrights, for women’s rights Yes, do

I have a problem with that? Yes, Ido.”

Mr Sanders and Mrs Clinton

spent Sunday campaigning in ifornia, where polls indicated atight race Mrs Clinton and Mr

Cal-Clinton visited black churches, pealing to a demographic that had

ap-given her important support inpast nominating contests

In Oakland, Mrs Clinton spoke

at Greater St Paul Church ing her remarks to her audience,she recalled working briefly inOakland in the 1970s, and shepraised the Golden State War-riors, who were set to host Game 2

Tailor-of the N.B.A finals

Mrs Clinton also talked aboutissues like gentrification and gunviolence and told congregantshow difficult it was to be presi-dent

“I wish it was only aboutmaking speeches,” Mrs Clintonsaid “You know, just get up thereand promise the moon and makeall of these rhetorical flourishes.That’d be a lot easier than whatthe job is.”

Mr Clinton visited First AfricanMethodist Episcopal Church inSouth Los Angeles, where he tookaim at Mr Trump and addressedcriticism that he and his wife werepart of the “political establish-ment.”

“This is not an establishmentcampaign,” he said “This is an in-clusion campaign.”

Mr Sanders spent much of hisday walking around greetingvoters in several places, includingthe Santa Monica Pier, wheredozens of fans hugged andsnapped photos with him Someshouted, “That’s our next presi-dent!”

But there were signs of tion from Clinton supporters Onewoman shouted, “Get out of therace!” As Mr Sanders shookhands, he quickly moved pastJenny Swiatowy, 33, who sat next

opposi-to a fruit arrangement with asticker showing her support forMrs Clinton

“In the beginning, I thought itwas great for him to come out as anew candidate with a new voiceand to start bringing out theyoung new voters,” said Ms Swia-towy, who works at a record label

“But it’s time to concede and unitethe party.”

Mr Sanders, though, was notbowing to the pressure

“See you in Philly,” he told onesmiling supporter

Clinton Wins a Primary

While Sanders Promises

AFight to the Convention

MONICA ALMEIDA/THE NEW YORK TIMES

JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

By YAMICHE ALCINDOR

Supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders attended a rally Saturday in Los Angeles, top On Sunday, Hillary Clinton campaigned at Greater St Paul Church in Oakland, Calif., speaking to black con- gregants about issues like gentrification and gun violence California’s primary is set for Tuesday.

Ignoring long odds while criticizing foreign donations

to a foundation.

Maggie Haberman contributed

re-porting from New York, and

Thom-as Kaplan from Oakland, Calif.

States, a nation of immigrants,

against judging people based on

heritage, Mr Trump replied, “I’m

not talking about tradition, I’m

talking about common sense,

O.K.?”

In his interview with Mr

Dick-erson, and in a separate

discus-sion with Jake Tapper on CNN’s

“State of the Union,” Mr Trump

re-fused to retreat from his

com-ments on Judge Curiel’s

back-ground

“He is a member of a club or

so-ciety, very strongly pro-Mexican,

which is all fine,” Mr Trump said

“But I say he’s got bias I want to

build a wall I’m going to build a

wall I’m doing very well with the

Latinos, with the Hispanics, with

the Mexicans, I’m doing very well

with them, in my opinion.”

Judge Curiel, 62, was born in

East Chicago, Ind., to parents who

had emigrated from Mexico He

graduated from Indiana

Universi-ty’s law school and worked as an

assistant United States attorney

in the Southern District of

Califor-nia before being appointed in 2007

to the bench in San Diego by Gov

Arnold Schwarzenegger, a

Repub-lican President Obama

nom-inated Judge Curiel to the federal

bench in late 2011, and he was

con-firmed by the Senate in 2012

Mr Trump’s broadside against

Judge Curiel was one of the most

overtly racial remarks he had

made in the presidential race, and

it exacerbated the tension

be-tween some Republicans and

their nominee White, older,

work-ing-class voters make up a large

portion of the party’s base, and

Republicans need to keep the

presidential campaign close in

or-der to hold their majority in the

Senate But Mr Trump’s remarks

have offended wide blocs of voters

to whom the party must appeal

amid national demographic shifts

And the critiques have raised

concerns about how, as president,

Mr Trump would handle the

sepa-ration of powers between the

ex-ecutive and judicial branches of

government That issue is sacred

to conservatives, who have railed

against what they see as an abuse

of power by Mr Obama

Republicans have tried to

miti-gate the potential damage of Mr

Trump’s language by rejecting it

in one moment, but embracing his

candidacy in the next

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,”

Senator Mitch McConnell of

Ken-tucky, the majority leader, did not

directly answer a question about

been racist, but said he pletely disagreed with it “All of uscame here from somewhere else,”

com-Mr McConnell said, referring toJudge Curiel’s heritage “That’s

an important part of what makesAmerica work.”

Senator Bob Corker of see, a Republican whose namehad been floated as a potentialvice-presidential nominee, said onABC’s “This Week” of Mr Trump’sbehavior, “I think that he’s going

Tennes-to have Tennes-to change.” And NewtGingrich, the former House

speaker, who has been among Mr

Trump’s most vocal supporters,called the Curiel remarks “inex-cusable” on “Fox News Sunday.”

“This is one of the worst takes Trump has made,” said Mr

mis-Gingrich, who has also been tioned as a potential vice-presi-dential candidate

men-But none of the three men jected Mr Trump’s candidacy out-right Mr Gingrich praised Mr

re-Trump moments later as a quicklearner Mr Corker suggested that

Mr Trump “has an opportunity toreally change the trajectory of ourcountry, and it’s my sense that hewill take advantage of that.”

Those defenses are becomingmore strained as Mr Trump hasreversed his suggestions that he

of nominee And Republicanswere mostly silent after HillaryClinton assailed Mr Trump in aspeech on Thursday about thestakes of the election Mr Trumpled his defense on Twitter and at arally, but his campaign and its sur-rogates had no uniform response

In the weeks since he quished his remaining two prima-

van-ry opponents, Mr Trump has peatedly turned his campaign’s fo-cus inward — toward his busi-nesses, the Trump Universitylawsuit, his fights with other Re-publicans — and obscured thehopes Republicans had of keeping

re-a spotlight on Mrs Clinton re-and heremail controversy, or on a jobs re-port suggesting a slowdown in jobcreation

Mr McConnell, who endorsed

Mr Trump quickly after Mr

Trump became the presumptivenominee early last month, hasbeen vocal in his concern that theremarks on Hispanics will have ahistoric effect along the lines ofthe remarks Barry Goldwatermade on the party’s ability to wooblack voters after he declined tosupport the Civil Rights Act of1964

Mr McConnell said the tive to Mr Trump — a second Clin-ton presidency — was worse But

alterna-he also urged Mr Trump to stopfocusing on the recent past and tolook toward the future

“This is a good time, it seems to

me, to begin to try to unify theparty,” Mr McConnell said

“And you unify the party by notsettling scores and grudgesagainst people you’ve been com-peting with,” he added “We’re allbehind him now And I’d like to seehim reach out and pull us all to-gether and give us a real shot at

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A14 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALMONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

clients from the United States are

out-lined in extraordinary detail in the trove

of internal Mossack Fonseca documents

known as the Panama Papers The

ma-terials were obtained by the German

newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the

International Consortium of

Investiga-tive Journalists, and have now been

shared with The New York Times

In recent weeks, the papers’

revelations about Mossack Fonseca’s

in-ternational clientele have shaken the

fi-nancial world The Times’s examination

of the files found that Mossack Fonseca

also had at least 2,400 United

States-based clients over the past decade, and

set up at least 2,800 companies on their

behalf in the British Virgin Islands,

Pan-ama, the Seychelles and other

jurisdic-tions that specialize in helping hide

wealth

Many of these transactions were

le-gal; there are legitimate reasons to

cre-ate offshore accounts, particularly when

setting up a business overseas or buying

real estate in a foreign country

But the documents — confidential

emails, copies of passports, ledgers of

bank transactions and even the various

code names used to refer to clients —

show that the firm did much more than

simply create offshore shell companies

and accounts For many of its American

clients, Mossack Fonseca offered a

how-to guide of sorts on skirting or evading

United States tax and financial

disclo-sure laws

These included locating an individual

from a “tax-convenient” jurisdiction to

be the straw man owner of an offshore

account, concealing the true American

owner, or encouraging one client it knew

was a United States resident to use his

foreign passports to open accounts

off-shore, again to avoid scrutiny from

regu-lators, the documents show

If the compliance department at one

foreign bank contacted by Mossack

Fon-seca on behalf of its clients started to ask

too many questions about who owned

the account, the firm simply turned to

other, less inquisitive banks

And even though the law firm said

publicly that it would not work with

clients convicted of crimes or whose

fi-nancial activities raised “red flags,”

sev-eral individuals in the United States with

criminal records were able to turn to

Mossack Fonseca to open new

compa-nies offshore, the documents show

Federal law allows United States

citi-zens to transfer money overseas, but

these foreign holdings must be declared

to the Treasury Department, and any

taxes on capital gains, interest or

divi-dends must be paid — just as if the

money had been invested domestically

Federal officials estimate that the

gov-ernment loses between $40 billion and

$70 billion a year in unpaid taxes on

off-shore holdings

Experts in federal tax law, money

laundering and offshore accounts —

asked by The Times to examine certain

documents or at least to identify legal

is-sues raised by the money management

techniques that Mossack Fonseca

advo-cated — said the law firm at times had

come up with creative, but apparently

le-gal, strategies to save clients money A

common tactic: selling real estate as a

shift of corporate assets, instead of as a

piece of property subject to transfer

taxes

While the experts were reluctant to

de-clare that the law firm or its clients had

broken any laws given that no charges

have been filed, they said they were

sur-prised at how explicitly Mossack

Fon-seca had offered advice that appeared

carefully crafted to help its clients evade

United States tax laws

“The more correspondence that you

have between a U.S person and a bank

or law firm discussing tax issues and

ef-forts at concealment, the stronger the

government will see it as a potential case

worth prosecuting,” said Kevin M

Downing, the lead Justice Department

prosecutor in the UBS offshore bankingand tax evasion cases, now at the Wash-ington law firm Miller & Chevalier

Mossack Fonseca has said repeatedly

in recent weeks that its lawyers and staffmembers have honored international taxand banking laws, and that it is the vic-tim in this case of an illegal hacking at-tack

But presented with summaries of eral cases by The Times, Mossack Fon-seca did not try to explain its actions Itsimply said that its standards had im-proved in recent years, as rules interna-tionally had tightened

sev-“Our significantly expanded ance office today not only evaluates newclient candidates, but also existing ac-counts, and especially those that wereestablished prior to the new interna-tional regulatory regime coming into ef-fect,” a spokeswoman said in a writtenstatement, referring to a 2010 law passed

compli-by Congress “It wasn’t always this way.”

The firm’s American client list doesnot appear to include the sort of high-profile political figures who haveemerged from reporting on the PanamaPapers in many other countries aroundthe world

But the services offered by MossackFonseca, with 500 employees in morethan 30 offices worldwide, were in highdemand by the rich and famous in theUnited States

In 2001, Sanford I Weill, then the chief

of Citigroup, set up an offshore accountcalled April Fool for his yacht AlfonsoSoriano, a former Major League Base-ball All-Star player with the Yankees andother teams, had a Panamanian corpora-tion created for him John E Akridge III,

a leading real estate developer in ington, flew to Panama to meet withMossack Fonseca lawyers, who in 2011created the Cyclops Family Foundation

Wash-in Panama, along with a related bank count

A spokesman for Mr Weill said the counts were used for legitimate pur-poses, and “appropriate disclosureswere filed.” Mr Akridge and Mr Sorianodid not respond to repeated requests forcomment

ac-For its best customers, like the soldts, who declined repeated requests

Pon-to discuss their work with Mossack seca, the firm’s ministrations went farbeyond legal services and banking Itacted as a concierge for “all details re-garding your properties and worldwidebusiness affairs,” for example, helpingthe family confidentially purchase (and

Fon-dispose of) luxury condominiums at sort destinations and even arranging re-pairs for a car stored at a vacation homeand hiring a contractor to fix brokenpoolside tiles, the documents show

re-“You deserve the best Mr Ponsoldt,and we will try to help you the most wecan,” the firm explained in an email

The firm’s American clients often pressed disbelief at how much they couldlighten their tax burden by using thetechniques advocated by Mossack Fon-seca

ex-“At hearing that he can make nearly $8million per year just on tax savings,” aclient from Pennsylvania “was now wideawaken,” a Mossack Fonseca staff mem-ber wrote “I could even detect sweatscoming down from his forehead and hischeeks were beginning to blush withcrimson excitement Noticing his inter-est, I went in for the kill.”

Black Hole for Assets

In 2006, using a secret email accountset up by Mossack Fonseca so his corre-spondence would not be traced by the au-thorities, a businessman from Washing-ton State asked a common questionamong the firm’s potential Americanclients:

“How does a US citizen legally getfunds to Panama without the knowledge

of the US government and how can thosefunds be profitably invested without the

US government knowing about them?”

The reply came from Ramsés Owens,then a partner who helped run the firm’strust division, offering clients “effectivesolutions to enhance your privacy, pro-tect your wealth.” Mr Owens laid out abasic menu of services: a package dealsetting up an offshore company in what

he promised would be a relatively cheapand quick transaction

“We have right now a special offer bywhich we create a Private Foundation/

company combination for a flat fee ofUS$4,500.00,” Mr Owens said “It in-cludes Charter Documents, Regulations,nominee officers and directors, bank ac-count and management of funds, provi-sion of authorized signatories, neutralphone and fax numbers and mail for-warding services for both the privatefoundation and its underlying company.”

With this legal structure in place, Mr

Owens went on to explain, any moneyplaced in these accounts would essen-tially go into a black hole

“If we create a Private Foundation andthe underlying company for you, the

funds become completely private (UScannot know) as soon as the funds aredeposited under a bank account or in-vestment account in the name of the un-derlying company or the private founda-tion,” he wrote

The benefits of such an arrangementwere numerous, he added, detailing howthe client could effectively evade UnitedStates tax laws while protecting himself

— and the firm

“You can take the money in cash, youcan do a bad investment; you can pur-chase something and not receive any-thing (an expensive piano, an expensivesoftware),” Mr Owens wrote “You canreceive an invoice from Panama or anyother location and that would justifysome of the outgoing moneys You canalso declare everything to the tax admin-istration

“Any decision you make, please beaware that you will have to sign a ‘dis-claimer’ to us We can only ‘suggest,’ butthe final decision to take the money out ofthe country is fully yours, and under theprofessional opinion of someone in USA.”

This was the sort of menu sold to thePonsoldt family — in a very big way

William Ponsoldt, now 74, had come toMossack Fonseca with hundreds of mil-lions of dollars in assets, the firm’s staffestimated in “due diligence” memos thatalso laid out how he had become sowealthy

“He has started off in the 70ties chasing run-down apartment buildings

pur-in New York, pur-in order to refurbish andsell them off,” noted one memo from

2007, shortly after the firm had started tohandle the family’s investment accounts

“Having done this for a while he spreadout to various businesses and his CV isthe typical profile of a serial entrepre-neur.” The memo went on to list ninebusinesses he had created, taken over orhelped run, including Glas Aire Indus-tries Group, an automotive parts suppli-er; Zeus Energy Resources, a Texas oil-drilling company; Regency Affiliates,which owned a Michigan rock mine; andPegasus Ranch, one of the country’s larg-est Arabian-horse-breeding operations

Few American clients, the recordsshow, demanded and received as muchattention as Mr Ponsoldt and two of hischildren, Tracey and Christopher, each ofwhom was assigned a secret email ac-count and a code name — “father,”

“daughter” and “son.” Mossack ca’s “V.I.P service” consisted of every-thing from securing lunch reservations

Fonse-at a popular French bistro in PanamaCity to pressing the government to make

an exception and grant Mr Ponsoldt andhis wife Panamanian passports

Over the years, tens of millions of lars flowed into a series of shell compa-nies — Escutcheon Investment, with itsmoney at the Banca Privada in the Pyre-nees principality of Andorra; Probity In-vestments, with deposits at AndbancGrup Agricol, also in Andorra; Royal Pa-cific Investments, with deposits at Bal-boa Securities in Panama; and ValdanoInvestments Group, with deposits atBerenberg Bank in Switzerland, amongothers, the bank records and other docu-ments show

dol-Mossack Fonseca employees werenamed as the companies’ officers, avoid-ing whenever possible any link to thePonsoldt family The firm even asked aHong Kong branch of Barclays, the inter-national bank, to override its rules forproof of the so-called beneficial owners

of the accounts

“This is a very special client of ours,” aMossack Fonseca lawyer wrote, conced-ing that the firm had intentionally creat-

ed such a maze of companies so it “leaves

us in the position to legally argue that ourclient is NOT the owner of the structure.”

It was not clear if the bank complied

The most important part of this rate structure was an entity called theEdenstone Foundation

elabo-Panama has long specialized in ing unusual foundations like Edenstone

creat-taxes nor required to support charitablecauses They do, however, allow theinvestors who “contribute” their financ-ing to shield themselves from legalclaims in the United States

In secret meetings documented in thePanama Papers, Mossack Fonsecanamed the Ponsoldt family as the benefi-ciary, through the foundation, of themoney placed in bank accounts aroundthe world

Among the early requests: tially transfer $800,000 from “father” to

confiden-“son,” meaning moving the money to yetanother offshore account — called LBFH

of Panama — which Mossack Fonsecahad set up on Christopher Ponsoldt’s be-half with bank accounts in Andorra andPanama

One motivation for Christopher soldt to stash money overseas in ac-counts not traceable to him: He owned adirt racetrack in Florida, and he was con-cerned racers “may get hurt and mightthen try to sue him for damages,” the lawfirm notes on his case file said

Pon-“Please notify me when the money isdeposited in American dollars,” Christo-pher Ponsoldt wrote to the law firm a fewmonths after his father’s accounts hadbeen set up and $800,000 was in theprocess of being transferred to anotheroffshore account Christopher Ponsoldtcontrolled via the firm “I want to haveU.S dollars, Australian Dollars, IndianReal’s and some kind of China index, to

be determined.”

Mossack Fonseca agreed to “prepare aservice agreement” between two of thelegal entities it managed for the family, tomake it look as if there were an actual ex-penditure of money for a business pur-pose

“After receiving the money, we will plain to them the nature of this transac-tion without giving details of your name,”the firm explained to William Ponsoldt,regarding the Caribbean bank throughwhich the money was moving to his son

ex-“Please let us know if you agree with thisand if you will instruct the relevant par-ties to execute the wire transfer.”Federal law generally limits such tax-free transfers between family members

to $14,000 a year But for this transfer, scribed as a “pre-inheritance distribu-tion,” the documents give no indicationthat any United States gift taxes werepaid, as would most likely have been re-quired, said Jack Blum, a lawyer and ex-pert in international tax evasion whoserved for more than a decade as a con-sultant to the Internal Revenue Service

de-“This is one way in which people with alot of money step away from being aver-age,” Mr Blum said after reviewing thedocuments

Christopher Ponsoldt declined to ment “I am sorry, I can’t help you,” hesaid before hanging up

com-Tracey Ponsoldt Powers, William soldt’s daughter, approached the firm inOctober 2008 with an urgent request forhelp in secretly moving some of her fam-ily’s money to Panama and then into goldcoins She feared political developments

Pon-at home

“I feel VERY unsettled with this tion and how the media is censoring in-formation and spinning the AmericanPublic to vote Obama,” she wrote to Mr.Owens at Mossack Fonseca “It is so ob-vious to me, that they are setting us upwith a Socialist — but most people can’tsee it happening before their eyes! It’slike propaganda that is brainwashingAmericans to forget the Principles ofHard Work, Ingenuity, Risk and Bound-less Success!”

elec-Mr Owens suggested shifting themoney into a “charity” account, con-trolled by the firm on the family’s behalf,

in increments of less than $100,000, so itwould not be detected

Separately, that same month, WilliamPonsoldt moved $100,000 from a com-pany Mossack Fonseca controlled on hisbehalf into the name of his daughter Thiswas confirmed in an email from Mossack

For many of its American clients, Mossack Fonseca in Panama City offered a how-to guide of sorts on skirting United States tax and financial disclosure laws.

CARLOS JASSO/REUTERS

William R Ponsoldt in

1986 Mossack Fonseca

managed eight shell

companies and a

founda-tion on his family’s

be-half The Panama Papers

reveal how money was

Mike McIntire contributed reporting.

Kitty Bennett and Ryan Chittum

contrib-uted research.

N A15

NATIONAL

THE NEW YORK TIMES MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

“The USD 100.000 is deposited as call

Money with high liquidity at Berenberg

Bank Schweiz, Zürich,” said the email,

which added: “Your Father initiated this

process as you know We will treat you

with the same esteem and conditions and

service as the family is used to.”

The subsequent series of complicated

transfers — money from the account

would eventually be used by Mossack

Fonseca in 2013 at Ms Powers’s request

to buy real estate — would be a challenge

for American enforcement authorities,

Mr Blum said

“Simply by constructing all this in

such a complex way, they make it

ex-tremely hard for enforcement officials to

ever have resources to reconstruct what

taxes should have been paid,” he said

“What this is all about is obscuring the

trail.”

Ms Powers did not respond to a series

of calls and emails, and then declined to

cellphone

“I have no idea what you are talkingabout,” she said before hanging up

‘Live This Potential Risk’

Across the United States, MossackFonseca picked up clients who had simi-larly urgent and delicate demands

For more than 30 years as the founder

of Boston Capital Ventures, Harald achim von der Goltz has built a reputa-tion as a savvy investor in emergingcompanies

Jo-What few know, however, is that overroughly that same span of time and withthe help of Mossack Fonseca, Mr von derGoltz has also come to command a vastoffshore empire: interconnected corpo-rations, foundations and bank accountswith about $70 million in assets, accord-ing to internal emails

A lawyer for Mr von der Goltz said the

accounts is Mr von der Goltz’s old mother, who resides in Guatemala

100-year-One document also suggests that thetens of millions of dollars in the accountsoriginally came from businesses operat-

ed by Mr von der Goltz’s father

But numerous other documents pared by Mossack Fonseca and signed

pre-by Mr von der Goltz list him as thefounder, manager and “first beneficiary”

of the foundation that controls most ofthe family’s wealth Mr von der Goltzalso put assets from companies hehelped operate into the accounts, docu-ments show

Most important, Mossack Fonsecaregistered Mr von der Goltz as a resident

of Guatemala, which tax experts saidcould help him protect the family moneyfrom certain United States taxobligations

“MF Trust has registered Harald achim von der Goltz as a client ofGuatemala However, we know he lives

Jo-in Miami; and makes his residence for 5months of the year in Boston,” Mr Ow-ens, the Mossack Fonseca partner, wrote

in an email in 2009 to top executives atthe firm

The firm recognized that claiming theGuatemala residency represented a risk,but considered it a risk worth taking, giv-

en Mr von der Goltz’s importance to thefirm

“My suggestion: Leave everything as

it is with von der Goltz, i.e stay and livethis potential risk, we might prefer tosend money orders and cashier’s checks,which have a slightly lower risk thanbank transfers It’s all well done,customer understands well and accepts

it as is,” Mr Owens wrote

“I agree with your suggestion on mypart,” responded Ramón Fonseca, one ofthe firm’s founders

Money was frequently transferredfrom several of the offshore accounts toaccounts in the United States to fund in-vestments at Mr von der Goltz’s firm, thedocuments show A foundation paid forhis daughter’s education, as well as hisgranddaughter’s high school tuition

In a 2008 email, Mr von der Goltz’sBoston-based accountant asked execu-tives at Mossack Fonseca to wire moneyfrom Mr von der Goltz’s mother, Erika

“Erika would like to make a gift to Tica

of $100,000 for his birthday She hadn’tgiven him anything,” the email said, pro-viding an account for Mr von der Goltz atEspírito Santo Bank in Miami

“Ohh, yes, I know ERIKA wants it to bedone quickly, we will proceed,” Mr Ow-ens responded before confirming thatthe money should be moved as re-quested

Legal experts consulted by The Timessaid it was difficult to determine defini-tively if the arrangements related to Mr

von der Goltz violated United Stateslaws But they said such moves werecommonly used by investors seeking tohide their assets and evade federal taxes

“There is reason to question if she wasreally directing that shift of money,” Mr

Blum said, referring to Mr von derGoltz’s mother

In a statement, Mr von der Goltz saidthe companies were established for legalpurposes, and that both he and the com-panies were compliant with UnitedStates tax and reporting requirements

“There has never been any illegal tivity associated with these companies,”

ac-the statement said

Other case files examined by TheTimes show how Mossack Fonseca mayhave turned a blind eye in the vettingprocess while helping Kjell Gunnar Fin-stad, a Texas resident, set up an oil com-pany offshore in 2013

Mossack Fonseca has long maintainedthat it will not work for individuals withcriminal records or whose conduct raises

“red flags” during its due-diligenceprocess But the firm somehow eithermissed or overlooked Mr Finstad’s pastwhen it conducted a background search

of potential directors for the new shore oil company, OK Terra Energy,which was run out of Houston but regis-tered in the British Virgin Islands

off-Three years earlier, Mr Finstad, thecompany’s controlling partner and leadinvestor, had been convicted in Norwayfor various breaches of securities and ac-counting laws involving a companycalled Norex Group The case was majornews in Norway

The records examined by The Timesshow that Mossack Fonseca collected acopy of Mr Finstad’s passport, and con-ducted a basic internet search and a cur-sory background check But there is nomention of the fraud case, and no discus-sion of whether to proceed with setting

up the new company, in light of Mr stad’s involvement

Fin-Reached at his office in Texas andasked about the Panama Papers, Mr Fin-stad said only, “I don’t want to talk aboutthat.”

For another client, Mossack Fonseca

price

Marianna Olszewski, the New YorkCity-based author of “Live It, Love It,Earn It: A Woman’s Guide to FinancialFreedom,” wanted to shift $1 million held

by HSBC in Guernsey to a new overseasaccount The catch? She did not want hername to appear anywhere near thetransaction

Mr Owens, the Mossack Fonseca yer, again offered a solution

law-Mossack Fonseca would locate what

he called a “natural person nominee” in a

“tax-convenient” jurisdiction to stand infor Ms Olszewski as the owner of the ac-count

“The Natural Person Trustee is a ice which is very sensitive,” Mr Owenswrote “We need to hire the Natural Per-son Nominee, pay him, make him signlots of documents to cover us, make himsign resignations, make him get someproofs evidencing that he has the eco-nomic capacity to place such amount ofmoneys, letters of reference, proof of do-micile, etc., etc.” The process, he sug-gested, would cost her at least $17,500

serv-Ms Olszewksi approved the ver — only to see the firm, at one point,accidentally disclose her name to thebanks involved

maneu-“Ramses, Please call me ASAP!! This

is important!!!!” she wrote to Mr ens “HSBC said someone said mariannaolszewski is the principal / beneficary!

Ow-Who has done this!! I need you to call meimmediately and tell them hsbc that was

a mistake!!!!!!!!!! This is not good and Iasked you NOT to do this! this is why wehave this structure.”

Mr Owens sought to calm her down,saying that Mossack Fonseca could tellthe bank that the natural personnominee actually controlled the account

“This can be solved,” he wrote

Mr Owens did not tell his client theidentity of the natural person nominee,saying simply, “We would appoint a UKcitizen residing in Panama since 50 yearsago, engineer, entrepreneur,” as theyneeded someone who would be expected

to have such a large amount of moneyavailable to transfer

Twelve days later, Mr Owens sentHSBC a copy of a passport for a mannamed Edmund James Ward

“Kindly please find hereto attachedthe due diligence documents of the bene-ficial owner,” said the email sent toHSBC, noting that “the documents dulycorrect.”

The $1 million from Ms Olszewski wasthen transferred to the new accounts,with an assurance that she need notworry

“If for any reason something happens,please also bear in mind that Mossfon iscovered by insurance policies for US$10Million (per event),” Mr Owens wrote

“We have never used our insurance icy to cover a ‘fraud,’ or something likethis.”

pol-The use of a stand-in to hide the trueownership of an account is one of the re-maining illegal ploys favored by Ameri-cans today as international banks, underpressure from the United States, de-mand proof of account ownership, saidJeffrey Neiman, a former federal pros-ecutor from Miami who specialized incriminal tax offenses, adding that hecould not comment directly on this case

“The fact that a law firm was willing to dothis legitimizes the process for theirclients,” he said

A Firm’s Inner Doubts

Many of the client files — like those for

Mr Weill, the banker; Mr Soriano, the

ballplayer; and Mr Akridge, the oper — contain little information on thepurpose of the offshore accounts, or howthey were used after they were set up,making it impossible, based on therecords available, to assess whetherthey were used legitimately

devel-But the experts who reviewed some ofthe documents related to the Ponsoldts,

Mr von der Goltz and Ms Olszewski saidthat the firm itself seemed to realize itwas taking risks

“They were not always sure selves which side of the line they were on

them-at any given moment,” said Ross S ston, a former federal banking regulatorwho now specializes in combatingmoney-laundering efforts “It is appar-ent that members of the firm were awarethey were treading very close to theline.”

Del-In fact, the files contain instances, ginning before the Panama Papers came

be-to light, of Mossack Fonseca lawyers ond-guessing their actions (In recentweeks, the firm has shut down many ofits operations in Nevada, as well asBritish locations in Jersey and the Isle ofMan, and is closing the asset-manage-ment division that served many of itsUnited States clients.)

sec-In 2013, Mossack Fonseca advised Ms.Olszewski to seek outside counsel andconsider reporting herself to the I.R.S.,warning of possible “severe”repercussions if she did not The warningcame in the wake of a Justice Depart-ment investigation of the role that cer-tain Swiss banks had played in helpingUnited States citizens evade federaltaxes

Records show that Mossack Fonsecahad been paid at least $102,000 over nineyears to help Ms Olszewski handle vari-ous transactions

Ms Olszewksi took the firm’s advice,and belatedly disclosed her accounts tothe I.R.S., the documents show And by

2014, she asked Mossack Fonseca to shutdown her accounts and offshore entities,which collectively held at least $1.7 mil-lion

“I’m in complete compliance with all

my U.S tax and reporting ments,” Ms Olszewski said in an emailedstatement when The Times asked aboutthe accounts

require-In a second statement, she said shehad relied on the advice of legal counsel

to establish a trust for her family whileliving abroad “I am confident that I haveacted properly,” she added, “and any in-sinuation otherwise is false.”Reached by telephone in late May, Mr.Owens, who is no longer with the lawfirm, said only, “Regretfully, I cannotspeak about individual clients or my time

at Mossack Fonseca.”

Mossack Fonseca sent a series of lar and increasingly dire warnings to thePonsoldts in 2013 and 2014, telling themthat they had to provide a Swiss bankwith documentation that they had paidall required United States taxes — orface possible investigation

simi-“Neither your ex Trustees nor uswould like to be involved into any meas-ure the US Department of Justice mighttry to enforce,” the firm wrote “In this re-gard, again we strongly urge you to takethe necessary steps to avoid any nega-tive consequences for you as well as us.”The records examined by The Timesgive no indication whether the Ponsoldtscomplied, and family members wouldnot say when asked

“I don’t know what you are talkingabout,” Christopher Ponsoldt said in asecond brief conversation before heagain hung up

Ramón Fonseca, a co-founder of Mossack Fonseca, in April in his office The

firm has said it has honored international tax and banking laws.

ARNULFO FRANCO/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A client conveys his or her money to one or a

series of corporations that Mossack Fonseca

creates in spots around the world In some cases,

the firm has advised clients to justify the money

flow out of the United States by falsifying receipts

for imaginary purchases, or claiming they had

made bad investments and lost the money

In Panama, Mossack Fonseca sets up a private

foundation, not subject to Panamanian taxes

and not required to make any actual donations

to a charity Clients who “contribute” funds to

such foundations are shielded from legal claims

filed against them in the United States, even

though they often indirectly still control the use

of the money, via Mossack Fonseca

To further conceal the connections between the

foundations and their true owners, employees of

Mossack Fonseca (or, in some cases, their family

members) are appointed as officers to the

foundation and to the various shell companies This

arrangement allows Mossack Fonseca to argue that

the client who donated the money does not own or

control this new legal entity, even if emails and other

correspondence show that he does

In some cases, the Mossack Fonseca staff secretly

names the client as the sole beneficiary of the

private foundation and the various shell companies it

has created for the client But the client’s actual

identity remains hidden from any public documents,

and perhaps also from American authorities

Mossack Fonseca’s employees, now acting as officers of the

foundation or shell companies, transfer large chunks of

money to and from bank accounts it has separately set up

on the client’s behalf, in tax havens like Andorra, Switzerland,

the British Virgin Islands and Panama, which have historically

helped customers hide their names from government

authorities In other cases, money is used to buy

luxury apartments or yachts These maneuvers

make it difficult to know where the money

originally came from, or if capital gains taxes

and other obligations have been paid

Money deposited by the client to the private

foundation may be shifted into the accounts of

shell companies, and through them to the

personal accounts of the client’s family

members, such as children, potentially allowing

the United States ceiling on tax-free gifts from

parents to children to be illegally evaded The

firm argues it is the client’s responsibility to pay

these taxes, when appropriate

By not reporting to the United States government income earned abroad, or even the

existence of these overseas accounts, clients can evade United States taxes on

passive income (like interest, dividends and capital gains) they earn on their offshore

investments Mossack Fonseca argues that it is up to its clients to pay what they owe

By setting up the shell companies in foreign countries, and claiming that the client is not

a resident of the United States even if the firm knows that is not true, the firm can help

the client evade taxes owed to the United States.

The offshore companies can also be used to shield assets if an individual is sued in the

United States, or is going through a divorce or other family dispute

CHIEF OFFICERS ARE MOSSACK FONSECA INSIDERS

TAX-FREE DISTRIBUTIONS

TO CLIENT’S CHILDREN

OR FAMILY MEMBERS

“CHARITABLE” OR FAMILY FOUNDATION MOSSACK

FONSECA LAWYER

SHELL COMPANIES

CLIENTHow to Shield Your Identity With an Offshore Account

How Mossack Fonseca Helped Clients Skirt

Or Break U.S Tax Laws With Offshore Accounts

THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Benefits

Other Risky or Potentially Illegal Uses

The Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca helped wealthy United States clients,

among many others worldwide, set up offshore corporations, foundations and bank

accounts where the clients could place large amounts of cash and other assets While

federal law allows United States citizens to transfer money overseas, these foreign

holdings must be declared to the Treasury Department, and any taxes on capital gains,

interest or dividends must be paid But in some cases, Mossack Fonseca appeared to

create accounts with the express purpose of shielding identities or avoiding scrutiny from

to an overseas account through Mossack Fon- seca, then was concerned that her name had been revealed as the principal beneficiary She later disclosed her accounts to the I.R.S.

A16 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALMONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

authority to do so is “ironclad.”

But Republicans say the governor

lacks blanket authority to restore

voting rights and must instead do

so on a case-by-case basis — as his

predecessors in both parties have

done

“He’s really put a stick in the

legislature’s eye,” said Speaker

William J Howell of the Virginia

House of Delegates, the lead

plaintiff in the Republican suit He

said the suit “has nothing to do

with” the registration drive, and

rejected Democrats’ accusations

that Republicans were trying to

suppress the black vote: “The

governor has whipped them up.”

Still, race is a powerful subtext;

African-Americans make up 19

percent of Virginia’s population,

but 45 percent of those covered by

the governor’s order The

Sen-tencing Project, a Washington

re-search organization, says one in

five African-Americans in

Virgin-ia cannot vote because of felony

convictions

“When you look at the fact that

of the individuals who are most

impacted by this, 45 percent of

them are African-American, what

conclusion can we draw?” asked

State Senator Mamie Locke,

chairwoman of the Virginia Black

Legislative Caucus, which held

“Voices for The Vote” rallies on

Saturday in three Virginia cities

Organizers of the registration

drive say they would like to sign

up 25,000 new voters in time to

cast ballots on Election Day

“That could make a difference,”

said Bob Holsworth, a longtime

political analyst in Virginia,

not-ing that some state races in

Vir-ginia had been decided by

rela-tively slim margins, of 5,000 or

6,000 votes

Here in Richmond, the capital,

the registration campaign is most

intense in some of the poorest

cor-ners of the city, in places like

Gilpin Court, a public housing

de-velopment in Jackson Ward, a

historically African-American

neighborhood Karen Fountain,

another New Virginia Majority

or-ganizer, has signed up so many

people that residents have named

her “The Voter Lady.”

Ms Fountain estimated that

roughly three-quarters of those

she encounters in Gilpin Court

have lost their right to vote On a

sweltering Friday afternoon, she

walked the neighborhood’s

streets, asking people if they had

heard what “Governor Terry,” as

she calls Mr McAuliffe, had done

Many had not; some remain

ineli-gible

“I can’t; I just got home,” one

tattooed young man replied, when

Ms Fountain asked if he wanted

to register “Are you on tion?” she asked He nodded hishead yes “Supervised?” sheasked He nodded again “O.K.,”

proba-Ms Fountain said, “when you get

off, you can register.”

For Mr Abdul-Rahman, acheery 53-year-old with a cornyexpression — “Cool bananas!” —for things that please him, thework is deeply personal He spent

17 years in prison, for armed

rob-bery and breaking and entering

In prison, he read history booksand taught himself about politics

When he heard about the nor’s order, he signed up to vote,and began registering others

gover-Then New Virginia Majority

hired him; the day he met Ms

Taylor was his first day of work

Standing outside the church, on athin grassy patch under a shadycrepe myrtle tree, he registered 11new voters during the lunch hour

— some homeless, some

strug-gling with addiction to drugs.None seemed happier than Ms.Taylor

“Oh my goodness,” she said,giving Mr Abdul-Rahman a hugafter signing her papers “This issuch a beautiful day.”

Virginia at Center of Racially Charged Fight Over the Right of Felons to Vote

Clockwise from top: Karen Fountain, known as “The Voter Lady,” took a break from registering people in Richmond; Assadique Ab- dul-Rahman, right, congratulated a new voter; the Gilpin Court housing project, where Ms Fountain estimated that roughly three- quarters of those she encounters have lost their right to vote.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHET STRANGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

From Page A12

What a governor

granted, a State

Supreme Court might

take away.

But others called the case a

set-up, and said the defendants hadbeen goaded to act and praise ter-rorism by a onetime friend whomade secret audio recordings as apaid federal informant In barbershops and cafes where the caseflashed on television screens,young men and old said the trialwould harden the community’s re-lationship with law enforcement,and said the defendants did notdeserve potential sentences of life

in prison

“People think the trial was honest and was done in a hurry,that this is a conspiracy,” said Ja-maal K Farah, 35, a barber and co-median who goes by the nameHappy Khalif and has attractedhundreds of thousands of views

dis-on YouTube

Mr Farah said he used to givehaircuts to some of the ninefriends who have now pleadedguilty or been convicted He re-jected portrayals of them as eager,would-be militants who spoke ofwanting to spit on the UnitedStates, kill Turkish security forces

agent and played paintball to trainfor combat

But to Mr Farah and othersskeptical of the convictions, themen were not defendants or ter-rorists, but boys, brothers, kidswho had messed up but deserved

As he watched boys play ketball outside a community cen-ter in central Minneapolis,Burhan Mohumed thought of his

bas-friend Guled Omar

He said Mr Omar had playedhere before “he was caught up inthat storm.” Mr Mohumed at-tended the trial regularly but wasbarred from the courthouse after

he intervened in a fight and gued with court security officers

ar-After the trial, Andrew M

Luger, the United States attorneyfor Minnesota, condemned thethreats and courthouse scuffles asintolerable and “unheard-of.”

Mr Mohumed supported thethree defendants and, echoingothers here, he was upset theycould face life in prison eventhough they never left for Syriaand never pulled a trigger

“If they can convict them onwords and thoughts, it’s over,” hesaid “People will not feel safe inour communities.”

But prosecutors said the caseinvolved far more than thoughts

They said the defendants wereready to kill for the Islamic Stateand had made well-documentedefforts to fly out of Kennedy Inter-national Airport or cross the Mex-ican border to travel to Syria

On Saturday, Mr Yusuf said, his

wife insisted that they go back towork after they visited their son injail He said he had taken time offfrom his job driving a school bus todeal with the criminal casesagainst his sons But they still hadfive other children to care for

So they opened Hooyo’sKitchen, in a Somali shopping cen-ter stuffed with rug stores, barbershops, classrooms and kitchens,four floors above Mr Farah’s bar-ber shop

As his wife cooked, Mr Yusufrushed food to customers Peoplestopped by to tell them to bestrong Mr Yusuf’s thoughts tiltedback to his sons

He said Mohamed Farah, theoldest, was hopeful about sentenc-ing, and had told him that what-ever came next was God’s will Heworried about the cost of fundingtwo commissary accounts so hissons could call him from jail Heworried about the distance hewould have to drive to visit them

“It’s not fair,” Mr Yusuf said.But he said they were propped up

by faith “We believe God willgive, no matter what.”

Somalis in Minneapolis Are Torn Over Terrorism Trial

Jibril Afyare, right, an IBM software engineer and community activist, on Saturday at Karmel Square Mall “We cannot afford even one Somali youth to be recruited by extremists,” he said.

JENN ACKERMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

From Page A12

Disagreement over

a suitable severity

of punishment.

COLORADO SPRINGS (AP) —

President Obama is opposing

sug-gestions to privatize the

Depart-ment of Veterans Affairs to

im-prove the health care that

veter-ans receive

In an interview with The

Col-orado Springs Gazette, he said

that his administration had made

progress modernizing the

depart-ment and providing veterans with

more timely care Privatizing the

agency would delay that progress,

Mr Obama said

The department was criticized

when it was disclosed that secret

wait lists were uncovered at a

vet-erans health care system in

Ari-zona amid reports that several

veterans had died waiting for

care Government investigations

found significant system failures

“The notion of dismantling the

V.A system would be a mistake,”

Mr Obama told The Gazette,

re-ferring to the Veterans

Adminis-tration, which the department

was known as until 1989 “If you

look at, for example, V.A healthcare, there have been challengesgetting people into the system

Once they are in, they are tremely satisfied and the quality

ex-of care is very high.”

Mr Obama said he will continue

to improve the Department of erans Affairs

Vet-Mr Obama appointed Robert A

McDonald, a former chief tive of Procter & Gamble, as Vet-erans Affairs secretary in 2014 af-ter Eric K Shinseki resigned

execu-“I think Secretary McDonaldhas done a terrific job,” the presi-dent said “Since there’s only eightmonths left in my administration,he’s got all the way until then torun through the tape.”

Mr Obama signed the VeteransAccess to Care Act, which re-quires the department to contractwith private providers when aclinic is not within 40 miles of theveteran seeking care or the waittime for care is more than 30 days

Obama Opposes Privatization

Of Health Care for Veterans

In the Matter of the Liquidation of HEALTH REPUBLIC INSURANCE OF NEW YORK, CORP.

Index No 450500/2016

NOTICE OF LIQUIDATION ORDER

MARIA T VULLO, the Acting Superintendent

of Financial Services of the State of New York (the

“Superintendent”), in her capacity as court-appointed

Liquidator (in such capacity, the “Liquidator”)

of Health Republic Insurance of New York, Corp

(“Health Republic”) hereby gives you notice that, on

May 11, 2016, the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York (the “Court”), entered

an order (the “Liquidation Order”): (i)  finding

Health Republic to be insolvent within the meaning

“NYIL”); (ii) appointing the Superintendent and her

successors in office as Liquidator of Health Republic;

(iii)  directing the Liquidator to take possession of the property and assets of Health Republic; and Republic’s business in accordance with Article 74 of certain injunctive relief, which the Court determined

is in the best interest of Health Republic’s former members, its creditors, and the general public

Please take notice that a copy of the Liquidation Order, and the papers upon which it was granted, are accessible at www.healthrepublicny.org and www.nylb.org

Requests for further information or questions should be directed to (866) 680-0893 or www.healthrepublicny.org

MARIA T VULLO Liquidator of Health Republic

N A17

THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

A18 N

MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

Gov Andrew M Cuomo of NewYork ordered agencies under hiscontrol on Sunday to divest them-selves of companies and organiza-tions aligned with a Palestinian-backed boycott movementagainst Israel

Wading into a delicate tional issue, Mr Cuomo set execu-tive-branch and other state enti-ties in opposition to the Boycott,Divestment and Sanctions move-ment, or B.D.S., which has grown

interna-in popularity interna-in some quarters ofthe United States and elsewhere,alarming Jewish leaders who fearits toll on Israel’s international im-age and economy

Mr Cuomo made his ment in a speech at the HarvardClub in Manhattan to an audienceincluding local Jewish leaders andlawmakers, describing the B.D.S

announce-movement as an “economic tack” on Israel

at-“We cannot allow that to pen,” the governor said, addingthat, “If you boycott against Is-rael, New York will boycott you.”

hap-Alphonso David, the counsel tothe governor, said that the execu-tive order was specifically aimed

at the B.D.S movement launched

in 2005, but that it would apply toany boycott targeting Israel

Several states have moved tosupport Israel and prevent theirgovernments and agencies fromdoing business with companies or

individuals that endorse the cotts Similar bills have been in-troduced in both houses of theNew York Legislature, and a Re-publican-sponsored bill passedthe State Senate, which the partyleads, in January

boy-But on Sunday, Mr Cuomo, aDemocrat, flexed his executivepower — a more familiar demon-stration in the governor’s secondterm — joking that passing legis-lation can “often be a tedious af-fair,” and saying instead hewanted “immediate action” onB.D.S., while challenging othergovernors to do the same

According to the executive der, Mr Cuomo will command thecommissioner of the Office of Gen-eral Services to devise a list overthe next six months of businessesand groups engaged in any “boy-cott, divestment or sanctions ac-tivity targeting Israel, either di-rectly or through a parent or sub-sidiary.”

or-The list will be compiled from

“credible information available tothe public,” according to the order,and subject to appeal by the com-panies and entities included on it

Once the designation process iscompleted, however, all execu-

tive-branch agencies and ments — which make up a largeportion of state government — aswell as public boards, authorities,commissions and all public-bene-fit corporations will be required todivest themselves of any com-pany on the list

depart-Mr Cuomo’s signed the tive order just before he marched

execu-in the Celebrate Israel parade execu-inNew York

With the largest population ofJewish residents outside Israel,New York has outsize symbolic,and political, value in the debateover the Middle East For his part,

Mr Cuomo has shown increasedwillingness in recent years to getinvolved in international issues,including a short trip to Israel in

2014 with a state delegation

The B.D.S movement, started

in 2005, has become a contentiousissue on some American collegecampuses and beyond

Supporters say the campaignaims to pressure Israel economi-cally over its treatment ofPalestinians and to further Pales-tinian independence Opponentssay the efforts are a thinly dis-guised, anti-Semitic attempt todeeply hurt or even destroy Israel

Omar Barghouti, a founder ofthe movement, said he did not findthe actions by states like NewYork surprising, calling such pro-posals part of Israel’s “legal war-fare against B.D.S.”

“Having lost many battles forhearts and minds at the grass-roots level, Israel has adoptedsince 2014 a new strategy to crimi-nalize support for B.D.S from thetop,” he said in an email, addingthat such actions were meant to

“shield Israel from ity.”

accountabil-Mr Barghouti added that Israelwas supporting efforts by states

to try to “delegitimize the boycott,

a time-honored tactic of resistinginjustice in the U.S and a form ofprotected speech.”

Mr David said in an interviewthat the executive action wasmeant to send a clear messagethat “the B.D.S movement is de-plorable.” He added that the gov-ernor’s order was not meant to beinterpreted as “opining on actionstaken to empower Palestinians,”

or meant to discourage debateover Israeli actions in the MiddleEast Rather, it intends to stake aposition on a movement that “theState of New York unequivocallyrejects,” as the order puts it

“It’s one thing to say I want toengage in political speech,” Mr.David said “It’s another thing tosay I’m going to sanction you orpenalize you for engaging in com-mercial activity.”

He added that although he didnot know how many companiesthat do business with the state hadendorsed or engaged in the B.D.S.movement, “we anticipate it’s go-ing to be quite significant.”

Cuomo to Halt State Business With Groups Tied to Israel Boycott

By JESSE McKINLEY

Gov Andrew Cuomo in Manhattan, where he announced an executive order on Sunday aimed at a Palestinian-backed effort.

ULI SEIT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The building superintendent’s

name was Vincent Bostick, and

he was good with his hands,

reliable and quick on snowy days

to get outside with a shovel

But he did have one

quirk

“He put all these

cameras up,” Michael

Garcia, a tenant in the

building, on Jerome

Avenue in the Bronx,

said as he pointed

them out in the hall “The city

didn’t put these cameras up He

did He had TVs in his

apart-ment.”

Mr Garcia said he had thought

Mr Bostick was being cautious,

if a little extreme But

revelations about Mr Bostick,

starting with his name, suggest a

different reason for the cameras’

presence: Maybe he was

watch-ing for the day when his past

would catch up with him

That past took shape at a

house party 26 years ago and

about 170 miles away, in

Worce-ster, Mass On Aug 26, 1990,

Anibal Vargas, 39, one of about

30 people at the party, got into a

fight, pulled out a gun and fired

it, wounding a rival and

acciden-tally hitting someone else in the

leg, the police said

The victims survived Mr

Vargas fled

He bought a new birth

certifi-cate and a Social Security card,

according to a criminal

com-plaint Both were in a new name:

Vincent Bostick

He came to New York City and

got an apartment on Jerome

Avenue under the name Bostick

The building, for low-income

tenants, is owned by the city’s

Department of Housing

Preser-vation and Development The

man who introduced himself as

Vincent lived on the second floor

Neighbors got together and

formed a tenants’ association,

said Joyce Simpkins, 69, who

lives in the building “He became

the super,” she said on Thursday

“He wanted to be an officer or

vice president until he found out

we paid the super.”

Mr Vargas’s true identity went

unnoticed on several occasions

He was arrested in the Bronx in

1994 on a charge of possessing a

weapon, in 1998 accused of

sell-ing drugs to an undercover

po-lice officer and in 2000 on a

drug-possession charge, the

police said All three times, he

was identified as Vincent

Bo-stick

In 2001, he got a job at Janovic

Pro Center, a paint company, in

Queens He provided a Social

Security card and a driver’s

license, a payroll officer there

later told the police

Back at home, he continued

working for the tenants “He was

a very good handyman,” Ms

Simpkins said “He could fix a

leak or put a pipe in.” He kept

quiet about his personal life

Mr Garcia considered him a

friend

“He’s a cool guy,” he said “He

stays out of trouble, man He

helped me a lot.” The two ate

lunch together from time to time

“He doesn’t get visitors, no wife,

no nothing He said he had been

in trouble in the past and he

didn’t like what the past did to

him.”

The super put in the cameras

and watched the feeds “He’s a

very nervous person,” Mr Garcia

said “Those screens are always

on.”

In 2006, the police arrested Mr

Vargas and charged him with

identity theft Another man

named Vincent Bostick who

lived in South Carolina had the

same Social Security number

that Mr Vargas had been using

That Mr Bostick had received

reports about wages he

suppos-edly earned in Queens, a place

he had never worked, the police

said

Mr Vargas lost his job at the

paint company He confessed,

according to the complaint, and

told the police: “I bought a Social

Security card and birth

certifi-cate in the name of Vincent

Bostick from a Spanish guy in

Massachusetts for $500 I was in

jail, and it’s tough getting a job

with a record in my true name.”

He pleaded guilty to a

crime, then shoveling

snow and fixing leaks

under a new name.

betz, 79, a security guard from theBronx who has stopped by Surmafor 61 years to pick up his weeklyUkrainian newspaper “I don’tknow what will happen to that cul-ture once it closes.”

Mr Dubetz was hardly alone inhis words of regret Over theweekend, Surma’s aisles werecrowded with longtimecustomers, saying goodbye andwondering where they would gonow to find painted pysanky eggsfor Easter, or kutia, a sweet grainpudding, for their Christmasfeasts

“This store has connected ourwave of immigrants to the 19thcentury,” said Vladimir Ginzburg,

72 “When it closes, that tion will go with it.”

connec-In July 1910, a teenager namedMyron Surmach left his village inUkraine, boarded the ship Atlantawith a third-class ticket andheaded across the ocean to an im-probably big city called New York

For 21 days, Mr Surmach sucked

on a lemon to stave off ness until he reached Ellis Island

seasick-There, he told an interviewerdecades later, he was shocked tofind an American guard welcom-ing him to the United States in per-fect Ukrainian

Mr Surmach began his new life

in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., but within afew years, he made it back to NewYork Eager to preserve his nativeculture, he opened a small shop onAvenue A in Manhattan where hesold records, books, clothes andother trinkets from the old coun-try to other Ukrainian immi-grants He named the store Surma

— after an old woodwindlike strument — and for 98 years it hasoperated at various addresses inthe East Village, settling in 1943 at

in-11 East Seventh Street

The family business has lived Myron, and his son, Myron

out-Jr It has outlived Janis Joplin andJim Morrison, who bought em-broidered blouses there duringthe folk revival of the 1960s, whenthe peasant look was all the rage

But recently, patrons learned thatSurma has only a few days left,when Mr Surmach’s grandsonMarkian announced that he wouldclose the shop this month

“You can trace the whole tory of our community through

his-Village around Seventh Street haslong been known as LittleUkraine, many of the Eastern Eu-ropean emporiums that thrivedthere have closed in recent years

The Kiev, a beloved coffee shop,shut in 2000, followed by theUkrainian Art and Literary Cluband Odessa restaurant And J

Baczynsky is a relic of a once petitive corps of Ukrainian butch-ers selling smoked meats Now, St

com-George Ukrainian Catholic

Church and the Ukrainian seum are among the dwindlingnumber of institutions that invokethe neighborhood’s history

Mu-“Inside here, nothing haschanged, but outside, everything

is different,” said Stephanie erepanyn, 72, who emigrated fromUkraine in 1951 and has worked atSurma since 1978, taking a bus andtwo trains from her home inBrooklyn

Cz-Despite the gentrification of tle Ukraine (and its correspond-ing rent increases), Markian Sur-mach was not exactly forced out ofhis store He owns the building,which his grandfather bought for

Lit-$15,000 Its sale now is likely tofetch millions — a sum surelynever envisioned by the youngMyron Sr., whose mother sold a

cow so he could afford to leaveUkraine Although manycustomers bemoaned his deci-sion, Mr Surmach explained thatsales have slumped since the1990s, when the fall of the SovietUnion and the proliferation ofcheap specialty goods onlinemade Surma’s once scarce waresmore readily available

“Even if we own the building,the property taxes and upkeep arevery expensive and have drownedout profits to the point wherewe’re barely floating,” Mr Sur-mach, 54, said “If we didn’t ownthe place, we’d have been out ofbusiness decades ago.”

Mr Surmach added that he wasconsidering taking the businessonline after the location closes.Mike Buryk, a genealogist andhistorian of Ukrainian descentfrom North Caldwell, N.J., wassaddened to hear that the store hehad patronized for 50 years wouldsoon be gone “It felt like the pass-ing of an old dear friend,” he said.When he was a teenager, Mr.Buryk, now 66, began combing theshelves at Surma for books andembroidery as a way to reinforcehis Ukrainian-American identity

He was particularly fond of thehoney — a staple of Ukrainiancooking — which in those dayscame from an apiary tended byMyron Sr after he handed thestore to his son and moved to afarm in Saddle River, N.J

“The number of Ukrainians ing in East Village has certainlychanged,” Mr Buryk, who alsowrites for the Ukrainian Weekly,

liv-With Shop’s Closing, Little Ukraine Grows Smaller

Markian Surmach, top, the owner of Surma in Manhattan Mr Surmach’s grandfather Myron Sr.

started the business 98 years ago, selling records, clothes and other trinkets from Ukraine.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICHARD PERRY/THE NEW YORK TIMES

By NOAH REMNICK

A relic of the Eastern European stores that once thrived in the city’s East Village.

Continued on Page A20

N A19

NEW YORK

THE NEW YORK TIMES MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

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But What If We’re Wrong?

Discussion / Q&A / Book Signing

Tuesday, June 7th, 7PM

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BRAD MELTZER

The House of Secrets

Discussion / Book Signing

Tuesday, June 7th, 7PM

2289 Broadway at 82nd Street Upper West Side (212) 362-8835

A woman with amnesia must solve a murder mystery to understand her father’s death—and her own past

TERRY McMILLAN

I Almost Forgot About You

Discussion / Book Signing

Wednesday, June 8th, 7PM

33 East 17th Street Union Square (212) 253-0810

A successful optometrist bored with her life decides to reinvent herself.

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ETHAN HAWKE &

This graphic novel from the Oscar-nominated actor and the bestselling author revisits the 1872

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RUMAAN ALAM in conversation

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Rich and Pretty

Discussion / Q&A / Book Signing

Tuesday, June 7th, 7PM

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This debut novel explores the evolving friendship of two New York women.

Overcoming Invisibility MYCHAL DENZEL SMITH

The contributing writer for The Nation

discusses his personal and political education with the author and professor.

Participants walked down a rain-soaked street during the Bronx Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday Organizers said it was the

30th anniversary of the event, which traveled the Grand Concourse in celebration of Puerto Rican heritage in the borough.

A Soggy Anniversary

YANA PASKOVA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

It is one of the incongruities of

life in New York that some of the

most appealing music ever

writ-ten, a Beethoven trio, for

exam-ple, or a Mozart sonata, is played

in one of the most unappealing

public spaces ever built —

Penn-sylvania Station

The timeless music is meant to

make the life of the modern

traveler more pleasant, a word

not typically associated with

Penn Station It is even

consid-ered a crime deterrent

But the three people who

decide what travelers in

Manhat-tan will hear are actually about

1,500 miles away and have never

set foot in the train station, the

busiest in the country

Working from a windowless

office in Austin, Tex., the three

women do their best to channel

their inner commuter — harried,

frazzled and stressed out — and

choose the right overture,

con-certo or pop-song arrangement

to soothe another hair-pulling

train ride

Amy Frishkey, one of the

pro-grammers, understands the

otherness of picking the music

that people hear between the

train-boarding announcements

There is the place itself: “It’s like

a basement,” she said, a

descrip-tion she has gleaned from her

readings about the much-disliked

terminus

Unlike her two colleagues, Ms

Frishkey has strolled through

Grand Central Terminal, whose

monumental hall seems a far

more appropriate setting for

classical tunes

But music does not play from

speakers in the vaulted sky that

floats over the main concourse at

Grand Central, as it does from

the blotchy ceiling at Penn

Sta-tion And Penn Station has

defi-nite shortcomings beyond the

dispiriting, shabby look It is not

a concert hall and, as Ms

Fr-ishkey suggested, it is not the

soaring architectural gem that

the original Penn Station was in

its heyday, a place the novelist

Thomas Wolfe once described as

“vast enough to hold the sound of

time.”

The puny-sounding speakers

at Penn Station play a stream of

classical pieces along with “easy

instrumentals” that sound like

dentist-office arrangements,

mostly contemporary piano and

guitar solos — and, one

after-noon last month as the evening

rush was approaching, a Sinatra

hit that seemed to have been

arranged for French horn The

result is a Beethoven quartet one

minute, something vaguely New

Age the next

The volume varies, as do thetempos — louder and bouncierduring the morning and evening,less so at other times There areinterruptions — “Now boarding,east gate, Track 9” cuts off thezippiest allegro, right at theclimax — and there is the buzz ofpeople on cellphones, calling towarn whoever is expecting themthat their train is late or, moreirritating, canceled

“It’s almost as if you’re trying

to D.J the world’s largest ding reception,” Danny Turney,

wed-Ms Frishkey’s boss, said But it

is a reception without a bride orgroom, and the 650,000 peoplewho pass through Penn Stationevery day do not dance to themusic

Amtrak, which operates PennStation, was not looking for aparty when it decided to pipe inmusic in the 1990s Amtrakwanted “to subtly help promote apeaceful and calm environment,”

Craig S Schulz, an Amtrakspokesman, said So it enlistedMuzak, which was bought byMood Music, a programminggiant, in 2011

Amtrak wanted classical sic, Mr Schulz said, with “anemphasis on light, airy selec-tions, as opposed to thunderinghorns and drums.” He added,

mu-“The intent was to create a rene environment that couldcalm the nerves of the harriedtraveler.”

se-But, in a city in which the1990s began with 2,200 murders

in just one year, Amtrak hadanother objective: using music to

deter crime

“Yes, that was definitely afactor,” Mr Schulz said He saidthe decision to play classicalmusic in Penn Station “wasbased on research” that sug-gested, among other things, thatclassical music “had in the pastbeen effective in displacing gangactivity from certain locations.”

Norman Middleton, whoworked as a concert producer atthe Library of Congress until hisretirement, has described thistheory of policing as “Halt, or I’llplay Vivaldi,” a term he said hegot from a newspaper headline

In a panel discussion severalyears ago, he said the police inWest Palm Beach, Fla., had in-stalled speakers on the roof of abar and played classical music —

“I think it was Beethoven’s stringquartets,” Mr Middleton said

Drug dealers who frequented theneighborhood went elsewhere

Ms Frishkey said she had readall about Penn Station — theoriginal Penn Station, a temple torailroading and high-mindedcivic purpose “Through it oneentered the city like a god,” thearchitectural historian Vincent J

Scully Jr declared after its lition in the 1960s, adding aboutits replacement, “One scuttles innow like a rat.”

demo-So Penn Station is a placewhere workaday commuters andlong-distance passengers seekthe shortest sally to the boardinggate, some running, some pre-occupied with how to drag toomuch luggage across the floorand then down the escalators,

some simply happy their train isleaving close to on time

“The music functions to createspaciousness, light, not feelinglike you’re in a cattle call,” Ms

Frishkey said “It speaks to thepower of overhead music to workwithin a space, working as acorrective to this basement feel-ing.”

The music designers, as MoodMusic calls them, vary theplaylist “We spread it out soyou’re not hearing all symphonicpieces and then a piano pieceand then some chamber pieces,”

Janica Chang, one of Ms ishkey’s colleagues in Austin,said

Fr-But they favor fairly fast pos “Most are around allegro,kind of bright, lively,” she said

tem-Nothing faster, nothing slower

“You don’t want largo and gic,” she added, “and you don’tget prestissimo because that willmake people feel more rushedthan they already feel.”

lethar-In Penn Station, there is ways the chance It is a placewhere the critics are tough

al-Hannah Greenberg, who works

in a Manhattan art gallery andwas on the way home to Mont-clair, N.J., gave the music athumbs-down review

“It’s just loud enough to beannoying,” she said, “and it does-n’t even sound like classicalmusic.”

She listened for a moment “Itdoesn’t really fit the envi-ronment,” she said, “but I don’tthink any music fits Penn Sta-tion.”

GRACE NOTES

Curating a Polished Playlist for a Shabby Hub

By JAMES BARRON

At Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, puny-sounding speakers play a stream of classical music.

KARSTEN MORAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

meanor and was sentenced to 30

days in jail or a $100 fine But

even having learned his real

name, officers did not discover

that he was wanted in

Massachu-setts in the shooting 16 years

earlier, the Queens district

attor-ney’s office said last week

About two years later,

Worce-ster authorities entered a

war-rant for Mr Vargas into a

na-tional database The warrant did

not surface when he was rested yet again, in 2011, for aminor offense

ar-Back at the apartment ing, word of his real name sur-faced and was met with indiffer-ence “We call him Vincent,” Ms

build-he goes by.” Why? That was hisbusiness, she said “I had heardchild support or something.”

More time passed Then twoweeks ago, on May 26, an officer

in the Bleecker Street subwaystation in Manhattan saw a man

get in without paying, and rested him, the police said It was

ar-Mr Vargas, now 65 and carrying

a counterfeit driver’s license

This time, entering his name inthe system raised an alert that

he was wanted in Massachusetts

On Thursday, Mr Vargas clined to speak to a reporter atthe jail ward at Bellevue HospitalCenter Prosecutors in Massa-chusetts said he was fightingextradition

de-No one is watching the camerafeeds at his home now His neigh-bors never thought there wasmuch to see, but it was niceknowing the cameras were there

“He made me feel safe,” Mr

Je-NICOLE BENGIVENO/THE NEW YORK TIMES

From Preceding Page

A20 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NEW YORKMONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

During a late 1960ssummer, I was a page atthe New York Public Library’s44th Street annex, which housedresearch collections and peri-odical archives At the time, thelibrary owned one of the fewcomplete United States patentcollections My main job wasfulfilling requests and reshelvingmaterials

My most regular customer,along with the morning callerswho requested copies of TheDaily Racing Form before head-ing to Aqueduct, was an oldergentleman in a blue suit whowould spend the day requestinghis maximum of four volumes ofpatents at a time He was search-ing for a patent his uncle hadbeen granted for an electronictube that was ripped off by a bigelectronics maker he was suing

Then, there were more thanthree million patents I wondered

if, in a moment of weariness, hemight have skipped over thepatent

A few years later, I visited theannex for college-related rea-sons, and the man in the bluesuit was there, perusing hisusual four volumes of patents Ihope he found what he was look-

Dear Diary:

At the barbershop, my barbersaid it was good that Easter andPassover weren’t close togetherthis year

Why?

“I like them a haircut apart,”

Dear Diary:

Lil’ Kim defended me once

Now, it’s my turn

When I played “Prozac Girl”

on a New York City morningradio show in the early 2000s,Lil’ Kim visited the studio Wewere in the middle of — or may-

be just ending — a promotioncalled something like “Win aLipstick Lesbian Date WithProzac.” Those details are fuzzy,but Lil’ Kim’s reaction when thehost teased me about the contest

is Ultra HD clear

“It’s O.K., Prozac, if you’regay,” she said “There’s nothingwrong with that It’s O.K.”

“I’m I’m not gay,” I mered I wanted to explain thatthe contest had been the host’sidea after I’d lost control of mystake in one of our winding andraw on-air conversations, but,humbled by her compassion, Icould muster only, “Thank you.”

stam-Recently, the Brooklyn-bornrapper posted an Instagramphoto that revealed a lighter skintone, an image that released theinternet kraken Everyone frombloggers to trolls had a theory onKim’s appearance and her moti-vations The sentiments rangedfrom pity to rage to confusion to,

in true social media fashion,maliciousness Even the headline

of an opinion piece shared byNewsweek asked, “Why Has Lil’Kim Turned White?”

I don’t know why she’s lighter,and I don’t care, because whengiven the chance to judge me, tocriticize my humanity, shedemonstrated hers in an unex-pected and important way,natural or manufactured skintone be damned

And when I remember that, Iwish I could return the gesture,stare into her eyes from acrossthat West Village studio and say,

“It’s O.K., Lil’ Kim It’s O.K.”

Keysha Whitaker Dear Diary:

This Passover, I ran into theProphet Elijah on the Amtrakplatform in New Rochelle

I am old, and I had alreadydragged my luggage through thecaverns of Union Station inWashington only to miss mytrain home to New York Back tothe counter to buy another ticket,this one for a slower train.When we finally got into thetunnel under Pennsylvania Sta-tion, I fell fast asleep I awoke as

we were leaving the stationheading north By the time I gotoff at the next stop, I had noenergy left to drag my luggage

up onto the bridge and over thetracks to catch a southboundtrain

But there, sitting on a bundle

of his stuff, sat Elijah We had, ofcourse, opened the door for him

at the Seder The littlest childrenwere sure he had sipped winefrom his special cup

No one actually saw him, but Irecognized him by his actions

He said: “Let me take your gage I know many of the cab-drivers here I’ll get you a goodprice.”

lug-He did An hour later, I washome on the Upper West Side

Henny Wenkart Dear Diary:

A small, round, not quite ripewatermelon rolled out of a sub-way passenger’s bag at 5:36 p.m

on the Brooklyn-bound 2 train Itleaned against the closed subwaydoors and rotated — almostgetting off at Atlantic Avenue.But the doors closed and itfound itself a resting place againwhere the air breathed quietlythrough the subway door’s crack

It sat for about a minute, until itfound its way under the step of astout woman in her 60s with ashort blond crop The womangrinned as the melon kissed hertoes and rustled her blue, tie-dyed chiffon dress

We all watched as the melonrolled from one end of the car tothe other, as the subway abruptlystopped and started We chuck-led Our smiles and eyes met inthis instant community — eachone of us peering around to findthe melon’s rightful owner.One young woman steppedaway from her husband and herbaby carriage to rescue themelon — offering it up But therewere no takers She offered onceagain Then she quietly graspedthe melon and placed it amongher grocery packages, glanced ather husband and shrugged hershoulders

We all eyed the melon as itwas placed with its foster familyand nodded silently — sanction-ing the melon’s new home

Laura S Postiglione

METROPOLITAN DIARY

Observations for this column may

be sent to Metropolitan Diary at diary@nytimes.com or to The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y 10018 Please in- clude your name, mailing address and daytime telephone number;

upon request, names may be held in print Submissions become the property of The Times and can- not be returned They may be edited, and may be republished and adapted in all media.

with-said “They tended to make a goodliving, get educated and move out

to suburbs But for Ukrainians,the area still represents our cul-tural and religious focal point.”

About 71,000 cans live in the New York metro-politan area, which includes thecity and its suburbs, according tothe 2010 census But after a post-World War II surge, few live in theEast Village neighborhood thatonce anchored the community,Maria Shust, the director of theUkrainian Museum, said “Thepopulation has shrunk aroundhere,” she said, noting that the

Ukrainian-Ameri-vate, Ukrainian Catholic highschool, had drastically cut its en-rollment

While Mr Buryk understoodthe pressures on Mr Surmach,Elena Solow said she was “noteven speaking to Markian any-more.” Although she was visitingthe store for the first time innearly two years, she said shehated to see any family establish-ment close

“When neighborhoods losetheir history they lose their souls,and all that’s left is the Gap,” Ms.Solow, a jewelry dealer who lives

in Chelsea, said

“This will probably turn into aStarbucks,” she lamented as shewalked out the door, hearing its fa-

“Inside here, nothing has changed,” said Stephanie nyn, 72, who has worked at Surma for nearly four decades.

Czerepa-RICHARD PERRY/THE NEW YORK TIMES

With Longtime Shop’s Closing, Little Ukraine Grows Smaller

From Page A18

N A21

NEW YORK

THE NEW YORK TIMES MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

The post-matinee crowd began

streaming into Sardi’s restaurant

on Saturday, just as it had for

decades After passing through

the Chianti-red facade, many

pa-trons entered the Little Bar, an

al-cove-like room to the left of the

en-trance Then they settled in for

drinks and conversation in the

company of a tall man wearing a

maroon jacket, a white starched

shirt and a black bow tie who had

long been a steady presence

there

In the years after World War II,

Sardi’s, on West 44th Street in

Manhattan, was practically

syn-onymous with Broadway People

like the playwright Tennessee

Williams and the actors John

Bar-rymore and Helen Hayes

fre-quented the restaurant, and

open-ing-night theater reviews in The

New York Times and The New

York Herald Tribune were

distrib-uted to diners when the ink was

barely dry Some of the

restau-rant’s glory may have faded since

that heyday, but it remains a

sta-ple of the neighborhood,

cher-ished especially by those who see

tradition in its red walls, lined with

drawings of famous patrons

Part of that tradition includes

José Estevez, who began working

at Sardi’s in 1990 and presided

over the Little Bar since 1993 — as

familiar and reliable as the Rolex

clock that ticks there above the

rows of bottles and polished

glasses But a few weeks ago, Mr

Estevez, 72, told the restaurant’s

main owner, Max Klimavicius,

that he was planning to retire The

word spread quickly, and during

Mr Estevez’s last shift, on

Satur-day, more than two dozen regulars

gathered to wish him a fond,

rau-cous goodbye

Mr Estevez, who grew up in the

Dominican Republic, began

work-ing at Sardi’s when it was facwork-ing

grave challenges Vincent Sardi

Jr., who had bought the restaurant

in 1947 from his father, sold the

business in 1985 to investors who

planned to expand it Instead,

within a few years, they declared

bankruptcy The restaurant was

shuttered for about four monthsuntil Mr Sardi came out of retire-ment in Vermont at the end of 1990

to resume running it, first as atemporary receiver and then,once again, as its owner

Sardi’s regained stability, and

Mr Estevez said that he relishedhis years working there, partly be-cause of the regular customerswho became his friends

“This isn’t working; it’s ing,” he said on Saturday as hepoured drinks and talked withthose at the bar “I have beenlucky.”

socializ-Customers arrived that daywhile the sun was still shining, re-quested drinks and began remi-niscing Several described visitsfrom Broadway stars Others re-called the many evenings that

Joyce Randolph, known for ing Trixie Norton on “The Hon-eymooners,” spent inside the Lit-tle Bar, sitting a few feet from adrawing of herself while sippingDewar’s and milk and chatting

play-There were memories of lesscommon occurrences, too Salva-tore Salamone, a trade magazineeditor from Pennsylvania, re-membered the time that Ray-mond L Flynn, the former mayor

of Boston, posed for a picture hind the bar Chris Edelmann, aphysician from Rye Brook, inWestchester County, N.Y., recalledspeaking with a stranger who of-fered a tip on a horse running inthe Belmont Stakes He took thetip, Dr Edelmann said, and won

be-Part of what made Mr Estevezspecial, said Frank DeGirolamo, a

25-year regular, was his ability tofoster a friendly atmosphere witheasy conversation despite the an-onymity and commercial bustle ofTimes Square and the surround-ing blocks

“He’s got that old-school tality,” Mr DeGirolamo said “Hebrings people together.”The television was off at the Lit-tle Bar on Saturday, and no musicplayed Instead the room wasfilled with the sound of voices talk-ing about, among other things, theplays of David Mamet, the currentBroadway production of “Ameri-can Psycho” and the mixed for-tunes of Mr Estevez’s favoritebaseball team, the New York Yan-kees

men-As the afternoon progressedinto evening, the conversationswere punctuated with singing Atone point a few people at the bar

harmonized on a doo-wop song.The Rev John R Sheehan, a Jesuitpriest, sang a traditional songcalled “The Parting Glass.” All thewhile, Mr Estevez exchangedgreetings with guests as they ar-rived and departed

The hands of the Rolex abovethe bar ticked down to 8 p.m., quit-ting time for Mr Estevez, and pa-trons began offering thanks andcongratulations Ruben Brache,who runs a Manhattan companythat raises money for Broadwayproductions, called for silence andthen handed Mr Estevez a silvertrophy cup engraved with thewords “for the world’s winningestbartender.”

“I want to toast the bartenderextraordinaire, our lifelong friend,José Estevez,” Mr Bracheshouted as the other patronscheered “Our cups runneth overfor you, brother.”

Songs, Toasts and Tales of the Past at a Broadway Bartender’s Very Last Call

Top, José Estevez, a bartender at Sardi’s in Manhattan Above, one of the many patrons who came to his last shift on Saturday.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAMSAY DE GIVE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Well-wishers send off

a man who mixed their drinks for years.

By COLIN MOYNIHAN

Amid a lot of talk about the

fu-ture of The New York Times, its

past slipped out the door

Rudolph Stocker was the last

printer at The Times working

un-der a guaranteed lifetime

con-tract; the last

Union and its

New York local,

No 6, a bargaining unit so

power-ful that it was known as “Big Six.”

On May 18, Mr Stocker, 78, said

goodbye to his colleagues and left

the Times Building in Midtown

Manhattan, with no more

ceremo-ny than that He made it known

that he was not interested in a

valedictory interview

Mr Stocker deserves a deep

bow, all the same, not just for 50

years of service, but for what he

represents: thousands of

blue-col-lar craft workers who cared as

much as any journalist about how

newspapers were read and how

they looked

That legacy endures at The

Times’s printing plant in College

Point, Queens But the company

headquarters has lost a living link

to the days when each word was

set in molten lead

That said, computers werethreatening Big Six even before

Mr Stocker arrived

New York Typographical Union

No 6 led a 114-day strike againstthe city’s newspapers from late

1962 to early 1963 Staggered bythe lost revenue, the publishersresolved to begin automatingtheir composing rooms as quickly

as possible The union shops, or

“chapels,” pushed back

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, newlyinstalled as publisher of TheTimes, tried at first to soothe thenewspaper’s chapel

“You will remember that mygrandfather, Adolph Ochs, wasraised as a printer,” Mr

Sulzberger told the chapel tary in an August 1963 letter “I canassure you that his pride at being

secre-a member of your crsecre-aft is secre-a psecre-art ofour family tradition.”

In July 1964, however, ment — in the person of GeorgeLapolla, the general foreman ofthe composing room — an-nounced that The Times intended

manage-to install an IBM computer withinthe month

“We must take advantage of thebest printing technology avail-able,” Mr Lapolla told Bertram A

Powers, the president of Big Six

“We do not believe that the puter need represent any threat toTimes printers.”

com-Fooling exactly no one

“Please be advised that the ion does not agree that this may bedone unless agreement to do so isreached between the parties to

un-the contract,” Mr Powers told Mr

Lapolla

A decade of skirmishing lowed, during which Mr Stockerbegan his apprenticeship OnJune 5, 1966, he earned a full-time

fol-“situation” in the chapel — tinct from substitute printers whoworked in different shops asneeded

dis-The steampunkesque machinethat Mr Stocker mastered wascalled a Linotype because it castone line of type at a time

At the stroke of a key on a liar-looking keyboard (the firsttwo columns spelled e-t-a-o-i-n s-h-r-d-l-u), a little brass mold corre-sponding to that letter droppeddown a chute from an overheadmagazine

pecu-Once a full line of these moldswas assembled, it was shuntedinto a casting mechanism and in-jected with a dollop of molten lead

As the line solidified, it wasejected into a steel tray, while themolds were recycled back to themagazine

Victorian technology for thespace age

One can understand why TheTimes was thinking IBM

But it would not be until 1974that Big Six and The Times andThe Daily News agreed to a con-tract that freed the publishers tointroduce automation, while effec-tively guaranteeing lifetime jobsecurity to 1,785 situation-holdersand full-time substitutes, 810 ofwhom were at The Times, Mr

Stocker included

“We’re going to see morechanges in the next 10 years thanany working men have ever seen,”

Mr Powers said

He did not overstate the case

Within four years, The Times hadfully converted to photocomposi-tion The battery of Linotypes wasused for the last time to set the pa-per of July 2, 1978, an event cap-tured in the documentary

“Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu.”

Mr Stocker’s career, however,was just beginning

“Rudy was an expert reader,” his colleague Barbara Na-tusch said, “and transferred hisskills from operating a Linotypemachine to producing ads for thepaper on a Mac, using InDesignand Photoshop.”

proof-Another colleague, KurtOchshorn, said, “The retiring ofthe last, old-hire I.T.U workershould be a story in the newspa-per.”

So here it is, even though there

is not a single Linotype machine

to set it Nor Mr Stocker to pose it on that confounding key-board

com-The Times’s Last Hot-Type Printer Puts Down His Tools

In his latest swipe at Mayor Bill

de Blasio, the State Senate

major-ity leader, John J Flanagan,

intro-duced a bill on Friday that would

extend mayoral control of New

York City schools by only one year,

while allowing the governor to

ap-point an “education inspector”

with substantial power to

inter-fere in the management of the

schools

The bill prompted swift

criti-cism from both Democratic

mem-bers of the Assembly and the

Part-nership for New York City, a

busi-ness group, which warned that it

would return the schools to a

cha-otic and dysfunctional form of

governance

Mr Flanagan, a Republican, has

in recent weeks made something

of a sport of tormenting Mr de

Blasio, a Democrat, as the mayor

seeks a renewal of mayoral

con-trol, which otherwise will lapse on

June 30 He has questioned Mr de

Blasio’s knowledge of the schools,

accused him of not being

forth-coming with information, and

ex-pressed indignation when the

mayor, after testifying for nearly

four hours at one Senate hearing,

Mr de Blasio’s predecessor,Mayor Michael R Bloomberg,was the first mayor to win control

of the city’s schools, which he did

in 2002 The Legislature grantedhim seven years, with strong sup-port from the Senate’s Republicanmajority, and then a six-year re-newal in 2009 But Mr de Blasiomade an enemy of Mr Flanagan inhis first year in office, when he

majority in the Senate As a result,last year, when Mr de Blasioasked for permanent control, hegot only a one-year renewal

This year, Mr de Blasio askedfor seven years, then requestedthree years, after the Democraticmajority in the Assembly ap-proved a three-year extension

Mr Flanagan’s bill would create

a position of “education

inspec-nor and confirmed by the Senate

Among the inspector’s powers, he

or she would have access to all thedistrict’s records, documents andinformation systems The mayorand the city’s Education Depart-ment would have to fully cooper-ate with all of the inspector’s re-quests for information The in-spector could appeal decisions bythe city’s Panel for EducationalPolicy, which approves contractsand decisions to locate charterschools in public school buildings,among other things, to the stateeducation commissioner The in-spector could void any contracts

or appointments to the panel if he

or she finds a conflict of interest

On Saturday, the two other ties in the state government saidthey did not support the educationinspector provision MichaelWhyland, a spokesman for the As-sembly speaker, Carl E Heastie, aDemocrat, said Democratic law-makers supported a straight ex-tension of mayoral control, with-out conditions And a spokeswom-

par-an for Gov Andrew M Cuomo, aDemocrat, with whom the mayorhas been openly feuding, said thegovernor supported a three-year

G.O.P Bill Would Diminish de Blasio’s Control of Schools

By KATE TAYLOR

John J Flanagan, the New York State Senate majority leader.

NATHANIEL BROOKS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Times Insider, a digital feature, delivers behind- the-scenes insights into how articles come to life at The New York Times

nytimes.com/insider

ONLINE: INSIDER

MARSHAL EXECUTION SALE PUBLIC AUCTION Re: Parking Violations VS Various Judgment Debtors I Will Sell

at Public Auction for City Marshal Richard A Capuano

By Arthur Vigar Auctioneer DCA

#0767619 On Wednesday, June 8 , 2016

At 2:00PM At Ken Ben Ind.

364 Maspeth Ave.,Brooklyn, New York All R/T/I in & to the Following Vehicles :

02 CHRYSLER 3C4FY48B72T216966 Following Vehicles Sold As Salvage

96 HONDA 2HGEJ6678TH532866

02 FORD 1FMZU73K42UD34315

97 FORD (LIEN) 1FMDU34X6VUA88479 CASH ONLY Inspect1/2Hr Prior to Sale City Marshal Richard A Capuano Phone (718) 478-0400

SHERIFF'S EXECUTION SALE:

N.Y.C Parking Violation Bureau And/

hicles vs Various Judgment Debtors I Alestra, Auctioneer, On Tues., June 7th, Front Street, Staten Island, NY 10304 All R/T/I Of the Judgment Debtors In & of The Following Vehicles.

Additionally, 3 Vehicles Will Be Sold As Abandoned Property Pursuant To Sec- tion 1224 Of The Vehicle Traffic Laws

Of The State Of New York.

MARSHAL / SHERIFF SALES

(3650)

A22 N THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIALS/LETTERSMONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

Prosecutors are the most powerful players in the

American criminal justice system Their decisions — like

whom to charge with a crime, and what sentence to seek

— have profound consequences

So why is it so hard to keep them from breaking the

law or violating the Constitution?

The short answer is that they are almost never held

accountable for misconduct, even when it results in

wrongful convictions It is time for a new approach to

end-ing this behavior: federal oversight of prosecutors’ offices

that repeatedly ignore defendants’ legal and constitutional

rights There is a successful model for this in the Justice

Department’s monitoring of police departments with

his-tories of misconduct

Among the most serious prosecutorial violations is

the withholding of evidence that could help a defendant

prove his or her innocence or get a reduced sentence — a

practice so widespread that one federal judge called it an

“epidemic.” Under the 1963 landmark Supreme Court case

Brady v Maryland, prosecutors are required to turn over

any exculpatory evidence to a defendant that could

mate-rially affect a verdict or sentence Yet in many district

at-torneys’ offices, the Brady rule is considered nothing more

than a suggestion, with prosecutors routinely holding

back such evidence to win their cases

Nowhere is this situation worse than in Louisiana,

where prosecutors seem to believe they are unconstrained

by the Constitution

This month, the Supreme Court will consider the

lat-est challenge to prosecutorial misconduct in Louisiana in

the case of David Brown, who was one of five men charged

in the 1999 murder of a prison guard Mr Brown said he

did not commit the murder, but he was convicted and

sen-tenced to death anyway Only later did his lawyers

dis-cover that prosecutors had withheld the transcript of an

interview with another prisoner directly implicating two

other men — and only those men — in the murder

This is about as blatant a Brady violation as can be

found, and the judge who presided over Mr Brown’s trial

agreed, throwing out his death penalty and ordering a new

sentencing But the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed

that decision, ruling that the new evidence would not have

made a difference in the jury’s sentence

David Brown’s case is a good example of how every

part of the justice system bears some responsibility for not

fighting prosecutorial misconduct State courts often fail

to hold prosecutors accountable, even when their

wrong-doing is clear Professional ethics boards rarely discipline

them And individual prosecutors are protected from civil

lawsuits, while criminal punishment is virtually unheard

of Money damages levied against a prosecutor’s office

could deter some misconduct, but the Supreme Court has

made it extremely difficult for wrongfully convicted zens to win such claims

citi-This maddening situation has long resisted a solution

What would make good sense is to have the federal ernment step in to monitor some of the worst actors, in-creasing the chance of catching misconduct before it ruinspeoples’ lives The Justice Department is already autho-rized to do this by a 1994 federal law prohibiting any “pat-tern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers”

gov-that deprives a person of legal or constitutional rights

The department has used this power to monitor policedepartments in Los Angeles, New Orleans, Detroit and Se-attle, among other municipalities with a history of brutal-ity, wrongful arrests, shootings of unarmed civilians andother illegal or unconstitutional practices For the mostpart, the results have been positive Since prosecutors arealso “law enforcement officers,” there is no reason theyand their offices should be immune from federal oversight

Of course, many district attorneys’ offices will balk atbeing put under a federal microscope But nothing else hasworked to prevent misconduct by prosecutors, and theJustice Department is uniquely equipped to ferret out theworst actors and expose their repeated disregard for thelaw and the Constitution

To Stop Bad Prosecutors, Call the Feds

JASU HU

TO THE EDITOR:

Re “Muhammad Ali, 1942-2016: TheChamp Who Transcended Boxing”

(front page, June 4):

Muhammad Ali was a near mythicalfigure with a worldwide reputation Hewas arguably the best heavyweightfighter of all time, but we remember hislife for so much more He was an iconiccivil rights advocate and a prodigiousfund-raiser for Parkinson’s disease,which he lived with for more than threedecades

He was incredibly devoted to his lim faith Rather than be drafted andserve in the Vietnam War, which he ob-jected to on religious and politicalgrounds, he was stripped of his boxing ti-tle and faced imprisonment

Mus-Such devotion to principle is thing we can all aspire to For this he willalways have a place in my memory

some-KEN DEROWSwarthmore, Pa

The legal savagery of boxing is a stain

on our nation Although it brought Alifame and fortune, it robbed him of a fulllife from an early age because of count-less hits to the head from those whosought to achieve the perverse goal ofknocking out the opponent

Muhammad Ali was indeed “theGreatest,” but I wonder if he would havetraded what he accomplished in the box-ing ring in order to have had a long andhealthy life

A society such as ours does not needany encouragement to engage in vio-lence Impressionable children are

Upper St Clair, Pa

TO THE EDITOR:

The sad news of the passing of the end Muhammad Ali brought back achildhood memory Back in 1973, I was a12-year-old kid from New Jersey on myway to a youth football “bowl game”

leg-against a team from Atlanta

I was a big Joe Frazier fan who spected his quiet toughness and dislikedAli’s outspoken ways, considering him aloudmouth and a braggart As our teamreached the Atlanta airport I saw a huge

re-crowd gathering and ran over to seewhat was going on It was Ali and his en-tourage surrounded by autograph seek-ers

But this wasn’t the Ali I saw on TV.Here was this huge, gentle, smiling man

taking the time to sign all the kids’

auto-graphs, including mine As he signedmine, he smiled, winked and said, “Don’tyou feel sorry for me having to sign allthese?”

I came to realize that here was a cial man — much kinder and greater inspirit than I realized That simple mo-ment changed my mind about him — andchanged me so I was more open-minded,reflective and considerate about people I

In refusing to be drafted during theVietnam War, he willingly forfeitedriches and his crown, and would havegiven up even his freedom, if it had come

to that, following the dictates of his gion and his heart He might have ar-rived as part showman but he remained

reli-as a dedicated, serious ambreli-assador forhis beliefs

Parkinson’s may have sapped him ofhis most obvious strengths, making him

a physical shadow of his earlier self andtaking away much of the sound of hisvoice

But he had the heart of a lion, and thewill of David against Goliath He lived alife equal parts passion and compassion.Muhammad Ali died a legend and ahero to countless millions around theglobe

Forever may he be recalled as one whowas both butterfly and bee, a man filledwith enduring beauty, grace and power

ROBERT S NUSSBAUMFort Lee, N.J

TO THE EDITOR:

I will never forget the pair of boxinggloves from Muhammad Ali hanging onthe wall of Ted Kennedy’s Senate office inWashington One was inscribed “SenatorTed, I hope this glove helps you knock out

Princeton, N.J

Muhammad Ali, American Legend

Michel Temer, Brazil’s interim president, displayed

poor judgment on his first day in office last month when he

appointed an all-white, all-male cabinet This

understand-ably angered many in racially diverse Brazil

Their outrage was compounded by the fact that seven

of the new ministers had been tainted by a corruption

scandal and investigation that have shaken Brazilian

poli-tics The appointments added to the suspicion that the

temporary ouster of President Dilma Rousseff last month

over allegations that she resorted to unlawful

budget-bal-ancing tricks had an ulterior motive: to make the

investi-gation go away Earlier this year, Ms Rousseff said that

al-lowing the inquiry into kickbacks at Petrobras, the state

oil company, to run its course would be healthy for Brazil

in the long run

Two weeks after the new interim government was

seated, Romero Jucá, Mr Temer’s planning minister,

re-signed after a newspaper reported on a recorded phone

conversation in which Mr Jucá appeared to endorse the

dismissal of Ms Rousseff as part of a deal among

lawmak-ers to “protect everyone” embroiled in the scandal That

was the only way, he said, to assure that Brazil “would

re-turn to being calm.” Late last month, Fabiano Silveira, the

minister of transparency, charged with fighting

corrup-tion, was forced to resign after a similarly embarrassing

leak of a surreptitiously recorded conversation

This forced Mr Temer to promise last week that the

executive branch would not interfere with the Petrobras

investigation, which so far has ensnarled more than 40

po-liticians Considering the men Mr Temer has surrounded

himself with, that rings hollow If the interim president is

to earn the trust of Brazilians, many of whom have beenprotesting Ms Rousseff’s dismissal as a coup, he and hiscabinet must take meaningful steps against corruption

Under Brazilian law, senior government officials, cluding lawmakers, enjoy immunity from prosecution un-der most circumstances That unreasonable protectionhas clearly enabled a culture of institutionalized corrup-tion and impunity Investigators found that Petrobras con-tracts routinely included a flat kickback rate and thatmoney from bribes got steered to political parties Petro-bras acknowledged last year that at least $1.7 billion of itsrevenue had been diverted to bribes

in-“Systemic corruption schemes are damaging becausethey impact confidence in the rule of law and in democra-cy,” Sérgio Moro, the federal judge who has overseen thePetrobras investigation, wrote in an essay in AmericasQuarterly last month, adding, “Crimes that are uncoveredand proven must, respecting due process, be punished.”

Brazil is not the only nation in the region bedeviled bycorruption A scandal in Bolivia has tarred the image ofPresident Evo Morales Colombia has begun an anticor-ruption campaign partly in response to revelations of kick-backs in state contracts Under heavy international pres-sure, Guatemala and Honduras have agreed to let anticor-ruption task forces staffed by international experts helplocal prosecutors tackle high-profile investigations

It is not clear how far Mr Temer will go to root outcorruption If he is serious, and wants to end suspicionabout the motives for removing Ms Rousseff, he would bewise to call for a law ending immunity for lawmakers andministers in corruption cases

Brazil’s Gold Medal for Corruption

When it comes to behaving badly, the New York State

Legislature has been thinking outside the box There are,

it turns out, ways to do the wrong thing that go beyond the

usual influence-peddling, bribing, extorting and other

common varieties of Albany venality

There is, for example, undoing good work done

else-where That is the aim of a noxious bill that has gained

mo-mentum in the waning days of the Albany session It

would squelch New York City’s recently adopted 5-cent fee

on disposable plastic shopping bags

The City Council, after years of deliberation and

through a finely wrought compromise, passed the fee as

an antipollution measure It seeks to sharply reduce the

use of the bags, whose ubiquity and near-indestructibility

have made them one of the city’s signature eyesores and a

serious environmental threat

The state legislation, sponsored in the Senate by

Sim-cha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat, and in the Assembly by

Michael Cusick, a Staten Island Democrat, would forbid

any city to impose fees or taxes to discourage the use of

plastic bags The measure would, in a stroke, force the city

to accept the perpetuation of the plastic-trash free-for-all,

with tons of discarded bags clogging the sewers,

festoon-ing tree branches and litterfestoon-ing sidewalks

Why would Albany do this? Because Albany can

Be-muscle Albany can flex Because the will of a sovereigncity counts for little when there are populist points to bescored, and plastic-bag-maker lobbyists to please

The bag fee is not, in the scheme of things, tering It’s a nickel It is not a tax — the city doesn’t collect

earth-shat-or spend any of the revenue — it’s just a calculated venience to give consumers an incentive to shop with re-usable bags The fee is potentially annoying, but it sparesthe poor and businesses that would suffer unduly, forbenefits that would be enjoyed across the populace Citiesthat have tried fees have found that they work splendidly

incon-But for meddlesome reasons, some Albany pols want

to overrule the City Council, citing dubious principle

“You’re irritating people to change their behavior — that’snot what we’re here for,” Mr Felder said recently

Some would argue that it’s the state legislators who

do the irritating, which is easy enough under a system ofgovernment that forces the city and its mayor to go beg-ging to Albany for money and permission to do basicthings like run the schools, regulate traffic and, in thiscase, somehow shrink a mountain of plastic trash Getting

a handle on disposable bags was a simple, smart decisionthat the City Council should have been able to make for it-self If the Legislature persists in passing this meddlingbill, then Gov Andrew Cuomo will have to be the grown-up

The Albany Pols Who Love Plastic Bags

TO THE EDITOR:

“New York’s Outdated Knife Law”(editorial, May 31) states that in NewYork City “gravity knives account formore than two-thirds of arrests” under

an unspecified “weapons law.”But prosecutions for the possession ofgravity knives are hardly as prevalent asthe editorial suggests: In 2015 in Manhat-tan, fewer than 2 percent of all misde-meanor prosecutions were for the pos-session of gravity knives

The editorial supports a bill that wouldlegalize the possession of knives that can

be flicked open with one hand The ban

on such knives has been in effect since

1958, and its constitutionality has beenuniformly upheld

The ban has enhanced public safety,and ending it now amid highly publicizedslashing incidents in our city’s streetsand subways is not advisable

We provided a memorandum to theLegislature proposing amendments tothe law in fairness to those who carrygravity knives for bona fide trade or busi-ness reasons

That memorandum sets forth able ways to address the legitimate con-cerns of tradespeople without compro-mising public safety

reason-CYRUS R VANCE Jr District Attorney, New York County

Secu-Given that there are so many ways forthe rich to assert their superiority —yachts, sky boxes, concierge medicine,gated communities — wouldn’t it be nice

if the burden of travel safety were shared

Inverness, Calif

Air Safety, Shared Equally

ARTHUR OCHS SULZBERGER JR., Publisher, Chairman

Founded in 1851 ADOLPH S OCHS

ONLINE: MORE LETTERS

NEWS

DEAN BAQUET, Executive Editor TOM BODKIN, Creative Director SUSAN CHIRA, Deputy Executive Editor JANET ELDER, Deputy Executive Editor MATTHEW PURDY, Deputy Executive Editor KINSEY WILSON,Editor for Innovation and Strategy Executive V.P., Product and Technology

REBECCA CORBETT,Assistant Editor

STEVE DUENES,Assistant Editor

IAN FISHER,Assistant Editor JOSEPH KAHN,Assistant Editor

CLIFFORD LEVY,Assistant Editor ALEXANDRA M AC CALLUM,Assistant Editor

MICHELE M C NALLY,Assistant Editor

EDITORIAL

JAMES BENNET,Editorial Page Editor

JAMES DAO,Deputy Editorial Page Editor

TERRY TANG,Deputy Editorial Page Editor

BUSINESS

MARK THOMPSON,Chief Executive Officer MICHAEL GOLDEN,Vice Chairman JAMES M FOLLO,Chief Financial Officer

KENNETH A RICHIERI,General Counsel ROLAND A CAPUTO,Executive V.P., Print Products

MEREDITH KOPIT LEVIEN,Chief Revenue Officer

WILLIAM T BARDEEN,Senior Vice President TERRY L HAYES,Senior Vice President

R ANTHONY BENTEN,Controller LAURENA L EMHOFF,Treasurer

TO THE EDITOR:

Re “Gun Control That ActuallyWorks,” by Alan Berlow (Op-Ed, May31): The critical difference between theNational Rifle Association of the 1930sand the National Rifle Association of to-day is that it has been transformed frombeing an advocate for responsible gunowners into being an advocate for thegun industry

Why else would its officials oppose thereasonable regulation of potentiallydeadly weapons? THILO WEISSFLOG

Portland, Ore

A Different Gun Lobby

TO THE EDITOR:

As the president of a private university,

I am acutely aware of the financial lenges many lower- and middle-incomefamilies face in helping their child choose

We rely on federal Fafsa filings (FreeApplication for Federal Student Aid) todetermine need, and do our best to meetfull need for as many students as possible

Given this, I was stunned to read “TheBest Way to Help a Grandchild WithCollege” (Retiring column, May 28), inwhich various college financing “experts”

advised grandparents how to hide their

529 college savings plans from college nancial aid offices in order to increase thesize of the grandchild’s college aid award

fi-It’s lovely that some grandparents areable to help their grandchildren withcollege costs, but doing so in a way thatresults in diverting college aid dollarsaway from those with true need isshameful

Creating access to college for families

of modest means is hard enough withoutyour pointing out ways for more affluentfamilies to game the system

DONALD J FARISHPresidentRoger Williams University

Bristol, R.I

Gaming College Aid

N A23

OP-ED

THE NEW YORK TIMES MONDAY, JUNE 6, 2016

Friday’s employment report was a jor disappointment: only 38,000 jobsadded, a big step down from the morethan 200,000 a month average since Jan-uary 2013 Special factors, notably theVerizon strike, explain part of the badnews, and in any case job growth is anoisy series, so you shouldn’t make toomuch of one month’s data Still, all the ev-idence points to slowing growth It’s not arecession, at least not yet, but it is defi-nitely a pause in the economy’s progress.Should this pause worry you? Yes Be-cause if it does turn into a recession, oreven if it goes on for a long time, it’s veryhard to envision an effective policy re-sponse

ma-First things first: Why is the economyslowing? The usual suspects wasted notime blaming President Obama But youneed to remember that these same peo-ple have been warning of imminent dis-aster ever since Mr Obama was elected,and have been wrong every step of theway They predicted soaring interestrates and soaring inflation; neither hap-pened They declared that the AffordableCare Act would be a huge job-killer; theyears after the act went into full effectwere marked by the best private-sectorjob creation since the 1990s

And despite this disappointing report,

we should remember that private jobgrowth under Mr Obama has vastly ex-ceeded George W Bush’s record, even ifyou leave out the economic collapse of2008

So what is causing the economy toslow? My guess is that the biggest factor

is the recent sharp rise in the dollar,which has made U.S goods less competi-tive on world markets The dollar’s rise,

in turn, largely reflected misguided talk

by the Federal Reserve about the need toraise interest rates

In a way, however, it hardly matterswhy the economy is losing steam Afterall, stuff always happens America hasbeen experiencing major economicdownturns at irregular intervals at leastsince the 1870s, for a variety of reasons.Whatever the cause of a downturn, theeconomy can recover quickly if policymakers can and do take useful action.For example, both the 1974-5 recessionand the 1981-2 recession were followed byrapid, “V-shaped” recoveries, becausethe Fed drastically loosened monetarypolicy and slashed interest rates.But that won’t — in fact, can’t — hap-pen this time Short-term interest rates,which the Fed more or less controls, arestill very low despite the small rate hikelast December We now know that it’spossible for rates to go slightly belowzero, but there still isn’t much room for arate cut

That said, there are other policies thatcould easily reverse an economic down-turn And if Hillary Clinton wins the elec-tion, the U.S government will under-stand perfectly well what the options are.(The likely response of a Trump adminis-tration doesn’t bear thinking about May-

be a series of insult Twitter posts aimed

at China and Mexico?) The problem ispolitics

For the simplest, most effective swer to a downturn would be fiscal stim-ulus — preferably government spending

an-on much-needed infrastructure, butmaybe also temporary tax cuts for lower-and middle-income households, whowould spend the money Infrastructurespending makes especially good sensegiven the federal government’s incredi-bly low borrowing costs: The interestrate on inflation-protected bonds isbarely above zero

But unless the coming election ers Democratic control of the House,which is unlikely, Republicans would al-most surely block anything along thoselines Partly, this would reflect ideology:although right-wing economic predic-tions have been utterly wrong, there’s lit-tle indication that anyone in that camphas learned from the experience Itwould also reflect an unwillingness to doanything that might help a Democrat inthe White House Remember, every Re-publican in the House voted against astimulus even during the darkest days ofthe slump, when Mr Obama was at thepeak of his popularity

deliv-If not fiscal stimulus, then what? Formuch of the past six years the Fed, un-able to cut interest rates further, hastried to boost the economy throughlarge-scale purchases of things like long-term government debt and mortgage-backed securities But it’s unclear howmuch difference that made — and mean-while, this policy faced constant attacksand vilification from the right, withclaims that it was debasing the dollarand/or illegitimately bailing out a fis-cally irresponsible president We canguess that the Fed will be very reluctant

to resume the program, and face tions that it’s in the pocket of “corruptHillary.”

accusa-So the evidence of a U.S slowdownshould worry you I don’t see anythinglike the 2008 crisis on the horizon (hesays with fingers crossed behind hisback), but even a smaller negative shockcould turn into very bad news, given our

PAUL KRUGMAN

A Pause That Distresses

Jobs:

Don’t panic, but do worry.

The candidacy of Donald Trump, thefervor of those who support it, and thefierce opposition of those who don’t ismaking America mad — both angry andinsane, as the dual definitions of the wordimplies

One of the most disturbing displays ofthis madness is the violence that Trumphas incited in his supporters, and the vio-lent ways in which opposition forceshave responded, like the exchange wesaw last week in San Jose

Both forms of violence are cally wrong, but speak to a base level ofhostility that hovers around the man likethe stench from rotting flesh

unequivo-What is particularly disturbing is tosee anti-Trump forces lashing out atTrump’s supporters, seemingly pro-voked simply by a difference in politicalposition

This cannot be It’s self-defeating andnarrows the space between the thing youdespise and the thing you become

Listen, I understand how unsettlingthis man is for many

I understand that he is elevating andnormalizing a particular stance of rac-ism and sexism that many view as aspiritual attack, a kind of psychic vio-lence from which they cannot escape

Furthermore, the election cycle ises at least five more months of this, un-til Election Day, and even more if bysome tragic twist of fate Trump is ac-tually elected

prom-And, if elected, the threat could movefrom the rhetoric to the real, wreakinghavoc on millions of lives

I understand the frightful, numbing, hair-raising disbelief that candescend when one realizes that this is in-deed plausible

mind-Recent polls have only added to thisanxiety as some have shown an increas-ingly tight race between him and HillaryClinton, the likely Democratic nominee;

some even have him beating her

(Now of course, these polls must betaken with a grain of salt Trump andClinton are in different phases of thefight: Trump is the presumptive Republi-can nominee with no remaining oppo-nents and with Republicans coalescingaround his candidacy; Clinton is still in aheated contest with Bernie Sanders, whohas given no indication of giving up.)

I understand that Trump represents aclear and present danger, and having apassionate response that encompassesrage and fear is reasonable

It is understandable to want to makeone’s displeasure known

But there is a line one dares not cross,and that is the one of responding to vio-lent rhetoric with violent actions

As I have said before, the Rev Dr

Mar-tin Luther King Jr said it best in his 1967book “Where Do We Go From Here: Cha-

os or Community?,” and he is worthy ofquoting here at length:

“The ultimate weakness of violence isthat it is a descending spiral, begettingthe very thing it seeks to destroy Instead

of diminishing evil, it multiplies it

Through violence you may murder theliar, but you cannot murder the lie, norestablish the truth Through violenceyou may murder the hater, but you do notmurder hate In fact, violence merely in-creases hate So it goes Returning vio-lence for violence multiplies violence,adding deeper darkness to a night al-ready devoid of stars Darkness cannotdrive out darkness; only light can dothat Hate cannot drive out hate: onlylove can do that.”

You may feel activated by the cause ofrighteousness, but violence is most often

a poor instrument for its tion Indeed, violence corrodes right-eousness It robs it of its essence

implementa-The best way to direct passions is notonly with the bullhorn, but also at the bal-lot box

In a democracy, the vote is the voice

The best way to reduce the threat Trumpposes is to register and motivate peoplewho share your view of the threat

It is easy to look at the throngs whosupport and exalt this man and be dis-couraged, but don’t be It is easy to look

at Republicans like Paul Ryan ing their principles and selling theirsouls to fall in line behind this man and bediscouraged, but don’t be It is easy to seethe media fail miserably to counterTrump and his surrogates’ Gish-gallopand be discouraged, but don’t be

abandon-These are the moments in which thenation’s mettle — and ideals — aretested I have a fundamental belief thatalthough America was born and grew byviolence and racial subjugation, that al-though it has often stumbled and evenregressed, that its ultimate bearing is to-ward the better

Folks must be reminded that one agogue cannot lead to a detour or a dis-mantling There is an elevated plane oftruth that floats a mile above Trump’strough of putrescence

dem-Trump and his millions of minionshave replaced what they call “politicalcorrectness” with “ambient vicious-ness.”

This won’t “make America greatagain,” because the “again” they imagineharkens back to America’s darkness Weare the new America — more diverse,more inclusive, more than our ancestorscould ever have imagined

Don’t invalidate that by allowing selves to be baited into brutishness 0

your-CHARLES M BLOW

The Madness of America

sure as I’ve been about

anything else in my life

that my party was

making an enormous

mistake My candidate had won 23

prima-ries, about 1,900 delegates and, by one

count, the popular vote My candidate

may have actually gotten more votes than

the guy we Democrats were about to

nominate, who was inexperienced and, I

thought, unelectable

Putting aside these macro issues, I was

also deeply depressed Anyone who has

ever lost a serious presidential campaign

can tell you it is an excruciating

experi-ence I know what I’m talking about —

I’ve lost three, including one in 2008 that

was, we thought, un-losable: Hillary

Clin-ton versus Barack Obama I was her

31-year-old press secretary

Losing is crushing: If you’re a staff

member you’re immediately

unem-ployed And whether staff member or

die-hard supporter, you’re disappointed and

angry — really, really angry You have

come to believe (because you must in

or-der to work 18 to 20 hours a day for very

little pay) that your candidate is a hero

who will save the world, and that your

op-ponent is a horrible person who will ruin

it

So once we lost the long primary fight, I

wanted to shout my certainty that she

was the right nominee and he was the

wrong one to anyone who would listen

Night after night I sat down and wrote

ex-coriating op-ed essays taking on Mr

Obama, the press and the party structure

that helped elect him I’d wake up in the

morning and realize that what I had

writ-ten sounded shrill, sometimes crazy and

way too upset, and I’d tear it up and start

over again

The general election showed me how

wrong I was To my surprise, Mr Obama

won handily, taking states that

Democrats hadn’t won in generations

And though I haven’t agreed with

every-thing he’s done, he’s had one of the most

successful presidencies in a very long

time

The stakes today are much higher

Un-like Senator John McCain, the Republican

nominee in 2008, Donald J Trump is

dan-gerous He believes in one thing and one

thing only — Donald Trump And make no

mistake: Donald Trump can win He has

already proved that, and he’s as much a

threat in the general election as he was to

his opponents in the primaries

Senator Bernie Sanders’s role in this

campaign has been valuable — he has

in-troduced important issues and excited

millions of new voters Mr Sanders has

earned the right to compete in the

re-maining primary contests and stay in

un-til the convention — as Mrs Clinton did in

2008 But rules are rules, and the math is

the math Senator Sanders is not going to

be the Democratic nominee There’s

stay-ing in a race to cross the finish line with

your head held high, and then there’s

par-ticipating in or condoning language and

actions that will damage the nominee and

help Mr Trump

So to all the Sanders staff members and

supporters who are as hurt and dismayed

as I was, who feel that their candidate is

right and the opponent dead wrong, who

want to keep fighting to the convention

and beyond: I get it I’ve been there (with

Howard Dean and Bill Bradley as well)

But please learn what I have learned and

don’t let your anger get the best of you

The consequences of doing anything that

will help Donald Trump win are

cata-strophic

I understand you may not love (or even

like) Mrs Clinton right now Perhaps you

can’t imagine knocking on doors for her in

the cold or donating your hard-earned

money to finance her campaign I’m

do-ing both of those thdo-ings, but I realize that

you may not want to I felt the same way

about Mr Obama in 2008 In the end I

did-n’t work hard to get him elected (I really

regret that now, by the way), but neither

did I do or say anything that would harm

his chances I came to accept that he was,

in fact, my party’s nominee and might be

the eventual president

Recalling all those op-ed articles I

dis-carded, I finally wrote one toned-down

enough that I thought someone might

publish it I showed it to the one person

whose blessing, if not praise, I needed:

Hillary Clinton Her response was clear

and unequivocal Do not send this to

any-one The race is over, she said We fought

our best fight, but we lost

I know how difficult those lessons

about losing can be to impart — and even

more so to accept But it is of the utmost

importance that we all look beyond this

intraparty contest to the one coming in

November I understand the anger about

losing, and I know you may not love her

(or even like her) yet But Hillary Clinton

is going to be the nominee of the

Democratic Party She is the only thing

standing between us and President

Trump That should be enough

motiva-tion for all of us to put our differences

be-hind us and focus on helping her win 0

Jay Carson is a screenwriter, former

dep-uty mayor of Los Angeles and consultant

on urban issues.

was the grandson of a slave;

in the United States of his hood and young manhood, therole of the black athlete, par-ticularly the black boxer, was a forcedself-effacement

boy-White male anxieties were, evidently,greatly roiled by the specta-cle of the strong black man,and had to be assuaged Thegreater the black boxer (JoeLouis, Archie Moore, EzzardCharles), the more urgentthat he assume a public role

of caution and restraint

Kindly white men who vised their black charges to

ad-be a “credit to their race”

were not speaking ironically

And yet, the young CassiusClay/Muhammad Ali refused

to play this emasculatingrole He would not be the

“white man’s Negro” — hewould not be anything of thewhite man’s at all Convert-ing to the Nation of Islam atthe age of 22, immediately af-ter winning the heavyweightchampionship from SonnyListon, he denounced his

“slave name” (Cassius cellus Clay, which was alsohis father’s name) and theChristian religion; in refus-ing to serve in the Army hemade his political reasonsclear: “I ain’t got no quarrelwith them Vietcong.”

Mar-An enormous backlash lowed: where the youngboxer had been cheered, now

fol-he was booed Denunciationsrained upon his head Re-spected publications, includ-ing The New York Times,continued to print the “slavename” Cassius Clay for years Sentenced

to five years’ imprisonment for his

refus-al to comply with the draft, Ali stood hisground; he did not serve time, but wasfined $10,000 and his boxing license wasrevoked so that he could not continue hisprofessional career, in the very prime ofthat career In a gesture of sheer petti-ness the State Department took away hispassport so that he couldn’t fight outsidethe country After he was reinstated as aprofessional boxer three and a half yearslater, he had lost much of his youthfulagility Yet he’d never given in

The heart of the champion is this: Onenever repudiates one’s deepest values,

one never gives in.

Though Ali had risen to dizzyingheights of fame in the 1960s, it was in the1970s that his greatness was established

Who could have imagined that, beingreinstated as a boxer after a lengthy sus-pension, Ali would expand the dimen-sions of the sport yet again; that, past hisprime, his legs slowed, his breath short-

er, out of an ingenuity borne of

despera-tion he would reinvent himself as an lete on whose unyielding body youngerboxers might punch themselves out Hecould no longer “float like a butterfly”

ath-but he could lie back against the ropes,like a living heavy bag, and allow an op-ponent like the hapless George Foreman

to exhaust himself trying to knock himout

What is the infamous Rope-a-Dopestratagem of 1974 but a brilliantly prag-

matic stoicism in which the end ning) justifies the means (irreversibledamage to body, brain) The spectator isappalled to realize that a single blow ofForeman’s delivered to a non-boxermight well be fatal; how many dozens ofthese blows Ali absorbed, as in a fairytale in which the drama is one of re-versed expectations In this way, withterrible cost to come in terms of Ali’shealth, he won back the heavyweight ti-tle at the age of 32, defeatingthe 25–year-old Foreman

(win-Great as Ali-Foreman was,

it can’t compare to the trilogy

of fights between Ali and JoeFrazier in 1971, 1974 and 1975;

Frazier won the first onpoints, Ali the second andthird on points and a TKO

These were monumentalfights, displays of humanstamina, courage and

“heart” virtually leled in the history of boxing

unparal-In the first, Ali experiencedthe worst battering of his life,yet he did not give up; in thesecond and third, Ali wonagainst an exhausted Frazier,

at what cost to his health wecan only guess — “The clos-est thing to dying,” Ali said ofthe last fight Yet, incredibly,unconscionably, Ali was ex-ploited by managers and pro-moters who should have pro-tected him; his doomed ca-reer continued until 1981 with

a devastating final loss, to themuch-younger TrevorBerbick Ali then retired, be-latedly, after 61 fights, with 56wins

What does it mean to saythat a fighter has “heart”? By

“heart” we don’t mean nical skill, nor even unusualstrength and stamina andambition; by “heart” wemean something likespiritual character

tech-The mystery of Muhammad Ali is thisspiritual greatness, that seemed to haveemerged out of a far more ordinary, evencallow personality With the passage oftime, the rebel who’d been reviled bymany Americans would be transformedinto an American hero, especially amidgeneral disenchantment with the Viet-nam War The young man who’d been de-nounced as a traitor was transformedinto the iconic figure of our time, a com-passionate figure who seems to tran-scend race A warm, sepia light irradi-ates the past, glossing out jarring details

Ali had long ago transcended his ownorigins and his own specific identity Ashe’d once said: “Boxing was nothing Itwasn’t important at all Boxing was justmeant as a way to introduce me to the

Never the White Man’s Negro

By Joyce Carol Oates

Out of ingenuity, Ali reinvented himself as a

boxer.

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of “On Boxing.” She is this year’s recipient of the A.J Leibling Award for Excellence in Box- ing Writing.

MATT ROTA