TO SOCIAL DIVIDES SHOTS ARE FIRED, · Last night I told my wife I would take a bullet for the kids,...
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VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,879 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2018 U(D54G1D)y+z!:!?!#!: SAN FRANCISCO — One hour after news broke about the school shooting in Florida last week, Twitter accounts suspected of having links to Russia released hundreds of posts taking up the gun control debate. The accounts addressed the news with the speed of a cable news network. Some adopted the hashtag #guncontrolnow. Others used #gunreformnow and #Park- landshooting. Earlier on Wednes- day, before the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., many of those accounts had been focused on the investigation by the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. “This is pretty typical for them, to hop on breaking news like this,” said Jonathon Morgan, chief exec- utive of New Knowledge, a com- pany that tracks online disinfor- mation campaigns. “The bots fo- cus on anything that is divisive for Americans. Almost systemat- ically.” One of the most divisive issues in the nation is how to handle guns, pitting Second Amendment advocates against proponents of gun control. And the messages from these automated accounts, or bots, were designed to widen the divide and make compromise even more difficult. Any news event — no matter how tragic — has become fodder SHOTS ARE FIRED, AND BOTS SWARM TO SOCIAL DIVIDES SURGE OF RUSSIAN POSTS Florida School Shooting Draws an Army Ready to Spread Discord By SHEERA FRENKEL and DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI Continued on Page A13 TAMARAC, Fla. — The shoot- ing was all over, but the emotional reckoning had just begun, and so on Saturday the teachers of Brow- ard County packed their union hall to discuss what it meant to have become the nation’s human shields. “Last night I told my wife I would take a bullet for the kids,” said Robert Parish, a teacher at an elementary school just miles from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, where a former student killed 17 people, including three faculty members who found themselves in the line of fire. Since the attack last week, said Mr. Parish, “I think about it all the time.” Across the country, teachers are grappling with how their roles have expanded, from educator and counselor to bodyguard and protector. They wonder if their classrooms are properly equipped, if they would recognize the signs of a dangerous student, and most of all, if they are pre- pared to jump in front of a bullet. In the last few days, teachers wrote to Congress, urging bans on assault weapons, and to state law- makers, seeking permission to carry firearms to school. They at- tended local protests and re- viewed safety plans with stu- dents. And in the evenings, they spoke with friends and family about an excruciating reality — that teachers, who once seemed mostly removed from the life-or- death risks faced by the ranks of police officers and firefighters, might now be vulnerable. “I visualized what it would look like, and it made me sick,” said Catherine Collett, 28, a sixth- grade teacher in Northern Virgin- ia who has spent recent days run- Educators Face Daunting Role: Student Shield Being Class Bodyguard Is Now Part of Job By JULIE TURKEWITZ A group called Teens for Gun Reform conducted a “lie-in” near the White House on Monday to draw attention to school shootings. ZACH GIBSON/GETTY IMAGES Continued on Page A12 KIEV, Ukraine — Nearly four years into a grinding war against rebels armed by Russia, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry proudly an- nounced last month that it had im- proved its previously meager medical services for its wounded troops with the purchase and de- livery of 100 new military ambu- lances. Not mentioned, however, was that many of the ambulances had already broken down. Or that they had been sold to the military un- der a no-bid contract by an auto company owned by a senior offi- cial in charge of procurement for Ukraine’s armed forces. Or that the official, Oleg Gladkovskyi, is an old friend and business partner of Ukraine’s president, Petro O. Poroshenko. Ukraine’s spending on defense and security has soared since the conflict in the east started in 2014, rising from around 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product in 2013 to more than 5 percent this year, when it will total around $6 billion. This bonanza, which will push procurement spending in 2018 to more than $700 million, has en- abled Ukraine to rebuild its dilapi- dated military and fight to a stand- still pro-Russian rebels and their heavily armed Russian backers. But by pumping so much money through the hands of Crooked Deals As Kiev Fuels War Machine By ANDREW HIGGINS Continued on Page A7 MERRIMACK, N.H. — Gwen Hurd got the letter just before her shift at the outlet mall. Her health insurance company informed her that coverage for her family of three, purchased through the Af- fordable Care Act marketplace, would cost almost 60 percent more this year — $1,200 a month. She and her husband, a contrac- tor, found a less expensive plan, but at $928 a month, it meant giv- ing up date nights and saving for their future. Worse, the new policy required them to spend more than $6,000 per person before it cov- ered much of anything. “It seems to me that people who earn nothing and contribute noth- ing get everything for free,” said Ms. Hurd, 30. “And the people who work hard and struggle for every penny barely end up surviving.” A few miles away in another wooded suburb, Emilia DiCola, 28, an aspiring opera singer who scrapes by with gigs at churches and in local theaters, has no such complaints. She qualifies for Med- icaid — free government health insurance that millions more low- income Americans have gained through an expansion of the pro- gram under the Affordable Care Act. “I am very lucky to have the coverage I have,” said Ms. DiCola, who lives with her parents along the Merrimack River in Litchfield. President Trump’s attempts to undermine the health law have exacerbated a tension at the heart of it — while it aims to provide health coverage for all, the law is far more generous to the poor and near poor than the middle class. By taking steps that hurt the indi- vidual insurance market, Mr. Trump has widened the gulf be- tween people who pay full price for their coverage and those who get generous subsidies or free Medicaid. That, in turn, has deep- ened the resentment that has long simmered among many who do not qualify for government assist- ance toward those who do. Such attitudes have helped shift white working-class voters to the right and were integral in the elec- tion of President Trump. They un- derlie the sharp cuts to social wel- fare programs in the budget pro- posal he released this week. They help explain why the national de- bate over health insurance has been so bitter, and why the only government programs with broad support are those that everyone benefits from, Social Security and Medicare. They are also likely helping fuel the renewed Democratic push for a single-payer system, or at least one that provides broader access to government health insurance. “Democrats have begun to rec- ognize the political costs of play- ing into the narrative that they only care about the poor,” said Joan C. Williams, a professor at the University of California Hast- ings College of Law and author of The Heartburn Behind Free Care for Only Some By ABBY GOODNOUGH How U.S. Health Law Pits the Poor Against the Middle Class Continued on Page A10 CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES Norway, the medals leader at the Pyeongchang Olympics, earned an 11th gold when Andreas Stjer- nen helped win the large hill team ski jumping competition. Olympic coverage begins on Page B6. Where Norway Looms Largest WASHINGTON — More than 15 months after a general election that was stained by covert Rus- sian interference, the chief elec- tion officials of some states say they are still not getting the infor- mation they need to safeguard the vote. They say the federal govern- ment is not sharing specifics about threats to registered voter databases, voting machines, com- munication networks and other systems that could be vulnerable to hacking and manipulation. In some cases, the election offi- cials say they have no legal access to the information: After a year of effort, only 21 of them have re- ceived clearance to review classi- fied federal information on elec- tion threats. Top federal officials have promised to do better. Still, some leaders worry that there will not be enough time to protect the in- tegrity of the midterm election season, which will kick off in some states in the next few weeks. “It’s not about 2020, it’s not about November 2018 — it’s about primaries that are upon us now,” said Alex Padilla, California’s sec- retary of state. The state officials expressed their unhappiness at a meeting of the National Organization of Sec- retaries of State that ended on Monday. The officials from Wash- States Say U.S. Must Do More To Protect Vote By MICHAEL WINES Continued on Page A13 SCREENING The president is open to improvements in federal back- ground checks for gun buyers, the White House said. PAGE A13 Donated land anchors a system that will be three times the size of Yosemite and Yellowstone combined. PAGE A6 INTERNATIONAL A4-8 Park System Is Born in Chile Scientists are racing to understand why immunotherapy drugs have cured a few patients who had a seemingly fatal form of ovarian cancer when the medicines should have had no effect. PAGE D1 SCIENCE TIMES D1-6 Curing Cancer, Unexpectedly Kenneth C. Frazier, the chief executive of Merck who quit President Trump’s business advisory council after racial violence in Virginia, speaks out. PAGE B1 BUSINESS DAY B1-5 Standing Up for ‘Basic Values’ Deaths are down after the city spent $38 million to expand policing and treatment. But whether these efforts are helping enough is unclear. PAGE A16 NEW YORK A16-17, 20 Money for the Opioid Problem Beto O’Rourke, running for Senate, hopes to be the first Texas Democrat to win statewide office since 1994. PAGE A9 NATIONAL A9-15 The Lone Star Long Shot Several events are commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. PAGE A17 The Bombing Before 9/11 Major league pitchers will get a little lonelier under new pace-of-play rules set down by the commissioner. PAGE B18 SPORTSTUESDAY B6-18 Baseball Limits Visits to Mound Table-tennis-playing soloists swing paddles, hand drums, gongs and even a wine glass in an unconventional con- certo at David Geffen Hall. PAGE C1 ARTS C1-8 Philharmonic Ping-Pong Paul Krugman PAGE A18 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19 Among the factors justices consider in deciding when to step down is party loyalty, Adam Liptak writes. PAGE A15 Will Anthony Kennedy Retire? Windsor, Ontario, residents affected by a hum complain of sleeplessness, de- pression and headaches. PAGE A5 A Low Droning in the Distance The Wfirst project, which would have investigated the force of dark energy in the universe and searched for more planets, has been cut from NASA’s proposed budget. PAGE D1 Dark Energy, Fading to Gray The narcotics officers from the 83rd Precinct didn’t get much when they set up outside the J & C Mini Market on Irving Avenue in Brooklyn on an autumn afternoon four years ago. Moving in on what seemed to be a crack deal, they seized two pack- ets, which turned out to contain lit- tle more than a residue of the drug. Two men — said to be the buyer and the seller — were ar- rested, but the charges against one of the men were eventually dismissed. What the officers did get that day was more than 20 hours in overtime for hauling in and pro- cessing the men. Collectively, court papers say, they earned as much as $1,400 in extra pay. On Tuesday, four of the officers involved in the arrests will appear in Federal District Court in Brook- lyn for the start of an unusual civ- il-rights trial, facing accusations that they detained one of the men, Hector Cordero, simply to in- crease their income. If any of the officers are found liable, another trial will be sched- uled, one that could represent the biggest challenge to New York po- licing practices since stop-and- frisk. The second trial would ex- amine the broader question of whether the city’s police officers habitually use false arrests to bol- Are Arrests ‘Collars for Dollars’? Federal Suit Scrutinizes the Issue By ALAN FEUER and JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN Continued on Page A17 Late Edition Today, low clouds, fog, some sun- shine, record tying warmth, high 69. Tonight, partly cloudy, low 58. To- morrow, record breaking warmth, high 72. Weather map, Page B16. $3.00
Transcript of TO SOCIAL DIVIDES SHOTS ARE FIRED, · Last night I told my wife I would take a bullet for the kids,...
VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,879 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2018
C M Y K Nxxx,2018-02-20,A,001,Bs-4C,E2
U(D54G1D)y+z!:!?!#!:
SAN FRANCISCO — One hourafter news broke about the schoolshooting in Florida last week,Twitter accounts suspected ofhaving links to Russia releasedhundreds of posts taking up thegun control debate.
The accounts addressed thenews with the speed of a cablenews network. Some adopted thehashtag #guncontrolnow. Othersused #gunreformnow and #Park-landshooting. Earlier on Wednes-day, before the mass shooting atMarjory Stoneman Douglas HighSchool in Parkland, Fla., many ofthose accounts had been focusedon the investigation by the specialcounsel Robert S. Mueller III intoRussian meddling in the 2016presidential election.
“This is pretty typical for them,to hop on breaking news like this,”said Jonathon Morgan, chief exec-utive of New Knowledge, a com-pany that tracks online disinfor-mation campaigns. “The bots fo-cus on anything that is divisive forAmericans. Almost systemat-ically.”
One of the most divisive issuesin the nation is how to handleguns, pitting Second Amendmentadvocates against proponents ofgun control. And the messagesfrom these automated accounts,or bots, were designed to widenthe divide and make compromiseeven more difficult.
Any news event — no matterhow tragic — has become fodder
SHOTS ARE FIRED,AND BOTS SWARMTO SOCIAL DIVIDES
SURGE OF RUSSIAN POSTS
Florida School ShootingDraws an Army Ready
to Spread Discord
By SHEERA FRENKELand DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI
Continued on Page A13
TAMARAC, Fla. — The shoot-ing was all over, but the emotionalreckoning had just begun, and soon Saturday the teachers of Brow-ard County packed their unionhall to discuss what it meant tohave become the nation’s humanshields.
“Last night I told my wife Iwould take a bullet for the kids,”said Robert Parish, a teacher at anelementary school just miles fromMarjory Stoneman Douglas High,where a former student killed 17people, including three facultymembers who found themselvesin the line of fire.
Since the attack last week, saidMr. Parish, “I think about it all thetime.”
Across the country, teachersare grappling with how their roleshave expanded, from educatorand counselor to bodyguard andprotector. They wonder if theirclassrooms are properlyequipped, if they would recognizethe signs of a dangerous student,and most of all, if they are pre-pared to jump in front of a bullet.
In the last few days, teacherswrote to Congress, urging bans onassault weapons, and to state law-makers, seeking permission tocarry firearms to school. They at-tended local protests and re-viewed safety plans with stu-dents. And in the evenings, theyspoke with friends and familyabout an excruciating reality —that teachers, who once seemedmostly removed from the life-or-death risks faced by the ranks ofpolice officers and firefighters,might now be vulnerable.
“I visualized what it would looklike, and it made me sick,” saidCatherine Collett, 28, a sixth-grade teacher in Northern Virgin-ia who has spent recent days run-
Educators FaceDaunting Role:
Student Shield
Being Class BodyguardIs Now Part of Job
By JULIE TURKEWITZ
A group called Teens for Gun Reform conducted a “lie-in” near the White House on Monday to draw attention to school shootings.ZACH GIBSON/GETTY IMAGES
Continued on Page A12
KIEV, Ukraine — Nearly fouryears into a grinding war againstrebels armed by Russia, Ukraine’sDefense Ministry proudly an-nounced last month that it had im-proved its previously meagermedical services for its woundedtroops with the purchase and de-livery of 100 new military ambu-lances.
Not mentioned, however, wasthat many of the ambulances hadalready broken down. Or that theyhad been sold to the military un-der a no-bid contract by an autocompany owned by a senior offi-cial in charge of procurement forUkraine’s armed forces. Or thatthe official, Oleg Gladkovskyi, isan old friend and business partnerof Ukraine’s president, Petro O.Poroshenko.
Ukraine’s spending on defenseand security has soared since theconflict in the east started in 2014,rising from around 2.5 percent ofits gross domestic product in 2013to more than 5 percent this year,when it will total around $6 billion.
This bonanza, which will pushprocurement spending in 2018 tomore than $700 million, has en-abled Ukraine to rebuild its dilapi-dated military and fight to a stand-still pro-Russian rebels and theirheavily armed Russian backers.
But by pumping so muchmoney through the hands of
Crooked DealsAs Kiev Fuels
War Machine
By ANDREW HIGGINS
Continued on Page A7
MERRIMACK, N.H. — GwenHurd got the letter just before hershift at the outlet mall. Her healthinsurance company informed herthat coverage for her family ofthree, purchased through the Af-fordable Care Act marketplace,would cost almost 60 percentmore this year — $1,200 a month.
She and her husband, a contrac-tor, found a less expensive plan,but at $928 a month, it meant giv-ing up date nights and saving fortheir future. Worse, the new policyrequired them to spend more than$6,000 per person before it cov-ered much of anything.
“It seems to me that people whoearn nothing and contribute noth-ing get everything for free,” saidMs. Hurd, 30. “And the people whowork hard and struggle for everypenny barely end up surviving.”
A few miles away in anotherwooded suburb, Emilia DiCola, 28,an aspiring opera singer whoscrapes by with gigs at churchesand in local theaters, has no suchcomplaints. She qualifies for Med-icaid — free government healthinsurance that millions more low-income Americans have gainedthrough an expansion of the pro-gram under the Affordable CareAct.
“I am very lucky to have thecoverage I have,” said Ms. DiCola,who lives with her parents alongthe Merrimack River in Litchfield.
President Trump’s attempts toundermine the health law haveexacerbated a tension at the heartof it — while it aims to providehealth coverage for all, the law is
far more generous to the poor andnear poor than the middle class.By taking steps that hurt the indi-vidual insurance market, Mr.Trump has widened the gulf be-tween people who pay full pricefor their coverage and those whoget generous subsidies or freeMedicaid. That, in turn, has deep-ened the resentment that has longsimmered among many who donot qualify for government assist-ance toward those who do.
Such attitudes have helped shiftwhite working-class voters to theright and were integral in the elec-
tion of President Trump. They un-derlie the sharp cuts to social wel-fare programs in the budget pro-posal he released this week. Theyhelp explain why the national de-bate over health insurance hasbeen so bitter, and why the onlygovernment programs with broadsupport are those that everyonebenefits from, Social Security andMedicare.
They are also likely helping fuelthe renewed Democratic push fora single-payer system, or at leastone that provides broader accessto government health insurance.
“Democrats have begun to rec-ognize the political costs of play-ing into the narrative that theyonly care about the poor,” saidJoan C. Williams, a professor atthe University of California Hast-ings College of Law and author of
The Heartburn Behind Free Care for Only SomeBy ABBY GOODNOUGH How U.S. Health Law
Pits the Poor Againstthe Middle Class
Continued on Page A10
CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Norway, the medals leader at the Pyeongchang Olympics, earned an 11th gold when Andreas Stjer-nen helped win the large hill team ski jumping competition. Olympic coverage begins on Page B6.
Where Norway Looms Largest
WASHINGTON — More than15 months after a general electionthat was stained by covert Rus-sian interference, the chief elec-tion officials of some states saythey are still not getting the infor-mation they need to safeguard thevote.
They say the federal govern-ment is not sharing specificsabout threats to registered voterdatabases, voting machines, com-munication networks and othersystems that could be vulnerableto hacking and manipulation.
In some cases, the election offi-cials say they have no legal accessto the information: After a year ofeffort, only 21 of them have re-ceived clearance to review classi-fied federal information on elec-tion threats.
Top federal officials havepromised to do better. Still, someleaders worry that there will notbe enough time to protect the in-tegrity of the midterm electionseason, which will kick off in somestates in the next few weeks.
“It’s not about 2020, it’s notabout November 2018 — it’s aboutprimaries that are upon us now,”said Alex Padilla, California’s sec-retary of state.
The state officials expressedtheir unhappiness at a meeting ofthe National Organization of Sec-retaries of State that ended onMonday. The officials from Wash-
States Say U.S.Must Do MoreTo Protect Vote
By MICHAEL WINES
Continued on Page A13
SCREENING The president is open to improvements in federal back-ground checks for gun buyers, the White House said. PAGE A13
Donated land anchors a system thatwill be three times the size of Yosemiteand Yellowstone combined. PAGE A6
INTERNATIONAL A4-8
Park System Is Born in Chile
Scientists are racing to understand whyimmunotherapy drugs have cured a fewpatients who had a seemingly fatal formof ovarian cancer when the medicinesshould have had no effect. PAGE D1
SCIENCE TIMES D1-6
Curing Cancer, UnexpectedlyKenneth C. Frazier, the chief executiveof Merck who quit President Trump’sbusiness advisory council after racialviolence in Virginia, speaks out. PAGE B1
BUSINESS DAY B1-5
Standing Up for ‘Basic Values’Deaths are down after the city spent$38 million to expand policing andtreatment. But whether these effortsare helping enough is unclear. PAGE A16
NEW YORK A16-17, 20
Money for the Opioid Problem
Beto O’Rourke, running for Senate,hopes to be the first Texas Democrat towin statewide office since 1994. PAGE A9
NATIONAL A9-15
The Lone Star Long ShotSeveral events are commemorating the25th anniversary of the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing. PAGE A17
The Bombing Before 9/11
Major league pitchers will get a littlelonelier under new pace-of-play rulesset down by the commissioner. PAGE B18
SPORTSTUESDAY B6-18
Baseball Limits Visits to Mound
Table-tennis-playing soloists swingpaddles, hand drums, gongs and even awine glass in an unconventional con-certo at David Geffen Hall. PAGE C1
ARTS C1-8
Philharmonic Ping-Pong
Paul Krugman PAGE A18
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19Among the factors justices consider indeciding when to step down is partyloyalty, Adam Liptak writes. PAGE A15
Will Anthony Kennedy Retire?Windsor, Ontario, residents affected bya hum complain of sleeplessness, de-pression and headaches. PAGE A5
A Low Droning in the Distance
The Wfirst project, which would haveinvestigated the force of dark energy inthe universe and searched for moreplanets, has been cut from NASA’sproposed budget. PAGE D1
Dark Energy, Fading to Gray
The narcotics officers from the83rd Precinct didn’t get muchwhen they set up outside the J & CMini Market on Irving Avenue inBrooklyn on an autumn afternoonfour years ago.
Moving in on what seemed to bea crack deal, they seized two pack-ets, which turned out to contain lit-tle more than a residue of thedrug. Two men — said to be thebuyer and the seller — were ar-rested, but the charges againstone of the men were eventuallydismissed.
What the officers did get thatday was more than 20 hours inovertime for hauling in and pro-cessing the men. Collectively,court papers say, they earned as
much as $1,400 in extra pay.On Tuesday, four of the officers
involved in the arrests will appearin Federal District Court in Brook-lyn for the start of an unusual civ-il-rights trial, facing accusationsthat they detained one of the men,Hector Cordero, simply to in-crease their income.
If any of the officers are foundliable, another trial will be sched-uled, one that could represent thebiggest challenge to New York po-licing practices since stop-and-frisk. The second trial would ex-amine the broader question ofwhether the city’s police officershabitually use false arrests to bol-
Are Arrests ‘Collars for Dollars’?Federal Suit Scrutinizes the Issue
By ALAN FEUER and JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN
Continued on Page A17
Late EditionToday, low clouds, fog, some sun-shine, record tying warmth, high 69.Tonight, partly cloudy, low 58. To-morrow, record breaking warmth,high 72. Weather map, Page B16.
$3.00
