VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,936 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2018

C M Y K Nxxx,2018-04-18,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

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Superman has a birthday coming up.Celebrate with a look back at somememorable issues. PAGE C2

ARTS C1-7

At 80, Still Locomotive-StrongA jet engine exploded on a flight fromNew York to Dallas, leaving one pas-senger dead. PAGE A16

NATIONAL A11-16

Deadly Accident in Midair

A computer failure told people filingfederal taxes online to “Come back onDec. 31, 9999.” It was fixed, and taxpay-ers got one more day in 2018. PAGE A16

NATIONAL

Death and Taxes Still Certain

Our classical music editor and the chiefpop music critic take stock of KendrickLamar’s win for “DAMN.” PAGE C1

Analyzing a Rapper’s PulitzerSusan E. Rice PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

The United States undercutChina’s technology ambitions onTuesday, advancing a new rulethat would limit the ability of Chi-nese telecommunications compa-nies to sell their products in thiscountry.

The Federal CommunicationsCommission voted unanimouslyto move forward with a plan thatwould prevent federally subsi-dized telecommunications carri-ers from using suppliers deemedto pose a risk to American na-tional security. The decision takesdirect aim at Huawei, whichmakes telecommunications net-work equipment and smart-phones, and its main Chinese ri-val, ZTE, sending a message thatthe government doesn’t trustthem.

A day earlier, the governmentbarred ZTE from using compo-nents made in the United States,saying the company had failed topunish employees who violatedAmerican sanctions againstNorth Korea and Iran.

The moves intensify a testyfight between China and theUnited States for high-tech su-premacy. Although tensions havesimmered for years, the two eco-nomic powerhouses are threat-ening a global trade war as theylook to protect their most ad-vanced industries.

Long bedeviled by political con-cerns about its ties to the Chinesegovernment, Huawei (pro-nounced “HWA-way”) has spentthe better part of the last decadetrying to sell its equipment andphones in the United States.

The company made a big pushin the United States with a newline of smartphones this year. Butthat effort was derailed whenAT&T, appearing to bow to gov-ernment security concerns,walked away from a deal to sellthe devices.

Since then, Huawei has sig-naled that its political battles inWashington may be all but lost.The company has been dialing

Continued on Page A7

U.S. LimitingChinese SalesIn Tech Battle

New F.C.C. Rule CitesRisks to Security

This article is by Raymond Zhong,Paul Mozur and Jack Nicas.

BIDNIJA, Malta — On Oct. 16,at 1:41 a.m., a cellphone SIM cardwas activated in this rural Mal-tese village. It was the moment,investigators say, when a remote-controlled bomb packed with TNTwas armed and placed under thedriver’s seat of this tiny country’smost famous, and most provoca-tive, journalist.

The next afternoon, the journal-ist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, lefther house and walked toward hergray Peugeot 108, intent on re-gaining access to her bank ac-count. Her assets had been frozenas part of a libel case, one of 47suits pending against her. Thisone stemmed from an article shehad published on her blog aboutMalta’s economy minister, Chris-

tian Cardona, reportedly visiting abrothel in Germany while trav-eling on official business.

Her son Matthew heard a pow-erful explosion and felt the win-dows of the house shake. He racedoutside and sprinted barefootdown the long, unpaved drivefrom their home to the main road,where a column of black smokechurned upward into the autumnsky. Shards of glass and plasticwere everywhere, and, most grue-somely, chunks of flesh werestrewn on the road, all accompa-nied by the droning blare of a carhorn.

He struggled to maintain hopethat it was not his mother’s car, un-

A Journalist’s Fiery Death,And a Muted Hunt for Truth

By NICHOLAS KULISH

Continued on Page A6

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump was watching television onSunday when he saw Nikki R. Ha-ley, his ambassador to the UnitedNations, announce that he wouldimpose fresh sanctions on Russia.The president grew angry, accord-ing to an official informed aboutthe moment. As far as he was con-cerned, he had decided no suchthing.

It was not the first time Mr.Trump has yelled at the televisionover something he saw Ms. Haleysaying. This time, however, the di-vergence has spilled into public ina remarkable display of discordthat stems not just from compet-ing views of Russia but fromlarger questions of political ambi-tion, jealousy, resentment and loy-alty.

The rift erupted into open con-flict on Tuesday when a WhiteHouse official blamed Ms. Haley’sstatement about sanctions on“momentary confusion.” Thatprompted her to fire back, sayingthat she did not “get confused.”The public disagreement embar-rassed Ms. Haley and reinforcedquestions about Mr. Trump’s for-eign policy — and who speaks for

Confused? No,Haley RetortsTo Trump Aide

This article is by Peter Baker,Julie Hirschfeld Davis and MaggieHaberman.

Continued on Page A8

SAN FRANCISCO — Sailors ar-riving in San Francisco in the 19thcentury used two giant redwoodtrees perched on a hill to helpguide their ships into the bay. Theredwoods were felled for theirlumber at around the time of thegold rush, but San Francisco nowhas a new beacon: SalesforceTower, the tallest office building inthe West.

Clustered around the 1,070-foottower are a collection of high risesbuilt on the soft soil and sand onthe edge of the bay. They repre-sent a bold symbol of a new SanFrancisco, but also a potentialdanger for a city that sits precari-ously on unstable, earthquake-prone ground.

San Francisco lives with thecertainty that the Big One willcome. But the city is also puttingup taller and taller buildings clus-tered closer and closer togetherbecause of the state’s severe hous-ing shortage. Now those compet-ing pressures have prompted ananxious rethinking of buildingregulations. Experts are sendingthis message: The building codedoes not protect cities from earth-quakes nearly as much as youmight think.

It’s been over a century —Wednesday marks the 112th anni-versary — since the last devastat-ing earthquake and subsequentinferno razed San Francisco. Wit-nesses on the morning of April 18,1906, described the city’s streets

as rising and falling like a ribboncarried by the wind.

The violent shaking ignited afire that lasted three days, de-stroying 500 city blocks and28,000 buildings.

Half of the population of around400,000 was made homeless.Many were forced to flee the city.

California has strict building re-quirements to protect schools andhospitals from a major earth-quake. But not skyscrapers. Afive-story building has the samestrength requirements as a 50-story building.

Yet skyscrapers cast a muchbroader shadow of risk across acity and their collapse or impair-ment could cause a cascade ofconsequences.

How safe are San Francisco’sskyscrapers? Even the engineerswho design them can’t provide ex-act answers. Earthquakes are toounpredictable. And too few major

cities have been tested by majortemblors.

“The profession does the bestjob we can to model and predict,but there are a number of uncer-tainties,” said Ron Hamburger,one of the country’s leading struc-tural engineers. “We don’t have asmany records, particularly forlarge magnitude earthquakes, aswe would like.”

California has made significantstrides in earthquake prepared-ness over the past century. Free-way overpasses, bridges andsome municipal buildings havebeen strengthened. Many Califor-nians live in single-family woodframe homes, which have beenfound to hold up relatively wellduring earthquakes.

But until recently, high-risebuildings were not a focus of SanFrancisco’s seismic safety.

Newer high rises across Califor-nia, which are typically builtaround a concrete core, are de-signed using computer modeling.

This raises concerns among ex-perts such as Thomas H. Heaton,the director of the Earthquake En-gineering Research Laboratory atthe California Institute of Technol-ogy and perhaps the most promi-

Waiting for the Big One, Perched on Sandy SoilThis article is by Thomas Fuller,

Anjali Singhvi and Josh Williams.

Developers in San Francisco have been putting up taller buildings, clustered closer together, because of a severe housing shortage.JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Same California Code,for Buildings of Five

Floors or 50

Continued on Page A12

To protect us without overreacting, theissue for legislators is how much thedata-driven ecosystem really matters,Eduardo Porter writes. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-7

What Is Facebook Worth to Us?

Beijing said it would loosen rules forforeign car and aerospace companiesto build factories in China. PAGE B1

China Opens Garage Doors

Sarah Sellers was second Monday in theBoston Marathon. On Wednesday, shereturns to her job as a nurse. PAGE B8

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B8-12

Amateur Runner, Elite FinishBlack Philadelphians say the arrest oftwo men in a coffee shop is the frustrat-ing reality of everyday life. PAGE A11

Anger, Not Just for StarbucksIraqi counterterrorism courts are send-ing cooks, medical workers, housewivesand others to the gallows. PAGE A10

No Mercy for ISIS Suspects

Little-known to the public but prized inthe business, the expediter often setsthe pace in a restaurant. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-6

Quarterbacking the Kitchen

The author Madhur Jaffrey travels tothe crop’s ancient home and finds inspi-ration from Andean cooks. PAGE D1

In Praise of Peruvian Potatoes

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —President Trump dispatched theC.I.A. director Mike Pompeo toNorth Korea to meet with itsleader, Kim Jong-un, in recentweeks to lay the groundwork for asummit meeting between Mr. Kimand Mr. Trump, two people briefedon the secret trip said on Tuesday.

Mr. Trump alluded to Mr. Pom-peo’s mission when he said onTuesday afternoon that the UnitedStates was in direct talks withNorth Korea at “extremely highlevels,” and that the White Housewas looking at five sites for a po-tential meeting of the two leaders.

The White House has used in-telligence, rather than diplomaticchannels, to communicate withNorth Korea, ever since lastmonth, when Mr. Trump unex-pectedly accepted Mr. Kim’s invi-tation to meet.

Mr. Pompeo, who is awaitingconfirmation as secretary of state,has been dealing with North Kore-an representatives through achannel that runs between theC.I.A. and its North Korean coun-terpart, the Reconnaissance Gen-eral Bureau, according to other of-ficials. And he has been in closetouch with the director of SouthKorea’s National IntelligenceService, Suh Hoon, who Americanofficials said brokered Mr. Kim’sinvitation to Mr. Trump.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump alsosaid he would give his blessing toNorth and South Korea to “discussthe end of the war” when the lead-ers of those countries meet thismonth, opening the door to apeace treaty that would replacethe armistice that halted the Kore-an War in 1953.

His statements, which came ashe welcomed Prime MinisterShinzo Abe of Japan to his ocean-front estate here, were fresh evi-dence of a diplomatic thaw under-way on the Korean Peninsula, andmade a once-unthinkable encoun-ter between him and Mr. Kim farmore likely.

The president did not specify

DIRECTOR OF C.I.A. MET WITH LEADER

OF NORTH KOREA

PREPARATION FOR TALKS

Trump Opens the Doorto a Treaty Replacing

the ’53 Armistice

By MARK LANDLERand MATTHEW ROSENBERG

Continued on Page A9

The worsening standoff with the West isincreasingly isolating Russia and dam-aging its economy. PAGE A10

INTERNATIONAL A4-10

Sanctions Start to Sting Russia

Barbara Bush, the widely ad-mired wife of one president andthe fiercely loyal mother of an-other, died Tuesday evening at herhome in Houston. She was 92.

Jim McGrath, a family spokes-man, announced the death in astatement posted to Twitter.

On Sunday, the office of her hus-band, former President GeorgeBush, issued a statement sayingthat after consulting her familyand her doctors, Mrs. Bush had“decided not to seek additionalmedical treatment and will in-stead focus on comfort care.”

The Bushes had celebratedtheir 73rd wedding anniversary inJanuary, making them the long-est-married couple in presidentialhistory.

Mrs. Bush had been hospital-ized with pneumonia in December2013. She underwent surgery for aperforated ulcer in 2008 and hadheart surgery four months later.

As the wife of the 41st presidentand the mother of the 43rd,George W. Bush, Mrs. Bush wasonly the second woman in Ameri-

can history to have a son of hersfollow his father to the WhiteHouse. (Abigail Adams, wife ofJohn Adams and mother of JohnQuincy Adams, was the first.)

Another son, Jeb, the governor

of Florida from 1999 to 2007, wasan unsuccessful candidate for theRepublican presidential nomina-tion in 2016.

During that campaign, he wasrepeatedly derided in personal

terms by the eventual nomineeand now president, Donald J.Trump, prompting Mrs. Bush,who was never shy about express-ing her views, to lash back, sug-

First Lady and First Mother Who Charmed With Straight TalkBy ENID NEMY

BARBARA BUSH, 1925-2018

Barbara Bush with George Bush as he was sworn into office as the 41st president on Jan. 20, 1989.BOB DAUGHERTY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Continued on Page A13

After flirting with rejoining theTrans-Pacific Partnership tradepact, President Trump seemed torebuff the idea for good. Page A8.

Against It. For It. Against It.

Late EditionToday, partly sunny, breezy, a milderafternoon, high 58. Tonight, becom-ing cloudy, intermittent rain late,low 46. Tomorrow, cloudy, showers,high 54. Weather map, Page C8.

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