“All the News

That's Fit to Print”

Che New ork Gimes

LATE EDITION
Today, sun and clouds, breezy, dry,
high 40. Tonight, partly cloudy, low
31. Tomorrow, turning cloudier,
periodic afternoon rain, high 41.
Weather map appears on Page B12.

VOL. CLXXII .... No. 59,637

© 2022 The New York Times Company

NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

$3.00

Rebuilding a Devastated Ukraine

A French-led effort of 50 nations will send $1 billion to Kyiv to mend its
electrical, heating, water and health care systems. Page A10.

ER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES:

A Blast of 192 Lasers Achieves a Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion

By KENNETH CHANG

Scientists studying fusion ener-

gy at Lawrence Livermore Na-
tional Laboratory in California an-
nounced on Tuesday that they had
crossed a long-awaited milestone
in reproducing the power of the
sun in a laboratory.

That sparked public excitement

because scientists have talked for
decades about how fusion, the nu-
clear reaction that makes stars
shine, could provide a future
source of bountiful energy.

The result announced on Tues-

day is the first fusion reaction ina
laboratory setting that actually
produced more energy than it
took to start the reaction.

“This is such a wonderful exam-

ple of a possibility realized, a sci-
entific milestone achieved, and a
road ahead to the possibilities for
clean energy,” Arati Prabhakar,

One Instant May Alter

the Future of Energy

the White House science adviser,

said during a news conference on
Tuesday morning at the Depart-
ment of Energy’s headquarters in
Washington. “And even deeper
understanding of the scientific

principles that are applied here.”

If fusion can be deployed on a
large scale, it would offer an ener-
gy source devoid of the pollution
and greenhouse gases caused by
the burning of fossil fuels and the
dangerous long-lived radioactive
waste created by current nuclear
power plants, which use the split-
ting of uranium to produce energy.
Within the sun and stars, fusion
Continued on Page A20

Beijing's Streets
Empty as Covid
And Fear Surge

By KEITH BRADSHER
and DAVID PIERSON

BEIJING — Restaurants have

closed because too many staff
members have tested positive for
Covid. The usually ubiquitous
food delivery workers zipping
through traffic on their scooters
have nearly vanished because of
infections. Pharmacies have been
emptied of cold medicine, and su-
permarkets have been running
low on the essentials such as dis-
infectant solution and antibacteri-
al wipes.

Less than a week after the Chi-

nese government lifted its strin-
gent “zero Covid” restrictions, fol-
lowing a spasm of protests across
the country, Beijing looks like a
city in the throes of a lockdown —
this time, self-imposed by resi-
dents. Sidewalks and pedestrian
shopping streets are barren, and
once busy traffic thoroughfares
are deserted. Residents are hun-
kering down indoors and hoard-
ing medicine as a wave of Covid
sweeps across the Chinese capi-
tal.

“No one dares to come out now,”

said Yue Jiajun, a Beijing restau-
rant owner, who initially celebrat-
ed when customers were allowed
to dine indoors last week only to
learn later that the surge in infec-
tions would keep them away.

“Even takeaway, I have no

customers,” said Mr. Yue, who ad-
mitted that there probably were-
n’t enough delivery drivers for his
orders anyway.

All over the city, residents were

gripped by the sinking realization
that a virus most of the world had
already experienced was spread-
ing freely and rapidly for the first
time, three years after it emerged.

One Last Turn on Center Stage

Lionel Messi got help from his teammates as Argentina reached the World Cup final.
Page B8.

CLIVE BRUNSKILL/GETTY IMAGES.

Fraud at FTX
Started Early,
Charges Claim

Firm Founder Indicted

in Crypto Collapse

This article is by David Yaffe-Bel-

lany, Matthew Goldstein and Emily
Flitter.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s _ lies,

prosecutors say, stretched back to
the very beginning.

From the founding of his cryp-

tocurrency exchange FTX in 2019,
Mr. Bankman-Fried engaged in
widespread fraud, the federal au-
thorities charged on Tuesday, and
used his customers’ deposits to fi-
nance his political activities, buy
lavish real estate and invest in

other companies.
A series of civil and criminal
charges filed against Mr.

Bankman-Fried in the Southern

District of New York say he re-
peatedly lied to customers, invest-
ors and lenders about the struc-
ture of his business empire and
how he handled the billions of dol-
lars in funds that crypto users de-
posited in his exchange.

In a 13-page criminal indict-

ment, Mr. Bankman-Fried was
charged with eight counts, includ-
ing wire fraud against customers
and lenders, as well as conspiracy
to defraud the United States and
violate campaign finance laws. A
civil complaint filed by the Securi-
ties and Exchange Commission
laid out a detailed narrative of
FTX’s collapse, claiming that for
three years Mr. Bankman-Fried
had misappropriated billions in
customer deposits to fund his
business and political activities.

The charges against Mr.

Bankman-Fried came on one of
the most dramatic days in the rap-
idly unfolding collapse of FTX,
which has rocked the crypto in-
dustry. In Washington, the compa-
ny’s new chief executive, who took
over when the firm filed for bank-
ruptcy, testified in Congress, lay-
ing out the myriad management
failures that contributed to the ex-
change’s implosion. In Nassau,
the capital of the Bahamas, Mr.
Bankman-Fried appeared in court
for the first time, having spent the
night in a police cell after being ar-
rested at his home on Monday
evening. He was denied bail and
will remain in custody.

The arrest surprised the FTX

founder and his parents, who
were Visiting him, according to a
person with knowledge of the mat-
ter. Mr. Bankman-Fried was taken
away in handcuffs.

Mr. Bankman-Fried appeared

in Magistrate Court, dressed in a
blue suit and white shirt, eschew-
ing his usual disheveled outfit of
shorts and a T-shirt. He was es-
corted inside by the police, while
his parents, the Stanford Law
School professors Joe Bankman
and Barbara Fried, sat in the rear
of the gallery.

Continued on Page Al8

FAMILY The FTX founder's par-

ents, who teach at Stanford Law,
are under scrutiny. PAGE Bl

INFLATION SLOWS,
LEADING TO HOPE
OF SOFT LANDING

STOCK MARKET SURGES

Debate on Whether the

Fed Should Ease Off

Rate Increases

By JEANNA SMIALEK

Inflation slowed more sharply

than expected in November, an
encouraging sign for both Federal
Reserve officials and consumers
that 18 months of rapid and unre-
lenting price increases are begin-
ning to meaningfully abate.

The new data is unlikely to alter

the Fed’s plan to raise interest
rates by another half point at the
conclusion of its two-day meeting
on Wednesday.

But the moderation in inflation,

which affected used cars, some
types of food and airline tickets,
caused investors to speculate that
the Fed could pursue a less ag-
gressive policy path next year —
potentially increasing the
chances of a “soft landing,” or one
in which the economy slows grad-

87 ssvcrscrmemmcanrenanomnanrendy
Consumer Price Index

+6 Year-over-year change

excluding

food and

JF userecuolil .. energy

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

THE NEW YORK TIMES

ually and without a painful reces-

sion.

Stock prices jumped sharply af-

ter government data showed that
inflation eased to 7.1 percent in the
year through November, down
from 7.7 percent in the previous
reading and less than economists
had expected.

The Fed, which has been rap-

idly raising rates in three-quarter
point increments, is expected to
make a smaller move on Wednes-
day, bringing rates to a range of
4.25 and 4.5 percent. Central
bankers will also release eco-
nomic projections showing how
much they expect to raise interest
rates next year, and investors are
now betting that they will slow to
quarter-point adjustments by
their February meeting as fading
price pressures give them latitude
to proceed more cautiously.

“The overall picture is defi-

nitely improving,” said Ian Shep-
herdson, chief economist at Pan-
theon Macroeconomics. “It’s un-
ambiguously good news, but it
would not be fair to say that infla-
tion is falling everywhere — there
are still pockets of big increases.”

Continued on Page A1l8

McCarthy Fights to Clear Path to Speaker’s Seat

This article is by Catie Edmond-

son, Maggie Haberman and Annie
Karni.

WASHINGTON Former
President Donald J. Trump has
been working the phones, person-
ally pitching right-wing lawmak-
ers on voting to make Representa-
tive Kevin McCarthy, the Republi-
can leader he has called “My Kev-
in,” the speaker of the House.

Representative Marjorie Taylor

Greene of Georgia, the most out-
spoken far-right member of his
conference, is vouching for Mr.
McCarthy. The California Republi-
can has made private entreaties
and public promises to win over
his critics, including floating the
impeachment of a member of

Trump’s Lobbying Has

Not Moved Critics on
the Far Right

And yet, Mr. McCarthy, who is

toiling to become speaker next
year when the G.O.P. assumes the
majority, has so far been unable to
put down a mini-revolt on the
right that threatens to imperil his
bid for the top job.

Mr. McCarthy has embarked on

the kind of grueling campaign that
lawmakers in both parties jockey-
ing for the post have sometimes
been forced to perform. But some
of the hard-right lawmakers with

do not appear to have a price, and

most care less about legislating
than shrinking the federal govern-
ment — or upending it completely.

“This is why we came to Con-

gress,” Representative Bob Good
of Virginia said. “This is why we're
here. We've got a chance to tip
over that apple cart here on Jan. 3,
when we elect a new speaker.”

Their top demand has been that

Mr. McCarthy agree in advance to
a snap vote to get rid of the
speaker at any time, something he
has refused to accept.

John Boehner, the Ohio Repub-

lican who was run out of the
speaker post by the far right, fa-
mously described the approach of
this faction as “legislative terror-
ism.” And with a razor-thin major-

With Indiana Jones Era Over,

Museums Assess Looted Art

By GRAHAM BOWLEY

For decades, there was a

swashbuckling aspect to collect-
ing by American museums. In the
1960s, for example, some museum
curators embraced the chase for
prized artifacts as if it were big
game hunting.

Thomas Hoving, a Metropolitan

Museum of Art curator who later
became its director, took particu-
Jar pride in his ability to outsmart
rivals in the global pursuit of mas-
terpieces. In one instance he re-
called spiriting a Romanesque re-
lief from a Florentine church out
of Italy with the help of a dealer

stashed objects under a mattress

in his station wagon.

“My collecting style was pure

piracy,” he boasted, “and I got a
reputation as a shark.”

Today many U.S. museums are

facing a reckoning for their ag-
gressive tactics of the past. Atti-
tudes have shifted, the Indiana
Jones era is over, and there is
tremendous pressure on muse-
ums to return any looted works
acquired during the days when
collecting could be careless and
trophies at times trumped scru-
ples.

Continued on Page A8 President Biden’s cabinet. whor he is attempting to bargain

Continued on Page Al4 who, Mr. Hoving said, often Continued on Page A19
INTERNATIONAL A4-12 BUSINESS B1-5 ARTS C1-8
Dire Crisis anda Broken System | Musk Cuts More Costs Another Great Story to Tell

NATIONAL Al3-21

A Boost for Marriage Rights

With the president’s signature and
bipartisan support, same-sex unions
receive federal protection. PAGE Al5

A Decade After Sandy Hook

An officer who was among the first to
enter the school that deadly day wants
no credit for how he’s helped. PAGE AI7

Despite soaring deaths in Somalia, a

monitor says the situation is not yet a
famine, holding up needed aid. PAGE A6

Violence Spreads in Peru

At least six people have been killed in

protests following last week’s impeach-
ment of Pedro Castillo. PAGE A9

Twitter has stopped paying rent on

offices and is considering not paying
severance packages. PAGE BI

The ‘SPAC King’ Is Over It

Chamath Palihapitiya denies responsi-

bility for the cratering stock prices of
the companies he took public. PAGE BI

OBITUARIES A22-23
Chronicler of ‘Ghetto Life’
As a teenager, Lloyd Newman helped
create award-winning radio documenta-
ries about life and death in a Chicago
housing project. He was 43. PAGE A22

SPORTS B8-12

Big Move, Little Support

Ahead of a Regents meeting, U.C.L.A’s

planned shift to the Big Ten has gained
scant backing from athletes, students,
alumni and lawmakers. PAGE B9

FOOD D1-16

The Best Holiday Cakes

Dorie Greenspan's recipes will make

everyone in your house feel at home.
Above, cranberry Bundt cake. PAGE D16é

An Appetizing Year

Our writers list the best new restau-

rants, the best recipes, the best of just
about everything of 2022. PAGE Dl

Judd Hirsch, cast in Steven Spielberg’s

film “The Fabelmans,” has no shortage
of anecdotes to share. PAGE Cl

An Artist to the End

Adevoted surfer, Ashley Bickerton

chose to live in Bali, away from the
buzz. It found him anyway. PAGE Cl

OPINION A24-25
Bret Stephens

LIM

PAGE A25
0°354613" 9

San TA AR =]

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

[ p pressreade:
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Inside The Times

Ehe New York Times

The Story Behind the Story

A.G. SULZBERGER
Publisher
Founded in 1851
ADOLPH S. OCHS ARTHUR OCHS SULZBERGER
Publisher 1896-1935 Publisher 1963-1992
ARTHUR HAYS SULZBERGER ARTHUR OCHS SULZBERGER JR.
Publisher 1935-1961 Publisher 1992-2017
ORVIL E. DRYFOOS
Publisher 1961-1963
NEWS OPINION
JOSEPH KAHN KATHLEEN KINGSBURY
Executive Editor Opinion Editor
MARC LACEY PATRICK HEALY
Managing Editor Deputy Opinion Editor
CAROLYN RYAN
Managing Editor
aes BUSINESS
REBECCA BLUMENSTEIN MEREDITH KOPIT LEVIEN
Deputy Managing Editor Chief Executive Officer
SAM DOLNICK DIANE BRAYTON
Deputy Managing Editor General Counsel and Secretary
STEVE DUENES ROLAND A. CAPUTO
Deputy Managing Editor Chief Financial Officer
CLIFFORD LEVY JACQUELINE M. WELCH
Deputy Managing Editor Chief Human Resources Officer
monic naa Naa BARDEEN
MATTHEW ERICSON Chan deante Offi Ti Arecent investigation in The Times detailed the
disappearance of two men in the Southern Pacific and the man who led them there.
HANNAH POFERL ALEXANDRA HARDIMAN . . . .
‘eco Sr = A Story About Covid, in the Middle of the Pacifi
ee DAVID. FERPICH to out Covid, 1n the |Vliddle of the racinc
Assistant Manazine Editor Publisher, The Athletic and Wirecutter
KARRON SKOG DAVID RUBIN — Ina high seas tragedy, the distant hearing back from
anyone. Whereas if you _—_does that to me, I think, maybe it will do
Assistant Managing Editor Chief Marketing and Communications Officer tipple oe iso
ne limieam call and say you're with The New York that to other people, too.
MICHAEL SLACKMAN JASON SOBEL PP . pans Times, people will to respond to you. That
This article was my way of trying to
Assistant Managing Editor Chief Technology Officer misinformation. was
uncomfortable for me. It didn’t take participate in Covid coverage. As we are
HANNAH YANG long for me to be the person on the planet, _ still reflecting on how
this has impacted us,
mo weer By TERENCE McGINLEY outside of these families, who knew the I found a story
that was so far out on the
‘Two men, caught up in pandemic conspir- '™St about all of this. fringe. I felt
like it had to be told. We think
acy theories and online misinformation, left Do you havea plan for structuring
long-form —_f how far misinformation can carry peo-
their lives behind for what one of them narratives like this? ple, and this seemed
like an extreme illus-
called a “great opportunity.” You have a handful of scenes to build tration of
that. The feedback I’m getting
Contact the Newsroom Send a Confidential News Tip They were following someone who,
on around, but you don’t know yet where from readers has a more moderate version
To contact the newsroom regarding Reach us through tools that will YouTube, spoke
of theories about Satan’s they're going to be situated in the article. of the same
thing: “This story reminds me
fon requests help protect your anonymity at plan to destroy the world and the evils
of This story had many iterations. One key of my Uncle Jack who died of Covid. He
corrections@nytimes.com. nytimes.com/tips. the Covid-19 vaccine. part is: What is
your best stuff,in the sense didn’t end up on a boat, but he did take
Submit a Letter to the Editor Contact Customer Care Inspired by him, the two men,
Isaac of the cinematic scenes to work around, and ivermectin.’ There's a lot of
that coming
letters@nytimes.com customercare@nytimes.com or call Danian and Shukree Abdul-
Rashed, trav- where do they point us? Who do we needto my way right now. You have
an extreme
1-800-NYTIMES (1-800-698-4637) eled to Hawaii, where they set sail across get to
know well? view that looks outrageous at first, but in
the ocean, intent on rebuilding civilization. Tam also reading aloud many times.
You _ fact, it’s just an exaggerated view of some-
But Mr. Danian and Mr. Abdul-Rashed “start to think, what if this block were up
thing that is very widespread. That makes
probably never made it to the Cook Islands higher? What if this other block were
down _ for good storytelling.
ae we ~-” lower? How would that change our rela- . 7 7
their intended destination. After bouncing : i, Do you think we're going to be
seeing more
between squalls and closed ports, they tionship to these people and what they're of
these types of stories?
The Newspaper and Beyond disappeared, likely off the coast of Wallis going through?
Chronology is a big piece of Sadly, I think that’s true. Inevitably, we

TODAY’S PAPER

Corrections Al8
Crossword C3
Obituaries A22-23

Opinion A24-25
Weather B12
Classified Ads B9
AUDIO. On the “Popcast” podcast, The New York

Times’s pop music critics debate the best al-

bums of 2022. Spoiler alert: They agree on

Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” and Rosalia’s “Mo-

tomami.” Listen to the episode at

and Futuna, according to officials there.

David Wolman, an independent writer

based in Hawaii, reported the unnerving
story in a recent 4,000-word investigation
in Friday’s New York Times. He first
learned of the events in the spring of 2021,
when Abigail Danian, Mr. Danian’s mother,
had posted a plea for help on Facebook.
After digging around, Mr. Wolman was
“completely hooked,” he said. In an inter-
view last week, Mr. Wolman discussed his
recent investigation. This conversation has
been edited for clarity.

The men’s disappearance involves several

countries, jurisdictions and agencies. Did you
feel like you were the only one weaving to-
gether all the information, and did that com-
plicate your interaction with the families?

it. When you want to be really creative

about structure, you want to ignore chrono-
logical order to the best of your abilities.
Other times it makes sense to preserve it —
especially with a story like this, where
some of our main characters, like the Dani-
ans, are learning things as time passes.
Your recent book, “Aloha Rodeo,” is about
Hawaiian cowboys. You wrote about Egypt
and the Arab Spring, left-handedness and the
future of paper currency. How does a writer
end up with such varied subjects?

Tam a proud generalist. At this point in my

career, I don’t think there’s specialization
on the horizon. I like to follow my own
curiosity. I like a good yarn to make people
interested in something they might not
have known they were interested in, or to
make people rethink something they

would have landed here with what we've

built with misinformation, disinformation
and partisanship. We shouldn't be so sur-
prised that these tragedies are out there.
We created an atmosphere where this kind
of nonsense can fester, and it always will
prey on the people who are the most vul-
nerable.

I don’t know what the next ones will look

like, but I think you're going to start seeing
more stories on the much wider ripple
effects from the pandemic and misinforma-
tion and that toxic combination that led
people to change their lives in ways that
are unexpected.

nytimes.com/popcast. Absolutely. They were having a hard time thought they had
understood. Whenatopic and search “Vanished At Sea.”
NEWSLETTER For Times Opinion, the columnist Michelle
Goldberg dissects current issues in politics,
gender and ideology. Her latest subject: the
finale of the HBO series “The White Lotus.” To Today’s Top Trending Headlines A
Headline From History
have her weekly column delivered to your
inbox, sign up at nytimes.com/newsletters.
Scientists Achieve Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough With Blast of ISRAELIS SPEEDING
VIDEO The World Cup was a $220 billion construction 192 Lasers Scientists at
Lawrence Livermore National Laborato-
project powered by migrant workers. Times ry in California announced that they had
completed the first fusion TRANSFERS TO MAKE
journalists went to Nepal — a major source of reaction in a lab setting that
produced more energy than it took to start A l EN l
labor for Qatar — to find out what happens to the reaction. Kenneth Chang, a
science reporter for The Times, covered J ERUS. Cc AI ITAL
them now that the games are almost over. Hear the announcement in an article that
garnered more than 500 comments . . .
their stories at nytimes.com/video. from readers. December 14, 1949. Prime Minister
David Ben-Gur-
ion of Israel announced to its Parliament the previ-
What's Powering Argentina at the World Cup? 1,100 Pounds of ous day that government
offices were in the process
Yerba Mate. Yerba mate — a strong, often bitter herbal infusion of moving from Tel
Aviv to Jerusalem, The Times
brewed with leaves ofa plant native to South America —is fueling ; reported.
Because of the 1947 United Nations’ parti-
several teams competing at the World Cup, including those of Brazil, . . . .
. tion plan — which established an area mostly in the
Quote of the D. ay Uruguay and Argentina. James Wagner, a reporter who covers
sports,

west for Jews, one mainly in the east for Arabs anda
special international regime to govern Jerusalem —
Israel initially based its government in Tel Aviv.
However, Mr. Ben-Gurion said, “for the State of
Israel there is, has been and always will be one capi-
tal only, Jerusalem.” In January 1950, the Parliament
passed a proclamation making Mr. Ben-Gurion’s
assertion official. In deference to the U.N., many
foreign governments, including the United States,
kept their embassies in Tel Aviv. That changed in
2018, when the Trump administration relocated the
U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. (The building in Tel Aviv
is now an embassy branch office.)

spoke to several current and former soccer players about the bever-
age’s unique appeal.

“They’re going to be very cautious:

They’ve had their fingers burned.”

IAN SHEPHERDSON, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, on the

likelihood that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates relatively high
despite
inflation slowing more sharply than expected in November. Page Al.

For U.S. Museums With Looted Art, the Indiana Jones Era Is

Over Facing pressure over aggressive and sometimes illegal tac-

tics used to acquire art, museums across America are returning dozens
of antiquities to the countries from where they were taken. Graham
Bowley, an investigative reporter for The Times, interviewed art world
experts about the ethics of keeping looted art.

NYT Cooked: The Recipes You Loved in 2022 This year, readers

spent a ton of time with New York Times Cooking; this interactive
article shared a few of the year’s top recipes. The most viewed recipe
was San Francisco-Style Vietnamese American Garlic Noodles, which
readers visited more than 1.2 million times. (You can learn how to make
the dish in today’s Dining section.) The most shared recipe on Insta-
gram was Air-Fryer Cheesecake, shared more than 38,400 times.

‘THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY in The New York Times is A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher

620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018-1405, Shes rao mariing pres sje he aplcal
rae ae ane rom he Meredith Kopit Levien,
Aitceeat tts readebs Ifyou preter that we do ot share arto a atvertirs ondes Only
publication ot ‘and if

‘The New York Times (ISSN 0362-4331) is published daily Periodicals postage paid
this information, please notify Customer Service, 620 an advertisement shall
constitute final acceptance. R. Anthony Benten, Treasurer
at New York, N.Y, and at additional Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018-1405, or
email © 2022, The New York Times Company. All rights

hangesto'The Now Yor Tmes, 220 Eighth avenue, Now York, Nc GUL I405,
heip@nytimes.com. reserved. General Counsel and Secretary

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 460:

Sele ee ete oe ee ir) atevn maser seers

COPYRIGHT AND PROTEC TEDBY APPLICABLE LAW

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Facts of Interest

The earthenware cooking

vessel typical for any
cassoulet-type recipe is
called a cassole, which

is somewhat deeper than a

standard gratin dish.

Feasting on Lamb
And Hearty Beans D2

Over the past four decades,

the Arctic region has
warmed at four times the
global average rate, scientists
said, with some parts
warming at up to seven
times that rate.

Ina Rapidly Warming Arctic, Rain

Where It Used to Snow A12

For work he did in 1980

alone, the actor Judd Hirsch
was nominated for an Oscar
(for “Ordinary People”), an
Emmy (“Taxi”) and a Tony
(“Talley’s Folly”) — and won
none of them.

Has He Got a Story. Or Three. C1

To cut costs, Twitter has not

paid rent for its San
Francisco headquarters or
any of its global offices for
weeks, three people close to
the company said.

‘Musk Shakes Up Twitter’s Legal Team

And Prepares for Battle B1

South Korean men are

required to enlist in the
military by age 28, barring a
few exceptions, including for
Olympic champions and
artistic icons.

Star of K-Pop Enters Army, and Pauses

Legal Debate A8

U.C.L.A. said it expects to

reap $60 million to $70
million per year in television
revenue when it joins the Big
Ten for the 2024-25 school
year, about double what the
school brings in from its
membership in the Pac-12.

No One Is Enthusiastic About U.C.L.A.'s

Move to the Big Ten B9

The Mini Crossword

1 2 3 4 S
6
7
8
9
12/14/2022 BY WYNALIU
EDITED BY JOEL FAGLIANO:
ACROSS

»
Millionaire's boat

“Did itever___ to you...”

R.L.__, writer known as
“Stephen King for kids”
Japanese carmaker

Gold bar

uo

DOWN

Video game dinosaur

Follow, as advice

Adding to an email chain

$100, in slang

One of two choices on Halloween

Owner

SOLUTION TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

wlalrjo
P| zl|>1slo
r[>lo[m|[a
alz|/m[o[>

BEE
‘LIANA FINCK [=|

Reader Corner
From the Comments Forum

Once deciduous trees have dropped their leaves for the year, birds and other
animals
become easier to spot against the fresh, wintry backdrop. A recent Travel article
about the
quiet thrill of winter wildlife watching prompted nature enthusiasts to share their
own

experiences; read an edited selection below.

Here on the north side of the White Moun-

tains, the prehistoric-looking pileated
woodpeckers flit across my view. If I throw
out some seeds, flocks of oh-so-cute juncos
soon appear, and near a window I can
sometimes hear their gentle peeps. Each
morning there are fresh fox tracks in the
snow. Usually that means red foxes, but
this year I’ve seen two gorgeous grey foxes
sleeping in the sun in a little opening in the
woods. At night I hear those foxes’ other-
worldly barking.

— MARK PRIMACK, BERLIN, N.H.

It’s this type of thing that brings me peace

when life’s challenges can feel overwhelm-
ing. I’m grateful for my home on the edge of
town where I see and photograph so many
species: ospreys, Cooper’s hawks, red-
tailed hawks, great blue herons, kestrels
and bald eagles. My hummingbirds come
back in April feeding on the perennial
plants I’ve added to my garden. We have
planted trees and shrubs to attract and help
with the survival of native birds and polli-
nators. As one of my favorite authors,
Edward Abbey, said, “Wilderness is not a
luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.”
— NANCY KLASKY, LONGMONT, COLO.

On the Scene

What Times Journalists Are Seeing and Hearing in the Field

KENNY HOLSTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Representative-elect Maxwell Frost, left, will be the youngest member of Congress.

Last month, Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old Afro-Cuban progressive activist from

Orlando,
was elected to represent Florida’s 10th Congressional District. He will be the
youngest
member of the House of Representatives and will be the first member from Generation
Z.
Stephanie Lai, a reporter in the Washington bureau, followed Mr. Frost around
during his.
first few weeks in Washington as he settled into the Beltway. She shares what she
saw.

Mr. Frost’s youth sets him apart from his

peers. He walks around blasting the cast
recording of the Broadway musical “Hamil-
ton” as he navigates the Capitol Visitor
Center, and he takes 0.5 selfies, a trend
among Gen Z that entails taking iPhone
photos using the back camera.

Mr. Frost told me he was couch-surfing to

save money before his job officially starts,
and looking for a studio apartment, prefera-
bly close enough to the Capitol to walk or
scooter to work. He tweeted that he had lost
out on a place he wanted because of his
poor credit. He is charming and quiet. He
told me how tiring a day on the Capitol
could be, having to constantly communi-
cate with staff members, colleagues and
reporters.

Tasked Mr. Frost about his life as we

walked to get his official headshot taken.
He told me how he was adopted at birth and
grew up in Orlando with a mother who is a
Cuban refugee and schoolteacher, and a
Kansas-born father who is a musician. He
Was motivated to get involved in politics
after the Sandy Hook school shooting.

In his first few weeks, Mr. Frost has learned

the ins and outs of running an office and
befriended soon-to-be colleagues with more
seniority. Last week, he toured offices in the
Longworth Building and picked an empty
corner Office, prioritizing the ample space
for his staff.

Read more of Stephanie Lai’s reporting: nytimes.com/ by/stephanie-lai.

Here to Help
Tips for Building a Gingerbread House

To build a candy-covered gingerbread

house, you'll need to avoid crummy con-
struction methods that can lead to frustra-
tion and destruction. Here are some tried-
and-true tricks for sweet success.

TARYN MOHRMAN

Schedule your project properly. Depending

on the type of gingerbread house kit you're
using, assembly alone can take up to a few
hours because of the time the icing needs to
dry, which is crucial to creating a house
that can stand up to everything you'll pile
on. Be sure to thoroughly read the instruc-
tions ahead of time.

Get the icing to flow smoothly. Knead the

icing in the packaging to ensure that your
icing pipes properly. Then cut a hole in the
piping bag (start with a cut that’s less than
half an inch across and increase as
needed). If you notice blockages while
piping, insert a toothpick and swirl it
around a few times.

Predecorate pieces. Before you jump to

assembly, consider decorating your ginger-
bread-house cookies straight out of the box.
It’s a good idea to predecorate doors and
windows, which can be hard to trace on an
assembled house. Piping icing onto a flat
cookie from above can be far easier than
doing so from straight on.

Create a décor plan. For best results, place

candies on the icing while it’s still wet so
that they stick and don’t disrupt the snows-
cape. If you’re using a kit that comes with a

‘TARYN MOHRMAN

limited selection of candy, take a visual

inventory of the decorations to decide
where to best place them ahead of starting.

Wipe away any mistakes. You may not think

of icing as erasable, but it is on a ginger-
bread house. If you don’t love the way your
piping looks, wipe it away with a piece of
paper towel (dry or slightly damp) and try
again. You can also use a toothpick to steer
icing in the right direction or to smooth out
a small clump.
Don’t add the roof until the sides are set.
The icing at the corners should look and
feel dry, and the side pieces should appear
to be holding their shape without any out-
side support. This could take 20 minutes or
a couple of hours depending on your kit.

Taryn Mohrman is a contributor to Wirecutter, a

product recommendation site owned by The New
York Times Company. For more advice, visit
nytimes.com/wirecutter.

favigadctr

To keep your family close. 4

Ti

The Twinkle Star Locket.

Designed in 18k gold with diamonds

MONICA
RICH
KOSANN

Order by Friday, 12/23 at 3pm ET for Complimentary Holiday Delivery.

Please call 866.598.2784 or Visit Us at
MONICARICHKOSANN.COM

New York

OSCARHEYMAN

Since 1912
Tahitian Pearl,
Onyx & Diamond Earrings

OSCARHEYMAN.COM

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PressReadercom #1604 278 4604

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

[ p pressreader
A4

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Zz

International

Ebe New Nork Eimes

JALAA MAREY/ AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Israeli soldiers near the Kibbutz of Merom Golan in the Israeli-annexed Golan
Heights last week. The military has historically been viewed by Jewish Israelis as
an emblem of stability and unity.

In a Rare Letter, Israel Warns Soldiers to Stay Out of Politics

By PATRICK KINGSLEY

JERUSALEM — When a serving Is-

raeli soldier expressed his approval last
month of a far-right politician who is set
to become a minister in Benjamin Netan-
yahu’s likely new coalition government,
it set off a national furor.

The politician, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was

deemed too extremist to serve in the
army himself. Until 2020, he displayed in
his home a portrait of a Jewish gunman
who in 1994 shot dead 29 Palestinians in-
side a mosque.

The Israeli military's chief of staff, Lt.

Gen. Aviv Kochavi, quickly released a
rare public letter warning soldiers
against getting involved in politics, while
the soldier was sent to military jail for
several days.

“Soldiers are prohibited from express-

ing political views,” General Kochavi
wrote. “They are certainly prohibited
from behaving and acting out of political
inclination,” he added.

The episode was just one of several re-

cent incidents that have threatened the
cohesion of an institution, the Israel De-
fense Forces, that has historically been
viewed by Jewish Israelis as an emblem
of stability and unity.
To Palestinians, the military is the face
of Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza, raids on
West Bank cities and two-tier legal sys-
tem in the territory that some critics lik-
en to a form of apartheid, a claim denied
by Israel.

But among Jewish Israelis, the mili-

tary is among the country’s most trusted
institutions, a melting pot in which most
of them serve for three years of conscrip-
tion, shoring up the country against an
unusually high range of security threats
from across the Middle East.

Now, leading members of the Israeli

security establishment fear that image
and role is under threat. A significant
proportion of rank-and-file soldiers
voted for the far right in last month’s gen-
eral election — mirroring a wider shift in
the country at large, but increasing the
likelihood of friction between low-rank-
ing soldiers and their commanders.

Of voters who cast ballots away from

home in a general election last month,
most of whom were likely to be serving
soldiers, more than 15 percent voted for
the far right, according to an analysis by
Ofer Kenig of the Israel Democracy Insti-
tute, a Jerusalem-based research group.
That was about 50 percent higher than in
the wider population.

Ina public letter to Mr. Netanyahu last

week, a group of more than 400 former
senior officers, Commanders for Israel’s
Security, warned that recent events
could “end in internal divisions and con-
flict between officers and troops, insub-
ordination, anarchy and ultimately, the
disintegration of the 1.D.F. as an effective
fighting force.”

Mr. Netanyahu did not respond to the

former generals’ letter directly and his
spokesman declined to comment for this
article. But he has said in other inter-
views that Israel will remain safe under
his leadership.

Military strategy is about “deciding on

policies that could be quite inflamma-
tory,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a podcast in-
terview last month. “I’m trying to avoid

Hiba Yazbek contributed reporting.

that,” he added.

Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc won an election

on Nov. 1 but it has yet to enter office be-
cause of internal disagreements over
policy and legal obstacles to the appoint-
ment of two men earmarked for ministe-
rial positions. On Tuesday, Mr. Netanya-
hu’s alliance voted in a new speaker of
Parliament, a move that will allow the
bloc to pass new legislation to enable
those appointments.

But while he is not yet back in power,

Mr. Netanyahu’s preliminary coalition
agreements, which risk diluting the mili-
tary chain of command — and the fallout
from the incident last month in the West
Bank — have already drawn concerns
about the military’s ability to rise above
the political maelstrom.

Historically, Israel's military leaders

were sometimes portrayed as a moderat-
ing force, tempering the most dramatic
ideas of civilian leaders — while also cul-
tivating an image of remaining beyond
the political fray.

That projection of detachment has al-

ways been tested, particularly as gener-
ations of generals entered civilian poli-
tics soon after leaving military service.
Staffed mostly by conscripts, the Israel
Defense Forces is often described as a
“people’s army,’ and the social head-
winds that buffet the armed forces have
long been a microcosm of those that af-
fect society at large.

The fallout from the incident last

month reflected a wider sociocultural
schism between Israel’s centrist estab-
lishment, which broadly seeks to main-
tain the current status quo in Israel and
the West Bank — and Mr. Netanyahu’s
far right allies, who seek sweeping judi-
cial reforms, an even harder stance
against Palestinians in the West Bank,
and an even stronger sense of Jewish

POOL PHOTO BY ABIR SULTAN

The far-right leaders Itamar Ben-Gvir, left, and Bezalel Smotrich have
made agreements with Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition.

identity within Israel.

Policing a small protest in Hebron, a

West Bank city where there is frequent
violence between settlers and Palestin-
ians, the soldier was filmed chastising
anti-occupation activists, telling them,
“Ben-Gvir will fix things here.”

While centrist and left-leaning Israelis

were alarmed, others on the right felt the
soldier had done little wrong. To them,
the soldier’s punishment also proved the
salience of Mr. Ben-Gvir’s campaign
rhetoric, which suggested that rank-and-
file soldiers needed greater support, in-
cluding legal immunity.

Palestinians see the Israeli military as

far too quick to shoot — Israeli raids in

the West Bank have left more than 160

dead this year, according to records kept
by The New York Times. But Mr. Ben-
Gvir believes the army is too timid.

“The time has come for a government

that supports its soldiers and allows
them to act,” Mr. Ben-Gvir said after the
Hebron incident.

The standoff exemplified how Mr. Ben-

Gvir and other far right leaders “see
themselves as the tribunes of the front
line soldiers being hung out to dry by an
old-school, defeatist, globalist and ideo-
logically untrustworthy military high
command,” said Prof. Yehudah Mirsky,
an expert on Israel at Brandeis Univer-
sity.

| i

= MENAHEM KAHANA/? ENCE FRA PRESSE SETTY IMAGES

“Soldiers are prohibited from expressing political views,” Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi
wrote in the public letter.

Pushed to intervene, Mr. Netanyahu

took a cautious tone. He avoided criticiz-
ing Mr. Ben-Gvir, and instead called on
“everyone, right and left” to leave the
military out of political debate.

Such standoffs have precedent: In

2016, Gadi Eisenkot, then the chief of
staff, was heavily criticized by the Israeli
tight after condemning a soldier who
shot dead an incapacitated Palestinian
assailant.

But Mr. Netanyahw’s failure to restrain

Mr. Ben-Gvir has left some in the securi-
ty establishment fearful that soldiers
may feel more empowered to take politi-
cal positions in the future.

“The fact that there are soldiers who

do not behave according to the ethos of
the I.D.F. and the military chain of com-
mand is not new,” said Amos Yadlin, a for-
mer head of military intelligence. “The
concern is whether the magnitude of the
phenomenon will be higher,” he said.

Such fears have been compounded by

the agreements that Mr. Netanyahu has
made with Mr. Ben-Gvir and Bezalel
Smotrich, the leader of another far-right
group in the alliance.

A member of Mr. Netanyahu’s party,

likely to be Yoav Gallant, a former army
general, will remain in overall charge of
the defense ministry, scotching Mr.
Smotrich’s early hope of taking that job.

But Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition agree-

ment with Mr. Smotrich gave the latter
total control of a department within the
defense ministry that is staffed by serv-
ing soldiers who oversee bureaucratic
aspects of the occupation.

A separate agreement with Mr. Ben-

Gvir would give him control over a spe-
cial paramilitary police unit that, until
now, has worked under the Israeli Army
in the West Bank.

Some former generals have down-

played the consequences of these deci-
sions and a few have even argued that
Mr. Smotrich and Mr. Ben-Gvir could
provide a welcome new approach to Is-
raeli security strategy.

“Both Smotrich and Ben-Gvir can

challenge existing thought patterns
within the defense establishment and
provoke fresh thinking, despite not hav-
ing served in combat,” said Amir Avivi, a
reserve brigadier general and the head
of the Israel Defense and Security For-
um, a group of former officers.
But many former generals strongly
disagree. In interviews with The New
York Times, several said that both moves
could undermine the army’s chain of
command in the West Bank, creating
three separate sources of authority in-
stead of only one.

Some also said it could amount toa de

facto annexation of parts of the West
Bank. By giving civilians greater in-
volvement in military activity in the ter-
ritory, the new government might under-
mine Israel's longstanding argument
that its 55-year occupation is only a tem-
porary military measure, in accordance
with international law, instead of a per-
manent civilian annexation.

“We're losing our protection in the in-

ternational courts,” said Ilan Paz, a for-
mer general who helped lead the West
Bank occupation during the 2000s.

“Israel won't be able to continue clos-

ing her eyes, and the world’s eyes,” Mr.
Paz added.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

COPYRIGHT AND PROTEC TE

A6 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Despite Deaths in Somalia, Monitor Says It's Not a Famine. Yet.

Starving People Pour

Into Refugee Camps

Article by DECLAN WALSH

Photographs by ANDREA BRUCE

BAIDOA, Somalia — In drought-rav-

aged Somalia, where the starving are
Streaming into giant refugee camps, it
looks like a famine.

In Somalia’s malnutrition wards,

where the silence is pierced by the keen-
ing of mothers who have lost a child, it
sounds like a famine.

Yet the international organization re-

sponsible for monitoring global hunger,
in a report released Tuesday, declared
that the dire crisis triggered by Somalia’s
worst drought in 40 years does not con-
Stitute a famine — at least not yet.

The organization, the Integrated Food

Security Phase Classification, known as
the I.BC., determined that conditions in
Somalia’s worst-hit areas have come
close to, but not crossed, the threshold
needed to formally declare a famine. But
if the drought stretches into next spring,
as meteorologists expect, a famine is
likely then, the body said.

“Even more appalling outcomes are

only temporarily averted,” it said.

The reticence of the I.BC., which is

controlled by United Nations bodies and
major relief agencies, is not unusual: It
has declared a famine only twice in the
past decade, in Somalia in 2011 and South
Sudan in 2017. The “F-word,” as aid work-
ers archly callit, retains. an emotive reso-
nance, able to galvanize global attention
and, crucially, to unlock vast amounts of
donations. It should be used in only the
most extreme situations, the thinking
goes.

But Somalia has already plunged deep

into that worst-case scenario, according
to aid workers, doctors and diplomats
who say they are confounded by the
I.PC’s latest assessment, or believe its
methodology is flawed.

The twin crises of food insecurity and

climate change are on the agenda at a
summit meeting of American and Afri-
can leaders that starts in Washington on
Tuesday.

By the I.P.C’s own estimates, the num-

ber of acutely malnourished Somalis has
more than doubled since January to 5.6
million, of whom 214,000 are already in
famine-like conditions. How many have
died is unknown, but the number is rising
rapidly. The World Health Organization
will publish its first estimate of drought-
related deaths in the coming weeks, a
spokeswoman said. Aid officials expect a
death toll in the tens of thousands, if not
more.

The gap between the severity of the

crisis, which American officials say
matches the layperson’s definition of a
famine, and the I.PC’s refusal to call it by
that name, has prompted a growing de-
bate among aid experts.

The IPC. works in 30 countries and

has long been considered the gold stand-
ard in hunger measurement. But some
question whether it is seeing the full pic-
ture in Somalia.

Areas badly hit by the drought are con-

trolled by the Islamist militants of Al
Shabab, which prevents international
aid groups from working there and hin-
ders efforts to gather complete informa-
tion about the impact of the drought. In
interviews at the sprawling camps
around Baidoa, residents of those areas
said many died back in their villages, or
on the roads.

Others say the culprit is climate

change. To detect famine, the I-PC.
measures rates of hunger, malnutrition
and death over short periods, usually
three to six months. But the drought in
Somalia — and across the wider Horn of
Africa, including Ethiopia and Kenya —
is now stretching into its third year.

The result, experts say, is that Somalis

are dying at a rate that falls just below
the threshold for declaring a famine —
but over such an extended period of time
that it may eventually kill as many peo-
ple as a famine does,

“The system has a problem,” said Pe-

ter Hailey, a former official with the U.N.
Children’s Fund in Somalia, now part of
an independent committee that reviews
the I.P-C’s findings. “It’s hell already in
Somalia, even if we don't cross the lines.
People are dying and losing their liveli-
hoods in great numbers — and it looks
like that situation is going to continue
into the future.”

At this rate, Mr. Hailey said, this crisis

could kill as many people as the famine in
2011, when 260,000 Somalis died.

In an interview, José Lopez, who

heads the I.P.C’s global operations, in-
sisted that its work was grounded in
facts and scientific analysis. Several
hundred officials collected the latest data
from camps and drought-hit areas, he
said. The decision not to call a famine
was dictated by numbers, not subjective
impressions.

“I know our results don’t always align

with what public opinion or stakeholders
think, but they are absolutely based on
evidence,” he said.

But Mr. Lopez also acknowledged the

growing debate about the IL.PC’s meth-
odology. “This is an issue we are aware
of” he said, adding that he expected the
group's board of governors to consider
changes soon.

In the report published Tuesday, the

LPC. found that although a rapid re-
sponse by aid groups had staved off ear-
lier predictions of a famine this fall, the
respite is temporary.

Acombination of factors, including the

continued drought, the fight against Al
Shabab militants, and an expected re-
duction in foreign aid, will cause the af-
fected population to rise to 6.3 million in
early 2023, and to 8.3 million from April
onward — about half of Somalia’s popula-
tion.

At that point, it said, a handful of areas

including the one around Baidoa will
likely enter a formal famine.
Even so, a growing number of aid

agencies say a famine should be declared

now.

“This is about the lives of millions of

people,” said Shashwat Saraf, emergen-
cies director for East Africa at the Inter-
national Rescue Committee. “It’s impor-
tant that we go ahead now."

The debate reflects the enduring

power of the famine label, for better and
worse. Inthe West, it conjures up the hor-
rific suffering of the Ethiopian famine of
1984, and of the celebrity-driven advoca-
cy of the Live Aid fund-raising concerts.

For aid groups, a famine elevates one

crisis above competing disasters.

Television crews from major networks

scramble to famine sites. Citizens
touched by those images donate millions
of dollars in response to fund-raising ap-
peals. Politicians pay attention. Govern-
ments open their wallets.

The U.N. relief fund for Somalia dou-

bled in size within days of a famine being

declared in 2011 — even through the se-

verity of that crisis was already well
known. Somalis paid a price for that hesi-
tation: It later emerged that half of the
victims died before the formal declara-
tion was made.

Politics is a factor, too. Although the

I.BC. makes the technical determination
offamine, announcing one is ultimately a
decision for national governments.
Many do not relish that prospect, or even
use hunger to military ends — in recent
months, the leaders of Ethiopia and
South Sudan faced renewed accusations
that they use starvation as a weapon of
war.

Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh

Mohamud has expressed some reticence
about declaring a famine, apparently
fearing that it would divert funds from
other priorities. But his officials insist
that science is their main guide,

“There are no politics in this, it is only

ad

data,” Somalia’s drought envoy, Abdirah-

man Abdishakur, said last month.

It might seem there is little downside

to declaring a famine, with its surge in at-
tention and resources. But experts say
the reality is more complicated.

Numerous hunger crises are under-

way in countries like South Sudan, Yem-
en, Nigeria and Haiti. Atleast 222 million
people in 53 countries will face food
shortages by the end of this year, of
which 45 million risk starvation, the U.N.
relief chief, Martin Griffiths, said re-
cently.

But every crisis is not a famine, and

aid groups and donors need a common
standard to identify the most needy situ-
ations — one reason for the creation of
the I.PC. in 2004. “Otherwise,” Mr. Lopez
said “anyone can declare a famine, or
hide a famine, for any kind of political
reason.”

Still, determining a famine is a matter

“y

AFRICA

Detail

area

ETHIOPIA

f ~ SOMALIA
{ ; - — Baidoa
Mal ® Mogadishu
* ) KENYA

2 * Nairobi indian Ocean

iM

we
200 MILES
THE NEW YORK TIMES

From top: Noorta Adam building

a tent with sticks at the Barraka 2
refugee camp in Baidoa, Somalia,
last month; donkey carts supply-
ing water; and Ali Muhammed
with his son Isaac, 3, at a Save the

Children and World Vision nutri-

tion center in Baidoa.

of subjectivity as well as science. The

agreed thresholds effectively represent
a moral choice about “what the world
thinks is too much,” Mr. Hailey said. And
obtaining accurate data is a challenge.

Inthe Somali town of Baidoa, aid work-

ers glean a picture of the situation in
Shabab-held areas from newly-arrived
refugees. But the hungry and desperate
are not always good sources of accurate
information, they say. And the unusually
long drought has caused donors to ques-
tion their own assumptions about how to
determine a famine.

“We are in uncharted territory,’ said

Kate Foster, the British ambassador to
Somalia.

A senior United States official, speak-

ing on condition of anonymity to avoid
alienating humanitarian partners,

A growing number of aid

agencies say a declaration
should be made now.

praised the I.P:C’s work but said its latest

findings called into question if “the sys-
tem is working any more.”

Ininterviews, many experts lamented

that the intense focus on a famine decla-
ration was distracting from widespread
suffering and death already taking place.
According to the I.P-C. at least 1.5 million
Somalis are already in “phase four” —
not quite famine, but enough to cause
widespread deaths.

“Waiting for a famine to be declared is

not the right approach,” Mr. Lopez said.

The deteriorating situation has creat-

ed a conundrum for aid groups in Soma-
lia, causing them to ratchet up their lan-
guage to generate a sense of urgency, but
stopping short of using the unqualified
‘F-word’,

“We keep changing the language from

‘forecast famine’, to ‘risk of famine’, to
‘near famine” said Mr. Saraf, the aid
worker. “But that confuses the message
and impedes resources coming in. It’s
like a sword hanging over your head —
everyone is waiting for it to fall.”

What matters for many Somalis is how

quickly more help will arrive.

At Baidoa’s main hospital, Dr. Said

Yusuf admits at least eight patients ev-
ery day to a ward that is filled with mal-
nourished, sickly infants. Often, he said,
parents arrive carrying bundles that
they tell medical workers contain their
unconscious children.

But when doctors unwrap the bundles,

they find that the child is already dead.

“Please,” said Dr. Yusuf. “If there is to

be intervention, it must come now, before
more are lost.”

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 460:

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

l p pressreade:

rc
South Africa Rejects Bid
To Oust Besieged Leader

Political Lift for President From His Party

By JOHN ELIGON
and LYNSEY CHUTEL

JOHANNESBURG — Law-
makers from South Africa’s gov-
erning African National Congress
put their weight behind President
Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday, re-
jecting an effort to proceed with
an impeachment inquiry over ac-
cusations that he broke the law in
his response to the theft of alarge
sum of U.S. currency from his
farm.

The vote essentially kills an ef-

fort to remove Mr. Ramaphosa
from office and lifts his political
prospects just three days before
the start of a national conference
for his party, the A.N.C., at which
he is expected to face a grueling
battle to win a second term as
party leader.

The A.N.C. holds 230 of the 400

seats in Parliament, and his oppo-
nents fell far short of the 31 A.N.C.
members they needed to break
ranks and vote for impeachment
hearings. In all, 214 members of
Parliament voted against continu-
ing with the inquiry, while 148
voted in favor of it.

Last week, the A.N.C’s execu-

tive committee instructed its
members to reject impeachment,
making it difficult for any of them
to vote the other way because the
party appoints them to Parlia-
ment. Breaking with instructions
could have serious repercussions
within the organization, including
losing their seats.

Still, a handful of A.N.C. law-

makers did defy the order.

“As a disciplined member of the

A.N.C., I vote yes,” said Nkosa-

Spared impeachment,
but facing an uphill
battle for a new term.

zana Dlamini-Zuma, a minister in

Mr. Ramaphosa’s cabinet who has
criticized him heavily and chal-
lenged him for president of the
party. Several allies of former
President Jacob Zuma, who was
dogged by corruption allegations
during his tenure that eventually
forced him from office, also voted
for the impeachment process.

Gwede Mantashe, the chairman

of the A.N.C., told reporters after
the vote that party members who
voted in favor of impeachment
proceedings would be reported to
the organization’s officials and
could face discipline.

“When we have discussion as a

party and take decisions, they
must be binding,” Mr. Mantashe
said.

The report calling for impeach-

ment hearings, issued by a three-
member panel appointed by Par-
liament, said that Mr. Ramaphosa
may have violated the Constitu-
tion and the law when he failed to
tell the police about the break-in at
his farm, and by conducting pri-
vate business that conflicted with
his duties as a public official.

Before the vote, opposition par-

ties had lobbied for a secret ballot,
in the hope that it would give Mr.
Ramaphosa’s critics within the
A.N.C. more breathing room to ig-
nore party leaders. Some claimed
that they had received anony-
mous death threats, warning
them not to back the impeach-
ment process. But the speaker of
Parliament, Nosiviwe Mapisa-
Nqakula, a senior A.N.C. member,
rejected that effort.

In the debate preceding the

vote, members of Mr. Ramapho-
sa’s party defended him, pointing
tothe panel report’s limited inves-
tigation. “The panel's report has
set the bar too low to impeach a
sitting president,” said Justice
Minister Ronald Lamola.
Outnumbered opposition law-
makers tried to appeal to mem-
bers of the ruling party. “The hate
that exists in your party is impact-
ing negatively on the entire 60
million people in this country,’

said Ahmed Munzoor Shaik

Emam, a member of the National
Freedom Party.

Mr. Ramaphosa has filed a peti-

tion in court challenging the re-
port calling for an impeachment
inquiry, arguing that it was legally
deficient and accusing the panel of
treating him unfairly by going be-
yond its original scope.

Parliament created the system

of convening a panel to make a
recommendation on impeach-
ment several years ago after the
nation’s highest court ruled that
the A.N.C. had failed to hold Mr.
Zuma accountable for misusing
public funds. It was meant to al-
low for a nonpolitical assessment
of a president’s conduct.

But the panel could not inter-

view witnesses or subpoena
records. Instead, it mostly re-
viewed information obtained from
members of Parliament, much of
which was based on media reports
and other secondhand accounts of
what occurred at the president's
farm.

The outcome, opposition lead-

ers said, was that the system has
essentially remained the same:
The A.N.C. could choose to shield
its leaders from accountability.

“The A.N.C. has not learned

anything,” said Julius Malema, a
former A.N.C. member whois now
the leader of the opposition Eco-
nomic Freedom Fighters. “It is
rotten to the core. It has got no
ability to self-correct.”

Mr. Ramaphosa has been under

intense scrutiny since June, when
a political opponent filed a crimi-
nal complaint against him for not
reporting the burglary at his game
farm, Phala Phala Wildlife.

The complaint, filed by Arthur

Fraser, the former head of state
security in South Africa, said that
between $4 million and $8 million
hiddenin a sofa had been stolen in.
February 2020, and it accused Mr.
Ramaphosa of enlisting the head
of his security detail to open an
off-the-books investigation that
led to the kidnapping and torture
of the suspects in the case.

The president has denied any

wrongdoing. He said the amount
stolen was significantly less,
$580,000, and that the money
came from the sale of 20 buffaloes
to a Sudanese businessman on
Christmas Day in 2019.

The parliamentary panel,

which included two retired judges
and a lawyer, was skeptical of Mr.
Ramaphosa’s version of events
and questioned whether the
money stolen actually came from
the sale of game.

Mr. Ramaphosa considered re-

signing after the panel released its
report last month, advisers said,
but his allies rallied around him
and urged him to fight back.

He has since forged ahead with

his presidential duties and his
quest for re-election as the presi-
dent of the A.N.C. — a status that
would almost guarantee him a
second term as president of the
country.

The president has staked much.

of his tenure on cleaning up the
corruption within the A.N.C. and
the government that has dam-
aged the country’s economy and
reputation, and contributed to a
significant loss of electoral sup-
port for a party that established it-
self as a moral force in the apart-
heid era.

His main rival for party presi-

dent at the conference, scheduled
to begin on Friday, is Zweli
Mkhize. He served as health min-
ister under Mr. Ramaphosa until
becoming entangled in his own
corruption scandal over a commu-
nications contract that his min-
istry awarded to a company
owned by close associates. Mr.
Mkhize did not attend the vote in
Parliament.

He has told reporters that the

executive committee, which he
belongs to, had bullied members
into deciding not to pursue im-
peachment. He said that mem-
bers of Parliament needed to be
given space to make up their own
minds,

@ 7.

(GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

President Cyril Ramaphosa in Cape Town last week. He has been
accused of violating the law over his response toa theft at his farm.

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

By STEPHEN CASTLE

LONDON — Under growing

pressure to curb the arrival of mi-
grants in small boats on the Eng-
lish coast, Prime Minister Rishi
Sunak on Tuesday announced
plans to tackle Britain's big back-
log in asylum claims and to fast-
track the return of most Albanians
seeking refugee status.

Outlining a tough package of

measures, Mr. Sunak said that
some asylum seekers who make
the dangerous journey across the
English Channel would be housed
in disused vacation parks, former
student halls and surplus military
sites, rather than hotels, which
cost the government 5.5 million
pounds (about $6.8 million) a day.
And he promised to propose laws
to bar those entering Britain
through unofficial routes from re-
maining.

In one of his first big policy ini-

tiatives as prime minister, Mr
Sunak put particular focus on re-
jecting asylum claims from Alba-
nians, saying their nation would
be treated as a safe country, en-
suring that most applicants could
be swiftly returned.

“We have to stop the boats, and

this government will do what
must be done,” Mr. Sunak said ina
statement to Parliament designed
to appease the growing anger
within his Conservative Party
over the issue of small boats arriv-
ing with migrants.

The crossings have become a

big political embarrassment for
supporters of Brexit, like Mr
Sunak, who claimed that leaving
the European Union would allow
Britain to reclaim control of its
borders.

Instead, over 40,000 people

have made the Channel crossing
this year, mainly from France,
partly because other routes have
been closed as the authorities
have cracked down on people-
smuggling by truck and shipping
container, prompting migrants to
make the same journey in small,
sometimes unseaworthy, boats.

Of those arriving this way,

about 13,000 were Albanians Mr
Sunak said, adding that the vast
majority of their compatriots will,
in the future, be returned.

“Last year, Germany, France,

Sweden all rejected almost 100
percent of Albanian asylum
claims,” he said. “Yet our rejection
rate is just 45 percent.”

As Britain's creaking migration

system struggles to cope, the
overall backlog of asylum claims
has reached about 150,000. On
Tuesday, the government commit-
ted to eliminating more than
92,000 of those by the end of next
year by hiring extra staff and clar-
ifying its rules.

The cost of the logjam in human

misery has been considerable this
year, as thousands have been
housed in severely overcrowded
conditions before being moved to
hotels, One man who was suffer-
ing from diphtheria died after be-
ing held for a week at the Manston
processing center in Kent, Eng-
land,

But the financial cost is also be-

ing counted in hotel bills for those
awaiting a decision on whether
they can stay. Mr Sunak said that
places for 10,000 people had been
identified in disused buildings and
that expanding their use could ac-
commodate asylum seekers at
half the cost of hotels.

In October, the home secretary,

Suella Braverman, told lawmak-
ers that the asylum system was
broken. But that has heaped pres-
sure on Mr. Sunak to tackle an is-
sue that upsets significant num-
bers of voters, particularly those
inclined to support his Conserva-
tive Party, according to opinion

polls.

The announcement on Tuesday

was the latest in a succession of ef-
forts to toughen policy in the hope
that it would deter people from
making the Channel crossing.

This year, Boris Johnson, then

prime minister, announced plans
to send asylum seekers to
Rwanda for processing, but that
scheme has been challenged in
the courts, and so far no migrant
has been flown to the African
country.

Mr. Sunak remains committed

to the Rwanda policy but has also
taken a more pragmatic approach
by improving cooperation with
France. On Tuesday, he also an-
nounced a new unit dedicated to
processing Albanian cases and an
agreement to embed British bor-
der guards at the airport in Tira-
na, the Albanian capital.

Once the small-boat crossings

had ended, Mr. Sunak said, Britain
would be prepared to create more
legal routes for asylum seekers.

But he sidestepped questions

about whether his proposal to pre-
vent those making the illegal
crossings from remaining in the
country would breach interna-

BEN STANSALL/ AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

tional obligations.

Support groups for asylum

seekers condemned the an-
nouncement.

“Without safe routes, they have

no choice but to take dangerous
journeys,” the Refugee Council, a
charity, said in a statement. “The
prime minister failed to set out
any concrete plans to expand
these routes through a resettle-
ment program or an expansion in
family reunion visas.”

“Instead, this government

wants to treat people who come to
the U.K. in search of safety as ille-
gal criminals,” the statement add-
ed. “This is deeply disturbing and
flies in the face of international
law and the U.K’s commitment as
a signatory of the U.N. Convention
on Refugees to give a fair hearing
to people who come herein search
of safety and protection.”

There was also concern about

an announcement by Mr. Sunak to
make it harder for asylum seekers
to claim protections enshrined in
anti-human-slavery law— legisla-
tion that British officials fear is be-
ing exploited.

Former Prime Minister The-

resa May, the architect of that law,

Immigration officials with migrants on England's southeast coast. Rising numbers of

people are crossing the English Channel.

Sunak Unveils Plans to Curb Migrant Flow to U.K.

asked Mr. Sunak in Parliament on

Tuesday whether he agreed that
“that we must do nothing to di-
minish our world-leading protec-
tions for the victims of this terri-
ble, horrific crime” of slavery.

Keir Starmer, leader of the op-

position Labour Party, dismissed
the announcement as an attempt
to distract from the problems
rather than to solve them.

“The gimmicks go on, and so do

the crossing,” he said. “We need to
bring this to an end. That means a
proper plan to crack down on the
gangs — quick processing, return
agreements, serious solutions toa
serious problem.”

Others were skeptical that the

British border and immigration
authorities, which struggle to re-
tain staff and have a poor record
on asylum processing, would de-
liver on the prime minister’s
pledges to speed things up.

“Despite promises to increase

decision-making numbers, tar-
gets have been missed, and the
staff attrition rate in 2021 was a
staggering 46 percent,” said Diana
Johnson, chairwoman of the
House of Commons home affairs
select committee.

The snnual return of The Tiffany & Co. Foundation for

the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, is available for
public inspection. Those documents are available at our
principal office, located at 200 Filth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010, during regular business hours for any citizen
Who requests it, The Tiffany & Co, Foundation’s Treasurer,
Angelos Kantopsnagiotis, may be contacted by telephone
at (Q73) 254-7629.
Give Her the
Prettiest Present

LIGHT UP HER HOLIDAY WITH OUR

CARAT DIAMOND TENNIS NECKLACE

$895

Compare at $1,295

Her jaw will drop when she unwraps this

fabulous gift! A classic choice, our
dazzling 16" necklace flaunts 2.00 ct. t.w.
round brilliant-cut diamonds in sterling silver.
She will adore this elegant design

for years to come.

Available in 18" $995 and 20" $1,095

Also in 18kt gold over sterling silver.

Item #972563

ROSS+SIMONS

Fine Jewelry | Fabulous Prices

FREE EXPRESS SHIPPING — ORDER TODAY!

To receive this special offer, use code: MAJESTY1
1.800.556.7376 or visit ross-simons.com/majesty

Item #972507

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

p pressreade
A8 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

With Fists and Clubs, India and China Clash at Long-Disputed Border

By SAMEER YASIR
and EMILY SCHMALL

Indian and Chinese troops

wielding fists, clubs and stun guns
have again clashed in a disputed
border territory, injuring several
soldiers on each side and showing
that tensions have not been extin-
guished after a deadly confronta-
tion more than two years ago.

For decades, India and China

have been locked in a bitter dis-
pute along a 2,100-mile border
known as the Line of Actual Con-
trol. Indian defense officials say
that Chinese military forces have
been increasingly laying claim to
territories that have long been un-
der India’s control.

The latest skirmish occurred on

Friday in the Tawang sector of the
Indian state of Arunachal
Pradesh, an area that China
claims as an integral part of Tibet.
Soldiers briefly confronted each
other near a 17,000-foot mountain
peak where India maintains a mil-
itary post.

China said it had been conduct-

ing a routine patrol on its side of
the line, while India said Chinese

Claire Fu contributed reporting

from Seoul.

troops had encroached on Indian

territory.

The area is not just strategically

important.

As the birthplace of the sixth

Dalai Lama and home to the larg-
est Buddhist monastery in India,
Tawang is also freighted with po-
litical symbolism. India took con-
trol of the region in 1951, the same
year that China annexed Tibet,
sending the current Dalai Lama,
now 87, into exile in India eight
years later.

The long-simmering tension be-

tween the nuclear-armed neigh-
bors boiled over in June 2020 in
the northern region of Ladakh,
when hand-to-hand combat left 20
Indian soldiers and an unknown
number of Chinese troops dead.
That battle was the worst border
clash between the two nations
since 1967 and the first fatal con-
frontation between them along
the disputed border in 45 years.

In January 2021, several sol-

diers were injured in a face-off in
Sikkim, a state hundreds of miles
west of Arunachal Pradesh.

On Tuesday, India’s defense

minister, Rajnath Singh, told Par-
liament that Chinese soldiers had
“encroached upon and attempted

MONEY SHARMA/ AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Indian Army trucks last year near the Tawang sector of the state

of Arunachal Pradesh. China claims the area is part of Tibet.

to change the status quo” of the

disputed frontier, but that Indian
soldiers had repelled them.

Mr. Singh said local command-

ers from each side had met on
Sunday to discuss the dispute. He
also said that the Indian govern-
ment had spoken to Chinese offi-
cials through diplomatic chan-
nels.

“The Chinese attempt was con-

tested by our troops in a firm and
resolute manner,” Mr. Singh told
the lawmakers.

The Indian Army said ina state-

ment on Monday that troops from
each side had disengaged from
the Line of Actual Control, which
is patrolled by soldiers from both
countries.
A skirmish that
erupted even after
the countries pledged
to de-escalate.

Though apparently quickly re-

mediated, last week’s tussle
showed that the border dispute
was far from resolved, despite a
pledge by each country in Sep-
tember to de-escalate and a meet-
ing between Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and China’s
leader, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines
ofa Group of 20 summit in Indone-
sia last month.

In a statement foreshadowing
last week’s clash, India’s foreign
minister, Subrahmanyam Jais-
hankar, said in Parliament that In-
dia’s relations with China were un-
likely to return to normal without
peace on the border.

Deependra Singh Hooda, a re-

tired lieutenant general who led
India’s Northern Command,
which covers part of the border
with China, said any physical fight
between soldiers from the two

countries should be viewed seri-

ously, particularly amid a climate
of mutual mistrust.

“In this case, the matter seems

to have been resolved after a flag
meeting, but such clashes have
the potential to escalate into a
larger local confrontation? Mr.
Hooda said, referring to the meet-
ing of the field commanders on
Sunday.

In recent years, the Chinese

Army has constructed new roads
in the area to connect with a net-
work of military infrastructure
that enables its troops to mobilize
quickly, said Saurav Jha, editor in
chief of the Delhi Defense Review.

“So it was only a matter of time

before they started probing,” Mr.
Jha said of Chinese soldiers.

Col. Long Shaohua, a Chinese

Army spokesman, said troops had
been conducting a routine patrol
of their side of the disputed border
when they were stopped by Indi-
an soldiers attempting to cross the
line.

“Our response was profes-

sional, standardized and power-
ful, and we have stabilized the sit-
uation on the ground,” he said. “At
present, China and India have dis-
engaged.”

|
|
|

i
tl
mH

ao doe

ANDY WONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Delivery drivers, usually ubiquitous in Beijing, have all but vanished because of
coronavirus infections in the days since China eased its “zero Covid” restrictions.

Once-Busy Streets Empty in Beijing as

From Page Al

Weibo, China’s popular social me-

dia service, was awash with peo-
ple around the country sharing
news of their infections and their
personal experiences with Covid.

“Fifty to 60 percent of my rela-

tives and friends have tested pos-
itive,” wrote one person on Weibo,
a social media site.

Liu Qiangdong, the chief execu-

tive of the e-commerce site JD-
.com, and Wang Shi, a real estate
tycoon, shared on Weibo their ex-
periences about recovering from
Covid. A virus-stricken Zhang
Lan, the founder of a popular
restaurant chain, South Beauty
Group, summoned the energy to
hawk vitamin supplements and
sausage as potential remedies on
a livestream.

“I’m here to encourage you,”

Ms. Zhang told her viewers. “Ad-
just your mentality, drink plenty of
water. You'll be fine.”

Rapid antigen tests are now one

of the hottest commodities in town
after they were all but sold out at
stores. Medicine has also become
hard to find, either at hospital clin-
ics or at pharmacies. Many resi-
dents complain that the city
should have done more to antici-
pate the Covid outbreak and to
stockpile drugs ahead of time.

“The most urgent issue is the

shortage of medicine,” said a 25-
year-old Beijing resident who
gave only his family name, Wang,
given the political sensitivity of
the issue.

Mr. Wang said that he devel-

oped a fever of 100 degrees Fahr-
enheit and a sore throat on Satur-
day morning and became dizzy.
He tested positive for coronavirus
on a rapid antigen test at home
and went to a fever clinic at a hos-
pital.

“I don’t know if I’m doing it

right at home, so I came to the hos-
pital to find out if there are any
precautions,” Mr. Wang said, add-
ing that he tried to obtain ibupro-
fen, a painkiller, and a popular

Li You contributed research.

herbal remedy called Lianhua

Qingwen that has been the subject
of price gouging.

The doctor instead prescribed

loxoprofen, a different painkiller,
and Ganmao Qingre granules, a
less coveted herbal remedy.
“Many medicines in great de-
mand are not available now, and I
don’t know if other medicines pre-
scribed can have the same effect,”
Mr. Wang said.

Vincent Chen said he resorted

to begging friends outside Beijing
tosend him fever medication after
he couldn’t find any at his local
pharmacies or online. He had to
splurge on an express delivery
company because ordinary serv-
ices were either too busy or didn’t
have enough staff.

“Couriers are paralyzed,” said

Mr. Chen, 35.

Others have caught on. Tutori-

als are now spreading on Weibo
teaching city dwellers how to pur-
chase drugs from pharmacies in
the countryside.

The hoarding of remedies isn’t

limited to cough medicine and loz-
enges. Stores are now running out
of jarred peaches because they’re
believed to be packed with enough
nutrients to ward off the virus.
The sweet snack is popular in
northeastern China for treating
cold symptoms, but it now ap-
pears to be winning converts else-
where as people try to gain an
edge on the illness. State media
has had to weigh in, declaring
there’s no proof peaches make a
difference.

Tt wasn’t the only time in the

last week the government has had
to step in to try to calm a frenzy
over an elixir. The State Adminis-
tration for Market Regulation, a
market watchdog, warned
producers and retailers about run-
away prices after Lianhua Qing-
wen, the herbal remedy, started
selling at more than triple its regu-
lar price.

“It is strictly forbidden to drive

up prices,” the regulator said on
Friday.

Shares of Shijiazhuang Yiling

Pharmaceutical, the maker of

KEVIN FRAYER/GETTY IMAGES

Top, pandemic control workers dismantling tents in a Beijing

neighborhood that had been in lockdown. Above, a patient arriv-
ing at a fever clinic last week. Beijing health officials said Mon-
day that visits to fever clinics had increased 16-fold in one week.

Lianhua Qingwen, have jumped

more than 20 percent on the Shen-
zhen stock market since Covid re-
strictions were relaxed.

The shortages don’t appear to

have extended to food. Beijing has
repeatedly promised that grocer-
ies would remain adequate
through the pandemic. The capi-
tal, given its political importance,
has traditionally had priority for
food supplies.

Large piles of oranges, corn,

cabbage and other produce were

still available at supermarkets in
the city that were able to round up
enough staff to remain open. The
only sections with dwindling in-
ventory were for cleaning prod-
ucts and booze as customers tried
to hedge how much time they'd
need to stay indoors.

Other businesses aren’t so for-

tunate as grocery stores. China
tried to revitalize its travel indus-
try last week by ending the many

Covid Cases and Fear Surge

restrictions on travel between

provinces. But some Beijing ho-
tels have stopped admitting new
guests because they have too few
staff to look after them.

The severity of Beijing’s out-

break is hard to discern. China’s
mass testing system is being dis-
mantled, so the number of infec-
tions is unknown. The city re-
corded 559 confirmed cases and
468 asymptomatic infections on
Monday. That's down from 1,163
confirmed cases and 3,503 asymp-
tomatic infections on Dec. 5, the
last day authorities required a
negative test to enter public
spaces.
Other available data suggests a
city experiencing a surge in cases.
Li Ang, a spokesman for the Bei-
jing Municipal Health Commis-
sion, Said at a news conference on
Monday that the number of calls
for emergency services on Friday
Was six times higher than normal
and that visits to fever clinics had
increased 16-fold in a week.

One of the biggest questions is

whether China can maintain med-
ical care for people who fall seri-
ously ill with Covid or who have
unrelated conditions requiring
treatment. Beijing, with some of
the country’s best hospitals, has
an advantage over rural areas.
The city appealed on Saturday for
people not to call the medical
emergency hotline if they were
asymptomatic or had only mild
cases.

Several older people leaving a

hospital in the Dongcheng district
on Saturday said in separate in-
terviews that they had received
treatment, including for kidney di-
alysis and an injured foot.

But a 66-year-old man, com-

plaining about a week of chronic
pain at the base of his back, said
that he had been turned away be-
cause the emergency room was
full. The man, who gave only his
family name, Gao, given the politi-
cal sensitivity in discussing Chi-
na’s pandemic response, said that
he would try again later.

“Tam still in pain,” he said. “I

will come again.”

Star of K-Pop
Enters Army,
And Pauses

Legal Debate

By JIN YU YOUNG
and YAN ZHUANG
SEOUL — The day that many
fans of BTS had hoped would
never come has arrived. Jin, the
eldest member of the K-pop su-
pergroup, started his military
service on Tuesday, fulfilling a
pledge that ended a debate about
South Korea’s mandatory con-
scription.

The enlistment of the singer,

whose birth name is Kim Seok-jin,
marks a pause for one of the big-
gest boy bands in the world, with
other members expected to follow
him into the armed forces. The
band’s management has said that
the group would reconvene
“around 2025.”

Mr. Kim, who turned 30 on Dec.

4, posted a selfie on social media
Sunday night featuring his freshly
shorn hair. “Cuter than expected”
he captioned it.

On Tuesday, he entered a mili-

tary training center in Yeoncheon
County in Gyeonggi Province,
near the border with North Korea.
Fans and reporters gathered out-
side, hoping to catch a glimpse of
the idol in one of the dozens of cars
entering the compound, despite
requests from BTS’s label that
they stay away. Guards patrolled
the front gate while wardens di-
rected traffic, local media videos
showed.

Mr. Kim, the Defense Ministry

said, is expected to finish his serv-
ice in June 2024.

South Korea’s mandatory mili-

tary service,
which applies
to all able-bod-
ied men over
the age of 18, is
seen as crucial
to the country’s
defense against
North Korea.
But debate has
raged for years
in both the public and legislative
spheres about whether BTS
should be exempt from conscrip-
tion given its contributions to
South Korea’s economy and soft
power abroad.

Inanod to the band’s global suc-

cess, South Korea’s Parliament re-
vised the law in 2020 to allow cul-
tural and artistic icons to defer
their enlistment to the age of 30,
giving Mr Kim two additional
years to perform. Otherwise, Ko-
rean men are required to enlist in
the military by age 28, barring a
few exceptions, including for
Olympic champions.

Bills to exempt the band from

service altogether have proved
contentious, especially among the
cohort of young men for whom
conscription is compulsory.

The band put the debate to rest

in October this year whenits label,
Big Hit Music, announced that the
members would indeed fulfill
their duties in the military.

A few months earlier, in June,

BTS had said that it would take a
hiatus from group activities, cit-
ing the pressure of their stardom
and members’ desires to explore
solo music careers.

Last week, BTS’s label said that

there would be no special send-off
events for Jin, and requested the
media and “fans to please refrain
from visiting the site” of enlist-
ment. Fresh recruits typically
kick off their enlistment with a
ceremony attended by friends and
family.

On Tuesday morning, Jin

posted one last goodbye to his
fans on the social media platform
Weverse. “It’s curtain call time.”

ai

Kim Seok-jin

‘COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

p pressreade
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

N A9

At Least 6 Dead in Peru as Ex-President’s Supporters Demand New Vote

This article is by Mitra Taj, Julie

Turkewitz and Genevieve Glatsky.

LIMA, Peru — A relatively

peaceful, if abrupt, transfer of
presidential power in Peru last
week has shifted into violence and
unrest as supporters of the former
president intensified claims that
his ouster was illegitimate and
have staged attacks against police
stations, courthouses, factories,
airports and a military base.

The protesters, backed by orga-

nizations that represent unions,
Indigenous groups and poor farm-
ers, are demanding new elections
as quickly as possible.

At the same time, the leftist

leaders of several Latin American
countries have thrown their sup-
port behind Peru’s former leader,
Pedro Castillo, who was removed
from office last Wednesday and
arrested after he tried to dissolve
Congress.

The resulting unrest this week

has grown and spread to different
parts of the country as the govern-
ment, while denouncing the vio-
lence, has struggled to stabilize
the situation and respond to pro-
testers’ demands.

At least six people have died in

the clashes, according to Peru's
ombudsman’ office, with all of the
dead appearing to be protesters,
among them five teenagers. Am-
nesty International and local hu-
man rights groups have accused

Mitra Taj reported from Lima, and

Julie Turkewitz and Genevieve
Glatsky from Bogota, Colombia.

the police of responding, in some

cases, with excessive force.

On Tuesday, the country’s new

president, Dina Boluarte, called
for “calm.”

“This situation that has cast a

shadow over the country is caus-
ing anguish to the entire Peruvian
family,” she said, speaking outside
a hospital in Lima, the capital,
having declared parts of the coun-
try under a state of emergency.

“Tam a mother of two children,

and I do not want to be going
through this situation where our
loved ones are dying,” she said.

Ms. Boluarte once campaigned

alongside Mr. Castillo, but later
called his actions a coup attempt.
She is also a leftist, and comes
from the largely poor Andean de-
partment of Apurimac, where the
protests first erupted.

The new president said that she

would meet with leaders of Peru’s
armed forces and had the option of
declaring a national state of emer-
gency, a move that would suspend
some civil liberties, but that she
believed “would not be neces-
sary.”

The Peruvian authorities closed

at least two airports amid the pro-
tests, including the airport in
Cusco, which is used by tourists
visiting Machu Picchu and the
surrounding region known as the
Sacred Valley, an important
source of income for the country.

The police and army also said

that a joint base was destroyed in
the department of Cusco, while

about 1,000 protesters had occu-

pied a gas plant in the same area.

Train service to and from Cusco

and Machu Picchu has also been
suspended, according to a travel
alert from the U.S. Embassy in
Lima.

The country’s new finance min-

ister, Alex Contreras, told a local
news channel, RPP, that the pro-
tests could cost various sectors in
Peru between $15 million and $26
million a day.

A police general, Oscar Arriola,

said that 119 police officers were
wounded in recent clashes, while
Amnesty International said it had
verified images of police officers
firing tear gas canisters from
close range directly at protesters
in Lima’s main plaza.

In her speech on Tuesday, Ms.

Boluarte said that she “had given
instructions to the police not to
use any lethal weapon, not even
rubber bullets,’ adding that she
had asked the minister of interior
“to identify the people who have
used these weapons that are
harming our sisters and broth-
ers.”

Mr. Castillo, a leftist former

schoolteacher and union activist
who won the presidential election
by a narrow margin last year, had
struggled to govern, facing allega-
tions of corruption, incompetence
and mismanagement, while legis-
lators seemed bent on pushing
him out.

Last week, facing a third im-

peachment vote, he announced
that he was dissolving Congress

and creating a new government

that would rule by decree.

The move was widely de-

nounced by both opponents and
former allies as a coup attempt.
Within hours, Mr. Castillo was ar-
rested, Congress voted to im-
peach him and the vice president,
Ms. Boluarte, a former ally, took
office.

The events played out at such

dizzying speed that many Peruvi-
ans struggled to understand what
was happening. Now, many of Mr.
Castillo’s supporters, particularly
in the rural areas that form his

Aleftist’s rural base

lashes out at a
nation’s urban elite.

base, say that they feel robbed of

their vote.

Some protesters expect their

movement to grow as the police
respond to the demonstrations
with what they call a heavy hand.
They have made various legal ar-
guments for why Mr. Castillo’s re-
moval was unlawful, and are call-
ing on Ms. Boluarte to move up
new elections.

Ms. Boluarte has already said

she would try to move the next
presidential election up by two
years, to 2024, an effort that will
require approval from Congress.

Mr. Castillo is one of several left-

ist presidents who was swept to

power in Latin America in recent
years amid deep anger at estab-
lishment politicians. Many of
these leaders have sought to unite
around a common purpose that
seeks to address deepening in-
equality and wrest control from
the political elite.

On Monday evening, several of

those aligned nations issued a
joint statement calling the ousted
president “the victim of undemo-
cratic harassment” and urging Pe-
ru’s political leaders to respect the
“will of the citizens” who voted
him in.

The statement, issued by the

governments of Colombia, Bo-
livia, Argentina and Mexico, re-
ferred to Mr. Castillo as “presi-
dent” and made no mention of Ms.
Boluarte.

Mexico's leader, Andrés Manuel

Lopez Obrador, in his morning ad-
dress to reporters on Tuesday,
said his administration would con-
tinue to consider Mr. Castillo the
leader of Peru “until they resolve
it there in terms of legality.”

The relationship between the

two nations, he said, was “on
pause.”

Last year, Mr. Castillo cam-

paigned on a vow to address pov-
erty and inequality. His motto —
“no more poor people in a rich
country” — and his call for a re-
write of the Constitution ener-
gized many farmers in a deeply
unequal nation where the urban
elite vehemently opposed his can-
didacy.

The protests are backed by the

largest federation of labor unions,
the largest association of Indige-
nous people in the Peruvian Ama-
zon and many organizations rep-
resenting poor farmers, among
other groups.

Jaime Borda, who leads Red

Muqui, a network of environmen-
tal and human rights organiza-
tions that work in rural Peru, said
the anger in the streets stemmed
not just from frustration over Mr.
Castillo’s removal but from a
larger “discontent of the popula-
tion for all the accumulated things
of these last years,” namely a po-
litical system that to many
seemed to encourage corruption
and serve the elite.

Mr. Castillo’s supporters “are

very aware that in the end that
was not the way to go, to attempt a
coup d’état,” he said. “But people
also tell you that we have elected
him as our representative, we
have elected him as our presi-
dent.”

During a court hearing on Tues-

day, Mr. Castillo said that he had
been unfairly detained and that he
would “never resign.”

“Nor will | abandon this popular

cause that brought me here.” he
said, before calling on the authori-
ties to “stop killing these people
who are thirsty for justice,” a ref-
erence to the protesters.

When ajudge interrupted toask

if he wanted to say anything in his
defense, Mr. Castillo responded:
“I have not committed the crime
of conspiracy or rebellion.”

Eight Convicted for Roles

In 2016 Massacre in Nice

By CONSTANT MEHEUT

A French court on Tuesday

found eight defendants guilty of
aiding in the terrorist attack that
killed 86 people in the Mediterra-
nean city of Nice in 2016, after a
trial that offered some closure to
survivors and the bereaved but
did little to clarify the motives be-
hind the massacre.

Judges convicted the main de-

fendants, Mohamed Ghraieb and
Chokri Chafroud, of participating
in a terrorist conspiracy and sen-
tenced them to 18 years in prison.
Other defendants were found
guilty of less-serious crimes such
as arms trafficking, with sen-
tences ranging from two to 12
years in jail.

But in the absence of the perpe-

trator, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouh-
lel, who was killed by the police at
the time, the vague answers of
low-level accomplices provided
scant further information about
the attack.

The presiding judge, Laurent

Raviot, said the attack had “an ob-
vious jihadist inspiration” be-
cause of the perpetrator’s interest
in radical Islam and his determi-
nation to kill as many people as
possible.

The Nice attack, which took

place on the seaside Promenade
des Anglais in the city, was one of
the bloodiest in a series of Islamist
terrorist assaults in Europe over a
span of a few years — in Paris,
Brussels, Berlin and Barcelona.

For about three and a half

months, hundreds of people — de-
fendants, survivors, bereaved
families, lawyers and experts —
took to the stand in Paris to try to
determine what had led Mr. La-
houaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old
Tunisian, to swerve a 19-ton truck
through crowds as they were leav-
ing Bastille Day fireworks.

Coming on the heels of months-

long trials in the 2015 Charlie
Hebdo and Paris attacks, the ver-
dict on Tuesday was the latest in
an extraordinary two-year judi-
cial cycle that revisited events
that have shaped contemporary
France. The hearings often ech-

oed broader societal debates over

French identity, the place of Islam
in acountry that identifies itselfas
secular and the balance between
individual liberty and collective
security.

“All of this crystallized in these

three major trials,” said Antoine
Mégie, a political scientist at the
University of Rouen, adding that
the court testimonies also served
to “build the memory of attacks”
that deeply traumatized France.

The series of high-profile ter-

rorism trials continues elsewhere
in Europe. The trial of the 2016
Brussels bombings, which killed
32 people, opened last week in
Belgium and is expected to last
until next summer.

In the Paris courtroom, rela-

tives of Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel de-
scribed a man suffering from seri-
ous psychological disorders,
prone to domestic violence and
obsessed with sex. His sister told
the court, “I was really afraid of
him, everyone was afraid of him.”

But none of the testimony un-

covered the deeper motives be-
hind his crime. Although the Is-
lamic State claimed that Mr. La-
houaiej Bouhlel was one of its “sol-
diers,” Judge Raviot said there
was no evidence that he was actu-
ally linked to the terrorist group.

Mr. Lahouaiej Bouhlel’s family

said that he had become inter-
ested in Islam only weeks before
the attack, and investigators said
that he self-radicalized within
days by watching jihadist videos.

The evidence given by the de-

fendants hardly helped to clarify
the picture. They were indirect ac-
complices, having helped Mr. La-
houaiej Bouhlel rent the truck and
buy a gun, and they apparently
had little or no clue about the
preparation of the attack. Text
messages that Mr. Lahouaiej
Bouhlel sent them did not provide
clear evidence that they had been
aware of his intentions.

Alexa Dubourg, one of the pub-

lic prosecutors, acknowledged as
much in her closing speech last
week. “To hold all those responsi-
ble accountable does not mean to

FRANCOIS MORI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nadege Renda, one of the survivors of the attack that killed 86 people in the
French Riviera city of Nice, after Tuesday's hearing in Paris.

put the burden of the absentee on

the accused,” she said. “What will
be fair is if the sentences are pro-
portionate to the responsibility of
each person.”

Judges eventually sentenced

the Mr Ghraieb and Mr. Chafroud,
to slightly more jail time than the
prosecutors had asked for — 18
years instead of 15. Their lawyers
said they would appeal.

Ramzi Kévin Arefa, who faced

life imprisonment for helping the
assailant buy a gun while already
convicted of an unrelated crime,
was sentenced to 12 years in pris-
on. Judges considered that he was
not aware of Mr. Lahouaiej Bouh-
lel’s criminal intentions.

“Justice did the right thing,”

said a tearful Caroline Villani, a
bereaved family member who
was concerned about possible
light sentences. “I’m relieved.”

Ms. Villani wore pins showing

the faces of the loved ones she lost

—her son, her brother, her mother
and her mother’s partner — at-
tached to the right side of her coat.
Célia Viale, a 28-year-old artist
who lost her mother in the attack
and who is the vice president of a
victims’ support group, Prome-
nade of the Angels, said the pro-
ceedings had enabled “a recogni-
tion of what we’ve been through.”
“T can move on,” she said.
During the trial, lengthy hear-
ings were held for the testimonies
of survivors and families of the
victims, plunging the court into
five weeks of heartbreaking suf-
fering. Apart from those killed,
hundreds more were wounded in
the attack. Some witnesses de-
scribed the crushed bodies lying
on the promenade and desper-
ately searching for a parent’s
missing limb. Others recounted
the agonizing wait to learn that a

loved one had been among the vic-

tims and the difficult, if not impos-
sible, path to recovery.

Some of the family members

and survivors did not hide the ha-
tred they feel toward the defend-
ants. Many also expressed resent-
ment at what they described as a
cumbersome and _ harrowing
process to obtain compensation
from France’s official victims’
fund.

Unlike the trial for the Novem-

ber 2015 Paris attacks, when the
court was often packed with jour-
nalists, bereaved family mem-
bers, survivors and other onlook-
ers, the hearings on the Nice at-
tack were mostly sparsely at-
tended. Many of the survivors
have said that they are more con-
cerned about the continuing in-
vestigation into the authorities’
possible failure to provide ade-
quate security for the Bastille Day

celebration. There is also emo-

tional fatigue among the public af-
ter two years of wrenching terror-
ism trials.

The unprecedented legal cycle

has highlighted profound changes
in France that came about as a re-
sult of the attacks.

In the courtrooms, France’s

new sweeping counterterrorism
laws were questioned by defense
lawyers who denounced an in-
fringement of civil liberties. The
country’s uneasy relationship
with Islam was highlighted by tes-
timonies that oscillated between
lingering prejudice and calls for
tolerance.

Mr. Mégie, the University of

Rouen academic, noted that the
proceedings had exposed as many
scars as they had healed.

“These trials provided a win-

dow on our society and many of its
political issues,” he said.

In Libya, Questions About How Lockerbie Suspect Was Handed Over to U.S.

By JANE ARRAF

The transfer of a Libyan sus-

pect to the United States to stand
trial in the 1988 Lockerbie airliner
bombing has stoked tensions in
Libya, where some in the divided
country saw the handover, under
murky circumstances, as an ab-
duction rather than an extradi-
tion.

The United States said on Sun-

day that the EB.I. had arrested
the suspect, Abu Agila Moham-
mad Mas’ud, in connection with
the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103,
which was bound for New York
from London when it exploded
over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing
all 270 aboard. American prosecu-
tors say that Mr Mas’ud delivered
to accomplices the suitcase con-
taining the bomb used in the at-
tack.
It was not immediately clear
who had handed Mr. Mas’ud over
to the Americans. Libya has for
years been a fractious country
with competing governments in
the eastern and western parts and
a host of regional militias also ex-
ercising local control. The interna-
tionally recognized interim gov-

Vivian Yee contributed reporting.

ernment, based in the country’s

west, has not commented on the
transfer and little is known about
the role the Libyan authorities
played. U.S. officials did not pro-
vide details of the handover.

But the possibility that a militia

turned him over or that the inter-
im government did so to shore up
American support were criticized
in some corners of Libya.

“Does this gang think that

handing over a Libyan citizen
through abduction will make the
government last longer?” an east-
ern Libyan politician, Ahmed al-
Sharkse, wrote on Twitter. Mr.
Sharkse is an opponent of the in-
terim government, whichis based
in the capital, Tripoli.

The Libyan Parliament on Mon-

day accused anyone involved in
Mr. Mas’ud’s capture and hand-
over of “high treason” and de-
manded that the public prasecu-
tor take legal action.

The interim government,

headed by Prime Minister Abdul
Hamid Dbeiba and backed by the
United Nations, was formed last
year to try to overcome the coun-
try’s divisions. But the Parliament
is based in the city of Benghazi in
eastern Libya, a competing power
center in territory controlled by a

militia leader.

The Dbeiba government “in-

sists on going ahead with selling
everything for the sake of staying
in power in a stark violation of the
rule of law,” read a post on Twitter
from Zahra’ Langhi, a member of
the Libyan Political Dialogue For-
um, the group that led to the cre-
ation of the interim government.

Others were upset that the

transfer had dredged up one of the
most troubling chapters in Libya’s
modern history — a terrorist at-
tack that turned the country into
an international pariah for years
— and which many hoped had
been put to rest.

Mr. Mas’ud, a former intelli-

gence officer in the regime of Col.
Muammar el-Qaddafi, the long-
time Libyan dictator, was freed
from prison in Libya this year af-
ter serving a 10-year sentence on
charges of working against the
revolution that toppled the dicta-
torship. About a month ago, his
family claimed that he had been
abducted from his home in Tripoli
by gunmen in plainclothes.

Emadeddin Badi, a senior fel-

low at the Washington-based At-
lantic Council, a think tank, said
he had learned independently
that Mr. Mas’ud had been handed

over to an armed group loyal to

the interim government after be-
ing taken from his home.

“This cannot be called an extra-

dition per se,” Mr. Badi said. “It’s
more of a deal.”

Brian Finucane, a senior advis-

er at the Crisis Group, an interna-
tional think tank, underscored the
mystery.

“We don’t know at this point

whether the Libyan authorities
cooperated with, consented to or
acquiesced with this operation”
he said.

Mr. Badi said that he believed

the Dbeiba administration was ea-
ger to curry favor with Washing-
ton to shore up the government’s
precarious position. The Libyan
Parliament has declared the gov-
ernment in Tripoli illegitimate af-
ter elections scheduled for last
year were scrapped.

Another Libya analyst, Jalel

Harchaoui, a fellow at the Royal
United Services Institute in Lon-
don, said that the backlash
against the handover came from
the perception that the United
States may have made a deal that
empowers militias — widely seen
as destabilizing forces that ob-
struct the reunification of the

country.

“The Libyan people don’t like it.

They don’t like it one bit,” he said.
“It scares them because it gives
legitimacy to armed groups.
Those armed groups kill, torture
and arrest people and keep them
in dungeons for years.”

Mr. Harchaoui said he had

learned that a paramilitary group
which controls the neighborhood
where Mr. Mas’ud lived abducted
him in November and then
handed him to a militia known as
the Joint Operations Force, which
then took him to the western city
of Misrata. The Joint Operations
Force, which is loyal to the interim
government, has been accused by
rights groups of executions and
torture.

The reports of Mr. Mas’ud’s

having been abducted from his
home by a militia and then being
handed to a second armed group
could not be independently con-
firmed by Libyan or American of-
ficials. Representatives for the
Libyan prime minister and for-
eign minister did not respond to
repeated requests for comment.

Mr. Finucane, the Crisis Group.

analyst, who is a former State De-
partment legal adviser, said that a

2012 confession in which Mr. Ma-

sud allegedly admitted to involve-
ment in the Lockerbie bombing to
a Libyan security officer was ex-
pected to feature prominently in
the trial.
The charges against Mr. Mas’ud
include the destruction of an air-
craft resulting in fatalities. He ap-
peared in U.S. District Court in
Washington on Monday and could
face a sentence of life in prison if
found guilty.

Libya and the United States do

not have an extradition treaty, but
the Libyan foreign minister, Najla
el-Mangoush, told the BBC last
year that Libya could work with
Washington on handing over Mr.
Mas’ud.

Legal experts pointed to nu-

merous complications in the case,
including proving the validity of
the 2012 confession.

Two other suspects, Abdel Bas-

set Ali al-Megrahi and Al-Amin
Khalifa Fhimah, stood trial in the
Netherlands under Scottish law
after Libya refused to hand them
over to the United States or Brit-
ain. Mr. Fhimah was acquitted
while Mr. al-Megrahi was con-
victed in 2001 and sentenced to life
in prison.

EC TED BY APPLICABLE LAW

=
S
2
+
K
a
+
e
3S
+
Ei
Ss
3

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

COPYRIGHT
Alo N

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER IM, 2022

War in Ukraine

Coalition of 50 Nations Pledges $1 Billion to Kyiv for Repairs

By CATHERINE PORTER
and LIZ ALDERMAN

PARIS — World leaders on

‘Tuesday announced more than $1
billion in swift aid for Ukraine to
repair vital infrastructure and
survive what is already a brutal
winter, at a meeting that was nota-
ble as much for the breadth of
countries involved as for the scale
of their commitments.

The gathering in Paris ex-

tended far beyond the govern-
ments in North America, Europe
and East Asia that have been
mainstays of efforts to buoy
Ukraine’s military, economy, gov-
ernment and people. It included
representatives of some 50 coun-
tries, including Bahrain, Cambo-
dia, India, Indonesia, Kuwait,
Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and
the United Arab Emirates, as well
as a number of multinational orga-
nizations,

The participants _ pledged

money and equipment to help
make repairs over the next few
months to Ukraine’s electrical,
heating, water, health care and
transport systems, all shattered
by months of Russian attacks.

“It’s tangible proof Ukraine is

not alone,” President Emmanuel
Macron of France said as he
opened the one-day summit,
flanked by Denys Shmyhal,
Ukraine’s prime minister, and
Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first
lady.

“The fight you are waging is a

fight for your freedom, your
sovereignty,” Mr. Macron said.
“But it is also a fight for the inter-
national order and for the stability
of all of us.”

Russia in the last two months

has shifted much of its war effort
to launching thousands of missiles
and drones at essential civilian in-
frastructure around Ukraine.
With its military stumbling badly
on the battlefield, the Kremlin ap-
pears determined to force
Ukraine to capitulate by making
much of the country unlivable. On.
any given day, millions of Ukraini-
ans have neither power nor heat,
millions more endure rolling
blackouts, some have no running
water, and many of the hospitals,
roads and railways they rely on
have been damaged or destroyed.

All of Ukraine’s heating and hy-

droelectric power plants and
much of the country’s electricity
grid have been damaged, Presi-
dent Volodymyr Zelensky said,
addressing the meeting from
Ukraine via video feed. Techni-
cians have worked to make re-
pairs, but cannot keep up.

He said that reversing the ex-

tensive damage to his country’s
energy infrastructure alone would
cost at least 800 million euros,
about $840 million. He warned
that Russia was likely to “intensi-
fy its attacks” during the winter,
and repeated calls for Ukraine’s
allies to provide more air defense
weapons, On top of financial aid.

“If you help us,” Mr. Zelensky

said, “that can stop a huge wave of
new refugees coming into your
countries.”

Since the Russian invasion in

February, millions of Ukrainians
have poured into neighboring
countries that are also contending
with record rates of inflation
caused in part by the war.

The Paris conference, called by

Mr. Macron, was one in a flurry of
recent international meetings fo-
cused on the survival and recon-
struction of Ukraine, whose econ-
omy has shrunk drastically dur-
ing almost 10 months of war, as its.
needs have ballooned.

On Wednesday, European Un-

ion finance ministers are ex-
pected to approve about $19 bil-
lion in loans to the cash-strapped
government in Kyiv. And on Mon-
day, leaders from the Group of 7

‘TYLER HICKS/ THE NEW YORK TIMES:

A college in Bakhmut, in Ukraine’ east, was bombed early Monday. Russia has shifted
its efforts to attacking civilian infrastructure.

create a new system for nations

supporting Kyiv to work together
in coordinating civilian aid, akinto
the existing system for delivering
military assistance.

What made Tuesday’s meeting

and announcements different, or-
ganizers said, were the timeline
and a list of attendees that
reached far outside the usual do-
nors. The aid will be delivered be-
tween now and the end of March,
answering a critique that delivery
of previous aid pledges had been
too slow.

Mr. Macron also announced the

creation of the “Paris mecha-
nism,” an online platform allowing
Ukraine to communicate its ur-
gent needs and donor countries to
respond to them rapidly. Ware-
houses have already been set up
in Poland and several neighboring
countries to collect donations like
generators, heat pumps, light
bulbs and even fire trucks, that
can be swiftly shuttled to devas-
tated Ukrainian cities.

The organizers left it unclear

whether all the countries present
had donated, and if not, which
ones had or how much they had
committed. But a few made their
own announcements.

Mr. Macron committed 76.5 mil-

lion euros, more than $81 million,
in immediate assistance from
France, in addition to €48.5 million
already pledged. The Swiss Par-
liament approved the immediate
disbursal of 100 million Swiss
Francs, about $107 million, said
President Ignazio Cassis of Switz-
erland. Canada committed 115 mil-
lion Canadian dollars, around $85
million, specifically for Ukraine's
energy grid.

Prime Minister Xavier Bettel of

Luxembourg pledged €4 million in
immediate aid, noting that while
Europeans worry about lowering
thermostats by a degree or two in
response to the war-induced ener-
gy crunch, there are Ukrainians
living in bombed-out shells of
buildings. “I’m not the biggest at
the table” he said. “But you can
count on us. We are with you.”

Catherine Colonna, the French

foreign minister, said more than
$440 million of the aid would be al-
located to power system repairs,
with smaller amounts earmarked
for other needs.

“Thanks to things like today’s

conference, we willhave more and

more partners supporting us,”

said Mr. Shmyhal, the Ukrainian
prime minister.

Though some might question

the wisdom of rebuilding shat-
tered infrastructure even as Rus-
sian missiles continue to fall, Mr.
Zelensky reminded everyone that
millions of Ukrainians continue to
live and work in the country — in
broken hospitals, homes, shops,
schools and offices, often using
generators — even as the bombs
fall. Ukraine’s military has also re-
captured dozens of cities and
towns that had been occupied by
the Russians, often finding them
devastated.
“Each time a territory is liber-
ated by Ukraine, we need to re-
build it as soon as possible,” Mr.
Macron said.

But such donations are just a

small fraction of what will be
needed to rebuild Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials have called for
a three-phase plan, starting with
the kind of short-term infrastruc-
ture repairs addressed on Tues-
day.

A-second phase would focus on

durably rebuilding thousands of
damaged apartment buildings,

DAMID GUTTENFELDER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

wealthy democracies agreed to Ukrainians salvaging items from homes in Posad-

Pokrovske, near the southern city of Kherson.

homes, roads, schools and other

structures, after the war. The third
would focus further out on mod-
ernizing Ukraine’s major export-
oriented industries, from agricul-
ture to steel, in accordance with
European standards, as the coun-
try prepares for hoped-for mem-
bership in the European Union.
Kyiv has said the effort would
require at least $750 billion in in-
vestments, while the World Bank
has put the reconstruction esti-
mate at closer to $349 billion,
Either way, the sum is stagger-
ing, and the prospect of an ava-
lanche of contracts has govern-
ments and hundreds of interna-
tional companies rushing to help
Ukraine now, in hopes of renewed
deals when longer-term rebuild-
ing starts in earnest. Companies
from the United States, Germany,
Denmark, Poland and beyond are
already flocking to position them-
selves for rebuilding work.
France is no exception: After
the morning multilateral meeting,
Ukrainian ministers spent the af-
ternoon with representatives of
about 700 French companies to
discuss rebuilding in the areas of
infrastructure, energy, agricul-

ture, digital innovation and

health.
France’s finance minister,

Bruno Le Maire, said that con-

tracts worth 100 million euros to
rebuild bridges, pave roads with
cement and seed Ukrainian farms
had been awarded at the confer-
ence Tuesday to three French
companies, adding that those
deals were just the start.

For Mr. Macron, the long-

planned event offered an opportu-
nity to demonstrate European
leadership in supporting Ukraine
and to assuage any tensions with
the Ukrainian government. Offi-
cials in Kyiv have been wary of the
French president's insistence on
continued dialogue with Presi-
dent Vladimir V. Putin of Russia,
and were irked by Mr. Macron’s
recent statement that an “essen-
tial point” in any peace talks
should be how to provide security
guarantees to Mr. Putin’s Russia.

On Tuesday, Mr. Macron said,

“It’s up to Ukraine, the victim of
his aggression, to decide the con-
ditions of a just and enduring
peace.”

US. Accuses
7 of Offering
Intel to Russia

By ED SHANAHAN

Five Russian citizens and two

U.S. nationals were charged by
federal prosecutors on Tuesday
with conspiring to illegally obtain
and ship millions of dollars worth
of American-made, military-
grade technology to Russia before
and after its invasion of Ukraine
this year.

The case, described in an indict-

ment unsealed in federal court in
Brooklyn, accuses the seven de-
fendants of acting on behalf of two
Moscow companies, Serniya En-
gineering and Sertal LLC, that
prosecutors say operate under the
direction of Russia’s intelligence
services.

Starting in at least 2017, the in-

dictment says, the defendants
used a global network of shell
companies and bank accounts to
acquire and ship advanced elec-
tronics and equipment to Russia
that can be used for “quantum
computing, hypersonic and nucle-
ar weapons development and
other military and space-based
military applications.”

Among those items, according

to the indictment, were a “chip
set” of 45 advanced semiconduc-
tors; a $45,000 “low noise cesium
frequency synthesizer”; high-
quality spectrum analyzers used
in electronic testing; and pricey
oscilloscopes and signal genera-
tors. Many are so-called dual-use
devices that can be employed for
military or civilian purposes.

The illicit activities continued

after the United States imposed
sanctions against Serniya, Sertal
and one of the defendants, Yev-
geniy Grinin, following Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine in February,
the Justice Department said.

When it announced the sanc-

tions, the Treasury's Office of For-
eign Assets Control said those be-
ing targeted were “instrumental
to the Russian Federation’s war
machine.” Breon Peace, the U.S.
attorney in Brooklyn, echoed that
language in announcing the
charges on Tuesday.

“Our office will not rest in its

vigorous pursuit of persons who
unlawfully procure U.S. technol-
ogy to be used in furtherance of
Russia’s brutal war on democra-
cy,” Mr. Peace said.

In addition to Mr. Grinin, a 47-

year-old Moscow resident, the
Justice Department identified the
defendants as Alexey Ippolitov,
57, of Moscow; Boris Livshits, 52,
a former Brooklyn resident now
living in St. Petersburg, Russia;
Svetlana Skvortsova, 41, of Mas-
cow; Vadim Konoshchenok, 48, of
Tallin, Estonia; Alexey Brayman,
35, of Merrimack, N.H.; and
Vadim Yermolenko, 41, of Upper
Saddle River, N.J.

The defendants face various

conspiracy, fraud and money
laundering counts, and could be
sentenced to up to 30 years in pris-
on apiece if convicted of the most
serious charges. Four of them re-
main at large.

Mr. Yermolenko, an American

citizen, and Mr. Brayman, a per-
manent U.S. resident identified in
court filings as an Israeli citizen,
were arraigned on Tuesday.

Mr. Brayman was released on a

$150,000 bond and subject to con-
ditions that included turning in his
passports and wearing an elec-
tronic monitoring device.

Mr. Yermolenko was released

after posting a $500,000 bond par-
tially secured by his house. Nora
Hirozawa, a lawyer for Mr. Yer-
molenko at his arraignment, de-
clined to comment.

Glenn Thrush contributed report-

ing.

German Prince Accused in Plot Is Said to Have Met

By ERIKA SOLOMON

BERLIN — The German prince

accused of organizing a plot to
overthrow the German govern-
ment met at least once with Rus-
sian diplomats at a consulate in
Germany, according to two people
familiar with the investigation
intothe conspiracy, a meeting that
investigators are examining to de-
termine how aggressively the
prince tried to involve Moscow in.
the plot.

The two people also described

striking new details about the
plot, offering a dramatic portrait
of how much planning the net-
work had invested in its effort.

Investigators told lawmakers

that in the course of raids against
the group, which targeted 150 lo-
cations across the country, they
confiscated around 40 firearms.
But they also found thousands of
bullets for other weapons they
have yet to locate, leaving police
on the hunt for hidden caches of
weapons.

Three people familiar with the

investigation — a lawmaker, a top

Katrin Bennhold contributed re-

porting.

aide to another lawmaker, and an-

other German official — dis-
cussed details of the investigation
on condition of anonymity be-
cause they were not authorized to
speak about the case publicly.
Lawmakers on certain parliamen-
tary committees were briefed on
the investigation Monday night.

The raids also found more than

100 nondisclosure agreements,
two of those people said, swearing
signees to secrecy over the
group’s plans, which involved
storming the German Parliament
and arresting its members, as well
as killing the chancellor. So far, po-
lice have arrested 23 suspects and
are investigating another 31 peo-
ple.
Many of these contracts, the
lawmaker and the lawmaker’s
aide said, were signed with an ac-
knowledgment that breaking
their silence should be punishable
by death.

“The grossest scandal for our

country will be if this is true —
that a number of people signed
these, including some people in
government offices,” said
Matthias Quent, a professor of so-
ciology at Magdeburg University
of Applied Sciences and an expert

on the far right. “And that appar-

ently nobody, or at least very few
of them, reported it or criticized
it.”

Lawmakers said they have

been equally troubled by potential
links between the prince accused
of being a ringleader of the plot
and a Russian consulate in the
eastern city of Leipzig.

Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss,

identified as the designated
leader of a shadow government
the plotters had formed, had twice
visited the Russian consulate in
Leipzig, where he was said to
have met with Russian diplomats,
the people familiar with the inves-
tigation said. One of the visits oc-
curred on Russia’s National Day
in June, a lawmaker said.

The Russian consulate in

Leipzig did not respond to re-
quests for comment, but last week
Russian officials denied any in-
volvement with the plotters, call-
ing ita domestic German affair. So
far, investigators have said they
found no evidence that Russian of-
ficials responded to the group's
outreach.

The fantastical plot contrived

by the plotters, who were follow-

ers ofa German conspiracy group

known as the Reichsbiirger, has
stirred debate in Germany, as the
country tries to grapple with how
dangerous the threat to its democ-
racy was.

The Reichsbiirger, or Citizens of

the Reich, believe a conspiracy
theory that has gained momen-
tum in far-right circles: that Ger-
many’s postwar republic is not a
sovereign country but a corpora-
tion set up by the Allies after
World War II.

Some of the people supporting

Heinrich XIII were active mem-
bers of the military or the police,
and others had training in weap-
ons. But it remains unclear how
capable the plotters were of actu-
ally implementing their plans, or
how close they were to acting.
Twice, they had planned to attack
and did not.

Investigators also told the par-

liamentary briefing that there
were ongoing disputes among
leading conspirators over cabinet
positions in the shadow govern-
ment they aspired to set up, the
lawmakers said.

But what was clear, the law-

makers said, is how exhaustively

With Russian Diplomats

the group had planned for its plot,

and that it could have been deadly.

Investigators found photo-

graphs on one of the accused plot-
ters’ mobile phones documenting
the different barriers into one of
the buildings that houses offices of
members of Parliament, as if for
scouting purposes.

Investigators also told lawmak-

ers they found cash as well as sil-
ver and gold coins in possession of
the suspected plotters that are
worth hundreds of thousands of
euros,

Among the open questions are

not only the potentially undiscov-
ered weapons caches but also the
implication of several lists found
with people’s names on them; in-
vestigators have declined to dis-
close the names or say what the
lists might mean, citing the ongo-
ing investigation.

They also declined to tell law-

makers whether any of the people
who signed vows of silence were
also members of the military, the
lawmaker and the aide said, or
whether the weapons they had so
far seized were licensed or ille-
gally obtained.

One matter raised by the hear-

ings that lawmakers say is likely

to spark intense debate is the in-
volvement of a political party that
has members in German Parlia-
ment — the Alternative for Ger-
many, known as the AfD in Ger-
man.

One former AfD lawmaker, Bir-

git Malsack-Winkemann, now a
judge in Berlin, was already re-
ported to be involved in the foiled
plot. Investigators told the parlia-
mentary hearings they have also
discovered two other AfD mem-
bers who were part of the net-
work, the lawmaker and the aide
said.

AfD leaders have said that the

involvement of such a small num-
ber of participants should not put
the party under further scrutiny
— several state branches of the
party are already under surveil-
lance by domestic intelligence.

But Mr. Quent, the analyst of

far-right groups, argued that the
numbers were enough to merit
concern. He pointed out that there
have been several cases of vio-
lence by people who were AfD
supporters, but not members —
including the murder of a pro-im-
migration, conservative poli-
tician, Walter Liibeke.

rc

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER.

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTEC TED BY APPLICABLE LAW

p pressreader

L
THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

N All

War in Ukraine

To Push Moscow Out of South, Kyiv Focuses on Regaining Melitopol

Plans to Isolate
Russian Forces

By MARC SANTORA

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine is

stepping up efforts to isolate and
degrade Russian forces in and
around the strategically vital city
of Melitopol, ahead of what is
widely expected to be the next
major phase of the war, a Ukrain-
ian offensive to drive Russian
forces from southern Ukraine.

Kyiv has been using long-range

precision missile strikes, sabo-
tage missions and targeted assas-
sinations to home in on the city,
which lies about 40 miles behind
the front lines in the Zaporizhzhia
region. Melitopol is known as the
gateway to Crimea because of its
location at the crossroads of two
major highways and a crucial rail
line linking Russia to that penin-
sula and other territory it occu-
pies in southern Ukraine.

A bridge in Melitopol across the

Molochna River was sabotaged
Monday night — an act that both
Ukrainian and Russian officials
attributed to Kyiv’s forces — with
video showing that two pillars
supporting the span had been
blown up. The bridge’s destruc-
tion compromised a key Russian
supply route to Melitopol from the
south.

Both Ukrainian and Russian of-

ficials have acknowledged the re-
cent Ukrainian strikes and at-
tempts to hit Russian command
centers, ammunition depots and
supply routes in Melitopol, whose
prewar population was about
150,000. The aftermaths of some
of the recent attacks have been
captured on video broadcast on
social media by Russian soldiers.

It is not clear whether the

strikes were intended as a prelude
to an offensive or a distraction as
Ukrainian forces prepare to at-
tack the Russians from a different
direction. But military analysts
described them as significant and
said they fit with a pattern of
Ukraine’s using precision missiles
to strike Russian logistical tar-
gets.

Melitopol is a key hub, and re-

gaining control over it could help
Ukraine’s forces take back not
only the full Zaporizhzhia region,
but also the rest of neighboring
Kherson. That could then poten-
tially even give them a path to
drive Russian forces all the way
back to Crimea, which the Rus-
sians had controlled before the in-
vasion.

“All this hangs completely on

Melitopol,” Oleksiy Arestovych, a
top adviser to President
Volodymyr Zelensky, said over
the weekend. “If Melitopol falls,
the entire Russian defense up to
Kherson collapses, and the
Ukrainian armed forces jump
right to the border with Crimea.”

Since being routed in northeast-

ern Ukraine and forced to retreat
from the southern port city of
Kherson, Russian forces have
fought to fortify defensive posi-
tions across a front line that
stretches for hundreds of miles.
Ukrainian forces continue to ad-
vance slowly in the south, but the
most intense fighting has been in
the east, where Russian forces are

Maria Varenikova and Matthew

Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.

gd) ee
BH

bi

ee lS ee
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

The aftermath of a car bomb explosion in Melitopol, Ukraine. If Kyiv could

recapture the city, analysts say, Ukraine may be able to drive Russian troops back
to Crimea.

trying to seize the city of Bakhmut

and Moscow continues to hurl sol-

diers into the battle.

“It seems that the enemy has an
infinite human resource,”

Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy

commander in a Ukrainian Na-
tional Guard unit fighting in the
area, told Ukrainian media. “The
front line areas of Bakhmut have
been completely destroyed. The
rest of the city is under constant
enemy fire, the enemy is destroy-
ing the city”

At the same time, Belarus —

Ukraine’s neighbor to the north
and the Kremlin’s closest ally —
ordered a surprise assessment of
the combat readiness of its armed
forces. Russia used Belarus as a
jumping-off point for its invasion
in February, and there have been
persistent concerns that it could
do so again, possibly with Bela-
rus’s own military joining in.

The State Border Guard Serv-

ice of Ukraine said on Tuesday
that it had not detected units on
the border with Belarus that were
capable of carrying out an inva-
sion at this time.

“We will observe how the situa-

tion develops, including how close
these units will come to the border
with Ukraine” Andriy Dem-
chenko, a spokesman for the bor-
der guard, said at a news confer-
ence.

Ukraine also braced for another

large-scale assault on its energy
infrastructure, with President
Volodymyr Zelensky warning the
country that more strikes are

likely.

“The absence of large-scale

missile strikes only means that
the enemy is preparing for them
and can strike at any time,” he
said.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal

of Ukraine was in Paris on Tues-
day for a one-day summit that
drew more than $1 billion in short-
term international commitments
to help Ukrainians survive the
winter by repairing electricity,
heating, water and health care in-
frastructure devastated by the
Russian bombardment.

“The whole country is forced to

live in conditions when electricity
is available only few hours a day,”
he said. “And all this happens in
wintertime with subzero tempera-
tures.”

Mr. Zelensky said blackouts are

the “last hope” of the Russians as
they flail on the battlefield. The
Ukrainian military has made it
clear that it does not want to give
Russian forces time to regroup
and recover, hitting Russian posi-
tions across occupied Ukraine.
Some of the most notable strikes
have been around Melitopol.

Melitopol was one of the first

cities that Russian forces seized
early in the war, an essential piece
of their coveted land bridge along
the Sea of Azov, linking the two ar-
eas of Ukraine they or their prox-
ies had captured in 2014: Crimea,
in the south, and parts of the Don-
bas region in the east.

Capturing the city and its trans-

portation hubs would sever that

bridge and make it harder to re-

supply and reinforce Russian
forces in southern Ukraine, but
taking it is a tall order. The nearest
terrain held by Ukrainian forces is
about 40 miles north of Melitopol.

On Sunday, the Melitopol Chris-

tian Church — which the city’s ex-
iled mayor said was being used as
a Russian base — had gone up in
flames. The mayor, Ivan Fedorov,
alluded to the episode on Sunday
as “fireworks in the east of Melito-
pol.”

Videos released by the Russian

state news media of rescuers at
the scene indicated that even as

Attacking command
centers, ammunition
depots and a bridge.

Russian forces worked to extin-

guish the blaze at the church, they
were still recovering from explo-
sions in and around the city over
the weekend. Residents reported
at least 10 large explosions on Sat-
urday night and Sunday morning,
although it was not clear whether
some of those were Russian air de-
fenses at work.

In one instance, several blasts

hit a hotel and restaurant complex
on the outskirts of the city, accord-
ing to Ukrainian officials and vid-
eo of the aftermath. Mr. Fedorov

said that the facility, known as the

Hunter’s Halt, was being used by
Russian intelligence and that doz-
ens of Russian soldiers had been
killed, with hundreds more
wounded and evacuated to
Crimea for medical care.

His full account could not be in-

dependently confirmed. But
Evgeny Balitsky, the Russian-ap-
pointed head of the part of the Za-
porizhzhia region that Russia
claimed to annex in September,
confirmed the strike at the com-
plex, saying that the facility had
been hit while “peaceful citizens”
were eating on Saturday evening.

He said that two people had

been killed and 10 injured, and
that the recreation center had
been destroyed. Video from the
scene showed several victims,
with the complex engulfed in
flames.

Last week, the Kremlin-ap-

pointed deputy head of Melitopol
survived an assassination at-
tempt, Russian state media re-
ported — the latest in a string of
attacks on Moscow’s proxy ad-
ministrators in occupied Ukraine.
An explosive detonated near the
Melitopol official, Nikolai Volyk,
as he was leaving his home, ac-
cording to the state-run News
agency RIA Novosti.

On Tuesday afternoon, a loud

explosion was reported in the cen-
ter of the city, Mr Federovsaidina
statement. The explosion was fol-
lowed by sustained gunfire, he
said. It was not immediately clear
what might have been targeted, as

Russian forces immediately

blocked roads in the area.

Natalia, a retiree who lives in

Melitopol, said she started to see a
large influx of Russian soldiers in
the southern city in late Novem-
ber. They took over schools, she
said, and she saw Russian soldiers
moving in weapons and heavy ar-
tillery to positions in and around
the city.

“So many of them everywhere,”

said Natalia, who asked that her
last name be withheld out of con-
cern for her safety.

Natalia also has a house outside

the city and said she had watched
as Russian planes and helicopters
flew so low over the area that she
could see “Z” painted on them, re-
ferring to the letter that has be-
come a symbol of support for the
invasion.

In early December, Russian

forces nearly closed all access in
and out of the city, said Mr. Fe-
dorov, the exiled mayor.

In a hunt for partisans — guer-

rilla fighters and others working
for the Ukrainian war effort —
Russian forces have set up several
roadblocks and are searching cars
and people, Mr. Fedorov said.

After each explosion, Mr

Federov said, Russian forces go
house to house. If they find any
Ukrainian symbols or weapons,
even hunting guns, they take the
residents in for questioning and
detain some of them at length.

Many prisoners, he said, are

now being forced to help dig
trenches around Melitopol.

U.S. Poised to Approve Sending Advanced Missile Defense System to Ukraine

By ERIC SCHMITT
and JOHN ISMAY

WASHINGTON — The United

States is poised to approve send-
ing its most advanced ground-
based air defense system to
Ukraine, responding to the coun-
try’s urgent request to help defend
against an onslaught of Russian
missile and drone attacks, two
US. officials said on Tuesday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J.

Austin III could approve a direc-
tive as early as this week to trans-
fer one Patriot battery already
overseas to Ukraine, the officials
said, speaking on the condition of
anonymity to discuss internal de-
liberations. Final approval would
then rest with President Biden.

White House, Pentagon and

State Department officials de-
clined to comment on details of
the transfer of a Patriot battery,
which, if approved, would amount
to one of the most sophisticated
weapons the United States has
provided Ukraine. The Patriot
system can knock down Russia’s
ballistic missiles, unlike other sys-
tems the West has provided, and
can hit targets much farther away.

“We have been very clear that

the United States will continue to
prioritize sending air defense sys-
tems to Ukraine to help our
Ukrainian partners defend them-
selves from the brutal Russian ag-
gression that we’ve seen for the
better part of a year now,’ Ned
Price, a State Department spokes-
man, told reporters on Tuesday.

Many questions remain about

the potential transfer, which was

reported earlier by CNN, includ-
ing how long it would take to train
Ukrainian soldiers on the system,
presumably in Germany, and
where the Patriots would be de-
ployed inside Ukraine.

The United States had previ-

ously resisted providing the
Ukrainians Patriot batteries, of
which it has relatively few and
which require sophisticated train-
ing.

But Ukrainian officials have in-

tensified their pleas for air de-
fenses from the United States and
other Western allies as Russia has
conducted relentless attacks on
power plants, heating systems
and other energy infrastructure.
The attacks, using missiles and
Iranian-made drones, have left
Ukrainians vulnerable and in the
dark just as the coldest time of the
year is beginning.

Over the weekend, Russian

drone strikes on the southern
Ukrainian port city of Odesa
plunged more than 1.5 million peo-
ple in the region into darkness
over the weekend. President
Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine
said the strikes by Russia, part of
a nationwide assault on Ukraine’s
energy grid, had left the region in
a “very difficult” situation, warn-
ing that it would take days, not
hours, to restore power to civil-
ians.

In a speech to the Group of 7 na-

tions on Monday, Mr. Zelensky
thanked the countries for their
continued support but listed fi-
nancing for weapons first among
MARTIN DIVISEK/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

German soldiers operating a Patriot missile system in Slovakia. A Patriot battery

already overseas
may soon be transferred to Ukraine to help it combat Russia's ballistic missiles,
U.S. officials said.

his requests.

“Unfortunately, Russia still has

the advantage in artillery and
missiles,” he said. He requested
additional artillery, as well as
modern tanks — equipment that
Ukraine has repeatedly asked for,
along with fighter jets and longer-
range missiles.

The decision to send the Patriot

system would be a powerful sign

of the United States’ deepening

military commitment to Ukraine.
The Pentagon’s active-duty Pa-
triot units frequently deploy for
missions around the world, and
experts say the United States
does not have the kind of deep
stockpiles of Patriot missiles
available for transfer that it did
with munitions like artillery shells
and rockets.

Capable of being configured ina

number of ways, a Patriot battery
typically consists of one or more
launchers, radars and vehicles for
command and control of air de-
fense operations.

The system uses three different

models of missiles, according to
experts at the Missile Defense
Project at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, a

Washington think tank.

One, called the PAC-3 Cost Re-

duction Initiative, or CRI, can
strike enemy warplanes, helicop-
ter and cruise missiles at a range
of about 40 miles and ballistic mis-
sile targets at a range of 22 miles.
The second, called PAC-3 Missile
Segment Enhancement, or MSE,
can hit the same kinds of targets at
ranges of 75 miles and 44 miles, re-
spectively, the Missile Defense
Project analysts said. The third,
called Guidance Enhanced Mis-
sile-Tactical, or GEM-T, can de-
stroy enemy aircraft about 99
miles away.

It is unclear which model or

models of missiles the United
States intends to send to Ukraine.

The Pentagon previously pro-

vided Ukraine with two shorter-
range air defense weapons called
National Advanced Surface-to-Air
Missile System, or NASAMS,
which arrived in November. The
Pentagon is spending $1.2 billion
for six more NASAMS to be built
and delivered to Kyiv in the com-
ing years. But NASAMS can strike
targets only about a third as far as
the Patriot system.

The U.S. military has deployed

Patriot batteries in numerous con-
flicts since the early 1990s. In per-
haps the weapons’ most recent
combat use, U.S. Army soldiers at
Al Dhafra Air Base in the United
Arab Emirates fired “multiple”
Patriot interceptors at missiles
headed toward the base in Janu-
ary, according to U.S. Central
Command.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReadi

COPYRIGHT AND PR
Al2 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Biden Meets With African Leaders on Security, Trade and Outer Space

By EDWARD WONG
and MICHAEL CROWLEY

WASHINGTON — Nearly 50
African leaders converged on
Washington on Tuesday to begin
three days of talks on issues cen-
tral to the future of the continent
and the world, including health,
food security, climate change, civil
wars and even the exploration of
outer space.

The U.S.-Africa Leaders Sum-

mit this week, the first one since
2014, comes as the world is strug-
gling with urgent crises, some of
which are having catastrophic ef-
fects on Africa. The continent is
grappling with a food shortage
worsened by both Russia’s war
with Ukraine and supply chain
problems arising from _ the
Covid-19 pandemic.

But U.S. officials say they also

want to discuss topics such as
commercial investments and
technology that can have long-
term benefits for the continent.

“Over the next few days, we will

be announcing additional invest-
ments to make it easier for stu-
dents to participate in exchange
programs between our countries,
to increase trade opportunities for
members of the African diaspora
and to support African en-
trepreneurs and small busi-
nesses,” Secretary of State Antony
J. Blinken said at the summit’s

opening event, a forum for what

the State Department called “Afri-
can and diaspora young leaders.”

“Each of these investments is

guided by one overarching goal:
to continue building our partner-
ship so that we can better address
the shared challenges we face,”
Mr. Blinken said.
The first day’s meetings were
centered on critical topics includ-
ing the environment, public
health, democratic governance
and security. The governance and
security session was hosted by
Mr. Blinken; Defense Secretary
Lloyd J. Austin III; and Samantha
Power, the administrator of the
United States Agency for Interna-
tional Development. Katherine
Tai, the U.S. trade representative,
led a ministerial conference on
trade.

In the morning, Mr. Austin and

Mr. Blinken discussed military co-
operation with the leaders of Dji-
bouti, Niger and Somalia. “We rec-
ognize that African leadership re-
mains key to confronting our era’s
defining challenges of peace, se-
curity and governance? Mr.
Austin said.

President Biden is expected to

give speeches on Wednesday and
Thursday, and he and Jill Biden,
the first lady, are scheduled to
host the heads of the delegations
at dinner on Wednesday night.

The Biden administration is try-

ing to repair relations with Afri-

can nations after President Don-
ald J. Trump largely ignored them
and famously disparaged some in
a White House meeting in 2018.

American officials are con-

cerned about Chinese and Rus-
sian influence on the continent, as
well as instability caused by fam-
ine, climate change, epidemics
and wars. U.S. officials say they
also want to help African coun-
tries create economic opportuni-
ties for their growing youth popu-
lations. And at a forum on Tuesday
on outer space, Nigeria and
Rwanda became the first African
nations to sign onto the Artemis
Accords, an agreement that aims
to establish guidelines for space
exploration.

Mokgweetsi Masisi, the presi-

dent of Botswana, said at the
Brookings Institution on Tuesday
morning that many African na-
tions were wary of the intentions
of world superpowers and sought
to exert some agency over those
larger countries’ policies.

“The world has not been ex-

tremely kind to Africa,” he said.
“It’s almost as if the carving out
and colonization of Africa as-
sumed a new form without the la-
bels of colonization — but some
measure of conquest. And we're
trying to move away from that and
engage so that they work with us
and not on us and through us.”

In an Africa strategy unveiled

in August, the White House
stressed the need to strengthen
democracies across the continent
and help them deliver for their cit-
izens, with the aim of undergird-
ing stability. Mr. Blinken empha-
sized the same themes in a policy
speech he delivered in South Afri-
ca before visiting the Democratic
Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

The Biden administration’s ef-

forts to promote democracy have
included anti-corruption — pro-

A summit on several
issues for nearly 50
heads of state.

grams and support for independ-

ent journalism. The U.S. govern-
ment arranged for 25 journalists
from Africa to attend the summit.

Leaders from 49 nations as well

as the African Union were invited.
US. officials did not invite leaders
from four nations that have had
recent coups and that the African
Union has suspended from its
member roster: Mali, Sudan,
Guinea and Burkina Faso.

“We continue to work sepa-

rately with those countries to en-

courage a return to a democratic

transition, to move to a democrat-
ic track, so we're in a better posi-
tion to have a strong partnership
with those countries,” Molly Phee,
the assistant secretary of state for
African affairs, said in a briefing
with reporters on Dec. 7.

Mr. Blinken had separate meet-

ings on Tuesday afternoon with
Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister
of Ethiopia, and Félix Tshisekedi,
the president of Congo.

Mr. Abiy is a particularly com-

plicated figure for U.S. officials.
Awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in
2019 for making peace with neigh-
boring Eritrea after decades of
war, he was seen as an interna-
tional hero. But Biden administra-
tion officials watched with alarm
last year as Mr. Abiy’s forces ruth-
lessly put down a rebellion by the
country’s ethnic Tigray people.

Mr. Blinken testified in March

2021 that Ethiopian government
forces had committed “atrocities”
and “ethnic cleansing.” U.S. offi-
cials feared Africa’s second-most-
populous country after Nigeria
might collapse into violent anar-
chy.

But Mr. Abiy arrived for his

highest-level encounter with the
Biden administration weeks after
signing a cease-fire with Tigrayan
rebel leaders that has ended, for
now at least, the country’s two
years of civil war.

In a sit-down with the Ethiopian

leader on Tuesday, Mr. Blinken
told Mr. Abiy he faced a “historic
moment” to move his country to-
ward lasting peace.

The United States is also navi-

gating thorny issues with Congo.
When Mr. Blinken visited Kin-
shasa, the capital, in August, he
expressed concerns to Mr.
Tshisekedi and other officials
about civil conflict in the east,
which involves neighboring na-
tions, and about a plan by the
country to auction off vast parcels
of rainforests and peatlands for oil
and gas extraction. The two coun-
tries agreed to form a working
group to assess the plan and the
environmental impact.

Congo is important for Mr. Bi-

den’s climate change policy in an-
other way: It is the world’s lead-
ing source of cobalt, an important
material for electric-car batteries.
But U.S. officials are concerned
about mining practices there, as
well as the growing presence of
Chinese companies in the indus-
try.

On Tuesday afternoon, Mr
Blinken presided over the signing
of an agreement with officials
from Congo and Zambia in which
the United States pledged to form
an “electric vehicle battery coun-
cil” with those two nations to as-
sess investment mechanisms and
supply chains.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEREM YUCEL/ AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

A September heat wave in Greenland caused the most severe melting of the island’s
ice sheet for that time of the year in more than four decades of satellite
monitoring.

In a Rapidly Warming Arctic, Rain Where It Used to Snow

In Scientists’ Annual Assessment, Signs of Climate Change Include Storms Traveling

Northward

By RAYMOND ZHONG

As humans warm the planet,

the once reliably frigid and frozen
Arctic is becoming wetter and
stormier, with shifts in its climate
and seasons that are forcing local
communities, wildlife and ecosys-
tems to adapt, scientists said
Tuesday in an annual assessment
of the region.

Even though 2022 was only the

Arctic’s sixth warmest year on
record, researchers saw plenty of
new signs this year of how the re-
gion is changing.
A September heat wave in
Greenland, for instance, caused
the most severe melting of the is-
land’s ice sheet for that time of the
year in over four decades of con-
tinuous satellite monitoring. Last
year, an August heat wave had
caused it to rain at the ice sheet’s
summit for the first time.

“Insights about the circumpolar

region are relevant to the conver-
sation about our warming planet
now more than ever,” said Richard
W. Spinrad, administrator of the
United States National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
“We're seeing the impacts of cli-
mate change happen first in polar
regions.”

Temperatures in the Arctic Cir-

cle have been rising much more
quickly than those in the rest of
the planet, transforming the re-
gion’s climate into one defined
less by sea ice, snow and per-
mafrost and more by open water,
rain and green landscapes.

Over the past four decades, the

region has warmed at four times
the global average rate, not two or
three times as had often been re-
ported, scientists in Finland said
this year. Some parts of the Arctic
are warming at up to seven times
the global rate, they said.

Nearly 150 experts from 11 na-

tions compiled this year’s assess-

ment of the region’s conditions,
the Arctic Report Card, which
NOAA has produced since 2006.
This year’s report card was issued
on Tuesday in Chicago at a confer-
ence of the American Geophysical
Union, the society of earth, atmos-
pheric and oceanic scientists.

Warming at the top of the earth

raises sea levels worldwide,
changes the way heat and water
circulate in the oceans and might
even influence extreme weather
events like heat waves and rain-
storms, scientists say. But Arctic
communities feel the impacts
first.

“Our homes, livelihoods and

physical safety are threatened by
the rapid-melting ice, thawing
permafrost, increasing heat, wild-
fires and other changes,” said
Jackie Qatalina Schaeffer, an au-
thor of a chapter in the report card
on local communities, the director
of climate initiatives for the
Alaska Native Tribal Health Con-
sortium and an Inupiaq from
Kotzebue, Alaska.

Between October 2021 and Sep-

tember, air temperatures above
Arctic lands were the sixth warm-
est since 1900, the report card
said, noting that the seven warm-
est years have been the last seven.
Rising temperatures have helped
plants, shrubs and grasses grow
in parts of the Arctic tundra, and
2022 saw levels of green vegeta-
tion that were the fourth highest
since 2000, particularly in the Ca-
nadian Arctic Archipelago, north-
ern Quebec and central Siberia.

Anew chapter in this year’s re-

port deals with Arctic precipita-
tion. Measuring snow, rain and
freezing rain is tricky there: Inthe
northernmost reaches of the re-
gion, there aren’t many weather
gauges. Those that are in place

A decaying floe near Pituffik, Greenland, last summer. As Arctic

ice melts, it creates more open water, which in turn feeds storms.

might not measure snow accu-

rately because of windy condi-
tions.

Instead, scientists have begun

combining direct measurements
with sophisticated computer mod-
eling to get a fuller picture. These
methods have given them confi-
dence to say that precipitation lev-
els have increased significantly in
the Arctic since the mid-20th cen-
tury. This year was the region’s
third wettest since 1950, the report
card said.

Because of warmer tempera-

tures, however, extra snow does-
n't necessarily remain on the
ground. Snow accumulation in the
Arctic was above average during
the 2021-22 winter, the assess-

ment said. But by June, snow

cover in the North American Arc-
tic was the second-lowest on
record. In the Eurasian Arctic, it
was third lowest.

Three main factors could be in-

creasing precipitation in different
parts of the Arctic, said John
Walsh, a scientist at the Interna-
tional Arctic Research Center of
the University of Alaska Fair-
banks, and an author of the report
card. First, warmer air can hold
more moisture. Second, as sea ice
retreats, storms can suck up more
open ocean water.

Indicators of sea ice rebounded

this year after near-record-lows in
2021, but they were still below
long-term averages, the assess-

ment found. March is typically

when the ice is at its greatest ex-
tent each year, September its low-
est. At both points this year, ice
levels were among the lowest
since satellites have been making
reliable measurements.

The third factor is that storms

are passing over warmer water
before reaching the Arctic, feed-
ing them with more energy, Dr.
Walsh said. The remnants of Ty-
phoon Merbok traveled over un-
usually warm water in the north
Pacific in September before pum-
meling communities along more
than 1,000 miles of Alaskan coast.

The Greenland ice sheet has

lost ice for the last 25 years, and
this year was no different. But
what stood out to scientists was
an extraordinary burst of melting
in September, the kind of event
that would normally be seen in the
middle of summer.
In early September, a high pres-
sure system brought warm, wet
air that sent temperatures in
parts of Greenland up to 36 de-
grees Fahrenheit above normal
for that time of year. More than a
third of the ice sheet experienced
melting, the report card said. Lat-
er that month, the remnants of
Hurricane Fiona traveled over the
island and caused further melting
over 15 percent of the ice sheet.

The seasons are blending to-

gether across the Arctic, said
Matthew L. Druckenmiller, a sci-
entist with the National Snow and
Ice Data Center at the University
of Colorado Boulder, and an editor
of the report card. Just last week,
the mercury hit 40 degrees Fahr-
enheit in the northern Alaskan
community of Utqiagvik, smash-
ing winter records.

“At this time of year, the sun's.

not even rising” in that part of
Alaska, Dr. Druckenmiller said.

New E.U. Tax

Hits Countries
Failing to Halt
Gas Emissions

By EMMA BUBOLA

The European Union has taken

a step closer to adopting a ground-
breaking carbon tax law that
would impose a tariff on imports
from countries that fail to take
strict steps to curb their green-
house gas emissions.

E.U. member states and the Eu-

ropean Parliament reached a pre-
liminary agreement on the pro-
posed law on Monday night, and
while the bill has yet to undergo le-
gal checks and get final approval,
E.U. officials said they expected it
to easily clear the final hurdles.

“A historic agreement,” said

Pascal Canfin, the chair of the Par-
liament’s Environment Commit-
tee. “We are putting carbon and
climate at the heart of trade.”

The “carbon border adjustment

mechanism” is aimed at protect-
ing E.U. companies subjected to
strict environmental rules from
the risk of being crushed by com-
petition with businesses from
countries whose rules on emis-
sions are looser. Itis also designed
to encourage other countries to
adopt similarly ambitious emis-
sions rules.

The European Union has for

years had a program that charges
companies for the pollutants they
emit to encourage them to cut
emissions. Companies can emit
carbon dioxide until a set cap,
above which they must buy per-
mits and pay for the extra pollut-
ants they release. Sectors covered
include iron and steel, cement,
aluminum and fertilizers.

Under the new law, which Euro-

pean officials say will be the first
of its kind in the world, only coun-
tries adopting similar emissions
curbs would be able to export to
E.U. countries without paying ad-
ditional fees. The aim, officials
say, is a level playing field for car-
bon pricing.

The United States is looking at

similar legislation, and last week
the Biden administration sent a
proposal to the European Union to
impose tariffs on steel and alu-
minum produced in ways that
harm the environment as part of
efforts to tackle climate change.

The E.U. law is part of an ambi-

tious environmental package
aimed at cutting emissions to at
least 55 percent below 1990 levels
by 2030. This weekend, member
states and members of the Euro-
pean Parliament are set to discuss
phasing out allowances that the
current carbon pricing system
grants to some E.U. industries ex-
posed to competition. This would
avoid the new law giving those in-
dustries a double benefit, in vio-
lation of World Trade Organiza-
tion rules,

Though some companies might

want to keep their current allow-
ances, E.U. officials said they were
confident that they had enough
support to push the package
ahead.

The new law is expected to be

approved by member states by
the end of the year and the Euro-
pean Parliament in early 2023.
The plan would be implemented
starting in October next year, with
a transition period until 2026 or
2027 to give companies time to
prepare.

The law would potentially affect

some E.U. trade partners in the
targeted sectors, like Turkey,
China, Britain and to a lesser level
the United States, and critics
there have opposed it. The Chi-
nese leader Xi Jinping said that
climate change should not be “an
excuse for trade barriers,” accord-
ing to the state media outlet Xin-
hua.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

| P pressreader

COBY RIGHT AND PROTEC TE

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Al3

National

The New York Gimes

"PHOTOGRAPHS BY DUSTIN CHARTERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES:

In Atlantas suburbs, including this neighborhood in Marietta, Ga., a broadly
predicted red wave in the midterms failed to materialize as Republicans struggled.

Democrats Retain Their Grip on Diversifying Suburbs

Modest Gains by G.O.P.

Can't Reverse a Trend
That Started in 2018

By TRIP GABRIEL
and RUTH IGIELNIK
MARIETTA, Ga. — Suburban voters
famously rejected Donald J. Trump
twice, first by handing Democrats a con-

How the Suburban Vote Shifted Between Elections

Democrats made big gains in the suburbs between 2016 and 2020. Republicans made
up some ground in 2022, but in most areas those gains were smaller than the
Democratic shift in previous elections.

Key: <= Democratic => Republican

From 2016 to 2020

Seattle D+6

Portlanc D+8

gressional majority in 2018, then by Minneapolis D+6 Boston D+7

largely paving the road to the White a
House for President Biden in 2020. _

Heading into this November, a key Sacramento D+6 —— ot

question was whether suburbanites

would remain in the Democratic camp
again, or snap back to favor Republicans,
delivering the kind of sharp rebuke that
presidents have come to expect in their
first midterm election.

The answer: Despite a small swing of

the pendulum back toward the G.O.P. in
2022, Democrats largely held onto their
gains among suburban voters, particu-
larly in battleground states.

A New York Times analysis of voting

in the suburban counties surrounding 25
of the largest U.S. cities shows that mod-
est Republican gains did not completely
roll back recent Democratic inroads. Re-
publicans, in other words, had a decent
2022 in the suburbs, but it was not as
gooda year for them as Democrats expe-
rienced in 2018 and 2020.

qe

Washington, D.C. D+7

—
—

Denver D+9
Riverside D+3

— Dailas D+5
—

Austin D+8
—— +t
TampaD+2 >
Miami R+1

Orlando D+1

From 2020 to 2022

Seattle R+2 —>

Portland R+2 Minneapolis R+2 Boston R+0.2

=~ >

The Philadelphia suburbs, for exam- Sacramento R+3 i r _

ple, shifted by four percentage points to- => Denver R+1 » 2

ward Democratic candidates between >

the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. . > Washington, D.C. R+3
But those suburbs shifted by only two Riverside R+7

percentage points toward Republicans —>

between the 2020 presidential election > >
and this year’s contests for House seats.

Suburban Denver, which had a nine- Dallas R+10

point swing in Democrats’ favor two AustinD+0.4 « Orlando R+9
years ago, shifted only a single percent- =>
age point back toward the G.O.P. this TampaR+6 oui,
year. Miami R+5

The failed Republican comeback in the

suburbs helps explain how a broadly pre-
dicted red wave last month wound up
more like a puddle, with the G.O.P. barely
capturing a majority in the House and
falling short in most closely watched
races for governor and Senate.

In Georgia, where the Atlanta suburbs

swung four points toward Democrats be-
tween 2016 and 2020 — enabling Mr. Bi-
den to carry the state and Raphael
Warnock and Jon Ossoff to win Senate
seats — Republicans improved their per-
formance in House races this year by
just two percentage points. And Demo-
crats clinched another runoff victory
with Mr. Warnock’s re-election last week.

Jennifer Turpin, a cafeteria manager

for the Cobb County schools, was part of
the Democrats’ surge in suburban Atlan-
ta. She said she was roused from political
apathy by Mr. Trump's election in 2016,
and joined a grass-roots group, East
Cobb Liberal Moms, which organizes to
elect Democrats. This year, she was es-
pecially motivated by a desire to protect
abortion rights, and even persuaded her
27-year-old son, Conner— a Trump voter
in 2020 — to cast a ballot for Mr. Warnock
over the issue.

“This would be the second time we've

saved America for the Democrats,” Ms.
Turpin said.

There were some outliers in 2022,

places where Republicans did undo re-
cent Democratic gains.

Inthe suburbs of New York City, for ex-

ample, Gov, Kathy Hochul proved a weak
Democratic standard-bearer, and Demo-
crats were unable to point to an urgent

Source: New York Times analysis using presidential election results from 2016 and
2020 and U.S. House election
results from 2022 | Notes: The analysis includes distinctly suburban counties
surrounding the 25 largest metro areas
as classified by the National Center for Health Statistics, Counties that include a
city as well as its suburbs are not
classified as suburban, The San Francisco area was excluded from the analysis
because the House races there did not
include both a Democrat and a Republican. JASON KAO/THE NEW YORKETIMES
Arena Jackson with her daughter, Priya. The family moved to the suburbs from
Atlanta five years ago. “We wanted to own our single-family home,” she said.

Trip Gabriel reported from Marietta, Ga.,

and Ruth Igielnik from Washington.

threat to abortion rights, while Republi-

cans mounted a visceral campaign as-
sailing Democrats over crime. The re-
sult: The four-point shift toward Demo-
crats in 2020 was more than undone by a
five-point swing toward Republicans.

In Texas and Florida, where strong Re-

publican governors were up for re-elec-
tion, their coattails helped the G.O.R
more than make up for their earlier
losses in the suburbs of Dallas, Houston
and Tampa.

But in battleground states like Michi-

gan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania,
the pattern of small Republican gains af-
ter earlier and broader Democratic suc-
cess Was consistent.

Andy Reilly, a member of the Republi-

can National Committee and former
county commissioner in suburban Phila-
delphia, credited Democrats with per-
suading suburban voters that abortion
rights and democracy were on the ballot.

He also expressed concern about Re-

publican prospects in the suburbs, citing
his reading of the local obituary pages.
“As a politician, you learn a lot there,” Mr.
Reilly said. “You see that older, middle-
class, core Republican voters who grew
up and lived a conservative lifestyle are
passing on.”

William H. Frey, a demographer with

the Brookings Institution, said his analy-
sis of exit polls last month confirmed
such an impression. “Young people, peo-
ple of color and college-educated women
— all heavily represented in the suburbs
— had much to do with curbing the pre-
dicted red wave,” Mr. Frey said.

Voters under 30 cast their ballots for

Democratic congressional candidates in
2022 by an even larger margin than the
one by which they preferred Mr. Biden
two years ago.
“The young population is becoming
very diverse,” Mr Frey said. “The Re-
publican Party has a Trump image,
which is ‘Let’s go back to the 50s, a whit-
er America.’ That doesn’t play with this
generation.”

No place embodies the evolving poli-

tics of America’s suburbs more than
Georgia’s Cobb County. Once a symbol of
white flight from Atlanta, the county has
trended strongly Democratic in recent
years with increasing racial and ethnic
diversity. It attracts middle-class Black
newcomers from the city as well as from
around the country.

Cobb County voted in 2012 for Mitt

Romney, the Republican presidential
nominee, by 12 percentage points. Just
eight years later, Mr. Biden carried Cobb
by 4 points.

Arena Jackson moved to Cobb five

years ago with her husband and baby
daughter from Atlanta, where they had
lived in an apartment.

“We wanted to own our single-family

home,” said Ms. Jackson, 40, a neurosci-
ence researcher at Morehouse School of
Medicine. They also wanted better
schools, she said,

Their neighborhood was largely white,

but “has slowly become more diverse
since we moved here five years ago,” said
Ms. Jackson, who is Black. “On one side
of my house we have a Latino family and
on the other side, the owner is Persian,
from Iran.”

As Ms. Jackson explained why she had

cast a vote for Mr. Warnock over Her-
schel Walker, her daughter, Priya, now 6
and a first-grader, chimed in with com-
ments of her own.

“I care about someone who's compe-

tent for the position,” Ms. Jackson said.

“Me,” her daughter added.

“I care that it’s someone who likes to

work with others to get things done in
government,” Ms. Jackson said.

“Like me,” Priya said.

Ms. Jackson smiled. She said she loved
the suburbs.

A Month Later,
House Control
Still Undecided

In Pennsylvania

By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

More than a month after the elections

in Pennsylvania, which were among the
most closely watched in the country, a
question remains unanswered in the
state's House of Representatives: Who,
exactly, is in charge?

For now, both the Democratic and Re-

publican parties are claiming a majority
in the chamber, and representatives
from both parties have declared them-
selves the House majority leader. Both
are accusing the other party of ignoring
the will of the voters, the rule of law or
some combination thereof. With the
House set to reconvene, and presumably
to choose a speaker in less than three
weeks, the question now sits with the
courts.

Election Day was largely disappoint-

ing for Pennsylvania Republicans, who
fell short in the race for governor, and,
with the victory of John Fetterman, the
generously tattooed Democrat, lost their
seat in the U.S. Senate.

Democrats also won a majority of

seats inthe State House for the first time
in a dozen years, even as Republicans
maintained control of the State Senate.
But the margin in the House appeared to
be wafer-thin, 102-101, decided by fewer
than 65 votes in a race in the Philadel-
phia suburbs. It turned out to be even
more tenuous — one of the victorious
lawmakers was dead.

In early October, Anthony DeLuca, 85,

a Democrat who represented a district in
the Pittsburgh suburbs and was the long-
est-serving member of the House, died of
complications from lymphoma. His
death occurred too close to the election to
replace his name on the ballot, and, a
month later, he was re-elected in a land-
slide.

Republicans saw a stalemate. Until a

special election could be held in Mr
DeLuca’s district, they reasoned, each
party had 101 representatives, and nei-
ther could claim a majority in the House.

An opinion issued last Wednesday by

the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference
Bureau, a nonpartisan advisory body,
seemed to concur. “Under current law,an
individual must at least be elected and
living to qualify as a member of a legisla-
tive caucus,” the opinion concluded, add-
ing that “the House Democratic Caucus
falls short of the 102 members necessary
for a majority.”

That same day, two Democratic repre-

sentatives who had won their House
races but who, in the same election, had

Both parties are claiming

a majority in the chamber,
and accusations are flying.

been voted into higher office — Summer

Lee, now an incoming U.S. congress-
woman, and Austin Davis, Pennsylva-
nia’s lieutenant governor-elect — for-
mally resigned their House seats. Re-
publicans concluded that they now hada
majority outright, at least until special
elections took place for all three seats.

Democrats saw things differently. Vot-

ers had chosen Democratic representa-
tives in 102 of the state’s 203 districts,
they said, and by particularly over-
whelming margins in the three seats that
are now vacant.

“We won 102 districts compared to the

Republicans’ 101,” Joanna McClinton, the
House Democratic leader — and, accord-
ing to her, the majority leader — said in
an interview. “It’s a fact, it’s indisput-
able.”

Within hours of her two fellow Demo-

crats’ resignations last week, Ms. Mc-
Clinton was sworn into office in an other-
wise empty House chamber She then
scheduled elections for all three of the
vacant seats on Feb. 7, the earliest date
possible under state rules, and Pennsyl-
vania’s acting secretary of state, a Demo-
crat, signed off on the plan.
Republicans were livid, accusing the
Democrats of having staged a “paper-
work insurrection.” Within days, Repre-
sentative Brian Cutler, the leader of the
House Republicans, sued the secretary
of state, arguing that Ms. McClinton was
not the House majority leader and thus
lacked the authority to set special elec-
tions.

On Monday morning, it was Mr. Cut-

ler’s turn to be sworn in on the House
floor In an interview afterward, he said
that since he was the House Republican
leader and since there were 101 Republi-
cans ready to take office, compared with
99 Democrats, “the math makes me the
majority leader.”

What happens now is anyone’s guess.

Some Democrats are concerned that if

Republicans control the House, even
temporarily, they might change the rules
to ensure that their choice for speaker
keeps the job even if Democrats win con-
trol after the special elections.

Mr. Cutler said such speculation was

premature, insisting that the first pri-
ority of the session should be electing a
new speaker.

As for which party is in charge when

that vote happens, it is too soon to say.

rc

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COBVAIGHT AND PROTEC TED BY APPLICABLE LAW

er

p pressread

L
Al4 N

With the last House race called — Colorado District 3, won

by the Republican Lauren Boebert with a 546-vote margin
— the shape of the 118th Congress is now set. In January,
House Republicans will have a nine-seat edge over Demo-

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Final Results of the 2022 Midterm Elections

crats, a far smaller margin than expected. They won 222

districts, only four beyond the 218 needed for control.

San
Francisco

Los Angeles

aN

HAWAII

Dallas-
Fort Worth

Special election
OKLA.

Democrats || 9 Republicans | [|__| Noelection

win Gain

Win Gain

Sources: The Associated Press; Civil Service USA Corp.

Minneapolis-
‘St. Paul

Houston
A Democrat flipped Pennsylvania's Senate seat, giving the
party a gain of one over the current 50-50 split — until Sen-
ator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona announced that she was
leaving the Democrats to become an independent.

Chicago

flipped from Democrat to Republican.

Lake
Mich.

IND.
213 Democrats The House Republicans 222
Note: Because of redistricting,
House seats are not directly
comparable with previous years.
50 Democrats* The Senate Republicans. 49
35" 14 i Kyrsten 20 29
Not up for Held Switched Sinema Held Not up for
election seats toDem (independent) seats election

“Includes two independents — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine —
who

caucus with the Democrats.

24 Democrats

15
Held

6
Not up for
i seats

election to Dem.
Governors

[ LBA

31
Switched Switched
to Rep.

Republicans. 26

7
Held
seats

Not up for
election

Democratic governors were re-elected in high-profile

races in Michigan, New York and Wisconsin. The party
held on to the pivotal Pennsylvania governorship and
flipped Arizona, Maryland and Massachusetts. Nevada

The Vote for the House

‘WIN
Democrats
Republicans

Washington-
Baltimore

Philadelphia

INCUMBENT
DEFEATED

New York City

A od ;
ae ~ ‘t "> Vy
—"" aLaskaA “HAWAII ]
Democrats || J Republicans GB _| noetection
Win Gain Win Gain

VHENEW YURK TIMES

Even With Trump’s Backing, McCarthy Is Having to Fight for Speaker's Seat
From Page Al

ity that only allows him to lose a

few votes in the election for
speaker, it could be a recipe for
disaster for Mr. McCarthy.

Even Mr. Trump, perhaps the

most influential voice in the hard-
right faction of the party, has had
little success to date in moving
lawmakers over to Mr. McCar-
thy’s side. Mr. Trump, who has an-
nounced he is running for presi-
dent again in 2024, has been call-
ing members who are ambivalent,
at best, about Mr. McCarthy’s bid
for the speakership and trying to
persuade them that it is the best
option, according to three people
familiar with the calls.

Mr. Trump, according to people

close to him, is not entirely sold on
the notion of Mr. McCarthy as a
strong speaker. But he considers
Mr. McCarthy better than the al-
ternative, including improbable
scenarios in which the job instead
might go to a moderate who can
draw some votes from Democrats,
or in which a handful of Republi-
cans defect and help to elect a
Democratic speaker.

Aspokesman for Mr. Trump did

not immediately respond to an
email seeking comment.

There is little evidence that the

former president has swayed any
skeptics.

Thirty-six lawmakers voted

against Mr. McCarthy in a secret
ballot vote last month nominating
him for the speakership, and four
have already vowed to oppose him
during the official vote on the
House floor on Jan. 3, in which he
needs to win a majority of those
present and voting — 218 if every

Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.

member participates.

Mr. McCarthy has expressed

confidence in his ability to secure
the votes, pointing out that a plau-
sible challenger has yet to
emerge.

“We've been making a lot of

progress,” he told reporters on
Tuesday, adding: “I think people
are in a much better place, and I
think we’ll all find a place to get to-
gether.”

Should he fail to win a majority

when the new Congress convenes,
members would take successive
votes until someone — Mr. McCar-
thy or a different nominee — se-
cured enough supporters to pre-
vail.
But Republicans agitating
against him have insisted that Mr.
McCarthy would not be able to
win election on the floor, warning
that more defectors would emerge
in the coming weeks.

“T don’t think he has a plan,

other than to hope that conserva-
tives fold,” Russ Vought, the presi-
dent of the right-wing Center for
Renewing America, said of Mr
McCarthy in an interview. “And
this is not the part of the Republi-
can conference that folds.”

If Mr. McCarthy does have a

plan, he has not shared it with
members of his leadership team,
whom he has cut out of his deliber-
ations about the speakership race
in what some regard as a display
of paranoia. Instead, he has been
spotted in recent days around the
Capitol and the Republican Na-
tional Committee headquarters
nearby with Jeff Miller, a Republi-
can lobbyist who is among his
closest confidants.

It was not clear whether Mr.

McCarthy enlisted Mr. Trump to
help his campaign, or if Mr. Trump

HAIYUN JIANG/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Representative Kevin McCarthy, right, expressed confidence that

he would secure the votes to become the speaker of the House.
was simply working on his own.
The former president has spoken
with Eli Crane, an incoming Re-
publican congressman from Ari-
zona, and Representative Ralph
Norman, Republican of South Car-
olina, among others. Mr. Crane
and Mr. Norman were part of a
group of seven current and incom-
ing Republican lawmakers who
signed a letter with a list of con-
cessions they are demanding
from their leaders in the next Con-
gress, including making it easier
to force a vote to remove the
speaker — something that Mr. Mc-
Carthy has so far resisted.

Mr. Norman, who has described

himself as a “hard no” against Mr.
McCarthy, declined to discuss his
call with Mr. Trump, describing it
as a “private conversation.” He
said he was still undecided about

A congressman's
detractors say that
more will emerge.

whom he would support for

speaker. Mr. Crane did not re-
spond to requests for comment.
When Nancy Pelosi in 2018
found herself about a dozen votes
short of what she would need to
secure the speaker’s gavel, she
quietly picked off defectors, me-
thodically cutting deals to capture
exactly enough support to prevail.
Ms. Pelosi, renowned for her abil-
ity to arm-twist and coax, won
seven votes by agreeing to limit
her tenure, picked up another
eight by promising to implement

rules aimed at fostering more bi-

partisan legislating, and won over
her sole would-be challenger by
creating a subcommittee chair-
manship for her.

For Mr. McCarthy, there are

likely fewer deals to be made.

The California Republican has

already made a series of pledges
in an effort to appease the right
flank of his party. He traveled to
the southern border and called on
Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the home-
land security secretary, to resign
or face potential impeachment
proceedings. He promised Ms.
Greene, who was stripped of her
committee assignments for mak-
ing a series of violent and conspir-
atorial social media posts before
she was elected, a plum spot on
the Oversight Committee.

He has threatened to investi-

gate the House select committee
investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, at-
tack at the Capitol, promising to
hold public hearings scrutinizing
the security breakdowns that oc-
curred. He has been quietly meet-
ing with ultraconservative law-
makers in an effort to win them
over. And on Monday night, he
publicly encouraged his members
to vote against the lame-duck
spending bill to fund the govern-
ment.

Those entreaties have fallen flat

for some of the ultraconservative
members of his conference.

In an opinion essay, Represent-

ative Andy Biggs of Arizona, who
is running as a protest candidate
in the speaker race, noted that Mr.
McCarthy had said before the
midterm elections that he did not
see grounds for impeaching any
Biden administration officials. Mr.
Biggs dismissed Mr. McCarthy’s
more recent threat against the

homeland security secretary.

“That's adding at least a little

thickener to weak sauce,” Mr.
Biggs wrote, “but it’s not good
enough.”

Four lawmakers have said they

would oppose Mr. McCarthy:
Matt Rosendale of Montana, who
called him a “weatherman” rather
than a leader; Mr. Good of Virgin-
ia, a self-described “biblical con-
servative” who defeated a Repub-
lican congressman in 2020 in part
by capitalizing on outrage after
the incumbent officiated at the
same-sex wedding of two of his
former campaign volunteers; Mr.
Biggs, the former Freedom Cau-
cus chairman; and Representa-
tive Matt Gaetz of Florida.

More could be on the way, in-

cluding the seven sitting and in-
coming lawmakers who last week
issued Mr. McCarthy a list of old
demands, warning that “any
G.O.P. speaker candidate must
make clear he or she will advance
rules, policies, and an organiza-
tional structure” that would en-
sure a “‘check’ on the swamp and
reform the status quo.”

On his podcast, Mr. Gaetz said

the changes were needed “be-
cause we don’t trust Kevin McCar-
thy to deliver on any changes to
the rules that he promises.”

“There is an amazing red-line

reticence on the part of Kevin, be-
cause he doesn’t want to be held
accountable,” Mr. Biggs replied.

Securing conservative buy-in

was going to be hard, Mr. Vought
said.

Mr. McCarthy “is symbolically

the definition of the cartel
speaker,” he added. “He’s not mak-
ing it easy for them, and he’s mak-
ing it hard on himself.”

'B 4
BLE

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressRead

| P pressreader

COVRIGHT AND PR
THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GLIVER CONTRERAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

President Biden signing the Respect for Marriage Act at the White House on Tuesday.
The law won bipartisan support in Congress.

Biden Signs Bill to Protect Same-Sex Marriage

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

WASHINGTON — President
Biden signed the Respect for Mar-
riage Act into law on Tuesday,
mandating federal recognition for
same-sex Marriages and capping
his own personal evolution toward
embracing gay rights over the
course of a four-decade political
career.

Inan elaborate signing ceremo-

ny on the South Lawn, complete
with musical performances from
Cyndi Lauper and Sam Smith, Mr.
Biden told thousands of support-
ers and lawmakers that the new
Jaw represents a rare moment of
bipartisanship when Democrats
and Republicans came together.

“My fellow Americans, the road

to this moment has been long, but
those who believe in equality and
justice, you never gave up,” Mr. Bi-
den told the crowd, which White
House officials later said had
5,300 people, before signing the
bill to loud cheers. He added: “We
got it done. We're going to contin-
ue the work ahead. I promise you.”

The landmark legislation,

passed by a bipartisan coalition in
Congress, officially erases the De-
fense of Marriage Act, which a
quarter of a century ago formally
defined marriage as between a
man and a woman. The new law
prohibits states from denying the
validity of out-of-state marriages
based on sex, race or ethnicity.

The gathering on the crisp, De-

cember afternoon, with the White
House as a backdrop, was espe-
cially significant for Democratic
lawmakers, for whom it could be
the last major bill signing of their
tenure given that Republican con-
trol of the House begins next
month.

For Mr. Biden, who voted for the

Defense of Marriage Act as a sen-
ator in 1996 and wavered on let-
ting gay men and lesbians serve in
the military, the signing ceremony
‘was an indication of how much the
president has changed when it
comes to championing L.G.B.T.Q.
equality.

It is also another example of

how Mr. Biden’s gradual transfor-
mation as a_ politician more
broadly has matched the evolu-
tion of his own party since he
started in public life as a junior
senator on Jan. 3, 1973.

His views on issues like abor-

tion, gay marriage and sentencing
reform — which once put him on
the more conservative side of his
party’s ideological spectrum —
now more firmly match positions
that have galvanized Democrats
and even many Republicans over
the past several years.

The country continues to have

deep ideological fissures. But in
some areas, there are now new

Supporters of the law, which mandates federal recognition for

same-sex and interracial marriages, gathered on the South Lawn.

and different majorities express-

ing support for societal and politi-
cal norms that were far different a
generation ago, shifting over time
much as the president has.

In many ways, his arc is the

country’s arc.

Mr. Biden, 80, was raised in a

time when much of the country
was less tolerant of people’s sexu-
al orientations. His policy choices
in the Senate reflected those
times, often siding with those who
proposed restrictions, or limits,on
gay men and lesbians. He sup-
ported a measure that restricted
how homosexuality was taught in
schools, one of many defeats for
the equality movement.

During his 2008 vice-presiden-

tial debate with Sarah Palin, Mr.
Biden said he opposed “redefining
from a civil side what constitutes
marriage.” But people close to Mr.
Biden said he kept an open mind
about the issue and was a keen ob-
server of the ways that society
was changing around him — and
slowly changed his positions.

“I do respect and appreciate

that he is someone that can admit
that his views were outdated in
the past and that he has evolved
on the subject and is now an out-
spoken champion and advocate,”
said Kelley Robinson, the presi-
dent of Human Rights Campaign,
a gay rights organization in Wash-
ington. “This is a matter of policy
and politicians catching up to
where the people already are.”

Mr. Biden also now firmly sup-

ports the rights of women to
choose to have an abortion, de-
spite having had reservations ear-
lier in his career. A practicing
Catholic, the president was once
an outright critic of abortion
rights but later became a quiet —
if uncomfortable — defender of
them in the Senate.

Since the Supreme Court’s rul-

ing in June to end the constitu-

tional right to an abortion, Mr. Bi-

den has been fervent in his con-
demnation of the decision in
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
Organization and has repeatedly
called for legislation that would
replace the 50-year-old court
precedent with legal protections
for the right of women to have an
abortion.
Mr. Biden has also shifted his
views on criminal sentencing, an
issue that has increasingly
brought Democrats and Republi-
cans together in recent years. In

Ensuring that courts

could not invalidate
same-sex unions.

2018, President Donald J. Trump

signed the First Step Act, a bipar-
tisan compromise to reform sen-
tencing laws, including manda-
tory minimum sentences for non-
violent drug offenders.

As a young senator, Mr. Biden

repeatedly supported tough-on-
crime legislation, culminating in
his support for the 1994 crime bill
that many in his party now blame
for an era of mass incarceration,
especially of minorities. In a
speech at the time, Mr. Biden
bragged that his view of crime
was to “lock the S.0.B.s up.”

That is no longer his view. As a

candidate, he promised to undo
provisions of the 1994 law. And as
president, he has used the power
of clemency to free people impris-
oned for decades for minor
crimes. In October, Mr. Biden is-
sued a blanket pardon for anyone
convicted of the federal crime of
simple possession of marijuana.
He has encouraged governors to

Cyndi Lauper and Sam Smith performed at the ceremony. The legislation erases the
Defense of
Marriage Act, which a quarter of a century ago defined marriage as between a man
and a woman.

follow suit for state marijuana

laws.

But no issue represents Mr. Bi-

den’s tendency to adapt to societal
and political change as well as gay
marriage. Polls show asea change
in public opinion across the politi-
cal spectrum in the past decade,
with nearly 70 percent of Ameri-
cans now saying they support the
right of same-sex couples to be
married, with all the rights that
heterosexual couples have under
the law.

The president was unequivocal

in his support for the law he
signed on Tuesday, saying earlier
this year that he was confident
that “Republicans and Democrats
can work together to secure the
fundamental right of Americans
to marry the person they love.”

But it is also a mark of ongoing

fear that newfound gay rights
may be fragile. The push for pas-
sage of the law was driven in part
by the Supreme Court opinion
overturning abortion rights, in
which Justice Clarence Thomas
raised the possibility of using the
same logic to reconsider decisions
protecting marriage equality and
contraception rights.

Opponents of the legislation ar-

gued that it would undermine
family values in the United States
and restrict the religious free-
doms of people who do not believe
that same-sex marriage is moral.

Proponents of the new law in-

sisted that Congress needed to be
proactive in ensuring that a future
Supreme Court ruling would not
invalidate same-sex marriages
around the country. In 2015, the
court ruled in Obergefell v.
Hodges that all states must recog-
nize the marriages of same-sex
couples just as they would mar-
riages between a man and a wom-
an.

Once a fiercely divisive political

issue, the broad-based acceptance
for same-sex marriages was the
backdrop for a rare show of bi-
partisanship in Congress, where
61 senators and 258 House mem-
bers voted to send the Respect for
Marriage Act to Mr. Biden’s desk
for his signature.

By the time that happened,

there was no doubt that the presi-
dent would sign it. As a candidate
for the presidency in 2020, he was
an ardent supporter of gay rights
and same-sex marriage. He has
appointed scores of L.G.B.T.Q. of-
ficials to posts in his administra-
tion, including Pete Buttigieg as
transportation secretary. Some
gay rights leaders have hailed him
as the most pro-equality president
ever.

As vice president, Mr. Biden

publicly announced his support
for same-sex marriage before his
boss, President Barack Obama,
upending careful plans for Mr.
Obama’s re-election announce-
ment. In an interview on NBC’s
“Meet the Press” in 2012, Mr. Bi-
den said that “I am absolutely
comfortable with the fact that men
marrying men, women marrying
women and heterosexual men and
women marrying one another are
entitled to the same exact rights,
all the civil rights.”

It was a significant moment, es-

pecially for one of the nation’s
most prominent Catholic poli-
ticians. Tuesday’s signing of the
marriage bill is the latest evidence
that whatever qualms Mr. Biden
had during earlier stages of his ca-
reer have all but evaporated.

“On this day, Jill and I are think-

ing of the courageous couples and
fiercely committed advocates who
have fought for decades to secure
nationwide marriage equality at
the Supreme Court and in Con-
gress,” Mr. Biden said in a state-
ment after House passage last
week. “We must never stop fight-
ing for full equality for
L.G.B.T.Q.1.+ Americans and all
Americans.”

N Al5

12 Republican Senators
Who Crossed Party Lines

Moderates and Some Who Are Retiring

Helped Push Bill to the President’s Desk

By ANNIE KARNI

WASHINGTON — Three of
them are retiring from Con-
gress. One has a gay son. One
followed the lead of his church,
and others said they were con-
cerned primarily with religious
liberty protections.

When President Biden signed

the Respect for Marriage Act
on Tuesday in a splashy out-
door ceremony at the White
House, he was surrounded by
some of the 12 Republican sena-
tors whose support helped push
it across the legislative finish
line. The measure mandates
federal recognition for same-
sex and interracial marriages
and overturns the Defense of
Marriage Act.

The success of the legislation

has reflected a tectonic shift in
views in the United States on
same-sex marriage, once a
deeply divisive political issue
but now something that about
70 percent of Americans —
including a majority of Republi-
cans — support, according to
recent polls.

Still, the vast majority of

House and Senate Republicans
opposed the bill, and finding
enough G.O.P. senators to pass
it was not easy. In the end,
supporters won over more than
the 10 Republicans needed to
break a filibuster. They were
lobbied by their colleagues, by
prominent gay donors and
operatives in their party, and by
religious groups who secured
stronger religious liberty provi-
sions.

Here are the Republican

senators who voted yes.

ay

ie

«a Republicans in
leadership to vote

for the bill, Mr. Blunt is retiring

from Congress in January,
sparing him any political conse-
quences for supporting it. While
he is a conservative, Mr. Blunt
has at times broken from his
party to support bipartisan
initiatives, such as a gun safety
measure that became law this
year, a bill last year to raise the
debt limit and the $1 trillion
infrastructure package.

Mr. Blunt said he would sup-

port the same-sex marriage
legislation after it was amended
to include religious liberty
protections.

Senator Roy Blunt

Of Missouri

One of only two

Senator Richard
Burr of North
Carolina
Mr. Burr also is

retiring in January.
Although he said little publicly
about the legislation, his col-
leagues saw his vote as typical
for him. In 2010, Mr. Burr voted
to repeal the policy known as
“don’t ask, don’t tell? which
barred openly gay and bisexual
people from serving in the
military, calling the policy “out-
dated.”

Senator Shelley
. Moore Capito
Of West Virginia

hh Ms. Capito is an-

other Republican
who, while conservative, has
sometimes been willing to
break with her party on major
legislation, such as the gun
safety compromise bill earlier
this year and efforts to lift the
debt ceiling. She was also a lead
negotiator on the bipartisan
infrastructure legislation. In
announcing her support for the
same-sex marriage bill, Ms.
Capito said she was won over
only after religious protections
were added.

“This does not lessen the

traditional sanctity of marriage
or jeopardize the freedom of
religious institutions,” she said
in a statement.

ae

Senator Susan
Collins of Maine

One of the more

moderate senators
in her party, Ms.
Collins was the lead Republican
negotiator on the marriage bill,
working closely with Senator
Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of
Wisconsin, to address concerns
among her colleagues that the
legislation would punish or
restrict the religious freedom of
institutions that refuse to recog-
nize same-sex marriages.

Ms. Collins also worked

closely with the outside group
of G.O.P. donors and operatives,
some of them gay, on a coordi-
nated, $1.7 million campaign to
persuade Republican senators
that backing it would give them
a political edge.

Senator Joni Ernst

Of lowa
Ms. Ernst was the

only member of
Republican leader-
ship in the Senate who is not
retiring to support the measure.
Ms. Ernst said that while her
views on marriage have been

evolving, the bill would “simply

maintain the status quo in
Towa.”
Senator Cynthia
Lummis
Of Wyoming
The first-term
senator faced the
most pressure to oppose
the bill, especially after the
other Republican senator from
Wyoming, John Barrasso, voted
against it. Ms. Lummis, who is
a member of Trinity Lutheran
Church, was pressed by the
Wyoming Pastors Network to
“reverse course” after she
voted yes in a crucial test vote
that paved the way for the bill
to advance in the Senate. The
Wyoming G.O.P. also admon-
ished her for supporting the
bill, which it claimed would
threaten the state party plat-
form.
But Ms. Lummis, her col-
leagues said, was determined.
“For the sake of our nation
today and its survival, we do
well by taking this step,” she
said on the Senate floor last
month, delivering an emotional
speech about the need for more
tolerance during what she
called “turbulent times for our
nation.”

Senator Lisa

Murkowski

Of Alaska

Ms. Murkowski is
a moderate who
often veers from her party’s
line, so her vote in favor of the
legislation did not come as a
surprise. In 2013, she was the
third Republican senator to
come out in favor of same-sex
marriage.

Senator Rob
Portman of Ohio
7, Another of the
main negotiators
on the bill, Mr. Port-

man first said publicly

that he was in favor of same-
sex marriage in 2013, after his
son came out as gay. He had
been a sponsor of the Defense
of Marriage Act.

“It’s a change of heart from

the position of a father,” Mr.
Portman told Ohio reporters
that year. His support for the
same-sex marriage legislation
reflects how the issue has gar-
nered widespread bipartisan
support across the country:
Many people who once opposed
same-sex marriage in the ab-
stract have shifted their views
on the issue because of rela-
tives or close friends who are
gay.

Mr. Portman is retiring from

Congress.

Senator Mitt

f 4 Romney of Utah
(on

Mr. Romney has

E earned a reputa-
~*~ tion as something of
a moderate, seeking bipar-
tisan consensus when possible,
although he remains conserva-
tive. A Mormon, Mr. Romney
came out in favor of the legisla-
tion after the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints,
which historically has been
opposed to gay rights, gave its
support to the bill.

Senator Thom Tillis

Of North Carolina

Mr. Tillis was part

of the bipartisan
group of negotiators
who worked to strike an
agreement on the legislation
that could draw additional
Republican support. He was
also one of the Republicans who
worked with Democrats earlier
this year on the bipartisan
compromise that led to the
enactment of the first gun
safety legislation to pass Con-
gress in years.

ro

Senator Dan
Sullivan of Alaska

Mr. Sullivan said

he supported the
bill because of the
religious liberty provi-
sions that were added during
negotiations. In a statement, he
said his vote was “much more
about promoting and expanding
religious liberty protections
than same-sex marriage”

a Senator Todd Young

~> i

Of Indiana
ee) In an op-ed in his
<< hometown paper,
2 Mr. Young said he
had heard from many constitu-
ents disappointed in his deci-
sion to support the legislation.
But, he said, “the explicit pro-
tections in this proposal offer
far more in the way of religious
liberty protections than cur-
rently under Obergefell,” refer-
ring to the 2015 Supreme Court
decision that legalized same-
sex marriage nationwide.

Watch The Times.

NYTimes.com/Video.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604
COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY

r
[ p pressreade:
Al6 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Texas Resumes Truck Inspections at Border as Migrant Surge Continues

This article is by Edgar Sandoval,

Simon Romero and J. David Good-
man.

EL PASO — Officials in Texas

took steps on Tuesday to all but
close an international crossing in
EI Paso, as state police began con-
ducting commercial vehicle in-
spections of trucks entering the
United States.

The move resembled one or-

dered by Gov. Greg Abbott this
spring, an effort that resulted in
traffic jams that severely inter-
rupted the flow of goods into the
United States, with lines of trucks
stretching back miles into Mexico.
In protest, some Mexican truck-
ers created a blockade to further
impede traffic and seek an end to
the Texas inspections.

Mr. Abbott presented that effort

as a way to pressure the Mexican
government to do more to stop mi-
grants and smugglers from trying
to cross the border. He ultimately
lifted the inspections after secur-
ing broad promises to increase en-
forcement from local Mexican
state leaders, including the gover-
nor of Chihuahua, which is just
across the border from El Paso.

But the efforts of Mr. Abbott and

the promises of Mexican officials
do not appear to have had much
effect.

El Paso has in recent months

become a main destination for ille-
gal crossings. Over the weekend,
Border Patrol agents recorded
more than 7,000 migrant encoun-
ters, including with a group of
around 1,000 people who came
over together on Sunday night in
one of the largest single crossings
in the city.

The situation, fueled first by the

arrival of large numbers of Vene-
zuelans and, more recently, of
Nicaraguans, has provided a pos-
sible preview of the difficulty bor-
der communities could face with
the end of a pandemic public
health policy that allowed for rap-
id removals of arriving migrants.
Until October, the policy did not
apply to Venezuelans, for diplo-
matic reasons, which meant that
most Venezuelans were released
into the United States pending
their immigration hearings. The
policy, known as Title 42, still does
not apply to Nicaraguans. It is set
to expire next week, unless a court
delays the date.

Republican elected officials, as

well as some moderate Demo-
crats, have been urging an exten-
sion of the policy. “Never before in
our nation’s history have we expe-
rienced this scope and scale of ille-
gal border crossings,” read a letter
to President Biden on Tuesday
from Representative Tony Gonza-
les and Senator John Cornyn, both
Republicans of Texas, and from
Representative Henry Cuellar of

Migrants, mostly from Nicaragua, along the Rio Grande in El Paso on Tuesday. Border
Patrol agents recorded more than 7,000 migrant encounters last weekend.

El Paso has become a

main destination for
illegal crossings.

Texas and Senator Joe Manchin of

West Virginia, both Democrats.

Local officials in El Paso have

been struggling to keep up with
the constant arrivals. Over the
summer, the city’s leadership em-
barked on a program of busing mi-
grants, a large percentage of
whom were from Venezuela, to
destinations north and east, in-
cluding, predominantly, New York
City. The program stopped after
the Biden administration ex-
tended the public health policy to
Venezuelans while offering an op-
portunity for up to 24,000 of them
to enter the country legally.

On Tuesday, officers from the

Texas Department of Public

Safety could be seen conducting
inspections on the El Paso side of
at least one international crossing
as traffic began to build. The
checks are permitted for vehicle
safety issues, not for contraband
or migrants.

The state police began on Tues-

day to conduct “enhanced com-
mercial vehicle safety inspections
at random as they cross interna-
tional ports of entry,” the agency
said in a statement.

Mr. Abbott’s office issued a

statement of support for the oper-
ation, saying it was part of the
state’s effort “to continue deter-
ring cartel smuggling along our
southern border and protecting
the lives of those on Texas road-
ways.”

Frustration mounted among

truck drivers who were waiting in
line for the second inspection, af-
ter having crossed the interna-

tional bridge. Many shook their

heads, and others got out of their
trucks and studied the slow pace
at which the trucks were moving.

“We heard this is happening be-

cause of the undocumented work-
ers,’ said Roberto Lugo, who
reached the international bridge
on the Mexican side at 6 p.m. on
Monday. By 10 a.m. the next morn-
ing, he had crossed the border but
was still behind a row of trucks at
the intersection of Delta Drive and
Gateway North, not far from the
main bridge.

Mr. Lugo had been told that the

Texas state police were starting
their own inspections on Tuesday.
“They are just causing a backup
for no reason, and it delays our
work,” he said. “The line is not
moving. This is not going to stop
immigrants crossing. It only af-
fects us.”

Some had heard that the state

police checkpoints that made

their lives miserable months ago

had returned.

Gonzalo Luna, who transports

electronics across the border, was
told that state officials had to in-
spect his truck, and seemed dis-
mayed by how long he had been
idling. “I’m beyond frustrated. I
feel a sense of desperation,” he
said. “Today is the first day they
are doing this. I hope it is the last.”

Similar scenes were playing out

in Ciudad Juarez, where truck
drivers formed an orderly line at
the Cordova bridge on Tuesday
morning. Some said that cross-
ings had been stopped for at least
two hours.

“Normally, it takes 30, 40 min-

utes to cross, but now I’m wonder-
ing if we'll be here for days,” said
Oscar Barba, 50, a truck driver
from Juarez who was taking a
cargo of cardboard to El Paso to be
recycled. “I’m just hoping this
doesn’t last long. We all have work

to do, families at home waiting for

us.”

At another point along the bor-

der, near downtown E] Paso, hun-
dreds of migrants, largely from
Nicaragua and Venezuela, lined
up on foot to request asylum.
Many shivered under blankets af-
ter crossing the Rio Grande; tem-
peratures in Juarez hovered in the
30s after a cold front had moved
into the area.

“JT just want to get to California,”

said Ernal Romero, 37, who made
the voyage from Corinto, a town
on Nicaragua’s Pacific Coast
where he worked as a fisherman.
Mr. Romero, barefoot and in
shorts after wading across the
river, wrapped himself in a trash
bag as cold winds swept through
the area.

“Nicaragua is no place to live

with any dignity at this time,” Mr.
Romero said. “I just want a better
life.”

Hochul’s Pick Could Reshape Top Court

By REBECCA DAVIS O'BRIEN

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s impending

selection of a new chief judge for
New York’s highest court has be-
come a political test, thanks to
simmering discontent among
state Democratic lawmakers over
the court’s leadership, and as
state judges around the country
are poised to play bigger roles in
resolving questions of fundamen-
tal rights.

New York’s top court, the Court

of Appeals, drifted to the right un-
der the leadership of Chief Judge
Janet DiFiore, who led a four-
member bloc that consistently
voted against the court’s three
more liberal judges. Now, New
York’s Democratic leaders say it’s
time for a change: The party is
urging Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, to
re-establish the court as a pro-
gressive bulwark, threatening to
turn what has usually been a rub-
ber-stamp process into a show-
down. She has until Dec. 23 to
make her decision.

The effort to replace Judge Di-

Fiore, a divisive figure who
stepped down this summer under
the cloud of an ethics investiga-
tion, has been complicated by
questions about whether she
played an improper role in the ele-
vation of an ally who could take
her former position.

“We now have a court that is

skewing New York inconsistent
with the values of people who live
here,” said the State Senate’s ma-
jority leader, Michael Gianaris, a
Queens Democrat. “This is a real
opportunity for us to recalibrate
the court.”

For her part, Judge DiFiore dis-

puted claims that the court had
become more conservative under
her tenure, and said that judges
should not be guided by prevailing
sentiment. “The high court does
not, for obvious reasons, take into
account the politics of New York-
ers,” she said.

The bench’s makeup, however,

could affect many New Yorkers’
lives. The chief judge oversees not
just the Court of Appeals, but the
administration of the entire court
system: millions of cases, more
than 3,000 state and local judges
and 15,000 staff members across
300 sites.

And the U.S. Supreme Court is

ceding more authority to states
over matters that were once re-
solved by federal courts. In the
coming year, the seven-member

Court of Appeals could confront

cases involving abortion, police
searches and worker protections.
Recent legislation on bail reform
and environmental protections
could also wind up before the
court.

The governor “is committed to

selecting the most qualified and
capable candidate to lead the
Court of Appeals, and we will not
comment further on the selection
process,” said a spokeswoman,
Hazel Crampton-Hays. A spokes-
man for the Court of Appeals de-
clined to comment.

The court’s influence became

clear this spring, when a 4-3 ma-
jority rejected a new map for U.S.
House districts, calling it a parti-
san gerrymander by Albany’s
Democratic majority. The court
then instituted a map with more
competitive districts, | which
paved the way for Republicans to
flip several seats in the November
elections. Redistricting questions
could end up before the court
again in the near future.
The court’s rejection of the orig-
inal map sparked the animus of
Democratic lawmakers, who
blamed the court for the party’s
midterm losses.

“Tf there is any silver lining, it’s

that advocates and scholars and
others are taking more notice of
the importance of the Court of Ap-
peals, I think for the first time,”
said State Senator Brad Hoylman,
the Democratic chair of the Judi-
ciary Committee. “Finally, people
are paying attention.”

In July, Judge DiFiore an-

nounced that she was stepping
down from the court, saying it was
a “comfortable moment” to move
on to another professional chap-
ter. She was six years into a 14-
year term and four years ahead of
the mandatory retirement age of
70.

She was also embroiled in a bit-

ter conflict with Dennis Quirk, the
president of the New York State
Court Officers Association, who
had filed a complaint against
Judge DiFiore with the state’s Ju-
dicial Conduct Commission, ac-
cusing her of fostering a “sys-
temic culture of intimidation.”
Judge DiFiore said her departure
had nothing to do with Mr. Quirk’s
complaint.

When the Court of Appeals

judges met in July to appoint an
interim chief, they could not reach
a consensus, a spokesman said at
the time.

When they met again several

weeks later, Judge DiFiore cast
the deciding vote for her tempo-
rary replacement: Judge Anthony
Cannataro, a newcomer who had
become a judge just last year and
who had voted in lock step with
her on the court.

Judge Cannataro’s appoint-

ment was a break from precedent.
Typically, the role of interim chief
would fall to the court’s most sen-
ior judge — in this case, Associate
Judge Jenny Rivera, who was ap-
pointed in 2013 and has reliably
been one of the most liberal mem-
bers of the court.

Judge DiFiore would not com-

ment on the details of the decision,
but she said the interim chief
“must receive four votes from
their colleagues, and if they don’t,
senior or not, they are not going to
be acting chief.” She said there
was nothing improper in the chief
judge casting a vote.

Still, the selection of Judge Can-

nataro allowed Judge DiFiore to
place an ally in a strong position to
be selected as her official replace-
ment.

“The way that the acting chief

judge was selected seems to be
shrouded in mystery,” said Mr.
Hoylman, who plans to introduce
legislation to change the nomina-
tion process.

Last month, Judge Cannataro

was the only sitting Court of Ap-
peals judge to be approved by the
Commission on Judicial Nomina-
tion, the 12-member body that pro-
vides a seven-person list from
which the governor must select a
nominee.

The commission is composed of

three people appointed by former
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, four ap-
pointed by Judge DiFiore, four ap-
pointed by state legislative lead-
ers and one appointed by Ms.
Hochul.

The court’s three liberal judges,

all of them people of color, two of
whom had more seniority than
Judge Cannataro, were among 41
applicants for the post, according
to people familiar with the
process. None of the liberal judges
were approved by the commis-
sion.

“It's just totally inexcusable,”

said Vincent Bonventre, a profes-
sor at Albany Law School and a
longtime court observer. He
pointed in particular to the omis-
sion of one judge, Rowan D, Wil-
son, who had been on the commis-
sion’s short list for the chief judge

a
BENJAMIN NORMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, above, has until Dec. 23 to select
anew chief judge of the Court of Appeals, replacing Chief Judge
Janet DiFiore, below, who resigned under the cloud of an ethics
investigation. The governor is being pressed to pick a progressive.

_ ~~,

spot in 2015, when it last became

open.

Judge DiFiore called questions

about her involvement in the se-
lection of her successor “non-
sense talk,” and praised the com-
mission’s roster of potential nomi-
nees. “It’s an extraordinarily im-
pressive list,” she said.

Whoever takes the top job will

face not only skepticism, but a
daunting political and intellectual
task. Many jurists, academics,
lawyers, elected officials and in-
terest groups say the court has
been diminished in recent years.
They point toa precipitous drop in
caseload, the quality of its opin-
ions and an increased use of un-
signed memorandums to decide
cases.

The court under Judge DiFiore

was “pretty dysfunctional,” Mr.
Bonventre said. He blamed the
problem not on the judge herself
but on the discordant person-

HANS PENNINK/ASSOCIATED PRESS

alities elevated to the court by Mr.

Cuomo, who named her and five of
the six other judges now sitting.

“By most accounts, the DiFiore

administration was the worst in
modern history” Mr. Gianaris
said. “It’s a combination of poor
administration and extra-consti-
tutional decision-making.”

Judge DiFiore, a former West-

chester County district attorney,
was confirmed in 2016. A Republi-
can-turned-Democrat, she was a
longtime ally of Mr. Cuomo, who
used nominations to the bench to
shore up political support, court
watchers said.

During her tenure, Judge Di-

Fiore took aim at administrative
delays, commissioned a report on
institutional racism and sought to
consolidate New York’s sprawling
and antiquated judicial structure.

Even before the pandemic, the

Court of Appeals heard and de-
cided far fewer cases under Judge

An opportunity to
reverse the court's
shift to the right.

DiFiore than it had in years — a

scaling back that some legal ob-
servers decried as a retreat from
vital issues — and decided more
cases with unsigned memoran-
dums, in which judges do not go
into detail about their reasoning.

Judge DiFiore said the court

chose its cases on the merits, and
said the increased use of unsigned
memorandums was “not what I
set out to achieve,” but followed a
precedent for using them when
the court analyzes “well-settled”
legal principles.

The court’s majority hemmed in

the rights of criminal defendants,
raised the bar for negligence law-
suits against municipal govern-
ments and rolled back protections
for renters.

Judge DiFiore was seen — by

lawyers, fellow judges and poli-
ticians alike — as a polarizing fig-
ure, who did not seek to build con-
sensus. Criticism of her grew par-
ticularly acute on the left in the
wake of the redistricting decision.
“Tt was not a court where dis-
sent was tolerated or welcomed,”
said Mr. Hoylman.

The disharmony was evident in

decisions, in which the judges
traded barbs in footnotes, like hos-
tile litigants.

In her majority opinion on the

redistricting case, for example,
Judge DiFiore described the “to-
tal lack of merit” of one dissenter’s
argument, and called other as-
pects of the liberal judges’ analy-
ses “remarkable,” “quite extraor-
dinary,” “nonsensical” and “im-
permissible.”

In response, one of the liberal

judges, defending a proposed
remedy that Judge DiFiore had
sniffed at, wrote that the majority
“seems unwilling to grasp this
concept.”

Judge DiFiore, in her interview,

said the court was collegial: “We
were functional, we were harmo-
nious.”

In an opinion article about the

challenge of picking a new chief
judge, published last month in The
Daily News, Ms. Hochul seemed
to allude to the tensions on the
court. At the top of her list of prior-
ities was a mandate: “We need a
leader who, through intelligence
and conviction, can unite the ex-
isting court so that it speaks in a
strong and respected voice.”

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADEF

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

N Al7

Trump Organization Was Held in Contempt After a Secret Trial Last Year

This article is by Jonah E.

Bromwich, William K. Rashbaum
and Ben Protess.

Donald J. Trump’s family busi-

ness lost a criminal contempt trial
that was held in secret last fall, ac-
cording to a newly unsealed court
document and several people with
knowledge of the matter, with a
judge ruling against the company
almost exactly a year before it
was convicted of a tax fraud
scheme last week.

The document, a judicial order

released Tuesday, showed that in
October 2021, a one-day contempt
trial was held after prosecutors
with the Manhattan district attor-
ney’s office requested that the
company be punished for “will-
fully disobeying” four grand jury
subpoenas and three court orders
enforcing compliance.

The order, dated Dec. 8, 2021,

was unsealed by the judge who

presided over the tax fraud trial of
the Trump Organization, which
ended last week with the convic-
tion of the company. It redacted
the name of the entities on trial in
October, but the people with
knowledge of the case confirmed
that those entities were the Trump
Organization corporations that
later went on trial for tax fraud.
The judge, Juan M. Merchan, con-
victed the two corporations of
criminal contempt of court and
fined them $4,000, the maximum.

“The record is clear that the

company failed to produce re-
sponsive documents without ex-
planation,” Justice Merchan wrote
in his order.

The fine amounts to less than a

slap on the wrist, but the contempt
order underscores the pitfalls of
Mr. Trump’s go-to legal strategy of
delaying proceedings and fighting

The company was

fined after failing to
turn over documents.

subpoenas whenever possible. It

was the second time in less than a
year that Mr. Trump or his com-
pany was held in contempt for fail-
ing to turn over documents, the
other instance coming in the New
York attorney general's civil in-
quiry into the former president's
business practices.

A spokeswoman for the Man-

hattan district attorney, Alvin L.
Bragg, declined to comment Tues-
day. A spokeswoman for the
Trump Organization did not im-
mediately respond to a request for
comment.

After securing the conviction of

Mr. Trump’s company last week,
Mr. Bragg’s office has continued
its long-running inquiry into the
former president himself. The in-
vestigation has a dual focus: a
hush-money payment to a porn
star who said she had an affair
with Mr. Trump, and the potential
overvaluation of assets on the for-
mer president’s annual financial
statements.

In 2020 and 2021, Mr. Trump, his

company and his lawyers were
flooded with subpoenas, relating
to both the district attorney’s
criminal inquiry and a civil inves-
tigation into Mr. Trump’s financial
statements by the New York attor-
ney general, Letitia James. Ac-
cording to the order released
Tuesday, a company representa-
tive testified in January 2021 to
having “successfully responded to
countless subpoenas” in the past.

But that March, prosecutors told

the court that a number of the re-
quested documents had not been
turned over.

The October contempt trial was

kept secret because it was related
to subpoenas issued by a grand
jury, the work of which is sealed.
The grand jury remained active
after the Trump Organization and
its chief financial officer, Allen H.
Weisselberg, were charged with
crimes in July 2021.

More than a year later, Mr.

Weisselberg pleaded guilty to the
tax fraud scheme, in which he and
other executives were compen-
sated with off-the-books perks.
The company declined to plead
guilty and the case went to trial in
October. Last week, the company
— specifically two of its corpora-
tions, the Trump Corporation and
the Trump Payroll Corp. — was
convicted of 17 felonies.

Mr. Trump was also held in con-

tempt of court in April amid Ms.
James’s civil investigation. Law-
yers from her office had accused
him of not fully complying with a
subpoena, and a judge, Arthur F.
Engoron, imposed a $110,000 pen-
alty. In September, Ms. James
sued Mr. Trump, three of his chil-
dren and his company, accusing
them of overvaluing their assets
by billions of dollars.

Contempt of court is not the

only threat Mr. Trump faces for
declining to turn over documents
in a timely manner. Federal pros-
ecutors investigating his removal
of sensitive documents from the
White House are also seeking to
determine whether he obstructed
efforts to retrieve them.

A federal judge last week de-

clined to act on a request to find
people in Mr. Trump’s post-presi-
dential office in contempt of court.

Unsung, and Comforting

Families of Sandy Hook

By ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON

NEWTOWN, Conn. — Bill

Cario, who was among the first
law enforcement officers to enter
Sandy Hook Elementary School
on Dec. 14, 2012, is adamant that a
story about the 10th anniversary
of the shooting that killed 20 first
graders and six educators should
not focus on him.

He said it should be about Rick

Thorne, the school janitor who
heard gunfire and moved down
hallways locking classrooms to
protect those inside. Or about the
unnamed officer who helped lead
the hunt for the gunman while
knowing his boy was somewhere
in the school.

Or about Rachael Van Ness, the

police detective who hand-laun-
dered the clothing children wore
that day and returned the items to
their grieving parents, nestled in
small trunks she decorated in
each child's favorite colors.

And most of all about the fam-

ilies themselves, who have hon-
ored their loved ones with count-
less acts of charity and public
service.

There is no photograph of Mr.

Cario in this article because he did
not want one.

“I am telling you what every-

body else did. I did nothing alone,
and I still don’t,” Mr. Cario said
over lunch at the Blue Colony
diner in Newtown.

But many whom Mr. Cario cred-

its say he personifies a response
to Sandy Hook that began with
duty and ended with love.

“He’s your typical soldier for

good. He’s grounded us,” said Bill
Lavin, a former New Jersey fire-
fighter and founder of the Where
Angels Play Foundation that built
26 playgrounds to commemorate
the victims. “But it’s tough to get
Bill to verbalize any of it.”

Mr. Cario was a Connecticut

state police sergeant parked near
Newtown when the call came in
that day. Rushing into the school,
he encountered Natalie Ham-
mond, a wounded educator, shel-
tering in a conference room. He
told her he would be back for her,
and with a Newtown police officer
ran on in pursuit of the gunman,
whose body they found moments
later.

Then, inside the classroom that

held most of the young victims, he

found Ben Wheeler, 6, still breath-

ing but with wounds that left little
hope for survival. It has haunted
Mr. Cario and his fellow troopers
that they could not save those who
died that day. But they could pro-
tect their families by resolving
never to discuss what they had
seen with anyone but them.

Mr. Cario kept this code through

post-traumatic stress, divorce, re-
tirement and a new struggle with
a life-threatening illness. By re-
sisting the limelight, the troopers
helped preserve the families’ abil-
ity to reckon with the massacre in
their own time, David Wheeler,
Ben’s father, said this week.

Though “a desire for informa-

tion is always buzzing at the back
of my head,” Mr. Wheeler said, he
began to learn more about Ben’s
last moments only recently, when
he thought he had the strength to
delve into the reports of the day.
His research has deepened his ap-
preciation for the officers’ deeds,
and their silence since.

“Their default mechanism was

not to assume that we want the in-
formation they have, to make sure
that above and beyond anything
else they were careful and protec-
tive,” Mr. Wheeler said in an inter-
view.

“The more the world knows

about Bill Cario, the better” Mr.
Wheeler added. “I feel that way
about the entire team.”

A Report, and Silence

All that is publicly known about

Mr. Cario’s experience after the
shooting is in his official reports.

He described entering Class-

room 8, which looked empty until
he and another officer peered into
the classroom’s bathroom. Fifteen
children had attempted to hide in
the roughly 414-foot-by-314-foot
space.

“As I stared in disbelief, I recog-

nized the face of a little boy,” Mr.
Cario wrote, his anguish clear
even in the written record.

“The face of the little boy is the

only specific image I have in that
room.”

The little boy was Ben Wheeler.

The rules of triage required that
Mr. Cario first tend to Ms. Ham-
mond, to stanch her bleeding.
Then he ran, carrying Ben, to a
squad car near the school en-
trance, which transported them to

a waiting ambulance. The child

died minutes later, en route to a
hospital. Ms. Hammond survived.

The choice forced upon Mr.

Cario that day tormented him, but
he did not speak publicly about it.

An Encounter in the School

After the shooting, the State of

Connecticut assigned a trooper to
every family who desired one, to
protect and guide them through
the ensuing investigation. One of
their duties was to escort family
members who wanted to visit the
school before it was demolished.
“I didn’t want to see, and I didn’t
want to see, and one morning I
woke up and I had to go,” David
Wheeler said. His wife and Ben's
mother, Francine Wheeler, visited

ore a
MICHAEL APPLETON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

the school at a different time.

Mr. Wheeler arrived accompa-
nied by Francine and Ben’s pastor,
and was met by a small group of
troopers including Mr. Cario, who
stood quietly by. Work crews had
removed everything touched by
the carnage: tiles, carpet, drywall.
The bathroom where Ben and his
classmates had died was stripped
to the studs.

Peering into the tiny space “was

a really hard thing to do,” Mr.
Wheeler recalled. The troopers
said they would share any details
he needed. “The only question I
could think to ask was, ‘How many
shell casings did they find on the
floor here?’ And they said ‘80? It
was devastating.”

There was another conversa-

JULIA NIKHINSON/ ASSOCIATED PRESS

tion, though, between Mr.

Wheeler and Mr. Cario. Its details
remain private, but they say it
brought peace to them both.

“T’m so glad he was there,” Mr.

Wheeler said. “There’s something
more than meaningful in the fact
that he took the time to say, ‘If Da-
vid is going to the school, I should
be there, too?”

Last week Mr. Cario responded

to a request for an interview by
text message: “Interview de-
pends on what direction you're go-
ing in” His meaning was that oth-
ers should be the focus of an arti-
cle, not him. “I was a spoke in the
wheel of the state police and am
grateful to have worn the uniform
shared by so many amazing peo-
ple,” he said.

“I have heartbreak about this,

but anyone in America with a
heart has that,” Mr. Cario said ina
subsequent conversation. His
own heartbreak centers on the
fact that “I couldn’t do anything to
change the outcome.”
On Monday, Mr. Cario visited
the new permanent memorial to
the Sandy Hook victims, in sight
of the new Sandy Hook school. At
the memorial’s core is a gently
flowing pool of water, with a
sturdy sapling growing from an is-
land in its center. The pool’s gran-
ite sides are engraved with the
names of the victims, and a white
rose lay on each name.

The rose on Jessica Adrienne

Rekos’s name had fallen. “She’s
the one who liked horses,” said Mr.

In the 10 years since the school

shooting in Newton, Conn.,
the 26 victims have been hon-
ored with a memorial, left, and
with wooden angels in a yard.

Cario, who raises draft horses. He

retrieved the flower and replaced
it.

Four years ago, Mr. Cario re-

tired from the state police. He now
works part-time for the force, in-
cluding at a local elementary
school, an experience he de-
scribes as “everything 12/14 was-
mt.” Children who live on farms
sometimes bring him apples, or
honey from their bees.

Grinning, he pulled up a cell-

phone photograph of himself ob-
serving the school’s “pajama day”
last week, when he wore his fluo-
rescent traffic vest over a plaid
bathrobe and pajamas embla-
zoned with cartoons and the slo-
gan “Life is good.”

Mr. Cario observes the date of

the shooting in his own way, often
by visiting the graves of the chil-
dren. The quiet for him contrasts
with the scene that day.

Visiting one of the burial places

soon after the shooting, Mr. Cario
encountered Roy, an older man
who spent most days back then at
the graves of his wife and a daugh-
ter who had died in the same year.
The man, a World War II veteran,
proposed that they “get through
this together,” Mr. Cario said. They
began meeting for coffee or a beer.

Roy asked his surviving daugh-

ter to check in with Mr. Cario by
phone on days when ill health kept
the older man home. A couple of
years ago, Roy died, but he re-
mains on the long list of people Mr.
Cario wants to honor instead of
himself.

Dec. 14 this year comes for Mr.

Cario amid grueling treatment for
pancreatic cancer. His illness is
another subject Mr. Cario is reluc-
tant to discuss. Mr. Wheeler did
not know he was ill.

“There’s part of me that wishes

I had worked harder to sort of
force Bill Cario and the others to
be part of my life, to let them know
how important they are,” Mr.
Wheeler said this week. “But I
think maybe it didn’t happen be-
cause somehow, it wasn’t sup-
posed to.”

Mr. Cario agreed. His conversa-

tion with Mr. Wheeler in the
empty school a decade ago told
him everything.

“His words to me did so much

good,” Mr. Cario said. “He said
that he understood.”

Justice Dept. Considers Early Release for Female Inmates Sexually Abused Behind
Bars

By GLENN THRUSH

WASHINGTON — The epi-

demic of sexual assaults against
female prisoners in federal cus-
tody has prompted the Justice De-
partment to expand the use of a
program to provide early releases
to women abused behind bars, ac-
cording to people familiar with the
situation.

In recent weeks, the deputy at-

torney general, Lisa O. Monaco,
has pressed top officials at the Bu-
reau of Prisons, a division of the
department, to encourage in-
mates who have been assaulted
by prison employees, and might
qualify for the department’s
underused compassionate release
program, to apply.

The push comes amid new reve-

lations about the extent of abuse
of women, and the unwillingness
of many prison officials, over dec-
ades and at all levels, toaddressa
crisis that has long been an open
secret in government.

On Tuesday, a Senate Home-

land Security and Governmental
Affairs subcommittee released
the results of a bipartisan investi-
gation that provided the starkest
picture to date of a crisis that the
Justice Department has identified
as a top policy priority.

“I was sentenced and put in

prison for choices I made — I was
not sent to prison to be raped and
abused,” said Briane Moore, who
was repeatedly assaulted by an of-
ficial at a women’s prison in West
Virginia who threatened to block a
transfer to a facility closer to her
family if she resisted.

Ms. Moore was one of several

women to provide firsthand testi-
mony before the committee to ac-
company the release of the report,

which was based on interviews

with dozens of whistle-blowers,
current and former prison offi-
cials, and survivors of abuse.

Among the findings made pub-

lic: Bureau employees abused fe-
male prisoners in at least 19 of the
29 federal facilities that have held
women over the last decade; in at
least four prisons, managers
failed to apply the law intended to
detect and reduce sexual assault;
and hundreds of sexual abuse
charges are among a backlog of
8,000 internal affairs misconduct
cases yet to be investigated.

A committee analysis of court

filings and prison records over the
past decade found that male and
female inmates had made 5,415 al-
legations of sexual abuse against
prison employees, of which 586
were later substantiated by inves-
tigators.

“Our findings are deeply dis-

turbing and demonstrate, in my
view, that the B.O.P. is failing sys-
temically to prevent, detect and
address sexual abuse of prisoners
by its own employees,” said Sena-
tor Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Demo-
crat who leads the subcommittee.

The issue of sexual assault at

the 160,000-inmate Bureau of
Prisons, an agency hamstrung by
labor shortages, budget shortfalls
and mismanagement, has become
increasingly evident in recent
years. The perpetrators have in-
cluded male employees at every
level of the prison hierarchy: war-
den, pastor, guard.

For Lauren Reynolds, who

served at Federal Correctional
Complex Coleman in Central Flor-
ida, it was the warehouse man-
ager at the facility who targeted
her during the final year of a 12-
year sentence.

SHURAN HUANG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Briane Moore, who was repeatedly assaulted by an official in a

‘West Virginia prison, testified Tuesday at a congressional hearing.

In 2019, Ms. Reynolds took the

lonely, terrifying risk of identify-
ing the officer who pressured her
for sex — and quickly discovered
she was one of at least 10 women
who had been abused by officers
and workers at the facility.

“There’s a lack of accountabil-

ity, a secrecy, if nobody gets out
there and talks about it,” said Ms.
Reynolds, whose decision to
Speak to investigators prompted
other women to expose yearslong
sexual abuse.
The committee’s report sharply
criticized the Justice Depart-
ment’s leaders for failing to bring
charges against many of those ac-
cused of abusing inmates at the
now-shuttered women’s unit at
Coleman. It also singled out the
department’s Office of the Inspec-
tor General, assigned to review
such allegations, for declining to
investigate six male officers at

Coleman accused of abuse.

All six officers “already had ad-

mitted to sexually abusing female
prisoners under their supervi-
sion,” the report said. “None of
these six officers was ever pros-
ecuted.”

Michael E. Horowitz, the in-

spector general, told the commit-
tee he was committed to stream-
lining and strengthening investi-
gations, in line with the recom-
mendations of a working group
convened by Attorney General
Merrick B. Garland to address the
problem.

But committee investigators

documented a culture that con-
tributed to an environment in
which male prison officials knew
that what they were doing was il-
legal, but believed they would
never be held accountable.

Under federal law, any sexual

contact between a prison employ-

ee and a prisoner is illegal, even if

it would be considered consensual
outside the system. Guards at
Coleman, when confronted with
evidence that they had sex with
female inmates, admitted that
they were worried about being
charged with a crime in affidavits
made public by the subcommittee
on Tuesday.

In May 2021, the federal govern-

ment paid 15 women who had
served at Coleman at least $1.25
million to settle a case cited exten-
sively in the report. That included
Ms. Reynolds, who received a col-
lege degree after leaving prison
and now works for a construction
company.

“Tf you sweep it under the rug,”

she said, “nothing will change.”

Investigators identified three

other prisons where abusers tar-
geted female inmates with rela-
tive impunity: the Metropolitan
Correctional Center in Manhat-
tan, the Metropolitan Detention
Center Brooklyn and the Federal
Correctional Institution Dublin,
near Oakland, Calif.

Aformer warden at Dublin, Ray

Garcia, was found guilty of seven
charges of sexual abuse this
month after molesting female in-
mates and forcing them to pose
for nude photographs.

As of May, 17 current or former

employees at Dublin, including
the former pastor, were under in-
vestigation for sexual abuse.

The situation at Dublin, which

prompted Mr. Ossoff to embark on
his panel’s broader investigation
last spring, has also spurred the
Justice Department to consider
overhauling its policies governing
compassionate release for in-
mates who have been abused.

For years, prisoners’ rights

groups have complained that Bu-

reau of Prisons officials have been
reluctant to grant compassionate
discharges, even when inmates
can provide evidence of a terminal
illness or of abuse at the hands of
an official entrusted with their
welfare.

But that seems to be changing,

albeit slowly.

In September, Ms. Monaco

wrote to the prisoners’ rights
group Families Against Manda-
tory Minimums, saying she had
ordered the bureau’s new director,
Colette S. Peters, to “review
whether B.0.P’s policy regarding
compassionate release should be
modified” to accommodate female
prisoners who had been assaulted
by federal employees.

Ms. Peters has said she has be-

gun to consider requests from in-
mates who have been abused and
are not deemed to be threats to the
community if they are granted
their release.

But some groups do not think

that goes far enough and are
pushing the U.S, Sentencing Com-
Mission to give inmates the right
to directly request a compassion-
ate release ruling from trial
judges rather than rely on the bu-
reau. The agency releases only a
fraction of inmates eligible to be
freed early under federal laws.

“The B.O.P. failed to recognize

female prisoners being sexually
assaulted and elderly prisoners
being threatened by a once-in-a-
lifetime global pandemic as rea-
sons to even consider a sentence
reduction,” said Kevin Ring, the
president of Families Against
Mandatory Minimums. “In our
view, they’ve forfeited the right to
have a monopoly over compas-
sionate release.”

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

[ p pressreader
Als N

FTX Founder Indicted;

Complaint Alleges Fraud

At Firm Dates to 2019

From Page Al

The lead prosecutor for the Ba-

hamian authorities, Franklyn
Williams, argued that Mr.
Bankman-Fried was a flight risk,
with sufficient financial resources
toescape the country. Alawyer for
Mr. Bankman-Fried said that his
decision to remain in the Baha-
mas after FTX collapsed showed
he had no intention to flee, adding
that Mr. Bankman-Fried required
medication for depression and at-
tention deficit disorder.

The court’s chief magistrate,

Joyann Ferguson-Pratt, ruled that
Mr. Bankman-Fried should re-
main in custody. He was alloweda
few minutes with his parents, who
embraced him in along hug as the
courtroom was cleared.

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s arrest

was a stunning fall from grace for
an executive who was once de-
scribed as a modern-day John
Pierpont Morgan, and became a
darling of big investors in Silicon
Valley and a prolific Democratic
Party donor. These days, Mr.
Bankman-Fried, 30, is more often
likened to Bernie Madoff, the
fraudster who orchestrated a no-
torious Ponzi scheme.

As FTX collapsed, the S.E.C.

said in its complaint, investors
were kept in the dark about what
was going on. Federal prosecutors
said Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lenders
were also kept in the dark. And
hundreds of thousands of FTX
customers around the world were
kept in the dark, too — only to find
out that their money was gone.

“Bankman-Fried was orches-

trating a massive, yearslong
fraud, diverting billions of dollars
of the trading platform’s customer
funds for his own personal benefit
and to help grow his crypto em-
pire,” the S.E.C. said.

According to court filings, Mr.

Bankman-Fried was indicted by a
grand jury on Dec. 9. The arrest
took place three days later, when
Bahamian authorities took Mr.
Bankman-Fried into custody at
Albany, the luxury apartment
complex where he has lived since
he moved FTX to the island from
Hong Kong last year.

At a news conference on Tues-

day, Damian Williams, the U.S. at-
torney for the Southern District of
New York, said the investigation
into FTX was “very much ongo-
ing” and “moving very quickly.”

He called the company’s col-

Royston Jones, Jr; David Mc-

Cabe; Ephrat Livni; William K.
Rashbaum; Rebecca Davis O’Bri-
enand Benjamin Weiser contribut-
ed reporting.

lapse “one of the biggest financial

frauds in American history.”

Federal prosecutors will need

to extradite Mr. Bankman-Fried
so he can face trial in federal court
in the United States. But while the
Bahamas has an_ extradition
treaty with the United States, that
process could stretch for weeks or
months if Mr. Bankman-Fried
contests it.

Mark Cohen, a lawyer for Mr.

Bankman-Fried, said his client “is
reviewing the charges with his le-
gal team and considering all of his

legal options.”
Just over a month ago, Mr.
Bankman-Fried was widely

viewed as one of the few reliable

figures in a freewheeling, loosely
regulated industry. He contribut-
ed $5.6 million to President Bi-
den’s 2020 election effort, and
FTX spent lavishly on TV com-
A crypto leader faces
charges in a ‘massive’
misappropriation

of billions of dollars.

mercials with an array of celebrity

endorsers like the basketball star
Stephen Curry and the N.EL.
quarterback Tom Brady. He was
at the forefront of an industrywide
effort to bring crypto into the
mainstream of American com-
merce.

But strip away all the refer-

ences to crypto in the S.E.C’s civil
complaint, and a picture emerges
of garden-variety lies to investors
— falsehoods that date back to
2019.

Regulators say Mr. Bankman-

Fried lied to dozens of big venture
capital firms and wealthy family
offices, as he raised nearly $2 bil-
lion to finance his company.

The S.E.C. claims that Mr.

Bankman-Fried misled those in-
vestors in reports about the finan-
cial health of FTX and its sister
company, Alameda Research, a
crypto trading platform that he
had helped start. He also misled
investors about the close ties be-
tween the two companies, the
S.E.C. said, and concealed how he
had allowed his trading firm to
routinely borrow money from
FTX customers — borrowing that
occurred despite claims that all
customer money was safe.

The mixing of money allowed

Alameda to make bigger trades,
invest in other crypto companies,
buy Bahamas real estate and

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

ERIKA P. RODRIGUEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Prosecutors allege that Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, misled dozens of
investors.
make personal loans to FTX exec-
utives. The fraud was enabled in
two key ways, the S.E.C. said:
FTX customers were directed to
deposit fiat currency, like U.S. dol-
lars, into bank accounts controlled
by Alameda, and the trading firm
could draw down from a “virtually
limitless” line of credit funded by
FTX customer assets.

Then in the spring, when the

crypto market began to crater,
other crypto firms that were lend-
ers to Alameda began to call in
their loans, demanding repay-
ment, according to the authorities.
That forced Mr. Bankman-Fried
and others at FTX to double down
and take even more money from
FTX customers to make Alameda
whole.

The strategy of taking money

from FTX to keep Alameda afloat
imploded when customers of the

crypto exchange started demand-

ing their money this fall. The fi-
nancial hole was $8 billion, so big
that the whole enterprise col-
lapsed.

In the indictment and accompa-

nying court papers, federal pros-
ecutors echoed many of the alle-
gations in the S.E.C’s complaint.
They also claimed Mr. Bankman-
Fried had broken campaign fi-
nance laws by making political
contributions to both parties “in
the names of co-conspirators,
when in fact those contributions
were funded by Alameda Re-
search with misappropriated
customer funds.”

The scheme was “in the service

of the defendant’s desire to influ-
ence the direction of policy and
legislation on the cryptocurrency
industry,’ prosecutors wrote in
court papers.

The Commodity Futures Trad-

ing Commission also filed civil
charges, claiming that Mr.
Bankman-Fried, FTX and Alame-
da had defrauded customers and
other cryptocurrency investors
by manipulating the prices of cer-
tain digital assets, front-running
other traders on the FTX plat-
form, and lying about the location
and use of customer funds.

The C.ET.C. described ascheme

to artificially boost the value of a
digital token called FTT, which
was created by FTX and issued to
some investors while Alameda
used it as collateral for loans from
other cryptocurrency firms. Ac-
cording to the complaint, FTX
used a third of its revenues to buy
FTT and remove it from the mar-
ketplace, artificially inflating its
value.

For weeks, Mr. Bankman-Fried

claimed in numerous media inter-

views that he never intended to
defraud anyone and that hehad no.
idea what was going on at Alame-
da. But Rebecca Roiphe, a former
prosecutor and a professor at New
York Law School, said those argu-
ments were unlikely to succeed in
a courtroom.

“One of the classic defenses in a

white collar case is to plead igno-
rance,” she said. “But it just does-
n't ring true when you head the
company and have so much con-
trol over the organization.”

Before his arrest, Mr.

Bankman-Fried was scheduled to
testify at a hearing on Tuesday in
front of the House Financial Serv-
ices Committee, which is investi-
gating the collapse of FTX. The
hearing went ahead without him,
featuring testimony from John
Jay Ray III, a veteran of corporate
restructuring who has taken over
as chief executive of FTX.

In his opening statement, Mr.

Ray blamed the collapse of FTX
on the “absolute concentration of
control in the hands of a small
group of grossly inexperienced
and unsophisticated individuals.”

In the early 2000s, Mr Ray

oversaw the unwinding of Enron,
the energy trading firm that col-
lapsed in an accounting scandal.
At the hearing, he called the per-
petrators of Enron’s crimes
“highly sophisticated,” whereas
FTX executives appeared to have
engaged in “really just old-fash-
ioned embezzlement,” he said.

“Even with most failed compa-

nies, we have a fair road map of
what happened,” Mr. Ray said in
his testimony. “We're dealing with
a literal paperless bankruptcy. It
makes it difficult to track.”

The S.E.C., in its complaint, am-

plified those concerns and warn-
ings. The complaint said that from.
the beginning, “FTX had poor
controls and fundamentally defi-
cient risk management pro-
cedures.” The S.E.C. said the com-
pany treated assets and liabilities
as “interchangeable” in its ac-
counting ledgers and bookkeep-
ing.

For now, however, no one other

than Mr. Bankman-Fried has been
charged.

On a number of occasions,
though, the indictment references
other people who assisted Mr.
Bankman-Fried in carrying out
the allegedly fraudulent scheme,
without naming any of them.

Legal experts, including some

lawyers familiar with the investi-
gation, have said it is likely that
some of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s for-
mer associates are cooperating
with the authorities, especially
given the speed with which the
charges were filed.

“Somebody had to describe to

them what happened and what
was done with specifics,” said Erik
Gordon, a law and business pro-
fessor at the University of Michi-
gan. “Someone gave them a short
cut.”
Inflation Slows More Sharply Than Expected, Offering Hope of a ‘Soft Landing’

From Page Al

While price increases are not

yet slowing across the board, they
are moderating for key goods and
services that consumers buy ev-
ery day, including gas and meat.
That is good news for President
Biden, who has struggled to con-
vince Americans that the econ-
omy is strong as the surging cost
of living erodes voter confidence.

“Inflation is coming down in

America? Mr. Biden said during
remarks at the White House on
Tuesday morning. He hailed the
report as “news that provides
some optimism for the holiday
season, and I would argue, the
year ahead.”

Still, he cautioned that the na-

tion could face more setbacks in
its efforts to bring inflation under
control. “We shouldn’t take any-
thing for granted,” he said.

Signs that a cooling of

price increases will
continue next year.

Inflation remains unusually

rapid for now: Tuesday’s 7.1 per-
cent reading is an improvement,
but it is still much faster than the
roughly 2 percent that prevailed
before the pandemic.

The details of the report sug-

gested that further cooling is
likely in store.

Many of the categories in which

price increases are now slowing
are tied more to the pandemic and
supply chains than to Fed policy.
For instance, food and fuel price
jumps are moderating after climb-
ing rapidly earlier this year, an ef-
fect of transportation issues and
fallout from the war in Ukraine.
Used car prices, which were se-
verely elevated by a collision of
consumer demand and parts
shortages, are now falling sharply.
Officials are “getting the help

Ben Casselman, Jim Tankersley

and Lydia DePillis contributed re-
porting.

that they expected” from healing

supply chains and cheaper goods,
said Michael Gapen, chief U.S.
economist at Bank of America.

The question now is what will

happen with inflation in service
categories, which can be more
stubborn and difficult to cool. The
Fed has lifted interest rates from
just above zero early this year to
about 4 percent — and those
higher borrowing costs are now
trickling through the economy to
cool consumer demand and the la-
bor market. That should slow
down many types of inflation in
2023.

For instance, used car prices

are likely to continue to decline as
car loans become so pricey that
would-be buyers are squeezed out
of the market. Wage growth re-
mains rapid now, but as busi-
nesses hold off on expansions or
lay off workers, it is expected to
slow, which could help price
changes for many kinds of serv-
ices to slow.

Already, market-based rent in-

creases have pulled back sharply,
which should trickle into inflation.
data over the next year.

Rents were 7.9 percent higher

than a year earlier in November,
the fastest year-over-year in-
crease in four decades, as tenants
renew their leases after a big pop
in market rent prices in 2021 and
early 2022. That is poised to slow
down notably in the coming
months.

The Consumer Price Index fig-

ures released on Tuesday are
closely watched because they are
the first major inflation data
points to come out each month.
The Fed officially targets a more
delayed measure, the Personal
Consumption Expenditures in-
dex, and aims for 2 percent on av-
erage over time. That measure
came in at 6 percent in the year
through October.

As price increases begin to

moderate notably, investors and
households alike are wondering
how high the Fed is likely to raise
interest rates in 2023 — and how
long officials will leave borrowing
costs elevated.

One camp argues that the cen-

tral bank should be cautious,

Saree “ ee
RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Prices for some foods were among those moderating after rapid increases, according
to the Con-
sumer Price Index. Prices for fuel, used cars and airline tickets also provided a
bit of good news.

avoiding doing too much and

causing arecession at atime when.
price increases are already on
their way back toward normal.

But other economists and poli-

cymakers contend that underly-
ing inflation pressures remain.
They warn that the Fed needs to.
stick with the program to ensure
that inflation does not become a
permanent feature of the Ameri-
can economy.

Services inflation contributed

about 3.9 percentage points of
November’s inflation reading.
Much of that comes from the rapid
increase in rents that is poised to
taper off, but some is from a tick-
up in other categories, such as.
garbage collection, dentist visits
and tickets to sports games.

“Although the long-awaited

moderation in goods categories is.
finally underway, the underlying
pace of inflation still looks incon-
sistent with the Fed's target,”
Tiffany Wilding, North American.
economist at PIMCO, wrote in a
note after the inflation data re-
lease.

If price increases remained

stubbornly higher for years on
end, they could begin to feed on
themselves, with consumers ask-
ing for bigger raises to keep up
and companies instituting bigger
or more frequent price adjust-
ments to cover rising labor bills.

That sort of self-fulfilling cycle is

exactly what the Fed is trying to.
avoid.

In the 1970s, officials allowed in-

flation to remain slightly more
rapid than usual for years on end,
which created what economists
since have called an “inflationary

psychology.” When oil prices

spiked for geopolitical reasons, an
already elevated inflation base
and high inflation expectations
helped price increases climb dras-
tically. Fed policymakers ulti-
mately raised rates to nearly 20
percent and pushed unemploy-
ment to double digits to bring
price moves back under control.

Central bankers today want to

avoid a rerun of that painful expe-
rience. For now, they have sig-
naled that they expect to raise in-
terest rates slightly in early 2023,
and then leave them at high levels
for some time to constrain the
economy.

“It is likely that restoring price

stability will require holding pol-
icy at a restrictive level for some
time,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed
chair, said during a speech late
last month. “We will stay the
course until the job is done.”

Ms. Wilding said she expected

the labor market to slow down no-
tably in early 2023, allowing the
Fed to stop raising interest rates,
as did Mr. Shepherdson at Pan-
theon.

“I think that they are going to be

done in February,” he said. But he
expects rates to remain at a rela-
tively high rate — just shy of 5 per-
cent — for a long time, as the Fed
avoids letting up too soon and al-
lowing inflation to stage a come-
back.

“They're going to be very cau-

tious: They’ve had their fingers
burned.”

Corrections

FRONT PAGE

An article on Tuesday about Iran's

public execution of protesters
misstated the location of the city
of Mashhad. It is in northeastern
Iran, not northwestern Iran.

An article on Tuesday about Nor-

way’s growing weariness of Rus-
sian spies in their society referred
incorrectly to the position held by

Contact the Newsroom

To contact the newsroom regarding

correction requests, please email
corrections@nytimes.com.

aman arrested as a Russian spy

at the University of Tromso. He
was a guest researcher, not a vis-
iting researcher.

INTERNATIONAL

An article on Tuesday about a

shootout in Australia that left six
dead referred incorrectly to a
mass shooting in Tasmania. It
happened in 1996, not 1966.

An article on Tuesday about the

chairman of the African Union
seeking greater representation
for African nations in world af-

fairs misstated the GDP of Africa.

The continent has a GDP of $2.7
trillion, not billion.

ARTS
A subheading with an article on
Tuesday about the television ad-
aptation of the novel “Kindred”
misspelled the surname of its au-
thor. As the article notes, she was
Octavia E. Butler, not Bulter.

Errors are corrected during the press

run whenever possible, so some errors
noted here may not have appeared in
all editions.

m +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREA DER

PressRead.

| PD pressreade
THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

N Al9

FACUNDO ARRIZAPALAGA/ EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

Britain acquired the Elgin marbles at the dawn of the 19th century when the Ottoman
Empire ruled Greece. There is mounting pressure for the return of the statuary,
which once graced the Parthenon.

With Indiana Jones Era Over, Museums Assess Their Looted Art

From Page Al

Though the tide turned more

than a decade ago, the pace of re-
patriations has only accelerated
in recent years. Injust the last few
months, museums across Amer-
ica have returned dozens of antiq-
uities to the countries from which
they were taken.

The J. Paul Getty Museum in

Los Angeles returned three pre-
cious terra cotta figures to Italy.
The Denver Art Museum shipped
four antiquities back to Cambodia.
The Smithsonian Institution re-
turned 29 Benin bronzes to Ni-
geria. And the Manhattan district
attorney’s office seized 27 looted
artifacts from the Met, which are
headed back to Italy and Egypt.

“I do have sympathy,” said Eliz-

abeth Marlowe, director of the
museum studies program at Col-
gate University, “for museum di-
rectors and curators who were
trained under different ethical
norms and now find themselves in
a situation where they very pub-
licly have to rethink the ethical
norms they are operating under.
That said, ‘It’s time to step up,
gentlemen. It’s a different land-
scape.”

To Ms. Marlowe and others, the

surge in museum repatriations is
ajust response to more thanacen-
tury of treasure-hunting that they
say took advantage of societies
made vulnerable by poverty, war
or political instability.
For some, though, the number
of restitutions has become unset-
tling. Museums, like public librar-
ies, have long enjoyed an exalted
status as places that promote eru-
dition by permanently preserving
and displaying the significant ob-
jects that define human history
and culture.

But now curators are regularly

watching ancient works long on
display head out the door in ship-
ping crates. Collecting practices.
embraced for decades have been.
recast as villainous.

“We have moved the goal

posts,” said Kate Fitz Gibbon, ex-
ecutive director of the think tank
Committee for Cultural Policy.

Consider, for example, the

mounting pressure on the British
Museum to return the Elgin mar-
bles that once graced the
Parthenon. They were acquired at
the dawn of the 19th century when
the Ottoman Empire ruled
Greece. The British view the
sculptures and bas-reliefs as le-
gitimately transferred by the Ot-
toman authorities. The Greeks ar-
gue that the Turks, as occupiers,
lacked the moral authority to dis-
pense with their history.

This fall Egyptian archaeolo-

gists renewed calls for the return
of the Rosetta Stone by the British
Museum, which has taken steps to
distance itself from its colonialist
past. Two years ago, the museum.
relocated a bust of its founder,
Hans Sloane, a slaveholder, to a vi-
trine exploring Britain and slav-
ery.
In America, critics of the surge
in returns worry that museum col-
lections built over time by schol-
ars and imbued by a sense of con-
text are being randomly depleted.
Should U.S. audiences, they ask,
be deprived of access to iconic ob-
jects that they suggest belong not
to individual nations, but to hu-
mankind?

Leila A. Amineddoleh, an art

and cultural heritage lawyer, has
suggested that such thinking is
outdated.

“Arguments against repatria-

tion are sometimes supported by
paternalistic and patronizing ar-
guments,” she wrote, “asserting
that Western collectors and ar-
chaeologists ‘discovered’ these
objects and have superior knowl-
edge of them.”

Experts say a_ significant

change in attitudes about collect-
ing dates to 1970 when nations be-
gan ratifying a UNESCO treaty to
stem the trade in illicit artifacts.
Awareness of the problem ex-
panded further 20 years ago when
antiquities looting during the Iraq
war made clear the scope of that
black market.

Alain Delaquériére contributed re-

search.

More recently, governments of

countries like Cambodia have
shown a greater interest in claim-
ing their national heritage, with
their tracking aided by the trans-
parency afforded by the internet
and online databases,

But most significantly, U.S. au-

thorities, both local and federal,
have made the return of looted
cultural heritage more of a diplo-
matic and law enforcement pri-
ority. U.S. Homeland Security In-
vestigations reports returning
more than 20,000 items since
2007, largely seized from dealers
and collectors, but also found in
many of America’s most presti-
gious museums.

“There has been a broad agree-

ment for decades that objects that
were stolen in violation of law
should be returned, but what has
changed is the amount of time and
focus spent on this kind of crime
and the political will to pursue it,”
said Donna Yates, associate pro-
fessor, criminal law and criminolo-
gy at Maastricht University in the
Netherlands.
A Coffin and
a Kardashian

The dealer seemed to have the

correct paperwork. The laws of
Egypt appeared to countenance
its sale. So it was with consider-
able enthusiasm in 2017 that the
Metropolitan Museum of Art paid
nearly $4 million for a gold-plated
coffin dating to the first century
B.C, It had been created to bury
Nedjemankh, a high-ranking
priest of the ram-headed god
Heryshef of Herakleopolis.

Then, during the 2018 Met Gala,

Kim Kardashian posed next to it,
sheathed in a gold dress that
shimmered like the coffin itself.

Her image circled the globe and

was seen by the Jordanian smug-
gler who had taken the coffin and
tipped the high priest's mummy
into the Nile. He complained to an-
other smuggler that he had never
been paid for his efforts. As it
turned out, his confidant was an
informant for the Manhattan dis-
trict attorney’s office.

The investigators found that the

export license had been forged.
The coffin had not, as the permit
stated, left Egypt in 1971. It had
been illegally excavated in 2011,
smuggled to Dubai, then Ger-
many and Paris, When the coffin

arrived at the Met, one of the high

priest’s finger bones was still at-
tached inside, according to inves-
tigators.

Only two years after buying the

coffin, the Met agreed to return it
to Egypt.

“After we learned that the mu-

seum was a victim of fraud,” said
the Met’s president, Daniel H.
Weiss, “and unwittingly partici-
pated in the illegal trade of antiq-
uities, we worked with the D.A/s
office for its return to Egypt.”

Returned Under Pressure

Museums do show a heightened
Sensitivity to the integrity of their
collections and have returned il-
licit objects based on their own re-
search. But experts say most mu-
seum repatriations of recent
years have been prompted by
government claims or American
law enforcement efforts.

“There is a sense that the U.S.

should not be the repository of the
world’s stolen property,” said Ste-
fan D. Cassella, a former federal
prosecutor.

The office of the Manhattan dis-

trict attorney has a dedicated unit
that focuses on restitution. Since
2011, the office says, it has recov-
ered nearly 4,500 antiquities from
collectors and dealers and, in sev-
eral cases, from museums.

Last summer, the unit served a

search warrant on the Getty re
garding the three major terra cot-
tas, “Orpheus and the Sirens” —
mainstays of the museum's col-
lection. It cited the New York
State penal code, in particular a
section that prohibits the pos-
session of stolen property and is
typically used in more prosaic set-
tings to recover things like stolen
cars.

Matthew Bogdanos, the assist-

ant district attorney who leads the
unit, said it had overwhelming ev-
idence. “The Getty gulped,” Mr.
Bogdanos recalled, “and said,
‘Yes, you are right, it’s stolen} and
returned it.”

Infact, the Getty decided, based

on its own and independent re-
search, to return additional items
to Italy.

“Getty has been conducting vig-

orous provenance research for
years and we return items based
on evidence of illegal excavation,”
said Lisa Lapin, a Getty spokes-
woman.

“I do give them credit,” Mr. Bog-

danos said of museums that co-
operate. “But I don’t think anyone
should think we walk in the door,
and it’s, ‘Glad you are here’ That
does not happen.”

The Impact of a Treaty

Experts say the 1970 UNESCO

convention helped redefine ac-
ceptable behavior when it came to
antiquities. Nations pledged to co-
operate and follow best practices
to curb the import of stolen items.

Though the treaty governed the

conduct of nations, not institu-
tions, museums began to set
guidelines that aligned in spirit
with its principles. Many agreed,
for example, not to acquire an arti-
fact without clear, documented ev-
idence that it had left its country of
origin before 1970, or had been le-
gally exported after 1970.

“Tt has reset the range of ac-

ceptable behavior,” said Nicholas
M. O’Donnell, a lawyer who spe-
cializes in art matters.

Still, the ethos of collecting

hardly changed overnight.

“When I first entered the world

of curators, it was the Wild West,
‘1970’ notwithstanding,” said Gary
Vikan, who was a curator in the
1980s and later became director of
the Walters Art Museum in Balti-
more. “Curators and museum di-
rectors wanted to get important
works. You wanted to be the one
that gets that icon, that sculpture,
that bronze.”

While the 1970 cutoff date re-

duces the risk of acquiring a stol-
en object, it does not inoculate mu-
seumsfrom claims. Countries can,
and do, make demands for objects
acquired earlier based on their
own national ownership laws that
define when an artifact became
state property, and thus illegal to
be exported without an official li-
cense. Italy, for example, has had
one on the books since 1909.
U.S. investigators often cite
such ownership laws when press-
ing museums to return items that
left that country after such a law
was in place, To succeed, they
must show that the law was clear
and unambiguous, that the ar-
chaeological artifact is truly from
that country and that it was still
there when the law was enacted.

Investigators will also point to

other violations of customs law,
such as when smugglers mislabel
an item on shipping forms. The
Egyptian coffin seized from the

Met, for example, was described

as a “gypsum Wooden Box and
lid” on documents presented to
German officials, according to in-
vestigators.

The fact that a museum ac-

quired an antiquity in good faith
does not matter, even if the seller
or donor was not aware an item
was looted. Under U.S. law, one
can never acquire good title to
stolen property.

Steps Forward
by Museums

The Smithsonian Institution this

year adopted an ethical returns.
policy that holds that issues of
fairness could trump any legal ti-
tle it might possess. Put forward
as Exhibit A of itsmew seriousness
was an announcement that it
would return 29 Benin bronzes to
Nigeria.

The bronzes, which carry that

name even though they were of-
ten made from brass, ivory or
wood, are not being given back as
amatter of law, but, experts say, as
a matter of morality.

The Kingdom of Benin, in what

is now southern Nigeria, had no
heritage law in place in 1897 when
British soldiers seized thousands
of them as trophies.

The bronzes have become a fo-

cal point for the repatriation de-
bate. At least 50 American muse-
ums hold at least one Benin
bronze and there are a total of
roughly 1,100 in the U.S. So far, at
least 10 museums have returned
bronzes or are planning to.

Critics complain that, among

other things, such returns take
treasures that showcase a coun-
try’s artistic brilliance from an in-
ternational capital like Washing-
ton, where they are much seen,
and send them to remote, uncer-
tain settings.

One organization, the Restitu-

tion Study Group, has sued to
block the Smithsonian's transfers.
Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, ex-
ecutive director of the group, said
her ancestors were traded as
slaves from ports controlled by
the Kingdom of Benin, where co-
lonial-era rulers participated in
the slave trade.

She views the artifacts, some of

which are said to have been creat-
ed from the very metal that was
exchanged for slaves, as part of
her heritage and often took her

THE METROPGLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK; NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON; VIA
THE RISD. MUSEUM

MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART; NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN ART, SMITHSONIAN

INSTITUTION; PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANKO KHOURY; HOOD MUSEUM OF ART, DARTMOUTH.

Several American museums have returned Benin bronzes like these. Repatriation has
prompted protests. “If they go back,
what then is left for us?” asked one mother, whose ancestors were traded as slaves
and who has taken her daughter to see them.

daughter to see them at museums.

“If they go back, what then is

left for us?” she said in an inter-
view.

More debates of this sort are

likely as museums grapple with
increased scrutiny. Some have al-
ready chosen to respond with
measures like the appointment in
2010 of Victoria Reed by the Mu-
seum of Fine Arts, Boston as its
curator of provenance. Her job in-
cludes identifying looted objects
in its collection.

She recently called attention to

a new wall label for an ancient
bracelet purchased by the mu-
seum in 2008. The label acknowl-
edges that the museum no longer
believes the account of the seller.

“We now believe the informa-

tionis untrue, probably fabricated
and used repeatedly by the seller
to disguise instances of archaeo-
logical looting,” the panel says.

The Met and other museums

have also entered into loan agree-
ments that return ownership of
artifacts to the country of origin
but permit their continued display
by the institution.

“Museums don’t need ta OWN

objects to share them with the
public,” said Ms. Yates, of the Uni-
versity of Maastricht, in an email.

Questioning Their
Commitment

Some art world experts are not

convinced that American muse-
ums have fully embraced a new
ethos of transparency and inter-
nal scrutiny.

They point to what they con-

sider to be loopholes in the Associ-
ation of Art Museum Directors
guidelines on the acquisition of ar-
tifacts. The association, which
serves as the industry’s ethical
compass, discourages the acquisi-
tion of any object without a docu-
mented provenance before 1970,
unless it has an official export per-
mit. But the guidelines allow mu-
seums to accept such an artifact if
they list it on an online registry
where they report whatever prov-
enance information they do have
and a justification for taking it in.
To date, museums have posted
1,754 objects on the exception reg-
istry.

The association has spoken of

how seriously it and its member
organizations view the issues of
looting and cultural heritage. But
Patty Gerstenblith, the director of
the Center for Art, Museum and
Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul
University, called the registry’s
standard “very, very loose.”

“Tt looks like a fig leaf,” she said.

Ms. Marlowe, the Colgate pro-

fessor, said she too is skeptical
that all museums are serious
about scrutinizing their col-
lections.

“The strategy museums have

adopted is to pretend that these
objects materialized out of no-
where,” she said. “But we are
learning more and more they
know exactly where these pieces
came from and they are effec-
tively lying in their labels.”

Mr. Vikan, the former museum

director, said that while he fully
endorsed repatriation efforts, the
cost for museums went beyond
the loss of artifacts already in a
collection. Given their limited ac-
quisition budgets, American mu-
seums have relied on donated an-
tiquities, and now donors who lack
full paperwork can be reluctant to
make gifts, and museums are re-
luctant to accept them.

But he does not worry that large

museums, which typically display
only a fraction of their holdings,
will be significantly hurt by more
robust repatriation efforts.

“If anyone tells me that sending

the Elgin marbles back to Greece,
that somehow the British Mu-
seum will be empty, it’s nonsense,”
he said.

Mr. Bogdanos, the assistant dis-

trict attorney, agreed.
“I don’t want to denude New
York of its extensive cultural
treasures,” he said. “I just want
people to walk into museums,
even other people’s apartments,
and see an antiquity and know, ‘I
bet you it’s OK, it’s legal, because
here in New York they take that
seriously.”

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER.

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTEC TED BY APPLICABLE LAW

[ p pressreader
A20 N

Blast of 192 Lasers

Attains Breakthrough
In Nuclear Fusion

From Page Al

continually combines hydrogen

atoms into helium, producing sun-
light and warmth that bathes the
planets. In experimental reactors
and laser labs on Earth, fusion
lives up to its reputation as a very
clean energy source.

There was always a caveat,

however. In all of the efforts by sci-
entists to control the unruly power
of fusion, their experiments con-
sumed more energy than the fu-
sion reactions generated.

That changed at 1:03 a.m. on

Dec. 5 when 192 giant lasers at the
laboratory’s National Ignition Fa-
cility blasted a small cylinder
about the size of a pencil eraser
that contained a frozen nubbin of
hydrogen encased in diamond.

The laser beams entered at the

top and bottom of the cylinder, va-
porizing it. That generated an in-
ward onslaught of X-rays that
compressed a BB-size fuel pellet
of deuterium and tritium, the
heavier forms of hydrogen.

In a brief moment lasting less

than 100 trillionths of a second,
2.05 megajoules of energy —
roughly the equivalent of a pound
of TNT — bombarded the hydro-
gen pellet. Out flowed a flood of
neutron particles — the product of
fusion — which carried about 3
megajoules of energy, a factor of
1.5 in energy gain.

This crossed the threshold that

laser fusion scientists call igni-
tion, the dividing line where the
energy generated by fusion
equals the energy of the incoming
lasers that start the reaction.

“You see one diagnostic and you

think maybe that’s not real and
then you start to see more and
more diagnostics rolling in, point-
ing to the same thing,” said Annie
Kritcher, a physicist at Livermore
who described reviewing the data
after the experiment. “It’s a great
feeling.”

The successful experiment fi-

nally delivers the ignition goal
that was promised when con-
struction of the National Ignition
Facility started in 1997. When op-
erations began in 2009, however,
the facility hardly generated any
fusion at all, an embarrassing dis-
appointment after a $3.5 billion in-

Henry Fountain and Zach Monta-

gue contributed reporting.

vestment from the federal govern-

ment.

In 2014, Livermore scientists fi-

nally reported some success, but
the energy produced was minus-
cule — the equivalent of what a 60-
watt light bulb consumes in five
minutes. Progress over the next
few years was slight and small.

Then, in August last year, the fa-

cility produced a much larger
burst of energy — 70 percent as
much energy as the laser light en-
ergy.

In an interview, Mark Her-

rmann, program director for
weapons physics and design at
the Livermore, said the re-
searchers then performed a series
of experiments to better under-
stand the surprising August suc-
cess, and they worked to bump up
the energy of lasers by almost 10
percent and improve the design of
the hydrogen targets.

The first laser shot at 2.05

megajoules was performed in
September, and that first try
produced 1.2 megajoules of fusion
energy. Moreover, analysis
showed that the spherical pellet of
hydrogen was not squeezed
evenly, and some of the hydrogen
essentially squirted out the side
and did not reach fusion tempera-
tures.

The scientists made some ad-

justments that they believed
would work better.

“The prediction ahead of the

shot was that it could go up a fac-
tor of two,” Dr Herrmann said. “In
fact, it went up a little more than
that”

The main purpose of the Na-

tional Ignition Facility is to con-
duct experiments to help the
United States maintain its nuclear
weapons. That makes the immedi-
ate implications for producing en-
ergy tentative.

Fusion would be essentially an

emissions-free source of power,
and it would help reduce the need
for power plants burning coal and
natural gas, which pump billions
of tons of planet-warming carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere each
year.

But it will take quite a while be-

fore fusion becomes available ona
widespread, practical scale, if
ever.

“Probably decades,” Kimberly

S. Budil, the director of Lawrence
Livermore, said during the Tues-

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

day news conference. “Not six

decades, I don’t think. I think not
five decades, which is what we
used to say. I think it’s moving into
the foreground and probably, with
concerted effort and investment, a
few decades of research on the un-
derlying technologies could put us
in a position to build a power
plant.”

Most climate scientists and

policymakers say that to achieve
that goal of limiting warming to 2
degrees Celsius, or the even more
ambitious target of 1.5 degrees
Celsius of warming, the world
must reach net-zero emissions by
2050.

Fusion efforts to date have pri-

marily used doughnut-shaped
reactors known as tokamaks.
Within the reactors, hydrogen gas
is heated to temperatures hot
enough that the electrons are
stripped away from the hydrogen
nuclei, creating what is known as

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

a plasma — clouds of positively

charged nuclei and negatively
charged electrons. Magnetic
fields trap the plasma within the
doughnut shape, and the nuclei
fuse together, releasing energy in
the form of neutrons flying out-
ward.

The work at the National Igni-

tion Facility takes a different ap-
proach, but so far, little work has
gone into turning the idea of a la-
ser fusion power plant into reality.
“There are very significant hur-
dles, not just in the science, but in
technology,” Dr. Budil said.

The facility is the world’s most

powerful laser, but it is a slow and
inefficient one, relying on
decades-old technology.

The apparatus, about the size of

a sports stadium, is designed to
perform basic science experi-
ments, not serve as a prototype
for the generation of electricity.

It averages about 10 shots per

Kimberly S. Budil, left, director

of the Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory, which
includes the National Ignition
Facility, above, discussed the

energy milestone on Tuesday.

week. A commercial facility using

the laser fusion approach would
need much faster lasers, able to
shoot at a machine-gun pace, per-
haps 10 times a second.

The National Ignition Facility

also still consumes far more ener-
gy than is produced by the fusion
reactions.

Although the latest experiment

produced a net energy gain com-
pared with the energy of the 2.05
megajoules in the incoming laser
beams, the facility needed to pull
300 megajoules of energy from the
electrical grid to generate the
brief laser pulse.

Other types of lasers are more

efficient, but experts say a viable
laser fusion power plant would
probably require much higher en-
ergy gains than the 1.5 observed in
this latest fusion shot.

“You'll need gains of 30 to 100 in

order to get more energy for an
energy power plant,” Dr. Her-
rmann said.

He said Livermore would con-

tinue to push the facility’s fusion
experiments to higher fusion out-
put.

“That’s really what we’re going

to be looking at honestly over the
next few years,” Dr. Herrmann
said. “These experiments show
that even a little bit more laser en-
ergy can make a big difference.”

Researchers elsewhere are

An effort at a national
lab finally results in a
net gain of energy.

looking at variations of the experi-

ment. Other types of lasers at dif-
ferent wavelengths might heat the
hydrogen more efficiently.

Some researchers favor a “di-

rect drive” approach to laser fu-
sion, using the laser light to di-
rectly heat the hydrogen. That
would get more energy into the
hydrogen, but could also create in-
stabilities that thwart the fusion
reactions.

In March, the White House held

a summit to seek to accelerate
commercial fusion efforts.

“Developing an economically
attractive approach to fusion en-
ergy is a grand scientific and engi-
neering challenge,” Tammy Ma,
who leads an effort at Livermore
to study the possibilities. “With-
out a doubt, it will be a monumen-
tal undertaking.”

Dr. Ma said that a report com-

missioned by the Energy Depart-
ment to provide a framework for
laser fusion energy research
would come out soon.

“Such a program,” she said,

“will inevitably require participa-
tion from across the community”
including academia, start-up com-
panies and public utilities in addi-
tion to national laboratories like
Livermore.

The results announced Tuesday

will benefit the scientists working
on the nuclear stockpile, the Na-
tional Ignition Facility’s primary
purpose. By performing these nu-
clear reactions ina lab at aless de-
structive scale, scientists aim to
replace the data they used to
gather from underground nuclear
bomb detonations, which the
United States stopped in 1992.

The greater fusion output from

the facility will produce more data
“that allows us to maintain the
confidence in our nuclear deter-
rent without the need for further
underground testing,’ Dr Her-
rmann said. “The output, that
30,000 trillion watts of power, cre-
ates very extreme environments
in itself” that more closely resem-
ble an exploding nuclear weapon.

Riccardo Betti, chief scientist of

the Laboratory for Laser Energet-
ics at the University of Rochester,
who was not involved with this
particular Livermore experiment,
said, “This is the goal, to demon-
strate that one can ignite a ther-
monuclear fuel in the laboratory
for the first time.”

“And this was done,” he added.

“So this is a great result.”

By MAIA COLEMAN

Ona recent, drizzly Wednesday

morning, Fabian Currie stood in
an alleyway behind the food
pantry at the Morrisania Revital-
ization Corporation, a nonprofit
organization in the Bronx, looking
at a bright blue forklift.

On the sidewalk, Morrisania’s

outdoor pantry operation was in
full swing. Visitors carrying re-
usable bags collected apples, car-
rots and pineapples from pallets
stacked high on the sidewalk. A
growing line of customers
stretched around the corner and
down the block — a small crowd
by opening-time standards, said
Mr. Currie, a pantry volunteer
since 2019.

Mr. Currie was planning to haul

a stack of pallets of onions to the
pantry area with the help of a cru-
cial new player on the team. “That
is what makes life easier for me,”
said Mr. Currie, motioning
warmly to the Morrisania forklift,
or, as he affectionately calls it, Big
Joe.

Since the pandemic began, the

pantry at Morrisania, which fo-
cuses on community development
and housing, has expanded drasti-
cally. Formerly a small communi-
ty pantry serving 100 or so people
a week, it frequently helped about
5,000 a week in the first months of
Covid.

“People were going hungry,”

Ivy Brown, the program director
at Morrisania, said in a recent in-
terview. “The pantry is also a big
safety net for families.”

To meet the increasing need,

Ms. Brown began requesting
larger shipments from donating
organizations, including City Har-
vest, a nonprofit based in New
York City. But more food posed
major infrastructural challenges,
and pantry volunteers were often
left to unload 30 pallets of deliver-
ies by hand every day, using just
three pallet jacks.

A worn, manual jack on loan

from Ms. Brown's uncle, fittingly
nicknamed “Old Faithful,” carried
much of the load, followed later by
two electric ones from City Har-

ONLINE: THE NEEDIEST CASES.

The Il th annual fund-raising

campaign for The New York

Times Neediest Cases Fund is
underway and continues through
the end of the year. To make
donations or read previous
articles: nytimes.com/neediest

THE NEEDIEST CASES FUND

A Little Help From Big Joe the Forklift, a Daily Meal and Winter Coats

mY BI
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BEN GRIEME FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Ivy Brown and Fabian Currie at the Morrisania Revitalization Corporation, a

nonprofit, in the
Bronx. Right, Anthony Soto now has the strength to do the activities he loves,
including dancing.

vest. Unloading a single truck by

human assembly line would take
five hours or more and often re-
quired assistance from waiting
customers. “It was hard, hard
work,” Ms. Brown said.

Last year, City Harvest, which

received a grant from The New
York Times Neediest Cases Fund,
was able to purchase a forklift for
Morrisania through its Network
Capacity program. City Harvestis
also part of the network of Feed-
ing America, a beneficiary agency
of The Fund.

A3,000-Pound Capacity

New equipment — Big Joe has a

3,000-pound capacity and a 42-
inch fork — has cut unloading
time to just an hour or less, allow-
ing the pantry to distribute goods
more quickly and on a much
larger scale. The effect has been
profound; in the 2021 fiscal year,
Morrisania provided roughly 2.7
million meals through City Har-
vest; this year, the number grew
to 3.2 million.

“Without the forklift, we would-

n’t be able to do it at all,” Ms.
Brown said.

Today, Morrisania serves

roughly 1,000 people arriving
from the far reaches of the Bronx,
Queens and even Connecticut
three days a week. Between infla-
tion and an influx of migrants to
the city, the number is rising again
and the team is bracing for more
busy months.

Grants from The Neediest

Cases Fund are also providing
help for Anthony Soto. Mr. Soto, 71
and a disabled veteran, said mov-
ing back to New York allowed him

to be close to his daughter when

she was graduating from college.
But it also meant moving into a
sixth-floor walk-up in East
Harlem.

For years, Mr. Soto, who lost

part of his right leg to injuries af-
ter serving in the Marine Corps
during the Vietnam War, climbed
the six flights — 138 stairs exactly
— with a crutch, often making the
trip only once a day, or not leaving
at all. “I was a hermit,” Mr. Soto
said. “I would stay home all day”

Five years ago, the staff at Mr.

Soto’s community center intro-
duced him to Citymeals on
Wheels, a nonprofit that delivers
meals to older adults in New York
City and also received a grant
from The Fund. Mr. Soto has been
receiving a meal a day from
Citymeals ever since.

Mr. Soto said he had come to

rely on the sustenance of the
meals — they have improved over
the years, he said with a laugh —
and the regular drop-ins from the
Citymeals delivery team, who
constitute a community of sorts.
“IT know them by the way they
knock on my door” he said.

More recently, Mr. Soto was

able to move into a ground-floor
apartment in the same building,
making his daily life significantly
easier, he said. With the assist-
ance he receives from Citymeals,
Mr. Soto now has the strength to
do the activities he loves, includ-
ing dancing at the senior center,
going for drives — he operates a
car with the use of his left leg alone
— and, most of all, taking trips
with his daughter, who now works
as a special-education teacher.

Of the impact of Citymeals, Mr.

Soto said simply, “It’s really nice

to have people that care.”
Another organization that re-
ceived a grant, Operation Warm,
is also providing help to those in
need. The group, a national non-
profit organization that makes
winter coats and shoes for chil-
dren, is working with the New
York City Departments of Educa-
tion and Homeless Services to ful-
fillits goal of providing new coats,
shoes or both to 17,000 children

this year. The Fund’s contribution

will provide 2,000 coats, with a fo-
cus on children of asylum seekers
and migrant families and those
living in temporary housing.

“We have refugees who are ar-

riving every day with just the
clothes on their back, not expect-
ing or knowing how to cope with
the New York winter,’ said Brenda
Lee, the vice president of market-
ing and programs at Operation
Warm.
Writing It Down

Matthew Brown, 83, has always

been a crooner. From a young age,
he loved to perform for family and
friends, to train his deep, honeyed
voice on the pure notes of a choir
tune or a song sung by his idol,
Billy Eckstine.

He wrote original work, too, po-

ems and ballads he composed
himself. But Mr. Brown, who com-
pleted his schooling without
learning to read and write, could
never put them down on paper.

“IT would sing them to certain

people,” Mr. Brown recently said,
“and then I would just let it go.”

After graduating from high

school still illiterate, Mr. Brown
vowed to return to school one day,
but for years, the demands of

work and family, as well as a

struggle with alcoholism, kept
him from the classroom. All
while, anxiety over his inability to
read followed him like a cloud. “I
couldn’t even talk in front of peo-
ple,” he said.

Then, at the age of 72, he made a

change.

After hearing a radio advertise-

ment for Literacy Partners, an or-
ganization that also received a
grant and helps low-income and
immigrant adults improve their
reading and language skills, he
took matters into his own hands.

“I would say it was a godsend”

said Mr. Brown, who began par-
ticipating in the program’s group
classes in 2011 before connecting
with his longtime tutor, Vera
Konig, in 2013. “I was glad to be
able to read the simplest things”
he said, recalling the excitement
of understanding subway adver-
tisements on his way to class.

Since joining the program, Mr.

Brown accomplished another
longtime dream: to write an auto-
biography. Over a few years, and
with Ms. Konig’s assistance, Mr.
Brown wrote his autobiography —
literally — on lined paper by hand.
Copies, published late last year,
are held in Mr. Brown’s hometown
library in Statesville, N.C., and in
the Queens Public Library.

How to Help

The New York Times

<> Neediest Cases Fund

supports a global
community through organizations
that provide assistance.

Checks payable to
The New York Times Neediest
Cases Fund may be sent to:

PO. Box 5193

New York, N.Y. 10087

All donations are acknowledged;

special letters are not possible.

A check intended for a particular

agency participating in the annual
campaign should be written to and
mailed to the agency, noting that it
is a Neediest Cases gift.

Brooklyn Community Services

285 Schermerhorn Street
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11217

Catholic Charities
Archdiocese of New York
1011 First Avenue

New York, N.Y. 10022

Children’s Aid
117 West 124th Street
New York, N.Y. 10027

Community Service

Society of New York

633 Third Avenue, 10th Floor

New York, N.Y. 10017

Feeding America
35 East Wacker Drive, Suite 2000
Chicago, IL 60601

First Book
1319 F Street NW, Suite 1000
Washington, D.C. 20004

Hispanic Federation
55 Exchange Place, 5th Floor
New York, N.¥. 10005

International Rescue Committee

RO. Box 6068
Albert Lea, Minn. 56007-9847

UJA-Federation of New York

Church Street Station, RO. Box 4100
New York, N.Y. 10261-4100

Donations may be made

at nytimes.com/ neediest.

To donate stock to The Fund,

call 212-556-1137 or email

neediestcases@nytimes.com.

Gifts and bequests are deductible

for income and estate tax purposes.

No agents or solicitors are

authorized to seek contributions
for The New York Times Neediest
Cases Fund.

The New York Times Company

pays for all administrative costs of
The Fund, so every dollar donated
to The Fund goes directly to serve
those in need.

The New York Times Neediest

Cases Fund has been recognized by
the Internal Revenue Service as a
not-for-profit public charity under
Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal
Revenue Code. Contributions to
The Neediest Cases Fund are tax-
deductible to the extent permitted
by law. Federal Identification
Number: 13-6066063. A copy of
The Neediest Cases Fund's latest
annual financial report may be
obtained, upon request, from The
Fund or from the New York State
Attorney General's Charities Bureau,
Attn: FOIL Officer, 120 Broadway,
New York, New York 10271.
To delay may mean to forget.

com +1 604 278 4604

ROTEC TED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Megan Thee Stallion Testifies in Trial of Rapper Accused of Shooting Her

By JACK ROSS and JULIA JACOBS

LOS ANGELES — Megan Thee

Stallion, the Grammy-winning
rapper, took the stand on Tuesday
during the assault trial against the
rapper Tory Lanez, testifying that
she still had nerve damage after
he shot her in the feet in the wake
of an argument two years ago.

The case has played out on so-

cial media and in music released
by both rappers. On an album re-
leased in 2020, more than two
months after the encounter, Mr.
Lanez rebutted Megan Thee Stal-
lion’s account; she has defended
herself on Instagram, in inter-
views and with her own defiant
track.

Mr. Lanez, whose real name is

Daystar Peterson, could face
nearly 23 years of prison if con-
victed. He faces charges of assault
with a semiautomatic handgun; of
carrying a loaded, unregistered
firearm in a vehicle; and of dis-
charging a firearm with gross
negligence.

Prosecutors say that in July

2020, in the early morning hours
after a party in Los Angeles, Mr.
Lanez lashed out at Megan Thee
Stallion after she had criticized his
rap abilities, firing toward her feet
as she walked away from the vehi-
cle they had both been riding in.
The defense has disputed that Mr.
Lanez fired the shots, suggesting
it could have been another woman
who they claim was upset that the
two rappers had been intimate
with each other.

On Tuesday, Megan Thee Stal-

lion largely reiterated what she
had told reporters and recounted
on social media about the encoun-

EVAN AGOSTINI INVISION, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

ETIENNE LAURENT/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK,

Megan Thee Stallion, left, took the stand on Tuesday in the assault trial of Tory
Lanez, right, a fellow rapper, and told the court she
still has nerve damage after being shot in the feet two years ago. Mr. Lanez is
accused of shooting the Grammy-winning artist.

ter, testifying that she had initially

misrepresented the events of that
night to the police because ten-
sions were high after the murder
of George Floyd and she was
afraid of how they would respond.

The shooting occurred just as

Megan Thee Stallion’s career was
ascendant. Months earlier, her
collaboration with Beyoncé on a
remix of “Savage” became her
first No. 1 Billboard hit. That year,
the blockbuster song “WAP” —a
viral collaboration with Cardi B —
turned her into an even bigger
star.

Here’s what to know about the

case.

What happened after the shoot-

ing?
Initially, the details around what

happened that night were hazy.

Days after the shooting, Megan

Thee Stallion — who was born
Megan Pete — posted on her In-
stagram account that she had
“suffered gunshot wounds” that
required surgery but did not pro-
vide more details. But amid surg-
ing gossip and speculation, she
later said the shooter was Mr.
Lanez, who had been arrested and
charged with concealing a firearm
in the vehicle.

Mr. Lanez addressed the situa-

tion in rap lyrics that suggested a
conflicting account, including,
“We both know what happened
that night and what I did/But it
ain't what they sayin’”

In October 2020, the Los Ange-

Jes County District Attorney’s Of-
fice charged Mr. Lanez with as-

sault.

What has Megan Thee Stallion

said?
In an interview with CBS's Gayle
King this year, Megan Thee Stal-
lion said that she and a friend had
been driving with Mr. Lanez after
a party at the home of Kylie Jen-
ner, the beauty mogul, when an ar-
gument broke out in the $.U.V.

After she exited the vehicle, she

said, Mr. Lanez shouted “Dance!”
and a sexist slur before shooting
at her. He then apologized and of-
fered her and the friend, Kelsey
Harris, a million dollars for them
to keep quiet about what had hap-
pened.

When the police arrived, she

said, she told officers that her foot
injuries had been caused when

she stepped on glass.

She later addressed her initial

decision to withhold information
from the police in her song “Shots
Fired,” rapping, “If it weren't for
me/Same week, you would have
been indicted.”

Megan Thee Stallion, 27, has

been outspoken about the shoot-
ing and what she sees as the
broader issues at play, writing ina
guest essay in The New York
Times that the “skepticism and
judgment” that followed her alle-
gations were emblematic of how
Black women were “disrespected
and disregarded in so many areas
of life.”

Outside the courthouse on

Tuesday, several fans of the rap-
per voiced their support with a
banner that read, “We stand with
Megan.”

What has Tory Lanez said?

Mr. Lanez, 30, who has pleaded
not guilty to all charges, has not
given interviews about his spe-
cific account of that night. But at
the start of the trial, his lawyer,
George Mgdesyan, said the argu-
ment in the car had involved Ms.
Harris, a friend of Megan Thee
Stallion’s; he said Ms. Harris was
angry when she learned that
Megan Thee Stallion had been in-
timate with Mr. Lanez, Rolling
Stone reported.

On the 2020 album on which he

addressed the shooting, which
was called “Daystar” Mr. Lanez
rapped, “If you got shot from be-
hind, how can you identify me?”

Itis unclear whether Mr. Lanez

plans to take the stand.

What evidence is at the center of

the case?

Prosecutors have homed in on a

text message that they say Ms.
Harris sent to Mr. Lanez’s body-
guard that night, writing, “Help”
and “Tory shot Meg.” They are
also expected to present a text
message in which Mr. Lanez apol-
ogizes to Megan Thee Stallion af-
ter the shooting. The defense has
countered that Mr. Lanez did not
directly admit to carrying out the
shooting, according to The Los
Angeles Times.

Mr. Mgdesyan also suggested

that there was a lack of physical
evidence to prove the case against
Mr. Lanez beyond a reasonable
doubt. He told jurors, The Los An-
geles Times reported, that Mr.
Lanez’s DNA had not been found
on the gun.

Subway Station Clerks Will Exit Booths to Guide Riders

By ANA LEY
Long confined to their metal-
and-glass enclosures, booth

clerks in the New York City sub-

way will soon roam stations, shed-
ding an obsolete role to engage
with riders increasingly frus-
trated over safety and service.

The Metropolitan Transporta-

tion Authority, the state agency
that operates the subway, wants
its 2,300 station agents to make a
greater effort guiding people
through 472 stations and more
than 665 miles of track — roughly
the distance from New York City
to Chicago.

Station agents, whose job for

decades was to process cash pay-
ments for rides, will also teach rid-
ers how to use the fully digital tap-
and-go payment system that will
soon replace the yellow-and-blue
MetroCard. The shift in duties will
happen early next year.

The M.T.A. and the union repre-

senting the booth workers have
presented the change as a needed
boost to transit’s appeal. More
than half of subway riders report a
lack of satisfaction with service,
according to a survey conducted
this past spring.

Many riders who use transit

less than before the pandemic
mentioned fear as the most com-
mon reason. Others are abandon-
ing the system because of the pop-
ularity of remote work. Weekday
passenger levels remain at just
over 60 percent of prepandemic
levels.

The new role was unveiled last

week as transit leaders have
Jaunched an aggressive effort to
make transit riders feel safer in
the subway. In recent months,
government officials have de-
ployed more police officers in the
system, installed cameras in train
cars and hired unarmed security
guards to stop people from skip-
ping payments.

Mayor Eric Adams also an-

nounced last month that the city
would begin involuntarily hospi-
talizing people with severe mental
illness, removing them from the
city’s streets and subways.

Transit officials say the effort is

es

a
EARL WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

In an effort to make transit riders feel safer, beginning early next year New York
City’s 2,300 booth
agents will start roaming the subway systems 472 stations to spot problems and
engage customers.

Weekday ridership is
at about 60 percent of
prepandemic levels.

starting to pay off. During a City

Council meeting on subway safety
on Monday, they cited a 13 percent
drop in crime during November
compared with the same month
last year even as ridership has ris-
en since.

The reassigned booth agents

are “going to be the eyes and ears
across our station environment,
from the turnstiles to the plat-
forms,” Richard Davey, the presi-
dent of New York City Transit —
the M.T.A. division that oversees
the subway — told council mem-
bers. “They will be an invaluable
resource for us as we continue to
look at safety.”

Criminal complaints in the sub-

way are up 30 percent this year
through Dec. 11 compared with

the same period last year, accord-

ing to the police. Besides rising
crime rates, a series of high-pro-
file attacks on platforms and
trains have been a source of anxi-
ety. Among this year’s incidents
were a mass shooting on the N
train during the morning rush in
April and the fatal shooting of a
Goldman Sachs employee, Daniel
Enriquez, on the Q train in May.
Under the changes, agents will
be trained for four days to learn
their new tasks, which include
walking through assigned sta-
tions twice during an 8-hour shift
to spot problems such as filthy
conditions or broken elevators.

The authority has experi-

mented with such a concept be-
fore — in late 2017, it launched a
pilot program called “Wayfind-
ers” that called for subway station
agents to carry out customer
service duties like escorting sick
passengers from trains.

Subway station agents, once

known as token clerks, have had
less and less to do over the years.

Their responsibilities were fur-

ther reduced at the onset of the
pandemic, when transit leaders
banned cash transactions. Nearly
all other major transit systems in
the world redeployed ticket sell-
ers long ago.

The change will offer job securi-

ty for subway workers whose
services have been largely re-
placed by machines, especially as
the authority contends with a
budget crisis triggered partly by
the coronavirus. The authority
has said it could face a budget gap
of nearly $3 billion by 2025. Tran-
sit officials are already contem-
plating raising fares for riders,
and the threat of layoffs looms.

“We can’t sit back and watch

our members get phased out
along with the MetroCard,”
Robert Kelley, a vice president
with Local 100 of the Transport
Workers Union, said in a prepared
statement. “We are forging a new
path with a new role that makes
their presence in stations even
more vital.”

Ehe New ork Cimes

ly

Ww

vty
Ww

Give the gift they'll

open every day.

Gift subscriptions to The Times start at $25.

Visit nytimes.com/ gift or call 1-800-NYTIMES.

One Plan to Refit the B.Q.E.

Is to Make It the Way It Was

By WINNIE HU

After years of public debate

over how to fix the traffic night-
mare that is the Brooklyn-Queens
Expressway, New Yorkers could
end up with something like what
they had before: a six-lane high-

way.

City officials said Tuesday that

they were considering several de-
sign ideas for rebuilding the out-
dated highway from the 1940s —
including bringing back two traf-
fic lanes that were recently elimi-
nated.

The B.Q.E., one of the city’s

busiest thoroughfares, has been
crumbling from all the car and
truck traffic — 129,000 vehicles a
day — that it was never designed
to carry, and from the road salt
and moisture that has weakened
its foundation. But there has been
no consensus on how to fix it.

Mayor Eric Adams has pushed

to fast-track the project, with a
goal of starting construction
within five years. Doing so within
that time frame would potentially
qualify the project for billions in
new federal infrastructure money
set aside by the Biden administra-
tion.
After holding public meetings
inviting community input, city of-
ficials have now compiled a
“menu of design ideas” for re-
building the highway, focusing on
a1.5-mile stretch that the city con-
trols, which is being called B.Q.E.
Central. The ideas include creat-
ing new landscaping and more
open spaces, as well as connecting
the promenade, which sits atop
the triple cantilever section of the
expressway, directly to Brooklyn
Bridge Park.

“This is just step one,” Mr. Ad-

ams said of the ideas. “But these
concepts push the boundaries and
fully explore what is possible for
B.Q.E. Central, and we are excited
to hear from New Yorkers as we
determine which one will become
a reality.”

But the most divisive idea is re-

storing the two traffic lanes that
were removed last year.

City officials said that the addi-

tional lanes could possibly be re-
served for public buses, car pools,
electric vehicles or wider shoul-
ders.

The current configuration did

not meet state and federal safety
standards, which generally re-
quire the shoulders to be a certain
width, continuous and on the
right-hand side, officials added.

The return to a six-lane high-

way has already drawn opposition
from some Brooklyn residents.
Critics of the Robert Moses-era
highway have long called for
downsizing or tearing it down
completely, saying that it has cut
through communities and
brought traffic, noise and air pol-
lution to their doorsteps.

“We have been advocating for a

visionary plan for the entire
B.Q.E. corridor that will demon-
strate that our city can lead on
transforming our infrastructure
to meet the future,” said Lara
Birnback, the executive director
of the Brooklyn Heights Associa-
tion. Returning to a six-lane high-
way would be a “step backward,”
she said, adding that she had
“deep concerns” about where the
project was heading.

Hank Gutman, a former city

transportation commissioner,
said that as the city tries to reduce
its dependence on private cars
and large trucks, “the idea of
spending billions to double down
on Robert Moses’s interstate
truck highway through resi-
dential neighborhoods in Brook-
lyn and Queens makes no sense.”

Mr. Gutman said that he had or-

dered the removal of the two lanes
from the B.Q.E. last year in order
to reduce vehicle weight and pro-
long the highway’s life span. The
removal was also meant to im-
prove safety on the expressway,
given its narrow lanes and lack of
shoulders.

The four remaining lanes were

widened and narrow shoulders
were added for use in emergen-
cies as well as for entrance and
exit ramps.

YUVRAJ KHANNA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

One of a “menu of design ideas” for the crumbling Brooklyn-

Queens Expressway is have it be a six-lane highway again.

&|Store

Shop The Times.

nytimes.com/store
Se )

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

[ p pressreade:
A22 N

Lloyd Newman, who teamed up

with a fellow teenager in the 1990s
to record two award-winning ra-
dio documentaries that bared the
pernicious underside of growing
up in a Chicago public housing
project, died on Dec. 7 in
Elmhurst, Ill. He was 43.

His death, in a hospital, was

caused by complications of sickle
cell anemia, his brother Michael
said.

Mr. Newman, the understated,

harder-luck half of the duo, was 14
and in the eighth grade when he
and his best friend, LeAlan Jones,
13, tape-recorded 100 hours of oral
history and interviews to produce
“Ghetto Life 101.” The producer
David Isay transformed into a 28-
minute segment on National Pub-
lic Radio in 1993.

In 1996, the youths won a Pea-

body Award, the youngest broad-
casters at the time to do so, for
“Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric
Morse,” a collage of recordings ex-
ploring the killing of a 5-year-old
boy, tossed from the window of a
vacant 14th-floor apartment in the
Ida B. Wells Homes by a 10 and an
ll year old because he had refused
to steal candy for them, according
to the police.

The two young journalists

“squeezed magic from the streets
of their struggling South Side
neighborhood,” the reporter Don
Terry wrote in The New York
Times in 1997.

The radio broadcasts were

adapted into a book, “Our Amer-
ica: Life and Death on the South
Side of Chicago” (1997), which
they wrote with Mr. Isay.

Mr. Isay had produced both doc-

umentaries, and they inspired
him to establish the StoryCorps
oral history project. It began with
a recording booth in Grand Cen-
tral Terminal in Manhattan in
2003 and since then has inter-
viewed a half-million people, an
effort to encourage mutual under-
standing by asking “to hear some-
one’s truth,” as the project puts it.

Even when he was only 14,

Lloyd Newman seemed unlikely
to outlive his friend. “It’s easy to
do wrong around here,” he told
The Times in 1996. “It’s easy to get
caught up by mistake.”

Mr. Jones had been raised by

middle-class grandparents in a
private home a block away from
the housing project. He graduated
from high school on schedule,
earned a bachelor’s degree in so-
cial science from Barat College in
Lake Forest, Ill., ran for Barack
Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat
as the Green Party candidate in
2010 (he polled 3.2 percent) and
became a mentor and profes-
sional journalist. Yet he seemed

THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIES WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

STEVE KAGAN/GETTY IMAGES

Lloyd Newman, left, and his partner, LeAlan Jones, in 1996 at the Ida B. Wells
Homes in Chicago, where they recorded “Remorse.”

more pessimistic of the two.

“Unfortunately, Lloyd and I

both knew we had accomplished
very little with the challenges in-
troduced in the documentaries,”
Mr. Jones said in an email this
week, citing, among other met-
rics, the rising toll of Black teen-
agers killed in Chicago.

Mr. Newman’s trajectory was

more problematic, but he seemed
more spirited.

He was “whip smart, street

smart, with a huge heart anda shy
smile,” Mr. Isay said on NPR last
week, but “he lived through more
in his first dozen years than most
people live in a lifetime.”
Lloyd Sentel Newman was born
on March 3, 1979, to Michael
Murry, an alcoholic who, by the
time his son was a teenager, had-
mt lived with the family for a dec-
ade, though he kept in touch with
them and lived nearby. His
mother, Lynn Newman, also
drank heavily and died of cirrho-
sis when she was 35 and Lloyd
was 15.

Lloyd was raised in a rowhouse,

part of the Ida B. Wells Homes, by
a sister who was six years older.
She and another sister also died of
complications of sickle cell ane-
mia.

In addition to his brother Mi-

chael, he is survived by another
brother, Lyndell; and a sister, Er-
icka Newman.

Lloyd, who sold laundry bags

with his father and peddled news-
papers, struggled at Wendell
Phillips High School in Chicago.

A Peabody-winning
radio documentarian
who ‘squeezed magic
from the streets.’

But he was able to transfer to Fu-

ture Commons Technical Prep
High School (now closed), where
he received closer supervision in
smaller classes.

“Tt isn’t hopeless,” he told The

Times in 1997. “I'll go to summer
school and regular school and
night school — I'll never drop out.”

He didn’t. After six years, he fi-

nally received his diploma and en-
rolled at Langston University in
Oklahoma, though he never grad-
uated.

He returned to Chicago, where

in 2006 he was arrested outside
his sister’s apartment and
charged with the manufacture,
delivery and possession of crack
cocaine.
He pleaded guilty on his law-
yer’s advice and was sentenced to
two years’ probation. In 2021, his
conviction was vacated thanks to
another lawyer, Joshua Tepler, af-
ter it was determined that the evi-
dence used to convict Mr. New-
man had been faked by corrupt
police officers who were implicat-
ed in more than 100 other phony
arrests.

Ininterviews, Mr. Newman said

he dreamed of going to college,
opening a hardware store or be-
coming a journalist. After moving
to DeKalb, IIl., west of Chicago, to
be closer to his brother, he worked
as a cabby and as an Uber driver.

In 2018, he was hired as a part-

time shelver by the DeKalb
County Library System and was
later promoted to a $16-an-hour
position mostly handling book
loans to and from other libraries.

Before he lapsed into a coma

seven months ago, he and a part-
ner were planning to open a tobac-
co and CBD retail store.

“Ghetto 101” originated when

Mr. Isay was hired at WBEZ radio,

NPR's Chicago affiliate, to con-
tribute to a series of broadcasts in-
spired by Alex Kotlowitz’s book
“There Are No Children Here:
The Story of Two Boys Growing
Up in the Other America” (1991).

Michael Newman said that

Lloyd had responded to a leaflet
distributed by Mr. Isay seeking
boots-on-the-ground reporters.
Lloyd, he said, “thought that it
would be fun and something dif-
ferent to do.”

Mr. Kotlowitz said in an email

that the project had imbued Mr.
Newman with a quiet confidence
and gave him a job that fit his
character, as an “understated yet
fiercely powerful storyteller who
sorelished making individual con-
nections often with people whose
lives so differed from his own.”
“He was such a generous spirit
and such a thoughtful soul,” Mr.
Kotlowitz added. “I don’t know if
he fully grasped the impact his
storytelling had on others, but it
inspired so many and challenged
them in ways that brought us all
closer.”

Both youths understood the

challenges they faced in the other
America, the one outside the
ghetto.

MICHAEL NEWMAN

Mr. Newman in 2019. He and

Mr. Jones told of growing up
on Chicago's South Side.

“If we go in the store, we’re

looked at wrong, as if we was go-
ing to steal,” Mr. Newman told
Charlie Rose on PBS in 1997.
“We're not trusted, and most peo-
ple feel that way.”

By his own reckoning, Lloyd

Newman might not have expected
to die of natural causes. In 1997,
enumerating the most common
causes of death in the projects, he
told The Times: “People get
thrown out of windows, drowned,
stabbed, shot. But a lot of that
killing would stop if the govern-
ment would make it livable
around here. We don’t have no
parks. The swings are broken.
There’s nothing for people to do.
There’s no fun. Life isn’t worth liv-
ing without some fun.”

In the documentary “Remorse,”

Mr. Newman and Mr. Jones stood
on the roof of the public housing
building from which 5-year-old
Eric Morse had been dropped
from a 14th-floor window by two
other young kids, or “shorties,” in
the parlance of the streets. Look-
ing over the edge, Mr. Jones asked
Mr. Newman what would have
gone through his mind if it was he
who had been plunging to the
ground.
“I'd be thinking about how I’m
going to land and if I’m going to
survive,” Mr. Newman said. “TI’d
be thinking about how it isin heav-
en.”

They mulled how long the fall

would take and whether there
would be time enough to say a
prayer. Regardless, they con-
cluded, Eric was so young that he
would surely have gone to heaven.

“Dude, you think they got a

playground in heaven for short-
ies?” Mr. Jones asked.

“Nope,” Mr. Newman said.

“They don’t got a playground in
heaven for nobody.”

Curt Simmons, 93, All-Star Left-Hander

And the Last of the Phillies’ Whiz Kids

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

Curt Simmons, a pitcher who

helped propel the 1950 Philadel-
phia Phillies to the franchise’s
first pennant in 35 years and went
on to become one of baseball’s
leading left-handers in his 20 ma-
jor league seasons, died on Tues-
day at his home in Ambler, Pa. He
was 93.

His daughter, Susan D’Ac-

quisto, confirmed that death. She
said Simmons had a hip replace-
ment years ago that had been
compromised and caused him to
become bedridden and ultimately
debilitated.

Simmons was the last survivor

of the mostly young 1950 Phillies
team known as the Whiz Kids,
who captured the National
League pennant on the final day of
the season, only to be swept by the
Yankees in the World Series.

While pitching for the Phillies,

Simmons was a three-time All-
Star. In his mid-30s, after coming
back from elbow surgery, he
pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals’
1964 N.L. pennant winners and
started twice in their seven-game
Series victory over the Yankees.

Relying on his fastball early on

and later reinventing himself with
a variety of pitches that kept bat-
ters off stride, Simmons had a ca-
reer record of 193 victories and 183
losses.

In the summer of 1950, when he

‘was 21, he teamed with the future
Hall of Fame right-hander Robin
Roberts, who was 23, and a lineup
that included another future Hall
of Famer, Richie Ashburn, 23, in
center field and the hard-hitting
Del Ennis, 25, in left field. That
Whiz Kids team won a _ long-
sought pennant after finishing 16
games behind the league cham-
pion Brooklyn Dodgers in 1949.

Alex Traub contributed reporting.

HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

Simmons earned praise from

Hank Aaron for both his fast-
ball and his deceptiveness.

Simmons had a 17-8 record for

the 1950 Phillies in early Septem-
ber, when the Army National
Guard unit he had joined after the
outbreak of the Korean War in late
June was called up for active duty.

The Phillies, managed by Eddie

Sawyer, were one game ahead of
the Dodgers going into the sea-
son’s final Sunday when they cap-
tured the N.L. pennant with a 4-1
victory at Ebbets Field on Dick
Sisler’s 10th-inning three-run
home run.

While the players were cele-

brating their stunning pennant
victory, they phoned Simmons at
his Army base in Pennsylvania.

“The boys from the party called

me from the Warwick Hotel in
Philly,” Simmons told The Palm
Beach Post in 2009. “Some of them
were coherent, some weren't.”

Simmons and Roberts, a 20-

game winner in 1950, were the an-
chors of the Phillies’ starting rota-
tion. The pitching staff alsoinclud-

ed Jim Konstanty, a rare “old-

timer” on the ball club at 33, who
won 16 games, all in relief, and was
named the N.L’s most valuable
player; and Bob Miller, who won
ll games and was runner-up for
rookie of the year.

But the Phillies did little at the

plate in the World Series, scoring
only five runs in losing four
Straight to the Yankees.

“Roberts and Simmons always

rose to the occasion,” the catcher
Andy Seminick told Danny Peary
for the oral history “We Played the
Game” (2004). “We'd go into town
for a three-game series, we were
confident we'd win at least two
games.”

Hank Aaron regarded Simmons

as one of the best fastball pitchers
he faced. He also remembered
how deceptive he could be.

“I wasn’t fooled very often,”

Aaron told The New York Timesin
1976, but “Curt Simmons was the
toughest to read because he hid
the ball so long behind his hips.”

The Phillies released Simmons

in May 1960. The Cardinals signed
him a few days later. He posted an
18-9 record in 1964.

“Curt knows the hitters better

than anyone in the league,”
Johnny Keane, the Cardinals’
manager, told Sports Illustrated
that June. “He has the curve, the
slider and the change, and he can
reach back and get the fastball.”

Simmons joined with Bob Gib-

son and Ray Sadecki on the pitch-
ing staff that helped take the 1964
Cardinals to a World Series title.
He started Games 3 and 6 and
pitched well, but the Cardinals lost
both games before beating the
Yankees in Game 7.

He later pitched for the Chicago

Cubs and the California Angels.
He retired in 1967.

Curtis Thomas Simmons was

born on May 19, 1929, in Egypt,

(Ta

Curt Simmons autographing a ball in 1950 for Jocko Thompson, a fellow pitcher on
the Phillies.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Pa., northwest of Allentown. His

father, Lawrence, worked in a ce-
ment mill, and his mother, Hattie
(Peifly) Simmons, was a home-
maker.

Astar pitcher at Whitehall High

School in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh
Valley, he was signed by the
Phillies to a $65,000 bonus, a huge
figure for the time, when he grad-
uated in 1947. He pitched in one
game for the Phillies that year,
then had losing records in the next
two years before flourishing in
1950.

Simmons pitched for an Army

baseball team until his discharge
before the 1952 baseball season.
He won 14 games that year and led
the N.L. in shutouts, with six. He
won 16 games in 1953, though he

A pennant in 1950
with Philadelphia and
a World Series title in
1964 with St. Louis.

missed a month after losing part

of a toe in a lawn mower accident.

After leaving baseball, Sim-

mons was a partner with Roberts
and others in a golf course in Am-
bler, Pa. He became the last living
Whiz Kid when Miller, his pitching
corps teammate, died in Novem-
ber 2020 at 94. During their last
years, Simmons and Miller, who
was living in Michigan, kept in
touch by phone, reliving their glo-

rious summer of 1950.

In addition to his daughter, Sim-

mons is survived by his sons,
Timothy and Thomas, and seven
grandchildren. His wife, Dorothy
(Ludwig) Simmons, died in 2012.

Simmons long remembered his

disappointment over missing the
1950 World Series.

“Two days before the Series be-

gan, they called me into the Army
office and said they’d give mea 10-
day leave without pay,” he told The
Allentown Morning Call in 2014. “T
wasn't eligible to pitch because
the rosters had to be set up three
days before the Series, so I
pitched batting practice.

“T think I put the guys in a

slump because I was pitching
pretty good.”

In Memoriam: Celebrate a Life

Memorialize and celebrate a loved one in the pages of The New York Times.

For more information, visit advertising.nytimes.com or call 1-800-458-5522.

Ehe New Pork Times

NYTIMES.COM

PRO TECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

5
3
g
i&
iS
er

_Dpressread
SCOTT AUDETTE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Leach in 2002 with Kliff Kingsbury, who now coaches the N.F.L’s

Arizona Cardinals. “He was more than a coach,’ Kingsbury said.

Mike Leach, 61, Coach

Whose Aerial Barrages
Changed Football, Dies

By RICHARD SANDOMIR

Mike Leach, a quirky, blunt-

spoken head coach at three uni-
versities who commanded an au-
dacious, high-powered, pass-
happy Air Raid offense, which in-
fluenced other colleges and N.E.L.
teams, died on Monday in Jack-
son, Miss. He was 61.

Mississippi State University,

where he coached the last three
seasons, said the cause was com-
plications of a heart condition. Af-
ter experiencing what the univer-
sity called a “personal health is-
sue” at his home in Starkville on
Sunday, he was airlifted to a Jack-
son hospital. He had also been
dealing with pneumonia recently.

Leach deployed his hyper-

kinetic Air Raid offense at Texas
Tech, Washington State and Mis-
sissippi State. With each team, his
quarterback threw an unusually
high number of passes from the
shotgun formation, with four or
five receivers spread widely along
the line of scrimmage.

Over 21 seasons, his teams had

a record of 158-107 and won eight
of 17 bowl games.

Kliff Kingsbury, one of Leach’s

quarterbacks at Texas Tech, who
later coached there and now
coaches the Arizona Cardinals of
the N.EL., said on Twitter: “There
is no way I would be where I am
today if not for Mike Leach and ev-
erything he taught me about the
game. Truly one of the most inno-
vative offensive minds in football,
he was more than a coach.”
Kingsbury and three other
Texas Tech quarterbacks, B.J. Sy-
mons, Sonny Cumbie and Graham
Harrell, led the nation in passing
yardage (Harrell twice). One of
his Washington State quarter-
backs, Gardner Minshew, led the
nation in that statistic in 2019.
Playing for Leach, Will Rogers,

the current Mississippi State

quarterback, set the Southeastern
Conference record for career com-
pletions with 922 (he finished with
1,130) and the university’s career
record of 10,428 passing yards.

“The beauty of what he did is

that he didn’t care if the other
team had our signals,” Harrell,
now the offensive coordinator at
West Virginia University, said ina
phone interview. “He'd say, ‘They
still have to beat us’ He thought
we could out-execute everyone.”

Ina profile of Leach in The New

York Times Magazine in 2005, Mi-
chael Lewis described the Air
Raid offense as “a mood: opti-
mism.”

“Tt is designed to maximize the

possibility of something good hap-
pening rather than to minimize
the possibility of something bad
happening,” he added. But, as
Leach said, something bad always
happens.

“There’s no such thing as a per-

fect game in football,” he said. “I
don’t even think there’s such a
thing as the perfect play. You have
11 guys between the ages of 18 and
22 trying to do something violent
and fast together, usually in pain.
Someone is going to blow an as-
signment or do something that’s
not quite right.”

Leach’s Texas Tech teams had

winning records in all 10 of his sea-
sons in Lubbock. His best year
was in 2008, when the Red Raiders
won their first 10 games and were
ranked No. 2 nationally. Their fi-
nal record of 11-2 gave them a No.
12 ranking.

Leach was named the Big 12

Conference's coach of the year.

The next season — when Texas

Tech finished 8-4 — ended with
Leach being fired for “continuous
acts of insubordination” and for
his treatment of the wide receiver

THE NEW YORK TIMES OBITUARIES WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

MIKE FUENTES/ ASSOCIATED PRESS

Mike Leach with Texas Tech in 2009. “He didn’t care if the other team had our
signals,” the former quarterback Graham Harrell said.

Adam James. James accused him

of isolating him in an equipment
garage and media room while he
was sitting out practice because of
a concussion. The university said
Leach had “meant to demean, hu-
miliate and punish” James “rather
than to serve the team’s best inter-
est.”

Leach told The Times that he

had ordered James only to be
“taken out of the light,” and that he
did not know where he had been
moved.

He did not coach for the next

two seasons, though his name
came up for various openings. He
Spent time as an analyst for the
CBS College Sports Network and
SiriusXM. He also wrote his auto-
biography, “Swing Your Sword:
Leading the Charge in Football
and Life” (2011, with Bruce Feld-
man).

Washington State had been a

doormat in the Pac-12 conference
for nearly a decade when it hired
Leach in 2011, after a 4-8 season.
He had losing records in his first
three years there before peaking
with an 11-2 record in 2018. But the
Cougars slipped to 6-7 in 2019, Af-
ter two stinging losses early that
season, he excoriated his players.

“Most of these guys were on the

same team last year that was a
tough team,” he said. “They’re fat,
dumb, happy and entitled.” He
also blamed himself and his staff
for not getting through to them.

Michael Charles Leach was

born on March 9, 1961, in Su-
sanville, Calif., in the northwest
part of the state. His father, Frank,

was a forester, and his mother,

Sandra (Rich) Leach, was ahome-
maker.

He was raised mostly in Cody,

Wyo., where he was on his high
school football team. While at-
tending Brigham Young Univer-
sity, he played rugby but kept an
eye on the wide-open offense engi-
neered by LaVell Edwards,
B.Y.U’s head football coach. He
graduated in 1983.

He earned a master’s degree

A powerful offense,
and personality, at
Mississippi State and
two other universities.

from the United States Sports

Academy in Alabama and studied
law at Pepperdine University in
Malibu, Calif. But after getting his
degree in 1986, he realized he did
not want to be a lawyer. Instead,
he told The Times, he wanted to
use his talent for making legal ar-
guments in devising offensive
plays.

Leach began his coaching life as

an assistant at California Poly-
technic State University, in San
Luis Obispo, in 1987. He moved to
the College of the Desert in Palm
Desert, Calif, the next year and
then on to a European league,
coaching a Finland team, in 1989,

when Iowa Wesleyan College

hired him. Its head coach, Hal
Mumme, had developed what be-
came the Air Raid offense.

Mumme, as head coach, and

Leach, as offensive coordinator,
together took that offense, with in-
creasing success, to Valdosta
State University in 1992 and the
University of Kentucky in 1997, be-
fore Leach moved on his own to
the University of Oklahoma.

With Leach as the offensive co-

ordinator under Coach Bob
Stoops, the Sooners rose in points
scored per game from 101st in 1998
to sixth in 1999 in the top level of
college football teams. The quar-
terback, Josh Heupel, threw for
far more yards than any quarter-
back in Oklahoma’s history.

Texas Tech hired Leach in late

1999, and his teams there went on
to compile an 84-43 record.

In 2020, shortly after he left

Washington State for Mississippi
State, Leach shared on Twitter a
Coronavirus-related meme, which
he later deleted, that presented an
image of an older white woman
with knitting needles. Its caption
read, “After 2 weeks of quarantine
with her husband, Gertrude de-
cided to knit him a scarf.”

But it wasn’t a scarf; it was a

noose, which evoked the Deep
South’s history of lynching Black
people. Leach apologized and was
ordered by the university to un-
dergo sensitivity training.

A defensive lineman, Fabien

Lovett, who is Black, transferred
to Florida State, saying he felt that
Leach’s apology was insincere

and that the university’s response

insufficient.

Leach is survived by his wife,

Sharon (Smith) Leach; his daugh-
ters, Janeen Clark, Kimberly
Betty and Kiersten Leach; his
son, Cody; his father; his sisters,
Lindsey Andrus, Mary Quacken-
bush and Cara Williams; his
brother, Tim; and six grandchil-
dren.

Leach was also known for his

off-the-field football interests. He
taught a course at Mississippi
State on the connection between
football and insurgent warfare. In
addition to his autobiography, he
wrote “Geronimo: Leadership
Strategies of an American War-
rior” (2015, with Buddy Levy).

And, fascinated by pirates, he

kept a talking life-size model of
one in his office and carried the
buccaneer theme into lectures to
his players. Following an over-
time loss, he talked to his team
about pirates for three hours.
When he was interviewed on “60
Minutes” in 2008, he recounted
another lecture he had given.

“T brought his sword in, this pi-

rate sword replica, and I talked
about how are you gonna swing
this sword?” Leach said as he
wielded the weapon. He asked his
players if they were going to wield
it “out of control,” blindly, or with
precision. He noted how “even the
most derelict pirates” sharpen
and polish their swords, then com-
pared that to the way players
work out in weight rooms.

“Your body;” he said, “is your

sword.”

Deaths

FEDER—Jack, PnD,
husband of Ingrid‘ Freiden-

grandchildren,

Deaths Deaths

Rebecca] Who _ stutter.

Sander ow

Deaths

survived by her beloved hus-

Deaths

friendships. She was a men-

a teacher — someone

Feder, Jack

Deaths

Gibis, Margot

Deaths

friend. Frances enriched our

lives and her passing will be a

bergs PhD, died on Decem-

ber 1, 2022 at the age of 94. He
will be keenly missed by his
wife Ingrid, son, Paul Feder,
daughter-in-law Morgan J.
Feder, grandson Sebastian
Qnd granddaughter Corinna.
Also missing him are_ his
niece Katia Feder her hus-
band Bertrand. and their son
Alex, nephew Ivan Feder, his
joanna, their daughter
Aria and Jack's sister-in-law
Chris Welles Feder. Jack was
a clinical psychologist. who
obtained his PhD from New
York University and for
many decades practiced in
Greenwich Village. After he
suffered a stroke in 2004 and
was unable fo practice being
a therapist, he continued his
other —passion-photography
and was shown in many gal-
leries and publications. He
“ be missed by family and
so friends who
loved hin Hew A, celcoras
tion of his life will be an-
nounced at a later date. The
Kenny Funeral Home has
care of services.

FLAUM—Sander A.

oh
Sander A. Flaum died peace-
fully on December 11, 2022, at
the age of 85. He was prede-
ceased by his beloved wife,
Mechele. He is survived by
his children, Pamela Wein-
berg (Matthew), Jonathon
Flaum, (Tami) and four
Weinberg, Beniamin Wein-
berg, Ren Flaum, and Eve
Flaum. He is also survi by
his sister Adele Spickler|
(Alan) and her children
Charles and Beth. After gra-
duating in 1953 (before his,
17th birthday) from Boys,
High School in Brooklyn, San-
der went onto The Ohio State}
University graduating in 1958,
Upon completing his military,
service, he earned an MBA|
degree from Fairleigh Dickin-
son University. ander |
served on the boards of The|
Ohio State University College,
of Arts and Sciences, Fisher]
College of Business, where he|
was also Executive-in-
Residence. He was a board
member of The John Glenn
College of Public Affairs, The
James Cancer Center, and|
The Silberman College of
Business at Fairleigh Dickin-|

noted mentor,
thought leader. Along with)
writing more than 100 co-
lumns for various industry
journals, he also wrote seven|
books, including, a best-
selling business book, “The}

Essence of Leadership” co-

written with his son, Jonat-
hon. This soon was followed
in 2009 by another best-selling
book - “Big Shoes: How Suc-
cessful Leaders Grow into|
New Roles.” In 2017, Sander]
co-authored a book ‘with his|
wife, Mechele, “Boost Your
Career: How to Make an Im-

pact, Get Recognized, and

Bulld the Coreer ‘vou Want.”
Sander also served as an Ad-
junct Professor at Fordham
University, where for many
years he taught a cor on
leadership to MBA students.
He also contributed to a|
weekly radio podcast “The
Leader's Edge,” which was
hosted on Robin Hood Radio.
AS a Stutterer himself, ne was|
a lifelong advocate for those

sored The Flaum Speech ai

Hearing Clinic at his beloved
alma mater, OSU and later
created —an__ organization
named atter his mother, the
Rose Flaum Stuttering Foun-
dation to provide scholar-
ships to students without the
todd to pay for speech
therapy. In 2021, Sander pub-
lished vote Stutter Steps:
Proven Pathways to Speak-
ing Confidently and Living
Courageously Although
Sander never fully overcame
his stutter, he never let it hold
him back. Sander will be
missed terribly. He was a re-
markable husband, parent,
grandparent, brother. friend,
Buckeye and human being.
Donations to Sander's memo-

be made to: Rose

Flaum Stuttering Foundation,
630 Park Avenue, Ste 9B, New
York, N'Y 10065.

FLOOD—Anne.

Anne Flood, a longtime rex

ident. of Pelham Manor

and Greenport, NY suddenly

passed away on December 6,
2022, in iham Manor, NY
with her devoted husband by
her side. She was 78 years old,
having been bom in Brook-
lyn, NY an December 5, 1944,
to Edward and Mildred (Mc-|
Partiand) Wennerholm, both

from Brooklyn, NY. Anne is

band and partner of 52 years,
James Flood, whom she mar-
ried in 1970. She is also sur-
vived by her brother Edward
Wennerholm Tarrytown,
NY, her sister-in-law Monica
Aragona, her sisters Mary
Wilson (Tom) of York, PA
and Ellen Chinnici (Michael)
of Cold Spring Harbor, NY,
her sisters-in-law Margaret
Flood OP and Mary Flood OP
MD both of Blauvelt, NY, her
cherished children Elisabeth
Byrne (Edward) of Cos Cob,
CT and John Flood (Jamie
Grosz) of Denver, CO. She
was the proud grandmother
of Kyra (d), Ava, Dane and
4ria Burnstine, Leo Flood,
and step-grandchildren Sop-
hie and Quinn Byme. She was
the much4oved aunt to
numerous nieces and nep-
hews. Anne was predeceased
by her parents and her grand-
daughter Kyra Anne. After
graduation from St. Bren-
dan's Diocesan High School,
she earned ees from St.
Vincent's School of Nursing
(RN) and Marymount Man-
hattan College (BA). Anne
spent the bulk of her career
gs an RNin several New York
hospital as a Director in the
jome Health Care Agency
field. and as @ stay-at-home
mother when her children
were in elementary school.
She had been a founding
Member of the Pelham Nur-
ses Network Respite Pro-
gram, which provided servi-
ces to New York City ee
with handicapped childrei
She led a local campaign io
prevent closing a Pelham
grammar school by organiz-
ing an army of volunteers to
conduct a student SUE that
demonstrated the right num-
ber of grammar school build-
ings for the district. Anne was
widely known for her genero-
sity, ian: sage advice,
and selflessness.
Throughout her lite she had
beautiful and = treasured

tor,
anyone would be lucky to call
friend. She will be forever
missed. A wake for Anne will
be heid on the 13th of Decem-
ber from 2-4pm and 6-8pm at
Fred H. Mct seb « Son
Funeral Home edar
Street, Bronxvilie, ‘AY Sar08.
A funeral Mass will be held on
the 14th of December at
10am at Our Lady of Perpe-
tual Help, Fa olen Av crmey
Pelham M« ir, N'Y 10803. In-
ferment will follow at Gate of
Heaven Cemetery; 10 W
Stevens Avenue, Hawthorne,
NY 10532.

GIBIS—Margot.
The merican Austrian
Foundation's Board of
Trustees mourns the death of
Margot Gibis, President, Leir|
Foundation. Her enthusiastic
support of our programs, par-
ticularly the Open Medical In-
stitute and the Salzburg
CHOP Seminars enabled us
to train thousands of physi-
cians from low-income coun-

and significantly im-

prove outcomes for voun-
gest patients. She will be
sorely missed.

GIBIS—Margot.

The Selthelp Community Ser-

vices family is deeply s
dened by the passing of Mar-
got Gibis, President of the
Leir Charitable Foundations.|
ver true to
es of Henry and Erna
the wi

Leir, Margot facilitated signi-|

ficant funding for Selfhelp's
Holocaust survivors and oth-
er vulnerable older New Yor-

ANNOUNCEMENTS OF DEATHS

OR OUTSIDE NYC TOLL FREE 1-800-458-5522; OR SENT BY EMAIL TO

NYTIMES@CLASSIFIEDSPLUS.COM|

FOR THE FOLLOW ING EDITIONS:

Until 400 PM the day before for Tuesday through Saturday editions, until 4:00 PM on
Friday for
Sunday's national edition, until 12:45 PM Saturday for Sunday's New York and late
national editions, un-
til 2:00 PM Sunday for Monday’s editions. Photos must be submitted by
Tuesday through Friday. Photos for Saturday, Sunday and Monday must be submitted by
12 noon on Friday.

Flaum, Sander
Flood, Anne

Hesselbein, Frances
Kaplan, Daniel

kers. An annual highlight was

the outing she graciously
hosted in Ridgefield, Connec-
ticut for our Holocaust survi-
vors, enabling them to enioy
the beautiful couniryside,
warmth and legacy of Mr.
and Mrs. Leir. Margot was a
dear friend and will be warm-
ly remembered always.
Raymond V.J. Schrag,
resident
Dennis Baum, Vice President
Stuart C. Kaplan, CEO:

‘SiR ls aco

American Committee
ens the worldwide commu-
nity of the Weizmann. Insti-
tute of Science in moumi
the passing of Margot Gibis.
Margot left an indelible mark
on the world as president of
the Leir Foundation and a de-
voted steward of the Leir's
philanthropic work and en-
during legacy. For more than
50 years, the Leir Foundation

generously supported
scientific resear the
Weizmann Institute to ad-
vance quality of life around

orld. Weizmann Prof.

Emeritus Eytan Domany, re-
cipient of the Henry J. Leir
Professorial Chair, has fre-
quently referred to the foun-
dation's support as a “god-
send” for his work in cancer|
ces The foundation has
char rancement in:
Meera research special-
ties including cancer, Parkin-

son's, stem cells, molecular

genetics. and the autism
spectrum. With wisdom, ge-
nerosity, and compassion,
Margot proudly and capably
carried the Leir Foundation's
torch as a visionary leader in
her own right. She could
keenly identity and focus sup-
port on the research proiects
and scientists best suited to
carry the core mission of the
foundation and the hu! -
Sansvilues oF Henry Cerrina
the next generation. In 2017,
Margot guided the founda-
tion to establish the Leir Re-
search Fellow Chair in Au-
tism Spectrum Disorders Re-
search at Weizmann. As a
friend, colleague, leader, and
caring neighbor, Margot will
be missed by the Weizmann
Institute family ai
countless other servants of
humanity she helped during
her lifetime.

David Teplow

National Chair,
American Committee

Dr. Gladys Monroy

President,

American Committee
Dave Doneson

CEO, ence Committee

rot. Alon Chen

President,

Weizmann Institute

of Science

Catherine Beck

Chair, international Board

HESSELBEIN—Frances R.,
We are saddened by the
Passing of Frances who was
a tremendous mentor and

MAY BE TELEPHONED FROM

WITHIN NYC TO 212-556-3900;

noon the day prior to

profound loss to all who knew

and loved her. As National
Executive Director of Girl
Scouts of the USA, CEO of the
Francis Hesselbein Leader-
ship Institute (formerly Peter
F. Drucker Foundation for
Nonprofit Management and
Leader to Leader Institute)
and a recipient of the Pres-
jal of Freedom,
she touched the lives of
many people around the
world as an accomplished au-

speaker, extra
norprofit leader, and
ai

Kenneth Kirschner,
Andrea Chase and
Samantha Kirschner.

KAPLAN—Daniel.

The Boards of Trustees and

staff members of the Ameri-
can Jewish Historical Society
and Center for Jewish History
extend our most heartfelt
sympathies to the family of
Daniel Kaptan, along with our
earnest gratitude for his
years of friendship and dedi-
cation as a cherished suppor-
ter and Teusiee. May his me-
mory be a blessi
Sid Lapidus, Chair, AJHS;
Peter Baldwin, Chair, CJH

In Memoriam:
Celebrate
a Life

Memorialize and
celebrate a loved one
in the pages of

The New York Times.

For more information, visit

advertising.nytimes.com
or call 1-800-458-5522,

Fhe New York Eimes

In Memoriam: Celebrate a Life

Memorialize and celebrate a loved one in the pages of The New York Times.

For more information, visit advertising.nytimes.com or call 1-800-458-5522.

Ehe New York Gimes

NYTIMES.COM

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROT!

[ p pressreade:
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

pinion

The Editorial Board

A group of opinion journalists whose views are

informed by expertise, research, debate and
certain longstanding values. It is separate from
the newsroom.

HERE are three bills floating through

Congress right now that could not only

save lives and money but also help to

finally dismantle the nation’s failed

war on drugs. The Medicaid Re-entry Act,
the EQUAL (Eliminating a Quantifiably Un-
just Application of the Law) Act and the
MAT (Mainstreaming Addiction Treat-
ment) Act all have bipartisan support and
could be passed during the lame duck ses-
sion of Congress. Lawmakers should act on
them without delay.

The MAT Act would eliminate the special

Drug Enforcement Administration waiver
that doctors must apply for in order to pre-
scribe buprenorphine (a medication that
helps reduce the craving for opioids). It
would enable community health aides to
dispense this medication so long as it’s pre-
scribed by a doctor through telemedicine.
And it would give the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration re-
sponsibility to start a national campaign to
educate health care practitioners about
medications for opioid use disorder.

Reams of data have shown and addiction

specialists agree that these medications of-
fer some of the best options for preventing
overdoses and helping people into recovery.
But a 2019 report from the National Acade-
mies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
found that fewer than 20 percent of people
who could benefit have access to them.

There are several reasons for that, includ-

ing stigma and a lack of understanding
about how medications for opioid use dis-
order work. The biggest problem is that so
few doctors are willing to treat addiction in
the first place. Dropping the D.E.A. waiver
will not be enough to alleviate that short-
age; lawmakers will also have to find ways
to ensure that addiction treatment enjoys
the same robust reimbursement rates as
other chronic conditions. But eliminating
the waiver would still be a crucial step in the
right direction. The prescription drugs that
caused the current epidemic should not be
easier to get than the medications that could
help alleviate it.

The MAT Act, which was written by Rep-

resentative Paul Tonko of New York, has
some 248 co-sponsors and has already
passed the House as part of a broader men-
tal health package.

The Medicaid Re-entry Act would allow

states to reactivate Medicaid for inmates up
to one month before their scheduled release
from prison. Those benefits are normally
suspended (or in some states terminated)
during incarceration because current law
prohibits jail and prison inmates from re-
ceiving federal health insurance. Reinstat-

Ebe New York Eimes

WHAT COMES NEXT FOR THE WAR ON DRUGS?

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

Congress has a bipartisan

opportunity to help
mitigate the drug crisis.

ing them after incarceration takes time and

resources that people who have just been re-
leased from jail or prison don’t necessarily
have. The resulting disruptions in medical
care can be dire: America’s prison popula-
tion suffers disproportionately from a range
of serious ailments, including mental ill-
ness, heart disease and opioid use disorder.
Among other risks, former prisoners are 50

TOM BRENNER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

to 150 times as likely to die of an overdose in

the first two weeks after their release.
Closing the post-incarceration treatment
gap would go a long way toward reducing
such deaths. The Rhode Island Department
of Corrections reduced its post-incarcera-
tion overdose fatalities by 60 percent by en-
suring that inmates could receive
methadone and buprenorphine both during
incarceration and after release, without dis-
ruption. “It was basically a slam dunk,” says
Keith Humphreys, an addiction expert at
Stanford University and a former senior ad-
viser to President Barack Obama on drug
policy. “Instead of sending them off with a
brochure, you connect them to treatment.”
Reinstating Medicaid before release

would be another, even more robust way to

accomplish the same goal. Several states
have already applied for federal waivers
that would allow them to do so on a trial ba-
sis. The Biden administration should ap-
prove those waivers without delay. But Con-
gress should also pass the Medicaid Re-en-
try Act so that the benefit of seamless care
isi’t determined by where an inmate is in-
carcerated.

The bill, which was also written by Mr.

Tonko, has bipartisan backing in both cham-
bers and support from a wide range of
groups, including the National Alliance on
Mental Illness and the National Sheriffs As-
sociation. Experts on addiction believe it
could save both lives and money. “It would
open up a world of possibilities for taking
care of people who are newly released,” Mr.
Humphreys says. “There is really no reason
not to do it.”

The EQUAL Act would eliminate the fed-

eral sentencing disparity between drug of-
fenses involving crack cocaine and powder
cocaine. That disparity was created by a
1986 law that equated 50 grams of crack
with 5,000 grams of powder cocaine and
subjected possession of either toa minimum
sentence of 10 years in prison.

The law was based on the now disproved

idea that crack cocaine is far more addictive
than powder cocaine. It resulted in dispro-
portionately harsher penalties and far more
prison time for drug offenders in communi-
ties of color: While two-thirds of people who
smoke crack are white, 80 percent of people
who have been convicted of crack offenses
are Black.

In 2010, Congress reduced the crack-to-

powder ratio from 100:1 to 18:1, The EQUAL
Act would finally eliminate it altogether. If
passed, approximately 7,600 people who are
serving excessive crack-related sentences
could be released an average of six years
earlier, according to an estimate from the
U.S. Sentencing Commission. That comes
out to some 46,500 fewer prison years.

EQUAL, which was written by Represent-

ative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who was
recently elected leader of the House Demo-
crats, passed the House last year with over-
whelming bipartisan support. We urge the
Senate to pass it. Lawmakers should get this
long overdue bill across the finish line now,
before House investigations and other polit-
ical battles take priority in the next session.

The nation’s five-decade war on drugs has

been a dismal failure. Overdose deaths have
reached — and then surpassed — extreme
levels in recent years, and the number of
people who are still in prison for drug of-
fenses remains stubbornly and egregiously
high. Still, it is hard to agree on what comes
next. What has been shown to work is not
always politically feasible, and what’s politi-
cally popular often doesn’t make for sound
public health. The MAT, EQUAL and Medic-
aid Re-entry Acts meet both requirements.
Congress should pass all three now.

Palestinians Will Surely Pay the Price for Netanyahus Return

Diana Buttu

A lawyer and former adviser to the negotiating

team of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

HAIFA, ISRAEL

S THE prime minister-designate,

Benjamin Netanyahu, finalizes the

formation of Israel’s most extreme

right-wing government to date, I,

along with other Palestinians in Israel and
in the occupied territories, am filled with
dread about what the next few years will
bring.

Every day since the elections, Palestin-

ians wake up with a “What now?” apprehen-
sion, and more often than not, there’s yet an-
other bit of news that adds to our anxiety.
The atmosphere of racism is so acute that I
hesitate to speak or read Arabic on public
transportation. Palestinian rights have been
pushed to the back burner.
We Palestinians live knowing that a vast
majority of Israeli politicians don’t support
an end to Israel’s military rule over the West
Bank and Gaza Strip or equality for all of its
citizens. We are made to feel we are interlop-
ers whose presence is temporary and sim-
ply being tolerated until such time as it is
feasible to get rid of us.

According to a 2016 Pew Research Center

survey, 48 percent of Jewish Israelis agree
that “Arabs should be expelled or trans-
ferred from Israel.” I look around in my
mixed Haifa neighborhood and wonder
which of my neighbors voted for the extre-
mist candidates who have voiced similar
opinions. “It is only a matter of time before
we are gone,” my friends tell me. To add in-
sult to injury, Israelis blame Palestinians for
the rise in extremism and racism, rather
than look at how racism has become nor-
malized in Israeli society. It is blaming the
victim rather than the aggressor.

Since his recent election, Mr. Netanyahu

has been offering important positions in

government to vocal anti-Palestinian poli-
ticians. The incoming governing coalition
includes the extremist and racist Otzma Ye-
hudit, or Jewish Power, party, whose leaders
have a history of supporting violence
against Palestinians.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a settler who leads the

Jewish Power party, has been convicted of
incitement to racism and supporting a ter-
rorist group. This month he reportedly
hailed an Israeli soldier who fatally shot a
Palestinian young man in the West Bank
during a scuffle — an act caught on video
and widely circulated on social media — by
remarking, “Precise action, you really ful-
filled the honor of all of us and did what was
assigned to you.”

Israel’s current police chief blamed Mr.

Ben-Gvir for helping ignite the surge in vio-
Jence in May 2021. He will now be minister
for national security, putting him in charge
of Israel’s domestic police and border police
in the occupied West Bank, home to roughly
three million Palestinians.

Over the course of decades, and espe-

cially since the erection of the wall along the
West Bank, Israelis seem to have become
immune to how Palestinians live under Is-
raeli military rule and what it is to be Pales-
tinian in Israel. Conversations with neigh-
bors in Haifa about the nakba — or “catas-
trophe,” in which hundreds of thousands of
Arabs fled or were expelled with the cre-
ation of Israel in 1948 — or Israel’s military
occupation that amounts to apartheid or
even racism in Israel are always met with
denial or with justification, so we have
learned never to speak to each other.

On Dec. 1, Mr. Netanyahu inked a coalition

agreement with Bezalel Smotrich, another
settler and the head of the Religious Zionism
party, naming him minister of finance and
giving him control over a Defense Ministry
department. Mr. Smotrich has called him-
self a “proud homophobe” and has said that

the 2015 firebombing of a Palestinian home

in the West Bank in which an 18-month-old
child and his parents were burned to death
was not a terrorist attack. In 2016 he said
that he was in favor of segregation of Jewish
and Palestinian women in Israeli hospital
maternity wards.

Last year he mentioned that David Ben-

Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, didn’t
“finish the job” of expelling Palestinians in
1948. Mr. Smotrich has also promoted a sub-
jugation plan in which Palestinians (who ac-
cept the plan) would be considered “resi-
dent aliens” while those who do not would be
dealt with by the Israeli Army.

As part of his Defense Ministry post, he

will have unprecedented authority over the
policy on Israeli settlements in the West
Bank and over Palestinian construction and
will be able to appoint the heads of the ad-
ministration responsible for the govern-
ment’s civil policy in the West Bank.

Both the Jewish Power and the Religious

Zionism party platforms are almost exclu-
sively focused on Palestinians and ensuring
that Jewish supremacy reigns. The Reli-
gious Zionism party aims to retroactively le-
gitimize settlements in the West Bank.

I fear that Israel’s violent repression of

Palestinians will only increase in the near
future as I consider the record of Mr. Netan-
yahu and his previous coalitions — a history
of relentless race-baiting and incitement of
prejudice against Palestinians in Israel, the
passage of the Jewish Nation-State law
(which enshrines the privileging of Jewish
citizens), the open fire policy, Israel’s policy
of destroying Palestinian homes, its contin-
ued colonization of the West Bank and re-
peated mass bombings of Gaza.

With Mr. Ben-Gvir, Mr. Smotrich and

other extremists in his coalition, Mr. Netan-
yahu will very likely continue on this path,
particularly since he has been the enabler of
so many of these policies. Jewish Power and
Religious Zionism are natural extensions of

Israel's Religious
Zionism party
will now oversee
West Bank

settlement policy.

Mr. Netanyahu’s policies. Failing to recog-

nize this is akin to putting one’s head in the
sand.

If there is any silver lining to our grim sit-

uation, it might be that the rise of Mr Ben-
Gvir and his fellow extremists will open the
eyes of more Americans. Some former State
Department officials and diplomats have al-
ready called on the Biden administration
not to deal with the most extreme members
of the new Israeli coalition. American Jew-
ish groups have also expressed alarm at the
new coalition.

But American policy is unlikely to change

in response to these dark tidings. Secretary
of State Antony Blinken has spoken of
“equal measures of freedom, security, op-
portunity, justice and dignity” for Israelis
and Palestinians, but what will he offer to
ensure that Palestinians live in freedom and
security with this new government?

As Israel lurched further to the right, the

United States and other Western govern-
ments continued to normalize and legiti-
mize extremists once deemed beyond the
pale — from the notorious former general
Ariel Sharon when he became prime min-
ister to the race-baiting ultranationalist and
settler Avigdor Lieberman when Mr. Netan-
yahu, during his second run as prime min-
ister, made him a cabinet minister in 2009.

At the time, the appointment of Mr

Lieberman — who had called for loyalty
oaths for Israel’s Palestinian and Jewish cit-
izens and a redrawing of borders that would
strip Palestinians of their Israeli citizenship
— was widely criticized. But soon enough,
American and European officials were
meeting with Mr. Leiberman.

There is little hope that this won't happen

this time, too, and what was unthinkable but
a few years ago will become a reality, with
Palestinians inevitably paying the heaviest
price for Israel’s electoral choices.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressRead

| P pressreader

COPYRIGHT AND PR
THE NEW YORK TIMES OPINION WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

We Can Be Hopeful About Gun Safety

Dave Cullen
The author of “Columbine” and “Parkland.”

OU were right to feel hopeless. Gun

safety was a lost cause. The National
Rifle Association was invincible, and
the Republican Party was never going
to defy it. The failure to alter that reality af-
ter the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary
School — 10 years ago on Wednesday —
choked off our last faint wisp of hope.

If losing those 6- and 7-year-olds couldn't

drive that change, nothing would.

But we had it wrong. Gun safety wasn’t

buried in Newtown, Conn. The modern
safety movement was born that day.

Sandy Hook unleashed a slow-motion

tsunami of determination that culminated
this June in the first significant act of Con-
gress on gun safety in nearly three decades.
Fifteen Republican senators broke with the
N.R.A. — unthinkable in the old political
landscape.

Sandy Hook galvanized two women. The

day after the shooting, a suburban mother,
Shannon Watts, started Moms Demand Ac-
tion, which morphed into Everytown for
Gun Safety after merging with another
group. Three weeks after the massacre, the
former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords
created the forerunner to her gun safety or-
ganization, Giffords.

The groups reinvented the feeble “gun

control” movement as “gun safety.” The
failed gun controllers were a ragtag band of
disorganized, underfunded Washington
think tanks that never connected with vot-
ers or found a compelling message. Who
wants to be “controlled”?

Everytown and Giffords grew into politi-

cal powerhouses. Giffords cultivated strong
candidates for state and local offices and
reached out to gun owners, identifying them
as allies rather than antagonists. Every-
town raised a staggering activist army: It
says it has around 10 million supporters —
almost double the N.R.A.s nearly five mil-
lion dues-paying members. Both safety or-
ganizations are run by data-driven profes-
sionals who employ polling, focus groups
and election post-mortems to help candi-
dates test and hone effective messages.

New leaders, new strategies, new coali-

tions, new organizing principle. And they
have been winning deep in gun country. Joe
Biden ran on what was likely the most ag-
gressive gun safety platform embraced by a
major party presidential nominee in history
— and flipped Georgia and Arizona.

The safety movement was just reaching

critical mass in early 2018 when the Park-
land kids rose up. Victims refusing victim-
hood, they drew 14 million to 2.2 million
demonstrators across the country to the
March for Our Lives — one of the largest
protests in American history. The vital miss-
ing element was restored: hope. Then they
converted hope into action that fall by help-
ing flip the House from Republican to Demo-
cratic control, finally demonstrating that
gun Safety was no longer politically toxic; it
could help candidates win.

Until the Parkland uprising, I was a

doubter, too. I had covered the Columbine
shooting as a reporter and wrote a book
about it. Children kept being shot. But two
decades later, I spent nearly a year with the
Parkland kids when I was researching an-
other book, and I watched them team with
Giffords and Everytown, supercharging
their efforts.

The N.R.A. is not vanquished, but it is

walking wounded. The primary battle-
ground over gun legislation has been the
statehouses, where Parkland set off a star-

COLUMNIST | BRET STEPHENS

tling reversal. After decades of getting

trounced by the N.R.A., activists saw 67 gun
safety laws passed at the state level in 2019,
compared with nine pro-gun laws. This year,
45 new gun safety laws have been adopted
in states, while 95 percent of gun-lobby-
linked bills have been blocked, according to
an Everytown report.

Our power must be real now, because

Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority
leader, warned his conference it was. Before
the vote for the Bipartisan Safer Communi-
ties Act this June, Mr. McConnell told his
conference the game had changed. In a
closed-door session, his team presented
stunning internal polling of gun-owning
households. He summarized it for report-
ers: “Support for the provisions of the
framework is off the charts, overwhelming.”

And with that, the architect of the gun

safety blockade in Congress blew a hole in it.
He needed to peel off 10 of his senators, and
he got 15. The law strengthens background
checks, especially for people under age 21

Republicans are finally

more scared of voters than

they are of the N.R.A.

and provides funding to carry out red flag

laws and for mental health, school safety
and violence interrupter programs.

That was just a start. Our anger, trained

on Congress, can propel a string of initia-
tives to finally bring America’s shameful
mass-shooting era nearer to a close.

For the first time in decades, Republicans

in Congress are taking our demands seri-
ously. They are finally less afraid of the
N.R.A. than they are of us.

This spring, before an act of Congress

seemed possible, Angela Kuefler, a key poll-
ster for Everytown and Giffords, explained
to me why a breakthrough was on its way.
“There has been a shift in the emotion of
Americans from sadness after mass shoot-
ings to rage,” she explained. “People are in-
creasingly mad in these moments, and that
anger is activating.” Sadness is demoraliz-
ing and demotivating, she said.

Her polling picked up an even more deci-

sive change just recently. “We've broadened
out the villain,” she said. For decades, Amer-
icans saw the N.R.A. as the impediment to
gun legislation. But rage is refocusing on
members of Congress, increasingly seen as

Evil Clowns and Cowardly Lions

WE LIVE IN A TIME when the people who are

in charge are scared of the people who are-
n't. Professors report being terrified of their
students. Publishing executives fear the
wrath of junior employees. C.E.0.s worry
about staff revolts. Museum curators watch
what they say lest it lead to professional an-
nihilation. Politicians in senior positions are
nervous about the newbies — on their own
side.

Some of the fear is necessary and mer-

ited. Former New York Representatives Joe
Crowley and Eliot Engel lost their primaries
to energetic challengers because they were
arrogant and too comfortable in their in-
cumbencies. Young employees at Goldman
Sachs revolted early this year over
near-100-hour workweeks that have the col-
or of abuse. Overseas, one can only cheer
the fact that Iran’s despots are finally living
in fear of the magnificent women taking off
their hijabs and burning them in the streets.

But the fear is also doing a lot of damage:

to the people on whom the fear is inflicted,
on those inflicting it, on the welfare of the
institutions to which they belong. In healthy
institutions, leaders are supposed to teach,
inspire and mold younger people so they
can eventually inherit and improve those in-
stitutions when they’re ready to take
charge. In many of today’s institutions, re-
peated abdications of authority by cowardly
leaders have become invitations to arson by
willful upstarts.

I’ve thought about this a lot in recent

years, as one organization after another ca-
pitulated in the face of outrage mobs, hang-
ing good people out to dry to avoid having to
stand on principle. I thought about it again
last week, when Representative Marjorie
Taylor Greene, speaking at a New York
Young Republicans gala, said that if she and
Steve Bannon had organized the Jan. 6 at-
tack on Congress, “we would have won. Not
to mention, it would’ve been armed.”

The comment sparked indignation

among Democrats but not a word from Kev-
in McCarthy, who has cozied up to Greene to

win her support in his bid for the House

speakership. Greene later defended herself

saying the White House couldn't take a

joke — the old demagogic trick of riling the
mob while playing the fool.

Meanwhile, Republican leaders and con-

servative pundits more or less keep mum,
just as they kept mum for years over the
verbal hooliganism of Donald Trump before
and (except for a fleeting spasm of con-
science) after Jan. 6. They tell themselves
that condemning Greene or Trump only
gives them the attention they crave. But
they ignore the fact that failing to condemn
the pair gives them the legitimacy and

An old play helps explain

why many people live their
professional lives in fear.

power they crave much more.

The problem with evil clowns is that it’s

the clownishness, not the evil, they soon
shed.

This is not a new problem. Communist

dictatorships came to power in Central Eu-
rope after World War II by pretending to
play by democratic rules, until they didn’t.
The Nazis came to power in Germany the
same way. They joined the institutions they
intended to destroy. And the people who
were supposed to be the keepers of those in-
stitutions, the guardians at the gate, allowed
—and sometimes even helped — them to do
it.

Why?

Agood explanation comes in Max Frisch’s

1958 play, “Biedermann and the Fire Rais-
ers” (also translated from German as “The
Arsonists” or “The Firebugs”). It tells the
story of a self-satisfied businessman named
Gottlieb Biedermann who reads the news
that arsonists have been sweet-talking their

the N.R.A’s collaborators: “politicians who

actually fail to do anything again and again,”
she said, “and have failed to stand up to the
N.R.A.” She added, “What people actually
want are politicians with a backbone.”

It’s why Senator Joni Ernst of lowa — an

N.R.A. darling who ran for office by firing a
handgun in a major ad campaign — broke
with the organization leading up to the June
vote. She said her phone lines were
swamped, with callers six to one in favor of
the gun safety bill, urgently repeating:
“Please do something.”

Senator Todd Young, Republican of Indi-

ana, reported calls 10 to one in favor. Senator
Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia did
not endorse the initial compromise, but then
she met with Republican constituents. “Do
something,” they also demanded. She voted

yes.

Two Republicans up for re-election this

year voted yes: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska
and Mr. Young. Both won — Mr. Young by
more than 20 percentage points.

At the same time, polling analysis re-

leased recently by Everytown on the key
battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin
and Colorado shows that candidates were
punished for being too soft on gun safety. In
Pennsylvania, John Fetterman hammered
Mehmet Oz relentlessly for weakness on
gun safety and won that Senate seat by five
percentage points.

Progress will be paused. I don’t see the

new Republican-controlled House drafting
gun laws, but two years is a blip in this gen-
erational struggle. Voters are fired up now.
They can punish a do-nothing Congress in
2024.

The solution that will reverse this blight is

a comprehensive array of actions. Every-
town, which tracks progress in every state,
calls for 38 separate initiatives. Everytown
and Giffords prioritize six foundational
measures: comprehensive background
checks; widespread red flag laws that keep
guns from domestic abusers, the mentally ill
and others; secure storage laws to keep
guns out of the hands of children; requiring
concealed carry permits; the repeal of
“Stand Your Ground” laws; and, most im-
portant, more funding for violence inter-
rupter programs, since these have proved
wildly effective at de-escalating urban cy-
cles of violence, which lead to most of the
homicides in this country.

There are so many things we can do. We

have the means. We have the hope. We have
the resolve.

way into people’s houses and then, after be-

ing allowed to sleep in the attic, blowing
them up.

“They should hang the lot of them,” says

the outraged Biedermann at the beginning
of the play. But he’s their next victim.

The arsonists wheedle their way into his

house with a combination of servile plead-
ing, subtle bullying and appeals to Bieder-
mann’s moral vanity. And Biedermann, who
nurses a hidden feeling of guilt and fears
open confrontation, is their ideal mark. By
the end of the play, he’s handing the arson-
ists the matches with which they are going
to blow up the house. He can’t conceive that
he’s no longer in charge. He thinks he and
the arsonists are in on a big joke, never real-
izing that he’s become the butt of the joke
itself.

It’s not hard to figure out who today’s ar-

sonists are. They aren’t just Trump, Greene
and Vladimir Putin. They are also the ideo-
logical entrepreneurs in universities, busi-
nesses, publishing houses and news media
working almost openly to undermine the
missions of these institutions — intellectual
excellence, profitability, free expression, ob-
jectivity — in the name of higher social goals
like representation, sustainability, sensitiv-
ity and “moral clarity” Their aim isn’t to
make their homes better. It’s to blow them
up.

The harder challenge is to recognize our

present-day Biedermanns: The university
president who claims to believe in academic
freedom, until he joins the arsonists in de-
stroying the career of tenured faculty mem-
bers; the magazine editor who claims to be-
lieve in vigorous debate, until he capitulates
to those who don’t; the Republican House
member who says enough is enough after
Jan. 6, until he finds it much more conven-
ient to let bygones be bygones.

These are some of the self-deluded weak-

lings who set the tone of institutional life in
much of America today. It’s why so many
others live in fear.

An Iconic Album, and Gender Identity Today

TO THE EDITOR:

Re “Free to Be You and Me. Or

Not,” by Pamela Paul (column,
Dec. 5):

Ms. Paul does an excellent

job in reminding readers what
the recording and book “Free
to Be... You and Me” was all
about. And, critically, it
bravely suggests that much of
the trending thought on gen-
der and gender politics may be
misguided and even harmful.

To my mind, the problem is

not innate gender identity that
does not match biology, but
rather society’s assignment of
rigid definitions of what gen-
der is. If a boy or a girl can
truly express themselves
however they want, without
concern that they are not
conforming to these defini-
tions, then the fact they are
biologically male or female will
be largely irrelevant, and there
would be no need for a biologi-
cally male person to “identify”
as a girl or woman, and vice
versa.

“Free to Be... You and Me”

was an important step toward
that kind of “genderless”
world, and it’s unfortunate that
its message is being lost and
subsumed by a different kind
of gendered society, where
people need to create new
gender definitions to identify
with.

MARK PATRICK, TUCSON, ARIZ.

TO THE EDITOR:

My parents, having listened to

“Free to Be... You and Me” as
kids in the 1970s and ’80s, saw
fit to pass it down to my broth-
ers and me. I particularly
enjoyed listening to the re-
imagined myth of Atalanta,
who rejected her father’s in-
sistence that she had to get
married and instead decided
to travel the world on her own.
The story helped me to
understand the joy in breaking
free of traditional expectations
around gender, and so I find it
strange that Ms. Paul used this

album to promote her more

rigid perspective on gender
identity.
She argues that it’s great to
challenge gender norms, as
long as we continue to insist
that sex is inherently binary —
and she pats herself on the
back for having like other
liberated kids “accepted the
reality of biological science”
with regards to her own iden-
tity, while rejecting “the fiction
of gendered social conven-
tions.”

I believe that a truly liber-

ated approach to gender is one
that embraces fluidity over
any kind of strict binary. Then
we can truly build a future
where we are free to be you
and me.

ANDIE WALKER, ST. PAUL, MINN.

TO THE EDITOR:

Pamela Paul raises important

points. As one of the people
who helped found Ms. maga-
zine and the A.C.L.U’s Wom-
en’s Rights Project, I was
active in the feminist move-
ment when “Free to Be” was
coming into being. Ms. Paul is
correct that our goal 50 years
ago was to unshackle boys and
girls from gender stereotypes.

Today young children face a

“smorgasbord” of confusing
labels (gender identity, gender
expression, gender perform-
ance) along with the notion
that their gender was “as-
signed at birth” but is actually
whatever they feel themselves
to be right now.

This notion has led to dan-

gerous medical intervention,
and it encourages the very
sex-role stereotypes we fought
so hard to rid society of. It is
contrary to our lived experi-
ence and the fact that each of
us functions on a spectrum of
human sexuality.

BRENDA FEIGEN, LOS ANGELES:

The writer is the author of “Not
One of the Boys: Living Life as a
Feminist.”

Memo to Writers: Write. Read Aloud. Edit. Repeat.

TO THE EDITOR:

Re “How the Spoken Word

Shapes the Written Word”
(The Story Behind the Story,
Dec. 11):

Sarah Bahr’s description of

New York Times reporters
who read their copy aloud
before submitting it to an
editor makes their practice
sound like an aberration.

As the regular columnist for

The Minneapolis Star Tribune
on the craft of clear writing, I
would be surprised to learn
that any writer has not been
encouraged to adopt the prac-
tice.

All the writing coaches I

know of — and famous au-
thors who have produced
books on writing well — list
reading copy aloud as one of
the most important steps in
writing clearly.

Clear writing results from

rewriting, and rewriting bene-
fits from reading drafts aloud.

Respect the Disabled

TO THE EDITOR:

Re “Musician With Down

Syndrome Upends Alternative
Sound” (The Saturday Profile,
Dec. 3):

Thanks for this article on

how the experience of disabili-
ty contributed to the musician
Miguel Tomasin’s unique
sound. What inspired me was
how the writer demonstrated
that disability may be a part of
a person’s experience, but not
their core identity.

Mr. Tomasin’s success is

earned and his own. He brings
us joy through his music, in
addition to a much-needed call
to action to break through
institutional barriers and
biases.

lam a special needs attor-

ney and the mother of an adult
daughter with developmental
disabilities. The people I meet
with disabilities are isolated.
They tell me they are treated
as though they are ill or do not
belong. For this reason, dis-
ability advocacy focuses on
government funding for home-
and community-based services.
so that people with disabilities
can be a part of their commu-
nities.

Astory like this matters,

because it shows how change
starts when people value the
person and recognize their
intrinsic gifts and talents.

SAUNDRA M. GUMEROVE
JERICHO, N.Y.

The writer is president of the

board of directors at AHRC Nas-
sau, a social services organization
for the developmentally disabled.

A further benefit comes from

having someone else read the
copy aloud to the writer.

GARY GILSON, MINNEAPOLIS

TO THE EDITOR:

I commend an additional
scenario to reading your draft
aloud. I beseeched my stu-
dents to avoid editing on the
screen.

I urged them, as a tried-

and-true alternative, to print
out their drafts, then step
away from the desk. Next,
mindfully self-edit — pen and
draft in hand — from start to
finish. Then the moment
would be opportune to read
aloud the draft under con-
struction.

Submitting a paper without

self-editing might very well
result in the dreaded C+
range!

MICHAEL H. EBNER
HIGHLAND PARK, ILL.

The writer is emeritus professor

of American history at Lake
Forest College.

Arab World Cup Fans

TO THE EDITOR:

Re “Israeli Journalists at
World Cup Get a Chilly Recep-
tion From Arab Fans” (news
article, Dec. 4):

Gauging Arab public opinion

based on interviews with
World Cup fans in Qatar —
where anti-regime Iranians
were scared to share their
names with the media and
where European teams were
forced to abandon plans to
express support of L.G.B.T.Q.
rights — is a futile exercise.

The article suggests that

people who live in Arab coun-
tries that have peace treaties
with Israel are unified in op-
posing normalization. But in
autocracies, there are few
accurate reflections of public
opinion. It is a mistake to draw
broad inferences about popu-
lar sentiment from a handful of
anecdotes.

When gauging Arab atti-

tudes toward normalization,
one must consider that some
Arab governments have
passed laws that criminalize
the advocacy of normalization
and have sponsored social
shaming campaigns targeting
peace supporters. To cover
only the anti-peace faction,
while pro-peace Arabs face
harassment and prosecution,
harms the quest for peace.
HUSSAIN ABDUL-HUSSAIN
WASHINGTON
The writer is a research fellow at
the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604
COPYRIGHT AND PROTEC TED BY APPLICABLE LAW
3 INTERNATIONAL

The mastermind of a tax

scheme that cost European
treasuries $60 billion was
sentenced to eight years.

3 AVIATION

United Airlines plans to buy

100 Boeing 787 Dreamliner
jets by 2032, with an option
to order an additional 100.

12 SPORTS

The normally woebegone

Detroit Lions are backing up
the bluster of their talkative
coach, Dan Campbell.

TECH | ECONOMY | MEDIA | FINANCE

The New York Cimes

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022 BI

OTM ecleliel ten M ay Ce

arelentless booster for _
a Wall Street innovation
to take companies public.
After some stocks cratered, —
he denied responsibility
and blamed the Fed.

HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES:

The Parents
In the Middle
Of FTX’s Fall

Two Stanford professors

face scrutiny over ties
to their son's business.

By David Yaffe-Bellany, Lora Kelley

and Kenneth P. Vogel
At the height of its corporate
power, the cryptocurrency ex-
change FTX convened a group of
athletes and celebrities for a char-
ity event in March at the Miami
Heat’s N.B.A. arena. Local high
school students competed for
more than $1 million in prizes,
pitching “Shark Tank”-style busi-
ness ideas toa panel of judges that
included David Ortiz, the former
Boston Red Sox slugger, and Kev-
in O'Leary, an actual “Shark
Tank” host.

But the event’s organizer was a

figure better known in academic
circles — Joseph Bankman, a
longtime tax professor at Stanford
Law School and the father of Sam
Bankman-Fried, the now-dis-
graced founder of FTX.

Wearing a baseball cap with

FTX’s logo, Mr. Bankman walked
onstage to help announce the win-
ners of two $500,000 checks. Be-
hind the scenes, he played the role
of FTX diplomat, introducing his
son to the head of a Florida non-
profit organization that was help-
ing adults in the area set up bank
accounts linked to the crypto ex-
change’s platform. Two months
later, Mr. Bankman-Fried pro-
moted the partnership in testi-
mony to Congress, where he was
pushing crypto-friendly legisla-
tion.

In the months before FTX filed

for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, Mr
CONTINUED ON PAGE BS

Tech Fashion
May Be Due
For a Tuck-In

By VANESSA FRIEDMAN

The mythic figure that is the

billionaire tech genius in the
nowhere man tee may finally be
about to meet its long overdue
end. The arrest of Sam
Bankman-Fried, the founder of
the FTX cryptocurrency trading
platform, on Monday in the Ba-
hamas on charges of fraud, may
signal not just the next stage in
his downfall, but also a change in
the global image-making of Sili-
con Valley.

After all, no one took the idea

By MAUREEN FARRELL

Not long ago, Chamath Palihapitiya

could be called the Jim Cramer of SPACs,

A Facebook executive turned venture

capitalist, Mr. Palihapitiya talked up the
special purpose acquisition companies
— shell entities that provide companies a
backdoor entry to public markets — to
everyday investors with the same fervor
that Mr Cramer has long pitched stocks
on television.

Mr. Palihapitiya found an eager audi-

ence in 2020, when millions of people
were stuck at home during the pandemic
lockdowns, flush with stimulus checks
and looking for new excitements. He

launched 10 SPACs — one before the pan-

demic and nine since. He promoted sev-
eralon CNBC and social media platforms
as a path to riches for small investors.
From 2019 to early 2021, his Twitter fol-
lowing swelled from 147,000 to more than
one million.

Mr. Palihapitiya was the “evangelist

and the apostle of SPACs,” said Usha Ro-
drigues, a professor at the University of
Georgia School of Law. “He was spread-
ing the word and getting the attention.
For a while it felt like he had the Midas
touch.”

Now, the SPAC boom has ended, throt-

tled partly by new regulations. The Fed-

“Nobody forced anybody to invest in

anything,” said Chamath Palihapitiya, the
founder and chief executive of Social
Capital, a venture capital firm.

eral Reserve’s sharp interest rate in-

creases have made such speculative bet-
ting less enticing for big investors, who
can now get higher returns from safer as-
sets.

In recent months, some of the stocks of

Mr. Palihapitiya’s SPACs have dropped
nearly 90 percent from when they listed.
By selling most of his shares early, he
roughly doubled the $750 million he put

CONTINUED ON PAGE B4

that a life of the boundless mind

was reflected in a life freed from
petty concerns like clothing
further than Mr Bankman-Fried
(or SBE, as he is often called).
Not for him the physical cage of
a suit and tie. Instead, the T-

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

shirt, cargo shorts and sneakers,

often worn with white running
socks scrunched down at the
ankle.

And not just any T-shirt and

cargo shorts, but what could

Musk Shakes Up Twitter's Legal Team and Prepares for Battle

By Ryan Mac, Mike Isaac

and Kate Conger

SAN FRANCISCO — Over the past

two weeks, Elon Musk has shaken.
up Twitter’s legal department, dis-
banded a council that advised the
social media company on safety
issues and is continuing to take
drastic steps to cut costs.

Mr. Musk appears to be gearing

up for legal battles at Twitter,
which he purchased in October for
$44 billion, according to seven
people familiar with internal con-
versations. He and his team have
revamped Twitter’s legal depart-
ment and pushed out one of his
closest advisers in the process.
They have also instructed em-

ployees to not pay vendors in an-

ticipation of potential litigation,
the people said.

To cut costs, Twitter has not

paid rent for its San Francisco
headquarters or any of its global
offices for weeks, three people
close to the company said. Twitter
has also refused to pay a $197,725
bill for private charter flights
made the week of Mr. Musk’s take-
over, according to a copy of a law-
suit filed in New Hampshire Dis-
trict Court and obtained by The
New York Times.

Twitter’s leaders have also dis-

cussed the consequences of deny-
ing severance payments to thou-
sands of people who have been

Ceasing paying rent

and withholding
severance payments.

laid off since the takeover, two

people familiar with the talks said.
And Mr. Musk has threatened em-
ployees with lawsuits if they talk
to the media and “act in a manner
contrary to the company’s inter-
est” according to an internal
email sent last Friday.

The aggressive moves signal

that Mr. Musk is still slashing ex-
penditures and is bending or
breaking Twitter’s previous

agreements to make his mark. His

reign has been characterized by
chaos, a series of resignations and
layoffs, reversals of the platform’s
previous suspensions and rules,
and capricious decisions that
have driven away advertisers.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a

request for comment.

As he has transitioned into the

role of Twitter’s new leader, Mr.
Musk has had a cast of rotating le-
gal professionals by his side. In
October, he fired both Twitter's
chief legal officer and general
counsel “for cause” within hours
of closing his acquisition and in-
stalled his personal lawyer, Alex
Spiro, to head up legal and policy

matters at the company.

Mr. Spiro is no longer working

at Twitter, according to six people
familiar with the decision. Those
people said that Mr. Musk has
been unhappy with some of the
decisions made by Mr. Spiro, a
noted criminal defense lawyer
who successfully defended the bil-
lionaire in a high-profile defama-
tion case in late 2019 and worked
his way into the Twitter owner's
inner circle,

Among those decisions was Mr.

Spiro’s call to retain the Twitter
deputy general counsel, James A.
Baker, through Mr. Musk’s vari-
ous rounds of layoffs and firings.
CONTINUED ON PAGE B3

seem like the baggiest, most

stretched out, most slept in, most
consciously unflattering T-shirts
and shorts; the most unkempt
bed-head. While the look may
have evolved naturally, it became
a signature as he rose to promi-
nence, a look he realized was as
effective at pushing the Pavlov-
ian buttons of the watching pub-
lic (and the investing communi-
ty) as the Savile Row suits and
Charvet ties of Wall Street.

“It’s as conscious as incorpo-

rating in the Bahamas where
there is no to little regulatory
oversight,” said Scott Galloway,
an investor, podcasting host and
professor of marketing, referring
to the fact that FTX’s headquar-
ters were in the Caribbean rather
than California. “It’s the ultimate
billionaire white boy tech flex:
I'm so above convention. I’m so
special I am not subject to the
same rules and propriety as
everyone else.”

It’s an image that has its roots

not so much in Mr. Bankman-
CONTINUED ON PAGE B5

rc

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER:

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTEC TED BY APPLICABLE LAW

3

p pressreader
B2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022
The Digest
ECONOMY predicted a record squeeze on liv- i
a a Markets Welcome Signs of Fed Slowdown
a 8 ; “Falling real incomes, in-
‘Significant Pressure’ in’23 creases in mortgage costs and By ISABELLA SIMONETTI

The Bank of England warned on

Tuesday about “significant pres-
sure” on households and busi-
nesses because of higher infla-
tion and borrowing costs, but
said they were more resilient
than before the global financial
crisis.

The bank had previously said

Britain was entering a lengthy
recession and, with inflation at a
4l-year high and a sharp rise in
interest rates over the last year,
government forecasters have

higher unemployment will place

significant pressure on household
finances,” the bank said in its
half-yearly Financial Stability Re-
port.

Around 4 million households

are likely to face higher mortgage
payments in 2023, with the aver-
age monthly mortgage payment
rising to about 17 percent of pre-
tax income. But 2.4 percent of
households would find them-
selves with mortgage payments
that they would find hard to af-
ford, the report said. REUTERS

AUTOMOBILES
Subaru Recalls S.U.V.s
And Warns of Fire Risk

Subaru on Tuesday said it was re-

calling 271,000 Ascent sport util-
ity vehicles with model years
from 2019 to 2022 because of in-
creased fire risks and urged own-
ers to park their vehicles outside
until repairs are completed.
The Japanese automaker said
owners should park away from
structures and avoid leaving ve-
hicles unattended while the en-
gine is running. Subaru said a
wiring connection may have a
production-related defect that
can cause a fire while the heater
is in operation because excessive
heat could melt the ground termi-
nal and surrounding components.

There have been two fires but

no injuries or crashes have been
reported. Subaru dealers will re-

ben ~

SUBARU OF AMERICA, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

place heater ground bolts and, if

needed replace the ground wire
and the connector holder.

The National Highway Traffic

Safety Administration said until
the recall is completed, owners
should park vehicles outdoors. If
an owner notices or smells smoke
coming from the dash or driver's
footwell area, they should imme-
diately stop the vehicle and turn
the ignition off. REUTERS

ENERGY cause of fear that global suppliers

will simply bypass Europe when

No Deal on Gas Cap others offer more money.

From E.U. Ministers “There was lots of progress but

European Union energy min-

isters failed yet again to over-
come their deep differences Tues-
day on a natural gas price cap
that many hope would make util-
ity bills cheaper so people can
stay a little warmer during harsh
winter days — if not this year,
then later.

The ministers emerged from

their fifth emergency meeting
empty-handed because they can-
not come to agreement on a max-
imum ceiling to pay for gas be-

no final breakthrough yet,” said

the German minister Robert
Habeck.

The 27 nations have stuck to-

gether through eight rounds of
sanctions against Russia over the
war in Ukraine and energy-sav-
ing measures to avoid shortages
of the fuel used to generate elec-
tricity, heat homes and power fac-
tories. The price cap was prom-
ised in October as a way to re-
duce energy bills that have
soared because of Russia’s inva-

sion. ASSOCIATED PRESS

Stocks rose on Tuesday after a

S&P 500 INDEX softer-than-expected inflation re-

°, port for November cemented ex-
+0.7% pectations that the Federal Re-
4,019.65 serve could slow its campaign to

DOW JONES INDUSTRIALS

40.3%

34,108.64

NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX

+1,0%

11,256.81

10-YEAR TREASURY YIELD

3.50%

0.115 points

CRUDE OIL (U.S.)

$75.39

+$2,22
raise interest rates, which has
weighed heavily on stock prices.

STOCKS & BONDS

An early surge faded however,

and the S&P 500 ended the day
with a gain of 0.7 percent, after
climbing more than 2 percent
soon after the start of trading. The
benchmark index is still down
about 16 percent for the year.

For months, Wall Street has

been looking for data that could
encourage the Fed to moderate its
interest rate increases, which the
central bank has used to try to
temper stubbornly high inflation
but which also increase costs for
companies and dampen con-
sumer demand. The central bank
is expected to raise rates by half a
percentage point on Wednesday,
which would represent a slow-
down from increases of three-
quarters of a point in previous
meetings since June.

Investors now expect that the

Fed will reduce the size of its rate
increase again in February, with
bets that the central bank will lift
rates by just a quarter of a per-
centage point, a smaller increase
than they were earlier anticipat-
ing. In addition, investors expect
interest rates to reach 4.85 per-
cent next year, down from expec-
tations of more than 5 percent last
month, futures contracts indi-
cated on Tuesday.

“The pieces are falling into

place for the Fed to pause rate
hikes early in 2023,” said Rob Tem-
ple, chief market strategist at La-
zard.

Overall inflation measured by

the Consumer Price Index rose 7.1
percent in November, from a year
ago, compared with economists’
expectations of a gain of 7.3 per-
cent and down from a gain of 7.7
percent in October.

The report is a welcome sign for

GOLD (N.Y.) investors after a mixed bag of eco-

nomic data in recent weeks have

$1, 820. 50 delivered signals that suggest in-

+833,

flation may remain stubbornly

high, weighing on markets.
A gauge of wholesale prices

The S&P 500 Index

Position of the S&P 500 index at 1-minute intervals on Tuesday

-- Previous Close: 3,990.56

10am,

Source: FactSet

Consumer Prices

Percent change, month to

month, seasonally adjusted.

SEPT. OCT. NOV.

40.4% 40.4% +01

Source: Bureau of
Labor Statistics

‘THE NEW YORK TIMES

showed inflation rising more than

expected last month. The job mar-
ket also remains resilient, putting
pressure on prices: Employers
added 263,000 jobs in November
— more than economists ex-
pected.

At the same time, a rise in the

markets make the Fed’s job hard-
er because it enriches investors
and stimulates the economy, the
opposite of what central bankers
are trying to do to bring down in-
flation.

The yield on the U.S. two-year

Treasury note, which closely
tracks expectations for Fed rate
moves, also fell on Tuesday, to
about 4.23 percent, as investors
dialed back expectations for how
high the Fed will ultimately raise

2pm, 4pm,

‘THENEW YORK TIMES

rates. The yield on the 10-year

Treasury note was also lower, fall-
ing to about 3.50 percent.

As the Fed has continued its

campaign to increase rates to
bring down inflation, the yield on
the two-year bond has risen well
above the 10-year equivalent, a
rare but reliable sign that invest-
ors in the bond market are expect-
ing the economy to slip into a re-
cession.

“I think inflation is coming

down because growth is slowing
and that will be a problem. But
that’s not this week’s concern,”
said Peter Tchir, head of macro
strategy at Academy Securities.

For investors, the debate will

now shift from the size of rate in-
creases to how long the Fed will
keep rates elevated, with invest-
ors eager for clues when central
bankers meet on Wednesday.

The inflation report and the Fed

meeting “will undoubtedly set the
tone for financial markets as we
head into next year,” economists
at Deutsche Bank wrote in a re-
search note on Friday.

“This was universally good

from an inflation standpoint,” Mr.
Tchir said. It’s moving in the right
direction.”

Elsewhere, Tesla slumped by

4.1 percent to $160.95, hitting a
fresh low for the year. The com-
pany has fallen more than 60 per-
cent from its peak in 2021.

Stocks in Europe jumped on

Tuesday. The EuroStoxx 600 in-
dex climbed 1.3 percent, as did the
Dax index in Germany.
What Happened in Stock Markets Yesterday

S&P500 4,019.65 1+0.7%

3 month performance: +2.2%

Nasdaq Composite Index

3 month performance: =3.2%

11,256.81 —+1.0%

Dow Jones Industrials 34,108.64

3 month performance: +9.7%

POWERED BY

FACTSET

1 +0.3%

+12% +12% - +12%

+6 +6 46
0 oO 0
-6 6 6
| -12 -12 -12
Oct Now Dec Oct Nov Dec Oct Nov Dec
Best performers Worst performers Most active International bonds TOTALRETURN TOTAL
VOLUME ASSETS
S&P 500 COMPANIES CLOSE CHANGE S&P 500 COMPANIES CLOSE CHANGE S&P 500 COMPANIES
CLOSE CHANGE IN MIL 1YR SYRS — INBIL.
1. Moderna (MRNA) $197.54 +19.6% 1. United Airlines Holdings (UAL) $41.17 -69% 1.
Tesla (TSLA) $160.95 -4.1% 175 1. American Funds Capital World Bond Fund Class R-6
(RCWGX) “173% -14% 9 97
2. Halliburton (HAL) $37.00 +79 2. Trimble (TRMB) $55.03 -6.4 2, Amazon.com (AMZN)
$9249 42.1 99 2. Six Circles Global Bond Fund (OGLBX) “38 00 6B
3. Match Group (MTCH) $4689 47.7 3. American Airlines Group (AL) $13.46 -5.2 3.
Apple (AAPL) $145.47 +07 94 3. Templeton Global Bond Fund Class R6 (FBNRX) 79-33 58
“4, Cooper Companies (C00) $32083 +50 “4, Centene (CNC) $83.22 4, Advanced Micra
Devices (AMD) $71.65 +14 72 "4, PGIM Global Tota Return Fund Class R6 (PGTQX) -22.1
=21 34
"8, Dish Network Co. (DISH) $16.15 +49 — 5. Tesla (TSLA) $160.95 5. NVIDIA (NVDA)
$180.72 +31 66 5. The Hartford World Bond Fund Class A (HWDAX) “86 +02 3.1
“6. Blo-Techne (TECH) $9698 448 “6, Delta Air Lines (DAL) $33.38 6, Carnival (CCL)
$8.91 -1.1 62 "6. BrandywineGLOBAL - Global Opportunities Bond Fund ClassA(GOBAX) -
164 -18 2.0
7. SVB Financial (SIVB) “$234.15 +48 7. Mand T Bank (MTB) 6.15 7. Intel Corp (INTC)
$28.73 +04 58 T. Invesco Global Strategic Income Fund Class R6 (OSIIX) -110 0-12 17
‘8. Meta Platforms A (META) $120.15 44.7 8. Warner Bros. Discavery’A (WED) $10.89
8. Ford Motor (F} $13.57 +08 58 8. Dodge & Cox Global Bond Fund Class | (DODLX) 89
42.3 15
9. Caesars Entertainment (CZR) $5255 44.5 9. Regions Financial (RF) $21.65 9. AT&T
Inc. (7) $19.12 -09 54 9. Invesco International Bond Fund Class R6 (OIBIX) -12.7 0-
27 13
10. West Pharmacautic.Services (WST) $251.90 44.4 10. Charles Schwab (SCHW) 877.75
10. Bank of America (BAC) $32.75 40.1 53 10. Mercer Opportunistic Fixed Income Fund
Class ¥+3 (MOFIX) “114-05 i
Source: Morningstar
Sector performance How stock markets fared yesterday in Asia ... = in Europe = and
North America
S&P 500 SECTORS
= Nikkei 225 (Japan): 30.4% — FTSE 100 (London): +0,8% ~ Dow Jones Industrials (New
York): +0,3%
Realestate +2.0% [i Shanghai Composite (Shanghai): -0.1% — DAX (Frankfurt): 41.3%
S&P/TSX (Toronto): +0.0%
coy 1s 35%
Communication services +17 wo
Information technology +1.4 (SS x i
42.0 |
Industrials +0.4 '
= we t
Utilities +0.3 Hi :
H.0 0 |
Financials 40.3 '
Healthcare +03 ac a ge edie
Consumer discretionary +0,2 Hi oO | mn
[Bf -0.2 Consumer staples
Eastern 9p.m, 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 S:
What Is Happening in Other Markets and the Economy
Bonds Currencies Consumer rates Commodities Economy
— 10yr Treas, — 2yr Treas, --- Fed funds leuro=$1.06 — Savings rate (1 year CDs)
Crude oil (price per barrel) Unemployment rate Consumer confidence
AA% $1.20 —— Borrowing rate (30-year fixed mortgages) $100 oH 135
3.3 *
2.2 1.04 7% 50 6 105
11 a
0.0 ae 0.88 o 0 75
"21 "22 18 «19-20 ‘2122 5 14° °«16 18 "20 “22 18 ‘20 "22 18 "20 '22
4 z 2 ¥
Yield cue — Yesterday —1yearago $1 = 135,63 Japanese yen Corn (price per bushel)
New-home sales Industrial production
3
6.0% 144 yen 38 1,000K 46S
: ee J =
0 120 4
: SSA 7
0.0 96 0 0 400 80
36 2 5 10 30 1B "19 «20-2122 "14 16 18 «= "20S '22 "14 16 18 "20 "2 18° "20 "22 18
'200 (22
Months —Maturity— Years

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

ITED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

ssReader.com +1 604 278 4604

he.

[ p pressreade:
THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

SOCIAL MEDIA | INTERNATIONAL | AVIATION

Musk Shakes Up Legal Team and Shows Signs of Preparing for Battle

innit

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE

Mr. Baker had served as general

counsel at the EB.I. until May 2018
— advising the agency on politi-
cally fraught investigations into
Hillary Clinton's private email
server and Donald J. Trump’s
campaign — and joined Twitter in
2020.

Last week, Mr. Musk said he

terminated Mr. Baker after he
learned that the lawyer had been
responsible for reviewing internal
communications about the com-
pany’s decision to suppress a 2020

A flurry of cost-cutting
measures has shaken
Twitter employees.

New York Post story about Hunt-

er Biden's laptop. Mr. Musk had
ordered that those communica-
tions, which he has called the
“Twitter Files,” be given toa group
of journalists to release and dis-
credit the decision-making of the
company’s past executives.

With Twitter drained of legal

talent from layoffs and depar-
tures, Mr. Musk has sought law-
yers from his other companies, in-
cluding rocket maker SpaceX, to
fill the void. More than half a doz-
en lawyers from the space explo-
ration company have been given
access to Twitter’s internal sys-
tems, according to two people and
documents seen by The Times.
SpaceX employees who have been
brought in to Twitter include Chris
Cardaci, the company’s vice presi-
dent of legal, and Tim Hughes, its
senior vice president, global busi-
ness and government affairs.

ASpaceX spokesman did not re-

turn a request for comment.

Among its legal challenges,

Twitter is facing more questions
from the Federal Trade Commis-
sion, which is investigating
whether the company is still ad-
hering to a consent decree. In
2011, the company signed a con-
sent decree with the ET.C. after
two data breaches and said it
would not mislead users about pri-

wa,

mre

GETTY IMAGES

Alex Spiro, Elon Musk’s personal lawyer, is no longer working at Twitter. Mr. Musk
was reportedly unhappy with some of Mr. Spiro’s personnel decisions.

vacy protection. In May, the com-

pany paid $150 million to the ET.C.
and Justice Department to settle
allegations that it had violated the
terms of that consent decree,
which was expanded.

The ET.C. has sent Twitter let-

ters asking whether it still has the
resources and staff to adhere to
the consent decree, two people
with knowledge of the matter said.
An ET.C. spokeswoman declined
to comment.

On Friday, as Mr. Musk encour-

aged the release of internal infor-
mation through the continuation

of his Twitter Files, he also sent an

email to employees noting “many
detailed leaks of confidential Twit-
ter information” showed that
some were violating their nondis-
closure agreements.

“Tf you clearly and deliberately

violate the NDA that you signed
when joining Twitter, you accept
liability to the full extent of the law
and Twitter will immediately seek
damages,” he wrote. The email
was first reported by the Plat-
former newsletter.

Mr. Musk’s team has also delib-

erated the merits of not paying

severance to the thousands of

people who have left the company
since he took over, when there
were about 7,500 full-time employ-
ees. While Mr. Musk and his advis-
ers had previously considered for-
going any severance when dis-
cussing cuts in late October, the
company ultimately decided that
US-based employees would be
given at least two months of pay
and one month of severance pay
so that the company would be
compliant with federal and state
labor laws.

Mr. Musk’s team is now recon-

sidering whether it should pay

some of those months, according
to two people familiar with the dis-
cussions, or just face lawsuits
from disgruntled former employ-
ees. Many former employees still
have not received any paperwork
formalizing their separation from
Twitter, five people said. Mr. Musk
has already refused to pay mil-
lions of dollars in exit packages to
executives he claims were termi-
nated “for cause.”

As Twitter has downsized, Mr.

Musk’s team has been hoping to
renegotiate the terms of lease

agreements, two people familiar

with the discussion said. The com-
pany has received complaints
from real estate investment and
management firms including
Shorenstein, which owns the San
Francisco buildings that Twitter
occupies.

A spokesman for Shorenstein

declined to comment.

In other money-saving moves,

Twitter has laid off its kitchen staff
and begun to list office supplies,
industrial-grade kitchen equip-
ment and electronics from its San
Francisco office for auction.

Mr. Musk also continues to cut

staff and leaders, including Nel-
son Abramson, Twitter’s global
head of infrastructure, and Alan
Rosa, the global information tech-
nology head and vice president of
information security, according to
four people familiar with the
moves.

On Sunday night, Mr. Musk sent

two emails to Twitter’s staff with
advice about how to work for him
that he had previously shared
with SpaceX and Tesla employ-
ees. One message focused on first
principles thinking, a worldview
based on the teachings of Aristotle
to reduce assumptions to basic ax-
ioms, which Mr. Musk credited
with helping him make difficult
decisions. The other advocated
against workplace hierarchies.

On Monday, Twitter notified

members of its trust and safety
council, an advisory group formed
in 2016, that it would dissolve im-
mediately. The council was creat-
ed to guide Twitter through chal-
lenging safety problems and con-
tent moderation issues, and was
made up of organizations focused
on civil rights and child safety.

“Safety online can mean sur-

vival offline,” said Jodie Ginsberg,
the president of the Committee to
Protect Journalists, one of the or-
ganizations involved in the coun-
cil. “As a platform that has become
a critical tool in both open and re-
pressive countries, Twitter must
play a constructive role in ensur-
ing that journalists and the public
at large are able to receive and im-
part information without fear of
reprisals.”

KAI PFAFFENBACH/REUTERS

Hanno Berger was found guilty of three counts of tax evasion in a growing
scandal that the authorities said spread across four continents.
Tax Scheme Mastermind
Gets 8 Years in Germany

By DAVID SEGAL

A lawyer described by the au-

thorities as the brains behind a
sprawling tax scheme that cost
European treasuries some $60 bil-
lion was sentenced to eight years
in prison on Tuesday in a court-
room in Bonn, Germany.

The lawyer, Hanno Berger, 72,

was involved in a fraction of the
overall losses — a part that Ger-
man officials say cost the govern-
ment roughly $300 million. But he
is considered a key figure in a
scandal that has been described
as “the biggest tax theft in the his-
tory of Europe.”

Mr. Berger and others earned

fortunes, for themselves and
wealthy clients, through so-called
cum-ex trades, a staggeringly
complicated financial maneuver
that produced huge sums in the
form of bogus tax refunds.

Mr. Berger was found guilty of

three counts of tax evasion, the
highest-profile conviction to date
in what European authorities say
is a developing investigation that
spans four continents, dozens of
banks and as many as 1,500 sus-
pects.

Cum-ex trades were an obscure

but hugely profitable niche prod-
uct for a number of banks and law
firms, many of them based in Lon-
don. The trades rose in popularity
after the Great Recession, when
much of the financial industry was
reeling, in part because, as one
participant put it, national treas-
uries never ran out of money.

Many countries in Europe were

targeted by cum-ex traders, with
much of the activity starting the
early 2000s. The trades cost Ger-
many $10.5 billion, the authorities
said. France, Denmark, Italy, Bel-
gium, Norway, Spain, Finland and
other countries also suffered im-
mense losses. One by one, the

countries closed the loophole that

allowed cum-ex trades — Ger-
many passed a law prohibiting it
in 2012 — but often failed to notify
the tax authorities of their neigh-
bors.

Mr. Berger did not invent cum-

ex trading, but he was described
as its most formidable intellect
and one of its most active propo-
nents. He was convicted of acts
that occurred in Germany be-
tween 2007 and 2013. He and oth-
ers have long maintained that the
trades were legal, and pointed toa
number of law firms that had pro-
vided opinions to that effect. He
said during the trial that he had a
duty to present clients with the
full range of possibilities, and
cum-ex was among them.

“We have to think of the clients,”

he said. “That was my credo.”

Mr. Berger once worked for the

German government and had
earned a reputation as one of the
country’s most fearsome tax in-
spectors. He later went into pri-
vate practice and, according to a
former colleague, was initially in-
credulous when he heard about
cum-ex trading. He soon came
around.

The former colleague, testify-

ing anonymously under German
law, was a witness on behalf of the
government during the 2019 trial
of two London bankers. Describ-
ing a meeting at the Frankfurt law
firm that Mr. Berger started in
2010, the former colleague testi-
fied that Mr. Berger said, “Who-
ever has a problem with the fact
that because of our work there are
fewer kindergartens being built,
here’s the door.”

In 2012, German authorities

raided Mr. Berger’s office and his
home. He immediately fled to
Switzerland, where he lived until
his extradition in February.
United Airlines Orders 100 Wide-Body Boeing 787 Jets

By NIRAJ CHOKSHI

United Airlines plans to buy at

least 100 Boeing 787 Dreamliner
jets by 2032 as it replaces aging
planes with newer, more fuel-effi-
cient models and pursues interna-
tional growth, the airline an-
nounced on Tuesday.

The order, worth tens of billions

of dollars at list prices, comes a lit-
tle more than a year after United
said it planned to buy 270 single-
aisle planes — the largest pur-
chase of U.S. aircraft in a decade.
The airline added a few dozen jets
to that order on Tuesday and said
it now expected to receive 700
new planes in all by the end of
2032, including an average of two
planes per week next year and
three planes per week in 2024.

In addition to its firm order for

100 Dreamliners, with deliveries
scheduled to begin in 2024, United
has the option to buy 100 more.

The airline’s decision is impor-

tant for Boeing, which only re-
cently resumed deliveries of the
twin-aisle Dreamliner after a
more than yearlong delay because
of quality concerns, including fill-
ing paper-thin gaps in the plane’s
body. Boeing has also been hin-
dered by supply chain disrup-
tions, inflation and other eco-
nomic challenges.

United said it chose Boeing over

the rival plane maker Airbus be-
cause the airline is eager to grow
and already has several dozen
787s as well as the pilots trained to
fly them. The airline still has an or-
der on the books to receive dozens
of Airbus A350s, a 787 competitor,
in 2030.

“They’re both great airplanes,”

United’s chief executive, Scott
Kirby, said on a call with report-
ers. “But we already have a large
installed base of 787s. And in this
world where we're trying to bring
on 2,500 pilots a year and grow the

airline, introducing a new fleet

type slows that down dramati-
cally.”

Single-aisle, or narrow-body,
planes are typically used for
flights within the United States or
to nearby international destina-
tions. The larger twin-aisle, or
wide-body, planes best serve
heavily trafficked or long-dis-
tance routes. The narrow-body
737 Max can carry 170 to 230 pas-
sengers, depending on the config-
uration. The wide-body 787
Dreamliner can carry about 250 to
more than 330 passengers.

New planes provide many

benefits. They can offer an im-
proved customer experience, with
cleaner, more streamlined and
sometimes more spacious interi-
ors. (United said the 787 is a
customer favorite among the air-
craft in its fleet.) They can also
save airlines money because their
designs are more fuel efficient and
require less maintenance.

That is the case for the order an-

—=

wi

RANDALL HILL/ REUTERS.

A787 Dreamliner at Boeing's plant in South Carolina. United's order is
important for Boeing, which suffered delays and supply chain disruptions.

nounced Tuesday. United said it

planned to drop 100 Boeing 767
and 777 wide-body planes from its
fleet by 2030, resulting in what it
said would be a 25 percent de-
crease in carbon emissions per
seat.

“The Boeing team is honored by

United's trust in our family of air-
planes to connect people and
transport cargo around the world
for decades to come,” said Stanley
A. Deal, president and chief exec-
utive of Boeing’s commercial
plane unit.

In the past two years, United

has added more than a dozen new
international cities to its network.
The airline said it now serves 78
international destinations out of

Newark Liberty International

Airport, more than at any of its
other hub airports.

The airline industry was among

the first and hardest-hit by the
pandemic, with air travel plum-
meting more than 95 percent in
the spring of 2020. Travel has
since recovered, led by domestic

Replacing an aging
fleet with more
fuel-efficient models.

trips for which narrow-body

planes are particularly well
suited. Airlines have started to
place big aircraft orders to take
advantage of that demand and
longer-term growth.

In addition to United’s order,

Southwest Airlines last year an-
nounced plans to buy 100 Boeing
737 Max planes. Delta Air Lines
this summer said it planned to buy
100 Max planes, too. In October,
Alaska Airlines, the fifth-largest
passenger airline in the United
States, announced plans to buy 52
Max jets.

United said its order would re-

sult in more jobs, too. This year,
the airline has hired 15,000 new
employees, including flight at-
tendants, maintenance workers,
pilots and others. United said it
planned to hire a similar number
next year, with more than 2,000
new jobsat each ofits hub airports
in Chicago, San Francisco and
Newark.
INTHE UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE

Chapter 11

Case No.22-11019 (LSS)

Gointly Administered)

‘THE GENERAL BAR DATE|S JANUARY 11, 2023 AT

4:00 P.M. PREVAILING EASTERN TIME.
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE OF THE FOLLOWING:

Entry of the Bar Date Order. (ln Decernber 7, 2022, the United
States Bankruptcy Court forthe District of Delaware entered an erder
[Docket Wo. 160] (the“Bar Date Order") establishing certain deadlines for
‘the filing of proofs of daim in the chapter 11 cases of the abeve-captioned
deen ae ies pen tin the ‘Debtors, The table
‘below lists the respective case number for each Debtor: DEBTOR, CASE
NO. Vesta Halling LUC, 22-11019 (155); Suri Risk Adis uc
22-11020 (L55); Denon nerve ox LLC,22-11021 (LSS).

EXCEPT AS 10 CERTA EpAkY SET FORTH M THE BAR

DATE ORDER ANY MESON 0 a mY ‘WHO FAILS TD FILE A PROOF OF
beng eT itneenes BAR DATE OR GOVERNMENTAL BAR
TREATED AS A CREDITOR WITH RESPECT TOSUCH CLAIM.
FORTHE PURPOSES OFVOINGORDI TLL sale
Pursuant to the Bar Date Order,
aproneandenty including Ian parent es ‘rust,
and governmental units
a Debs at ase a lela Os ser 30, eae
remote oF contingent such right te payment or equitable remedy may
be, aa holders of daims allowable under section 503(b)
(9) of the Bankruptcy Code, MUST FILE A PROOF OF CLAIM on or
fet Jana 11, 2023 at 4:00 p.m. iling Eastern Time (the
). For aims hel iby goverment
shall be 2023. at 4:00 Eastem Time, (the
Hse annua ds ane ace
503(b) of the Si Code must be made by separat
payrnent in accordance with section 5033) of he Bonkuptey Cae and
Trallatbe deemed poperfmadeby Peto aim.
Filing a Proof of Claim. E3ch original proof of chim, including sup-

tial aim against

patent cam ais |
porting docurmentatlon, must be filed soas tabeactually received bythe
Debtors notice and aims agent, Omni oars Omni") on or
before the GeneralBarDateo the Governmental Bar Date (or, where appie
-cable,on or before any other BarDate set forth inthe Ba Date Onder (via
the electronicfling interface availableat https:/omniagentsolutions.
com/vestarclaims or (ii) by United States mall or other hand davery
system at the following address: For First lass Maillor Overnight Mai to:
"Vesta Holdings, LLC Claims Processing, c/o Omni Agent Solutions,
5955 DeSoto Ave.,Suite 100, Woodland HiBs,CA1367.

PROOFS OF CLAIM SUBMITTED BY FACS|BILE OR ELECTRONICAL

MAILWILLNOT BEACCEPTED.

Contents of Proofs of Gaim, Subject to the Bar Date Order, ach

proof of daim must:(i) be written in English; (i) include a claim amount
/denominatedin United States dollars (and tothe extent such daimiscon=
verted to Linited States dollars, the conversion rate used in such comver-
sion} (ll) clearly identity the Debtor against which alam is asserted (y)
conform substantially to Official iam ‘410; (v)be signed by the hokier of
the claim or by an authorized agent ofthe holder of the daim (and the
roa ‘of daim bearing the origi ind the
fet inde a tachment > and all supporting dacumentatian on
}which thecfaimis based.

yu have ay que regain the

jaims process and/or if you wish to obtain ate Order
(which contains a mare detailed ciel of 2s Sone for
lng ims Fr) a Proof of Chim Form, or related documents, you
and

ims, (i) calling Omni at 646-600-6080 (US tell free)

or cone 3968 intentional ‘or (ii) petro via email at
Inquiries@omniagnt.com. Please nate that Omni cannot

com,
advise you on how tole, or whether you shoul file,a pron af chim.

' The Debtors in these chapter 11 cases, along with the las four dige
its ofeach Debtors federal tax identification number are: Vesta Holiings,

LC HD Summit Rk eas LC (25) ad Duan rt

Agency. LC (1992). esta Heldings, LLCs service address is PO. Boir
35, Montgomeryvile, PA 18936-0025. Summit Aisk Advisors LIC and
Dunham Fsurance Agency LCS service address is 160 Chapel Read #101,
Manchester CT 06042.

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO

Inve:
THE FINANCIAL OVERSIGHT AND PON
MANAGEMENT | bani iam PUERTO RICO,
repre No. 17 BK 3567-L1S
THE PUERTO RICO! RS AND ointly Administered)
TRANSPORTON AUTHOR,

Debtor.

NOTICE OF (A) ENTRY OF ORDER CONFIRMING MODIFIED

FIFTH AMENDED TITLE Bl PLAN OF ADJUSTMENT OF
‘THE PUERTO RICO HIGHWAYS AND TRANSPORTATION
AUTHORITY PURSUANT TO TITLE Hl OF PROMESA AND

B) OCCURRENCE OF THE EFFECTIVE DATE

‘TO CREDITORS AND OTHER PARTIES IN INTEREST:

PLEASE IKE WCE that puneirew an one dated Ocak 12072

AEGE No. 1415] (the “onfrmation Onder) the Mee Fith Amended
Title Pan of
sy ae Seer 6, 20 is ae, Samet or
modified the’Pan
Benue a the Cu)

Effective Oat, relates toa Claim that is subject to the provisions ofthe
‘ACR Ordes induding, without limitation ‘grievance caims" relating taany
ofthe Debtor's collective bargaining agreements, or (g) is the subject of a
Farell motion seeking allowance ofan administrative expense pursuant
to Bankruptcy oe section 503(b) as of the entry of this Order; and,
any such proof of Administrative Expense Chim by

agovernmental inl shall remain subject to the rights and interests of the
Debtor and Reorganized Debtor, as the case may be, and ary other party
ininterest to interpose an objection or other defense ta the allowance or

PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE that, al Administrative Expense

feeder ssl (phytic Ma
of Chim on the Claims Agents website

nde rf lee ys cs mal, and deer

Fee ore at fe flowing aces: Commorwelh of Pura

fico Claims Pracessing Center c/o Krol Restructuring Administration Li,

850 Third Avenve,Suited2, Brookdyn,N¥'11232.

Administrative Expense Requests vil be deemed timely fled only if

LUC (the Debtar’s

actually received!
| eke Teneo pe jan March 6,2023

le
ized terms used herein shall have enemys sated rs
‘theminthe HIA Plan andthe TA Confirmation Order

PLEASE TAKE FURTHER NOTICE thatthe TA Eifectve Date af the WTA

Plan eccured on December 6, 2022 and the HTA Plan was substantially
oniummated,

PLEASE TAKE FURTHER venice that any partyin interest wishing to

ia capstan aoa he HTA Plan, and related doce
ments st ycturing Administration LLC, by tele
pena outer tors ‘and Puerto ico) or (646) 486=

{for intermational callers) available 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m, (Atlantic

san Time) (Spans avaiable) ot by ema at purtarcobalos8
may View su
or the Court's website, hittps://www ped.
scouts. gov. Please note that a Public Access ta Court Hectronic Records
(CPACER") a Cas ‘Tew. pacer pscuscourts.gov) password and lagin are
needed to access docurnentsonthe Courtswebsite,

EASE ARTERMO Ee Rear Section 1 4and Artide

Hof the HTA Plan and decretal paragraph 31 ofthe Confirmation Order,
the deadbne for engprsof remess fame of Administrative
Expense Chinns (1 is March 6, 2023;

that no proof of Administrative cone Chim shall

PLEASE TA FORTIER MOTE: if yume ogee

file an Administrative Expense Request pursuant to Section
T4and Arde Mf the HTA Plan and decetal paragraph 31 of
the Confirm and fail to do so by the Administrat
Deadline, you ou Wil be forever bared, stopped, and enjoined
from asserting such Administrative Expense Claim (and from
filing an Administrative Expense Request with respect te such
Maral Expense Gaim) against the Debtor and their

een and Marsan Debs wl fort

Schrgedtornanya nd alindebtedness or ability with

27.6 ofthe HTA

Plan and decretal paragraph ‘Berth ‘Confirmation Order, if the rejection
of an Evecutory Cantract and Unexpired Lease by the Debtor results in
cdamages tothe other party or parties ta such contractor lease, any daim
far such damages, if not heretofore evidenced by a fled pracf of Chim,
shallbe forever hared and shall not be enforceable against the Debtor,or
a eee oes or assigns, induding, without limita-
tion, the Reorganized Debtor unless. proof of Chim is led with the Court

‘on or ‘efor thirty days te the Tater to accur of (i) the Confirmation
Daa he re of ey oan or ty the Court authoring rjec-

berequired tbe filed if such (a) shallhave contract

been incurred (it in accordance with an order of the Couto i with the Dated:
December6, 2022, Saniuan, Puerto, te Martin)
‘written: javernment Parties expressh granting fran
consent of
such Administrative Expense Claim, vt s a Professional (laim (including
a Chim for reimbursement by a ‘the Creditors’ Committee

Seley copay as such nee 0 isan intergoverninental Osim, | Board as

(san Adina Ege ofthe rte pment of we

red by the Debtor during the perio from and after the HIA Petition
et a ae aes ca oe oho ME
period from and after the HTA Petition Date up o and inducing the HTA | yard

vic) ce), Pl
LLP, even Trnes Square, New York, NY 10036, Te {2} e300, Fax
(212) 960-2900, Atos ‘or t the Financial Oversight and’ ‘Managenent

sepresentative for the Debtor -ande és! Hermann 0 Bover

Hermann D, Bauer USDC No.215205, O’NEILL & BORGES LLC, 250 Murex
Rivera Ave. Suite 800, an Juan, PR 00918-1813, Tek (787) 764-8181, Fax:
(787) 753-8944, Co-Attorneys for the Financial Oversight and Managenrent

Boards representative forthe Debtor

com +1 604 2
ROTEC TOBY APPL

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

FINANCE

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE

in, mostly into the entities he
backed. But many small investors
who followed his advice may not
fare so well.

Mr. Palihapitiya — once known

as the “SPAC king” — said that he
was promoting SPACs at a time
when investors were embracing
all kinds of risky trades, and that
he wasn’t responsible for the cra-
tering stock prices of the compa-
nies he took public.

Instead, he blames the Fed's

policies.

“Nobody forced anybody to in-

vest in anything,” Mr. Palihapi-
tiya, 46, said in an October inter-
view.

A Wall Street innovation, spe-

cial purpose acquisition compa-
nies list on stock exchanges, raise
money from investors and usethe
funds to buy a private company.
They have a primary backer —
sometimes called a sponsor —
when they list. Once a SPAC finds
an operating business to merge
with, it gets far less regulatory
scrutiny than a company selling
shares through a traditional pub-
lic listing.

Long seen as dubious, SPACs

went mainstream in 2016 when
private equity firms embraced
them as an easier way to take
their portfolio companies public.
By 2020, they had become a legiti-
mate alternative route to the pub-
lic markets, especially after
DraftKings, Hostess Brands and
other familiar names used them
to go public.

The involvement of celebrities

like Jay-Z and Martha Stewart
gave SPACs extra sparkle. In
2007, 66 SPACs raised $12 billion.
Last year, 613 SPACs raised $163
billion. Major Wall Street banks
reaped more than $4 billion in
fees last year, according to
Dealogic.

Mr. Palihapitiya was an early

cheerleader for SPACs. Born in
Sri Lanka and raised in Canada,
he arrived in Silicon Valley after
the dot-com bubble burst, joining
Facebook in 2007. By the time he
left, he had a fortune worth hun-
dreds of millions of dollars, some
of which he plowed into Social
Capital, a venture capital firm he
co-founded in 2011.

The firm raised more than $1

billion and backed some success-
ful start-ups, including the mes-
saging company Slack. For a
time, its fund was a top performer.

Mr. Palihapitiya started his

first SPAC, Social Capital Hedo-
sophia, in 2017, teaming up with
Ian Osborne, a British technology
investor. The vehicle raised about
$600 million from investors, At
the time, many entrepreneurs
said the traditional process for
initial public offerings was oner-
ous, and Mr. Palihapitiya began
pitching SPACs as an easier way
for high-quality companies to go
public.

He called his vision “I.P.0. 2.0.”

Tn 2018, Mr. Palihapitiya wrote

ina Medium post that Social Capi-
tal had become too much like a
traditional venture firm and
would stop taking money from
outside investors.

The following year, Social Capi-

tal Hedosophia found its merger
target: Virgin Galactic. The
spacecraft company, founded by
Richard Branson, told investors
that by 2022, it would operate 170
flights to space annually, generat-
ing $398 million in revenue. Wall
Street analysts said Virgin Galac-
tic — the first publicly traded
spacecraft company — held the
promise of Tesla. The company’s
stock skyrocketed.

To prevent them from influenc-

ing investors, companies going
public through I.P.O.s are largely
barred from making projections.
But SPACs have no such restric-
tions because the Securities and
Exchange Commission treats the
deals as mergers.

Encouraged by his success, Mr.

Palihapitiya launched two more
SPACs in April 2020, raising
roughly $1.2 billion. For compa-
nies hesitant to go public in the
early days of the coronavirus pan-
demic, when the market was vola-
tile, Mr. Palihapitiya’s pitch be-
came more attractive because his
vehicles were already trading.

To whip up interest, Mr. Pali-

hapitiya began targeting every-
day traders, posting incessantly
about SPACs on Twitter and on
his podcast. He was also a fre-

The ‘SPAC King’ Is

—=55

}
I

ol

aN

Moving On, but His Followers Pay the Price

RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chamath Palihapitiya, left, and Richard Branson, center, at the New York Stock
Exchange in 2019 to celebrate the first trading day for Virgin Galactic Holdings,
which was a SPAC merger target.

ASPAC lists on a stock exchange without an operating business, raises

money from investors and uses the funds to buy a private company.
“fs i
JOHN TAGGART FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Celebrities like Martha Stewart, near right, were involved in SPACs.

quent guest on CNBC, one of the

country’s top-rated business tele-
vision networks and the longtime
home of Mr. Cramer.

In September 2020, after one of

his SPACs agreed to buy the real
estate platform Opendoor Tech-
nologies, Mr Palihapitiya an-
nounced his deal on CNBC. He co-
hosted the network's morning
show, Squawk Box, and thanked
the anchors “for letting me do this
with you guys.”

Then, for the next six minutes,

he walked viewers through a slide
presentation on his plans for
SPACs and why Opendoor would
be a winner, outlining revenue
projections. The anchors later ex-
pressed skepticism about his
numbers on the show. (Andrew
Ross Sorkin, an employee of The
New York Times and a business
columnist and the editor at large
of the DealBook newsletter, is a
co-anchor on Squawk Box.)

By the end of that trading day,

shares of Opendoor soared more
than 30 percent.

Mr Palihapitiya followed a simi-

lar playbook the following month,
teaming up with CNBC to an-
nounce his third SPAC’s merger
with Clover Health Investments, a
health care technology firm. He
told the audience that he expected
the company’s shares to rise ten-
fold in 10 years, but by the end of
that trading day, the shares fell.

Soon after, Mr. Palihapitiya took

three other SPACs public, raising

roughly $2.2 billion in total. By De-
cember 2020, he told his Twitter
followers that if they had bought
shares in each of those companies
on the day they went public or
when he posted about them, “your
return would have been 355 per-
cent. My commitment to you is to
continue to find investments, put
a bunch of my money in it and
share them with you.”

Retail investors were so taken

by Mr. Palihapitiya’s SPAC talk
that his advisers used it as part of
their pitch when discussing poten-
tial mergers with target compa-
nies. Any company that merged
with Mr. Palihapitiya’s SPAC
would get a “Chamath premium,”
they said, because retail investors
pushed the stock up, according to
two people with knowledge of the
firm’s pitches.

By February of last year, the

SPAC market was booming. Vir-
gin Galactic, Opendoor, Clover
Health and SoFi — a personal fi-
nance company Mr. Palihapitiya
took public — were up 440 per-
cent, 246 percent, 20 percent and
130 percent.

Lincoln Daniel, a 29-year-old

software engineer who started
making investment videos on
YouTube in 2020, was among
those who followed Mr. Palihapi-
tiya’s lead and bought into his
SPACs and other investments he
pitched. In an interview, Mr. Dan-

iel said he did well with his invest-

ments because he sold out at the
right time.

“People like Chamath gave us

the opportunity to invest on equal
footing with them,” he said, refer-
ring to large institutional invest-
ors.

But they weren’t on equal foot-

ing with Mr. Palihapitiya.

Michael Klausner, a professor

at Stanford Law School, has writ-
ten about the difference between
those who back SPACs, like Mr.
Palihapitiya, and investors who
buy their shares after the listing.
A backer can put in a small
amount of money but still gets 20
percent of the shares, essentially
for free. Ordinary investors don’t
get the same terms.

“Sponsors make a killing, and

public shareholders take a bath,”
Mr. Klausner said.

Even as he was pitching his

newest SPACs, Mr. Palihapitiya
was selling out of his older ones. In
March 2021, he sold his personal
stake in Virgin Galactic for
roughly $200 million, according to
public filings, saying he would put
the proceeds into fighting climate
change. (He invested in Palmetto,
a clean energy platform com-
pany.) Virgin’s stock was trading
around $33 a share, more than
triple its $10 LPO. price.

But as lawmakers started scru-

tinizing SPACs in the fall of 2021,
the mania began to subside. Sev-

eral Democratic senators sent a

letter to Mr. Palihapitiya and other
SPAC sponsors requesting infor-
mation on their deals.

“We are concerned about the

misaligned incentives between
SPACs’ creators and early invest-
ors on the one hand, and retail in-
vestors on the other,” the letter
said.

Reze Wong, a spokesman for

Mr. Palihapitiya, said none of his

‘Sponsors make a
killing, and public
shareholders take a
bath?

Michael Klausner, a professor at

Stanford Law School.

deals were singled out and that he

was in favor of increased regula-
tion.

In November 2021, Mr. Palihapi-

tiya raised questions on Twitter
about the fate of the SPAC market
and said he sold 15 percent of his
stake in SoFi. Less than a year lat-
er, he said he was shuttering some
of his SPACs that hadn’t found
merger targets and returning
money to investors, although he
still had two looking for biotech
deals.

Virgin Galactic has generated

JOHN LAMPARSKI GETTY IMAGES

less than $2 million inrevenue this

year and racked up $346 million in
losses. It launched just one space-
flight last year with four people
onboard, including Mr. Branson.
Its stock was down more than 50
percent on Tuesday.

Opendoor, Clover and SoFi

were down 88 percent, 86 percent
and 57 percent. While the market
was reeling, Mr Palihapitiya
spent much of the summer at a
chateau in Italy.

At aconference in Manhattanin
late October, he told the crowd
that SPACs weren't the problem.
Instead, he blamed the Fed for
creating the mania around SPACs
when interest rates were low and
investors were hungry for re-
turns.

“The long-termregime in which

we operate has changed,” Mr. Pali-
hapitiya said. “That is not in the
control of one human being except
Jerome Powell,” he added, refer-
ring to the Fed chairman.

After his talk, Mr. Palihapitiya

entered a large black van while his
security team followed ina second
van. They were headed to Teter-
boro, N.J., where they would
board the private jet he purchased
in late 2020 to meet with potential
investors.

He was mostly done with

SPACs, but according to people fa-
miliar with his plans, he was re-
opening his venture firm Social
Capital to outside investors.
Ehe New York Eimes

Open the app.

Open the world.

The New York Times app.

Download now.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 460.

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAV

p pressreade

L
THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

CRYPTOCURRENCY | FASHION

Parents Scrutinized
For Links to FTX
From the Early Days

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE

Bankman was a prominent cheer-
leader for the company, helping to
shape the narrative that his son
was using crypto to save the world
by donating to charity and giving
low-income people access to the fi-
nancial system.

He and his wife, the Stanford

Law professor Barbara Fried,
were more than just supportive
parents backing their child’s busi-
ness. Mr. Bankman was a paid
FTX employee who traveled fre-
quently to the Bahamas, where
the exchange was based. Ms.
Fried did not work for the com-
pany, but her son was among the
donors in a political advocacy net-
work that she orchestrated.

Now Mr. Bankman and Ms.

Fried are under scrutiny for their
connections to a business that col-
lapsed amid accusations of fraud
and misuse of customer funds. No
evidence has emerged linking

A family affair has

upended more lives

than the founder's.

them to the potentially criminal

practices that caused the ex-
change to implode. But their son
was arrested on Monday in the
Bahamas after U.S. prosecutors
filed criminal charges against
him, and his fortune has dwindled
to almost nothing. The charitable
work that Mr. Bankman spear-
headed has largely collapsed.

The couple’s careers have been

upended. Ms. Fried, 71, resigned
last month as chairwoman of the
board of a political donor network,
Mind the Gap, which she had
helped start to support Democrat-
ic campaigns and causes. Mr.
Bankman, 67, has postponed a
Stanford class he had been sched-
uled to teach in the winter, and
he’s recruited a white-collar crimi-
nal defense lawyer to represent
him. The family faces huge legal
bills, and they have become the
subject of gossip on Stanford’s
campus.

“T had a friend who said, ‘You

don’t want to be seen with them,”
said Larry Kramer, a former dean
of the law school and a close friend
of the Bankman-Fried family. “I
don’t see how this doesn’t bank-
rupt them.”

In a statement, Risa Heller, a

spokeswoman for the couple, said
that Mr. Bankman worked for
FTX for 11 months but that Ms.
Fried had no role in the company.
“Joe has spent a lot of his life try-
ing to figure out ways to lift people
up out of poverty,” Ms. Heller said.

“Most of his time was spent identi-

fying worthy health-related chari-
ties.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried, 30, said in

an interview that his parents
“weren't involved in any of the rel-
evant parts” of the business.
“None of them were involved in
FTX balances or risk manage-
ment or anything like that,” he
said.

Long before their son became a

billionaire celebrity, Mr. Bankman
and Ms. Fried were popular fac-
ulty members at Stanford, where
they have taught since the late
1980s. At their home on campus,
they regularly hosted Sunday din-
ners with friends and colleagues,
which multiple attendees com-
pared to a modern salon.

A leading taxation expert, Mr.

Bankman has been an outspoken
advocate for simplifying the tax
filing system and has testified in
‘Congress on tax matters. He also
has a degree in clinical psychol-
ogy and practices as a therapist.

Ms. Fried, who retired this year,

is an expert on the intersection of
Jaw and philosophy, and has writ-
ten about effective altruism, the
charitable movement embraced
by Mr. Bankman-Fried that uses
data to maximize the benefits of
donations. In 2018, she helped
start Mind the Gap, hoping to
bring “Moneyball’-style analytics
to political spending, people famil-
iar with her role in the group said.

The couple’s lives transformed

after Mr. Bankman-Fried started
FTX in 2019. He grew the com-
pany into a $32 billion business,
cultivating a reputation as a hard-
working do-gooder who barely
slept and intended to donate his
fortune to causes backed by the ef-
fective altruist movement.

Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried

supported their son’s work,
though Ms. Fried expressed con-
cerns about his lifestyle. “The
sleep worries me,” she said in an
interview with The New York
Times in May. “I just hope that it’s
not exacting a high price on him.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s business

and political empire was always a
family affair. The FTX founder
was a prolific political donor, and
he was part of a network of con-
tributors who gave money to
groups recommended by Mind
the Gap, people familiar with the
organization said. He also helped
bankroll a nonprofit organization
called Guarding Against Pan-
demics that was run by his 27-
year-old brother, Gabe Bankman-
Fried.

Mr. Bankman was deeply in-

volved in FTX. Inits early days, he
helped the company recruit its
first lawyers. Last year, he joined
f

a
JOSH EDELSON

Joseph Bankman, a longtime tax professor at Stanford Law School and prominent
cheerleader for FTX, the company founded by his son.

FTX staff in meetings on Capitol

Hill and advised his son as Mr.
Bankman-Fried prepared to tes-
tify to the House Financial Serv-
ices Committee, a person familiar
with the matter said. FTX employ-
ees occasionally consulted him on
tax-related matters, the person
said.

“From the start whenever I was

useful, I'd lend a hand,” Mr
Bankman said on an FTX podcast
in August.

Mr. Bankman visited the FTX

offices in the Bahamas as often as
once a month, a person who saw
him there said. Among the much-
younger staff, he cultivated an
avuncular persona, regaling em-
ployees with stories from his son’s
youth, the person said. He and Ms.
Fried stayed in a $16.4 million
house in Old Fort Bay, a gated
community in Nassau, the capital
of the Bahamas; the couple’s
names appear on real estate docu-
ments, according to Reuters,
though Mr. Bankman-Fried has
said the house was “intended to be
the company’s property.”

Ms. Heller, the couple’s spokes-

woman, said Mr. Bankman and
Ms. Fried “never intended to and
never believed they had any bene-
ficial or economic ownership in
the house.”

As an employee, Mr. Bankman

focused on FTX’s charitable oper-
ations. He put together the Miami
event, selecting the teams of high
school students who competed for
$1 million in FTX grants.

Mr. Bankman also leveraged

family connections to expand
FTX’s reach. His sister, Barbara
Miller, works in Florida as a politi-
cal consultant and introduced him
to Newton Sanon, the chief execu-
tive of OIC of South Florida, anon-
profit organization that helps peo-
ple with work force development
training to promote economic mo-
bility. (Ms. Miller did not respond
to a request for comment.)

Mr. Sanon worked with Mr.

Bankman on a financial literacy
initiative for low-to-moderate-in-
come adults enrolled in education
programs. As part of the collabo-
ration, students who did not have
bank accounts could open one
linked to FTX’s platform, giving
them the option to spend their
money on cryptocurrency. No-
body was pushed to buy digital
currencies through FTX, Mr.
Sanon said, but one participant
chose to do so.

In Washington, Mr. Bankman-

Fried invoked the Florida pro-
gram as he pressed for legislation
to make the United States more
hospitable to the crypto industry,
testifying to a House committee
that the initiative would help low-
income people “build savings.”

After FTX collapsed, however,

Mr. Sanon informed Mr. Bankman
that some participants in the FTX
initiative may have lost funds they
had stored on the platform (in-
cluding money students had re-
ceived as a stipend for joining the
program).

“They wired money in for us to

be able to take care of students,”
Mr. Sanon said. He declined to
specify the amount that the orga-
nization received, but he said it
was “substantial and very kind.”

Mr. Bankman used his personal

funds to cover the losses, accord-
ing to his spokeswoman. Mr.
Sanon said that “none of us are
happy with how this played out,”
but that “those folks were very
good to us.”
Not all of Mr. Bankman’s part-
ners were so lucky. On Nov. 11, the
day that FTX filed for bankruptcy,
Mr. Bankman wrote to a Chicago
nonprofit that had been promised
$600,000 by FTX’s charitable arm.
The money wasn’t going to mate-
Tialize, Mr. Bankman explained,
and he couldn’t afford to make up
for the shortfall himself.

“T'll be spending substantially

all of my resources on Sam’s de-
fense,’ he wrote in an email, which
was obtained by The Times.

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s whole

family has felt the effects of his ac-
tions. Gabe Bankman-Fried re-
signed from Guarding Against
Pandemics in November. (He did
not respond to requests for com-
ment.) Ms. Fried stepped down
from Mind the Gap, which held a
meeting last month to elect an in-
terim chair and discuss how to
proceed without her, people famil-
iar with the matter said. The
stress of the situation is exacting a
toll: Mr. Bankman looks as if he’s
aged 10 years in one month, a

friend said.

Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried are

part of a small group offering Mr.
Bankman-Fried legal advice, ac-
cording to a person familiar with
the matter. The couple has also
turned to the Stanford faculty for
support: David Mills, a criminal
law professor at Stanford and a
close family friend, is part of Mr.
Bankman-Fried’s legal team. Mr.
Bankman has his own lawyer, the
former federal prosecutor Ronald
G. White.

Colleagues and family ac-

quaintances are wrestling with
what to say the next time they run
into Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried.
Their son has widely been com-
pared to Bernie Madoff, the noto-
rious fraudster who ran the larg-
est Ponzi scheme in history.

Still, many people in the fam-

ily’s social circle view the situa-
tion through a sympathetic lens,
according to interviews with more
than a dozen friends and col-
leagues. They insist that Mr
Bankman and Ms. Fried couldn't
have known about any wrongdo-
ing at FTX, while acknowledging
that Mr. Bankman may have been
naive in his embrace of crypto.

“Tt’s like a Greek tragedy,” said

John Donohue, a colleague who
has attended Sunday dinners at
the Bankman-Fried home. “The
story of flying too close to the sun,
and having your wings singed.”

Emily Flitter contributed reporting.

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Hey, Silicon Valley: It’s Time to Trade Your Baggy Shorts for a Suit

FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE

Fried’s youth in a family that
embraced utilitarianism as in
Albert Einstein’s unbrushed halo
of hair, which became as much a
symbol of the physicist’s genius
as E = mc2. In Steve Jobs’s jeans
and black turtleneck, and in
Steve Wozniak’s kitschy shirts,
long, stringy hair and beard
(which took three hours to recre-
ate for the “Jobs” biopic). In, of
course, Mark Zuckerberg’s Adi-
das flip-flops, hoodies and gray
T-shirts, which gave rise to the
current tech uniform of choice.

It’s a uniform that telegraphs

to the watching world somebody
who doesn’t have the time to
worry about what they are wear-
ing because they are thinking
such big, world-changing
thoughts. Thoughts that no one
else can possibly understand
because they are so out there
and potentially revolutionary. It
plays on our general insecurity
around science and the tech
world; the whole idea of a lan-
guage, made in code, impenetra-
ble, that magically shrinks down
all sorts of possibilities and puts
them in the palm of your hand.
“On a macro level, it’s human
to worship things,” Mr. Galloway
said. “Tech with its mysteries is
easy to worship. It’s the idolatry
of innovators.”

Innovators who with their very

being don’t just step over long
established lines, but ignore
them entirely. How do we recog-
nize them if we don’t even under-
stand what they are proselytiz-
ing about? To paraphrase the
former Supreme Court justice
Potter Stewart on obscenity, we
know them when we see them.
Of course they are not like us. Of
course they don’t dress like us.

We have, said Joseph Rosen-

feld, an image consultant and
stylist in Silicon Valley, swal-
lowed the costume theory hook,
line and sinker. “When ‘tech
bros’ like SBF are mid-meteoric
rise in notoriety and wealth-

building, the public is willing to

give them a pass because the
look is de rigueur,” Mr. Rosenfeld
said. That costume has been
reinforced by Hollywood, and the
sheer fact that every time “a V.C.
forks over a massive investment
toa schlubbily dressed person
(almost 100 percent of the time
male-presenting), that’s a pas-
sive form of approval.”

And a self-perpetuating one, at

least if, as Mr. Galloway also
said, you are white, male and
young. “Ifa person of color or a
woman or a 50-year-old showed
up like that, security probably
would not let them in the build-
ing,” he noted. In many ways, the
dress code is yet another exam-
ple of the double standard rife in
Silicon Valley (or those compa-
nies we associate with Silicon
Valley, even if, like FTX, they had
headquarters elsewhere) — the
one that saw Sheryl Sandberg in
her Facebook days wearing

sleeveless power sheaths ina

room of hoodies.
Or at least it was. Suddenly,
however, Mr. Bankman-Fried has
cast the whole look in a different
light. His sloppy dress seems
less a reflection of a higher call-

The schlubby style

of Bankman-Fried
may lose its appeal.

ing or of a decision to devote his

own finances to “effective altru-
ism,” than a red flag about a
sloppy approach to other peo-
ple’s money. A clue that someone
who doesn’t care about shower-
ing or style is maybe someone
who doesn’t care about audits
and the co-mingling of funds.
That, in fact, in Mr. Bankman-
Fried’s overwhelming embrace of
the dress-down mystique — one

HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

colleague, Andy Croghan, told

The New York Times, “Sam and I
would intentionally not wear
pants to meetings” — he actually
missed the point, which was that
it is the details and what you
don’t see that matters. Mr. Jobs’s
black turtlenecks were by the
Japanese designer Issey Miyake,
for example; Mr. Zuckerberg’s
gray T-shirts come from the
Italian designer Brunello
Cucinelli. They only seemed
unstudied.

Mr. Bankman-Fried missed the

fact that, as Mr. Rosenfeld said,
“some of the best dressed indi-
viduals in tech prefer a very low
profile and don’t prefer to bring
attention to themselves,” mean-
ing they actually look more busi-
ness casual than just casual.
(When asked who those individ-
uals might be, Mr. Rosenfeld
name-checked Kevin Systrom,
formerly of Instagram, and Evan
Spiegel of Snapchat.)
And he missed that someone
who may go to jail is not some-
one whose look anyone else
might really want to emulate.

AS it happens, Mr. Bankman-

Fried was scheduled to testify
before Congress the day after his
arrest. Whether he would have
donned a suit for the occasion
(he did when he testified in
December 2021, though fa-
mously he wore his brown lace-
ups tied in such a bizarre knot
that they became a meme unto
themselves) we will never know.
But given that when he ap-
peared in Bahamian court to be
indicted, he did switch things up
in a navy suit and white shirt, if
no tie, he seems to understand
the role image can play in influ-
encing judgments. Presumably,
when his case makes it to court
in New York, he will do the
same, maybe even with a tie,
though whether it will make any
difference at that point is doubt-
ful.

His track record of schlubbi-

ness — still on view during his
mea culpa self-exoneration

ERIKA P. RODRIGUEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sam Bankman-Fried, left at the DealBook Summit in New York last month,
wore stretched-out, slept-in T-shirts and scrunched white socks, even when
sharing a stage with Gisele Biindchen, above right, at a crypto conference.
That style may now be seen as a red flag for a sloppy approach to business.

media tour before his arrest — is

there now to help paint a picture,
as Mr. Galloway said, of a “guy
who has no respect for other
people’s money, just as he had no
respect for decorum.”

And if it is, indeed, so used, it’s

pretty likely that the sartorial
schtick will go out of vogue. At
least for a while. In its place,
perhaps, the trappings of the
man who has stepped into Mr.
Bankman-Fried’s shoes as FTX
chief executive to oversee its
bankruptcy, John J. Ray ITI, who
sat before the House Financial
Services Committee on Tuesday
ina pinstriped navy suit, light
blue shirt and dusty rose tie with
a discreet print.

And yet, Mr. Galloway said,

“the waving of the middle finger,
the ‘I’m special, I’m unconven-
tional, I’m above all that boring
rule-playing’” — that ethos Mr.
Bankman-Fried once symbol-
ized?

“That will always be in style,”

he said. Even if it does get a new
look.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 460.
COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

[ p pressreade:
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Sports

The New Hork Times

& § World Cup 2022

MESSI GETS ONE LAST SHOT

itll

wr ae.

Ye vy Wy

ya
Lo |

ICHARD HEATHCOTE/GETTY

(10) celebrating with teammate Julian Alvarez after Alvarez scored the second goal
for Argentina. Messi reached the World Cup final in 2014, but Argentina lost to
Germany.

Eight Years Later,

Argentina's Star

Is Back in the Final

By RORY SMITH

LUSAIL, Qatar — His arms aloft, Li-

onel Messi stood before those who had
come to adorehim. Inthat second, hehad
the massed ranks of Argentina’s fans in-
side the Lusail Stadium under his spell.

They did not

ARGENTINA 3 bounce and

CROATIA o Writhe in cele-
bration. Instead,
Semifinals he heldthemper-
fectly still,

caught in a moment of quiet communion

between the divine and his congregation.
Then, of course, it broke. The stands
above seemed to melt and to shake, a
roar of joy and relief and affirmation re-
verberating around this vast, golden
bowl. On the field, Messi was flooded by
his jubilant teammates. He had not
scored the goal — that relatively simple
task had fallen to Julian Alvarez — but he
had created it, willed it into being, fash-
ioned it from whole silk. And now, at last,
he had done what he had set out to do.
For years, Argentina has hoped. For
weeks, Argentina has believed. Only in
that moment, though, with a 3-0 lead
over Croatia with just 10 minutes of the
semifinal remaining, did Argentina

Continued on Page B10

Once a Substitute,
A Young Striker
Py . Stakes His Claim

By TARIQ PANJA

LUSAIL, Qatar — When Argentina

needed its man of the moment to deliver,
he made no mistake.

With millions of people taking to the

streets in cities across his homeland,
with tens of thousands ofhiscountrymen
clad in the nation’s blue and white stripes
in the stands, the forward showed nerves
of steel. It was almost as if he was born
for the moment.

The forward, though, was not Lionel

Messi.

Argentina is back ina World Cup final,

thanks to Messi, naturally, and to a 3-0
victory over Croatia on Tuesday night.
But as the minutes ticked down inside
Lusail Stadium, even Messi joined in the
applause for Julian Alvarez, who had
done as much as anyone to make sure
Messi would get to play for the trophy on
Sunday, as he strode from the field with
about 20 minutes to play.

Alvarez’s job was done. He had won

the penalty that Messi converted to give
Argentina the lead, then scored two
goals of his own. He had carried Ar-
gentina to its first World Cup final since
2014, to a chance to end what has at times
looked to be an endless search, ap-
LARS BARON/GETTY IMAGES proaching four decades, for the country’s

Afterthe match, hugs of joy for Argentina and of consolation for Croatia. Continued
on Page B10
THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Within hours of the stunning

news last summer that U.C.L.A.
was bolting the Pac-12 Confer-
ence, along with the University
of Southern California, for a rich

Big Ten media

BILLY contract, emails
WITZ began peppering
the inbox of
a U.C.L.A’s athletic
eee director, Martin
Jarmond.

“Tm glad my father did not

live to see this,” wrote Brian
Birkenstein, class of 96, who did
not miss a home football game as
a student. “This move just
screams of the hypocritical val-
ues that U.C.L.A. evidently has,”
wrote Eugene Chiang, class of
°88, who added that he would no
longer be a fan, a donor or an
advocate. “I graduated from
U.C.L.A. 50 years ago and have
NEVER been ashamed of my
alma mater .. . until today!”
wrote Jerry Macy, class of '72.

It was much the same for the

inbox of Chancellor Gene D.
Block.

“It feels like the chasm be-

tween student and athlete just
got even wider” Tal Johnson, a
U.C.L.A. parent, wrote to the
chancellor. “Legacy and geogra-
phy, and the relationship with
alums, is more important, in my
view, than TV money,” wrote
Sean J. Mulvihill, a physician
who did his residency at U.C.L.A.

The nearly four dozen angry

emails sent to the athletic direc-
tor or the chancellor in the im-
mediate aftermath of the June 30
announcement largely decried
the move, sometimes less than
politely, as a shortsighted, tradi-
tion-ignoring money grab.

The sample size may be too

small to judge the move’s opposi-
tion. Still, it is telling how few
emails, obtained by The New
York Times through a public
records request, supported it.

The handful of notes congratu-

lating Jarmond, the athletic
director, seemed to be from
U.C.L.A. employees or from
people he had encountered in
over a dozen years working in
the Big Ten at Michigan State
and Ohio State.

As the University of California

Board of Regents prepares to
vote Wednesday on whether to
block U.C.L.A’s move to the Big
Ten, those few congratulatory
emails Jarmond received seem to
be instructive in another way. In
the nearly six months since the
proposed move was announced,
there has not been much visible
enthusiasm for it.

Ina survey of U.C.L.A. athletes

conducted for the Regents, only
35 percent of the 111 respondents
said they thought the move was
a good idea. (Only about one in
six athletes even responded to
the survey.) Bill Walton, one of
U.C.L.A’s most renowned former
athletes, has urged the Regents
to reject the move.

So has another former U.C.L.A.

athlete, the football player
Ramogi Huma. As the executive
director of the National College
Players Association, an athlete
advocacy group, he told the
Regents in a letter last week that
the increased travel to far-afield
campuses in Pennsylvania,
Maryland and New Jersey would
place a greater burden on Black
male athletes, whose graduation
rates at the university are about
50 percent, compared with 73
percent for Black male students

COLLEGES

No One Is Enthusiastic About U.C.L.A.’s Move to the Big Ten

JED JACOBSOHN/ ASSOCIATED PRESS;
U.C.L.A’s proposed move to the Big Ten has drawn criticism
from alumni, former athletes and California lawmakers.

overall at U.C.L.A.

The move has also attracted

the attention of Nancy Skinner, a
state lawmaker who is consider-
ing introducing legislation that
would put stricter limits on the
time athletes at California
schools spend practicing, playing
and traveling for their sport.

So while there has been a

steady stream of opposition,
there has barely been a drip of
organized public support for
U.C.L.A’s move.

Unlike when, say, Rutgers

joined the Big Ten nearly a dec-
ade ago, the administrative fer-
vor is less about a road to rele-
vance — U.C.L.A.’s women’s
soccer team recently captured
the school's 120th N.C.A.A. cham-
pionship — than it is financial
pragmatism.

The increased revenue is one

way U.C.L.A., whose athletic

department deficit ballooned to

$103.1 million, according to the
school’s statement of revenues
and expenses, can afford a
broad-based athletic program
that gets scant financial support
from the university.

Block and Jarmond have been

largely silent beyond addressing
the Regents, sometimes pri-
vately, to make their case for the
move. Block apologized to Ana
Mari Cauce, the president of the
University of Washington, for not
providing advance notice and
called the move “personally
anguishing,” according to a letter
obtained by The Athletic through
a public records request.
At a Sports Business Journal
conference last week in Las
Vegas, Jarmond urged college
athletics administrators to do a
“better job of communication to
people who don’t understand our

business”

Asked afterward why U.C.L.A.

had not garnered much public
support for the move, Jarmond
declined to comment.

When the leap to the Big Ten.

Was announced this summer,
there was little indication that
U.C.L.A. needed to marshal
support. It was viewed as a fait
accompli since chancellors in the
University of California system,
which has 10 campuses, have
broad discretion in managing
their campuses.

But the Regents began to ask

questions because U.C.L.A’s
departure would result in a fi-
nancial hit for the University of
California, Berkeley. Its revenue
from a Pac-12 television contract
would be reduced by millions of
dollars because the conference
would be losing the Los Angeles
market.

It also did not help U.C.L.A.

that many of the Regents —
including Gov. Gavin Newsom —
were upset about being kept in
the dark on such a consequential
matter.

Then, in August, the Regents

were informed by their general
counsel, Charles Robinson, that
even though they had delegated
authority to the chancellors, they
had not relinquished it.

In meetings in September and

November the Regents pushed
U.C.L.A. for answers on how
membership in the Big Ten
would help financially and the
impact it would have on athletes”
health and academics. U.C.L.A.
said it expected to reap $60
million to $70 million per year in
television revenue when it joined
the Big Ten for the 2024-25
school year, about double what it

brings in from its membership in

the Pac-12.

That annual revenue would be

offset by about $10 million in new
costs for travel and nutritional,
academic and mental health
support, the university said.

But the Regents have strug-

gled to understand what would
happen if U.C.L.A. remained in
the Pac-12. Though George Kli-
avkoff, the Pac-12 commissioner,
has urged the Regents to block
U.C.L.A.’s move, he has not been
able to close a television rights
deal to provide them with a firm
comparison.

(The Big 12 recently agreed to

a media rights deal worth $31.7
million per school per year,
which is seen as a loose target
for where the Pac-12 — without a
presence in the Los Angeles
market — figures to land.)

As the Regents have been

collecting information, many of
them have been hoping the prob-
lem will solve itself. One option
they are considering, but have
not yet deliberated on, is to allow
U.C.L.A. to leave but to require it
to compensate Berkeley for lost
revenue.

While the Regents have raised

questions about whether
U.C.L.A’s exit creates new prob-
lems while solving current ones,
some on the board have ex-
pressed unease with reversing a
decision because of the prece-
dent it would set.

In the end, even if the Regents.

leave Wednesday’s meeting
having removed a final obstacle
for U.C.L.A’s move to the Big
Ten, they may share a prevailing
sentiment: little enthusiasm for
it.
@ @ World Cup 2022

Joy and Anxiety Mix as Moroccans Look Ahead to a Match Against France

By VIVIAN YEE
and AIDA ALAMI

KSAR EL KEBIR, Morocco —

Ahead of the World Cup semifinal
between Morocco and France on
Wednesday, the flip side of Moroc-
cans’ euphoria at having made it
this far in the tournament was ex-
cruciating stress.

In Casablanca, a young woman.

said she kept dreaming that Mo-
rocco had lost, waking up in a
clammy sweat night after night,
while her friend has been devour-
ing so much soccer content on so-
cial media each night before bed
that she saw one of the players
smiling triumphantly in her sleep.
And in the town of Ksar el Kebir,
amid the strawberry fields and
low green hills of northern Moroc-
co, people were begging God for
their hometown hero, the star de-
fender Achraf Hakimi, to give
them a reason to once again lose
their minds with joy.

“We hope we win, but it’s in the

hands of God,” said Houda el-Asri,
36, who was taking the trash out
on Tuesday afternoon in Ksar el
Kebir, where Hakimi’s mother
grew up before emigrating to
Spain. Hakimi was born in Spain,
returning regularly to Morocco to
visit family.

But fatalism this was not. “I’m

scared,” El-Asri confessed a sec-
ond after consigning her fate to
God, grinning. “Just like with the
last game, I can’t stop thinking
about it. Are we going to win? Are
we going to lose?”

In the eyes of the world, Moroc-

co— a country of 37 million in Af-
rica’s northwestern corner, better
known internationally for tourism
than sports — was never sup-
posed to get this far. Then it upset
Spain (which occupied northern

i y

PHOTOGRAPHS BY IMANE DJAMIL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Rehima Korriz, 24, who runs a beauty salon near the family of Achraf Hakimi,
Morocco’ star defender. She said Hakimi insisted on
giving interviews in Moroccan Arabic. Right, a childhood friend of Hakimi’s with a
photo of himself with Hakimi and others in 2018.

Morocco for decades) in last

week’s round of 16. Then it
stunned Portugal (which invaded
Morocco in the 1400s) on Satur-
day in the quarterfinals, becom-
ing the first Arab or African team
to reach the semifinals.

All of a sudden, Morocco was

the ultimate underdog, the fairy-
tale princess, the rejuvenator of
Pan-Arab and African solidarity,
the champion of the world’s colo-
nized against the world’s
colonizers — bringer of dreams,
ruiner of sleep.

For many Moroccans, Wednes-

day’s match has become a chance
to show what a supposed nobody
can do.

“As a developing country and

former colony, and for countries
from the third world in general,
there’s this idea we can’t accom-
plish much,” said Salahdine
Hamidi, a city councilman in Ksar
el Kebir, where banners with the

team’s photo hung around town

and Moroccan flags adorned cafes
and motorcycles. “It’s important
to prove them wrong.”

His colleagues outlined efforts

in the town and beyond to develop
Moroccan soccer talent: new
Sports academies, new stadiums
(including two named after Mr.
Hakimi) and new training pro-
grams. They pointed out that Mo-
rocco had brought both talent and
strategy to each World Cup match
in Doha, Qatar, not just luck. They
said that Morocco had a fair
chance against France, the de-
fending world champion.

For Moroccans, however,

France is not only a soccer power,
but also a former colonial one,
making it the foe they would most
hate to lose to and the one they
would most love to beat. France
ran a protectorate in Morocco un-
til 1956, when Morocco gained in-
dependence, and it is still strongly

identified with the Moroccan elite,

who tend to speak French and
send their children to French-cur-
riculum schools.

“There is, of course, the whole

post-colonial context, which
means that this confrontation is
marked by a common past,” said
Fatine Arafati, 26, an artist from
Casablanca, whose nights had re-
cently been marked by vivid, cele-
bratory soccer dreams.

In the past year, diplomatic ten-

sions between the two countries
have risen over revelations that
Morocco may have been monitor-
ing the cellphone of President Em-
manuel Macron of France using
Pegasus spyware, as well as
France’s restrictions on visas for
Moroccans despite the strong ties
between the two countries.

Combined with the discrimina-

tion and racism Moroccans and
Muslims experience in France,
the recent conflicts have pushed

‘e

A soccer field in Ksar el Kebir, Morocco, named after Hakimi, who has his country a
win away from the World Cup final.

young Moroccans, more and more

of whom study English instead of
French in school, increasingly to
reject France and its influence.

“Tt’s a place with a colonizing

mentality, a repressive mentality,
the way they treat people from
here.” said Hamid Mouh, 31, a
cousin of Hakimi's. “The whole
world, not just France, they’re go-
ing to start respecting Morocco.”

Though soccer is highly popular

in Morocco, the pride attached to
this particular team has gone far
beyond sports.

There is the fact that 14 of the

team’s players grew up in Europe
yet chose to play for the country of
their ancestry — making it the
team in Qatar with the most non-
native-born players. In Hakimi’s
case, he has said in interviews,
he’s playing for Morocco at the
World Cup because of the bigotry
he has faced in Spain, where he
played for Real Madrid, and in
Paris, where he now plays for
Paris St-Germain, alongside the
biggest star of the France’s na-
tional team, Kylian Mbappé.

There is also the fact that sev-

eral Moroccan players’ parents
followed the common path of emi-
grating to Europe to support their
families through menial labor, like
Hakimi’s mother, a house cleaner,
and father, a street vendor. Sev-
eral of the players, including Ha-
kimi, even insist on giving inter-
views in Moroccan Arabic, despite
speaking English, French or
Spanish.

“He’s not ashamed of his back-

ground,” Rehima Korriz, 24, who
runs a beauty salon in the neigh-
borhood of Mr. Hakimi's family,
said with pride. (When asked
about his Arabic, however, hon-
esty compelled her to note that he
still spoke with a strong accent.)

Tf all of that was not enough to

melt Moroccans’ hearts, they
stood little chance against the vid-
eos of players like Hakimi running
to the stands to kiss their mothers
after each victory. The team’s
coach, a French Moroccan, has
said the team flew a group of play-
ers’ mothers to the tournament to
boost morale.

“In Morocco, it’s normal to love

your parents and honor them in
this way, especially moms,” said
Sanaa Mhammedi, 48, who lives
in the Old Medina neighborhood
of Ksar el Kebir, home to some of

Hakimi’s relatives. “The other

teams aren’t doing this with their
moms. They party with their
wives, not their moms.”

Speaking of moms, she said, her

mother, with whom she lived, was
the loudest fan she knew. They
had shelled out for the expensive
World Cup subscription on satel-
lite TV so they could watch at
home, screaming as much as they
wanted to.

Others were packing the town’s

cafes, including women, who tra-
ditionally never sit watching soc-
cer in such places, and people who
had no idea what the rules were
but were praying for victory any-
way. The City Council had planned
a huge party for Wednesday
evening, where the match would
be broadcast and a D.J. was
scheduled to play.

Every time the team won, Ksar

el Kebir’s population seemed to
empty into the streets.

“Everybody, poor and rich, edu-

cated and not, is happy,
Mhammedi said. “Because it’s the
national team; it’s become sa-
cred.”

THE NEW
YORK TIMES
CLASSIFIED

LISTINGS
MLR NRE *

IT: Alt Platform, Inc. in New York, N’

seeks multiple openings for mule
positions including Sota poe
for =WFH
5190-52304. Quaed appa nis eee
nea (eaumne 21D King Sad POL
‘Son Francisco, CA 94103, quoting job
#ALTSED?

MARSHAL /

nel
11692
TOYOTA

T2NISSAN
(5 TOYOTA
BMW WBAEUSMEIP MSI Gd
poe ATIBSIHKX KUS 10097
DEAFPT2WXTX 100480

"ak WBA XHSCS2DD 107669

lowing Venes sad in ens Liens

WOHRYSLER IC3CCCABSGNT16401

JODODGE SHASADS04339

IBICB.
# a KNMATIMV9GP&46109
JHGCP2FEI
OoHONDS THGCG2246¥,
TOMAZDA = JM3TB3MV1A0237201
99 HONDA JHLRD1846x 0032648
T3HONDA, T9XFB2F 88D F220819
yi pon SJ6TFOHSECL 005578
GIZBSEBIA 133550
TEMERCEDES WORHADIGSWAREES
“BMW WBANAS3504B 176706
T4INFINITI JNIBV/ARSEMA9101
@ DODGE SDAGGSIVOTSSIS
TFFORD: SEASPOHSIHRI7AISE
‘OU NISSAN INABAATE2ACBI7 004
I6TOYOTA 2TIBURHESCCAB0I81
TI NISSAN INIABTAPGHY 211176
T2GMC IGKS2EEPICRI39659
TIKIA “Y KU4A208 6002638
(TOYOTA
Following Vehicles Sold As Salvag
MKIA KI MDT0ES151900
TONISSAN AN PAA
TSNISSAN IN. xt
CHEV! TGNETIES9S6155590
CASH ONLY Inspect sHr. Prior to Sale
(Gity Marshal Richard 4. Capuano
Phone (718) 478-0400

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PressReadercom #1604 278 4604

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

[ p pressreade:
B10 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

&)) & WorldCup2022

Messi and Argentina Beat Croatia to Reach the Final

From Page B8

know. On Sunday, Lionel Messi

will lead out his country in the
World Cup final. Eight years on,
the player who might be the best
of all time will again grace the big-
gest game in the world. He will
have one last shot at redemption.
He will have his chance at re-
venge.

It has become a familiar trope

that this World Cup — his last — is
Messi’s final opportunity to make
up for the disappointment of de-
feat by Germany in 2014, to ce-
ment his legacy, to match the
achievements of his only possible
historical peers, Pelé and Diego
Maradona, and deliver his nation
the greatest glory the game can
offer. That framing is appealing,
but it is wrong.

Messi’s legacy is already se-

cure. His list of honors borders on
the absurd, an endless parade of
trophies lifted and records
smashed: four Champions
League titles, 790 goals, 11 domes-
tic championships, a Copa Amer-
ica, Barcelona’s all-time leading
scorer, five Ballons d’Or (or equiv-
alent), the most prolific player in
Spanish history.

Messi is not here because he

needs a World Cup to be remem-
bered as a great. He is here be-
cause it is the one thing that would
mean more — to him, to his con-
gregation, to his homeland — than
any other. He is here because he
sees it as somewhere between his
duty and his destiny. He is here be-
cause it would be his crowning
glory.
There has been an intensity to
Messi, these last few weeks, that
has not always been apparent in
the latter stages of his career. He
still spends much of his time on
the field strolling around, of
course, rousing himself into a gen-
tle jog only when he deems the sit-
uation worthy of his attention, but
that economy of energy should
not be confused with disinterest
or dissatisfaction.

It was Messi, after all, who

stood up on Argentina’s team bus.
after defeat to Saudi Arabia and
asked his dejected teammates if
they could trust each other; it was
Messi who confronted the entire
Netherlands coaching staff after
Argentina had emerged victori-
ous from an irascible, volatile
quarterfinal. It was Messi who
took fiery exception to the pres-
ence of Wout Weghorst, the Dutch
striker, in a post-match interview.

And it has, time and again, been

Messi who has intervened in
games to bend them to his will.
Since losing to the Saudis, he said,
Argentina has “faced five finals,
and been fortunate to win all five.”

Fortunate is one word for it. In

the group phase, it was Messi who
broke the deadlock against Mex-
ico, just as Argentina’s nerves
were shredding, as the specter of
humiliation hung heavy over the
nation. It was Messi who opened
the scoring against Australia in
the last 16. It was Messi who made
the first and scored the second
against the Dutch, and then it was
Messi who stepped up and took
the first penalty in the shootout.

Against Croatia, too, it was

Messi who proved the decisive fig-
ure. The cruelty of knockout soc-
cer is that a whole month’s worth

Lionel Messi controlling the ball against Josko Gvardiol in Tuesday's semifinal
match. Messi, one of the greatest players in soccer's history, has never won a
World Cup.
of work — more, in fact — can
evaporate in a single instant. Cro-
atia’s defining trait, throughout
the tournament, has been its con-
trol, its composure.

Tt may not have been the most

adventurous, the most thrill-seek-
ing team in Qatar, but it has been
disciplined, organized, resolute. It
has worn opponents down, held
them at bay, trusted that they will
make the first mistake. It had
done it well enough not only to
make it to the semifinal, beating
Brazil along the way, but to sur-
vive the first half-hour of this

game with barely a scratch.

Luka Modric, that other genera-

tional talent trying to stave off the
final curtain, had established his
authority over the midfield. His
redoubtable cadre of lieutenants
— Marcelo Brozovic, Mateo Ko-
vacic, Ivan Perisic — were hur-
riedly and dutifully putting out
what few fires threatened to ig-
nite. Argentina was starting to get
that same sinking feeling that
plenty of teams face when con-
fronted by the Croatians.

But all it takes is a moment. For

the first time — in this game, in

this tournament, possibly in his

life — Modric took his eye off the
ball. Rather than coming under
his command, it rolled under his
feet, squirming out to Enzo Fer-
nandez. No matter; he was still
deep in his own half. There was no
immediately apparent danger.

Modric is so reliable, though,

that it had not occurred to anyone
that he might err. Josko Gvardiol
and Dejan Lovren, Croatia’s cen-
tral defenders, had drifted apart,
attempting to offer him a favor-
able angle for a pass.

Suddenly, there was a gap. Al-

varez, alert, spotted it. So, too, did

Fernandez. He clipped a straight,
simple ball down the field, and
suddenly Alvarez was haring af-
ter it, gobbling up the clear, green
grass in front of him. Dominik Li-
vakovic, the Croatia goalkeeper,
rushed out to meet him, but suc-
ceeded only in clattering into his
midriff. Argentina had a penalty;
Messi had the ball; all of Croatia’s
good work had been for nothing.
Five minutes later, the game
was effectively over, Alvarez scor-
ing the worst, best goal imagi-
nable, barging down the field from

the halfway line, the ball ricochet-

ing back into his path after two at-
tempted Croatian challenges, sit-
ting up perfectly to be prodded
past Livakovic.

This being Argentina, though,

even a two-goal lead did not pro-
vide absolute certainty. Lionel
Scaloni’s team had one of those
against the Dutch, and thrown it
away. It was only when the third
emerged, conjured into being by
Messi, that Argentina could ex-
hale. It was fitting, too, a vintage
slice of Messicana, a maestro play-
ing the hits, using this stage to be-
‘Spain
*Won on penaity kicks, 3-

Morocco, 1-0
Portugal

Portugal, 6-1
Switzerland

Netherlands, 3-1
United States
Netherlands
iL Argentina, 2-2*
eee *Won on penalty kicks, 4-3
Australia
Argentina, 3-0
Croatia |
Japan _
Croatia, 1-1"
*Wen on penalty kicks, “L pcan Bue
Brazil
Beelbena *Won on penalty kicks, 4-2
South Korea Final
Kn ockout s tage Sunday, 10.a.m.
Bracket Ppeain
All times Eastern
France, 3-1
Poland “
France, 2-1
England
England, 3-0
Senegal Wednesday, 2 p.m.
France
Morocco
Mon, Oo Third Place

Saturday, 10 a.m.

Croatia
‘THE NEW YORK TIMES:

A Young Striker Stakes

His Claim With Two Goals

From Page B8

third World Cup title.

Only two other Argentines had

ever scored twice in a World Cup
semifinal. One of them was Diego
Maradona. The other was Mario
Kempes. Each went on to lift the
trophy days later. Now Alvarez,
22, will have the same chance.

“We deserved this” Alvarez

said. “We played a great game to-
day. We’re in the final, which is
what we wanted.”

That journey has at times

looked as uncertain as Alvarez’s
role in it. He was on the bench
when Argentina took the field for
its first game of the tournament,
and was unable to turn the tide af-
ter coming on as a substitute as
Saudi Arabia delivered one of the
biggest shocks in World Cup his-
tory.

He came off the bench in Ar-

gentina’s second game, against
Mexico, changing the look of a
team that until then had appeared
short of ideas and in danger of go-
ing home early. He fizzed with en-
ergy when he came on as a sec-
ond-half sub, and, though he did
not score either of the two goals,
improved Argentina.

Coach Lionel Scaloni inserted

Alvarez in the starting lineup for
the team’s final group-stage
game, and Argentina has not
looked back. He scored a goalina
victory against Poland, then
scored again in a win over Aus-
tralia in the round of 16. His ener-

gy and his confidence have side-

lined more experienced team-
mates and energized a partner-
ship with Messi.
“At his age it is normal that he
wants to conquer the world,”
Scaloni said. “He is a boy who will
do whatever you say to him.”

While Messi is — and always

will be — the player Argentina
looks to in moments of trouble, it
was Alvarez who changed the
game against Croatia and brought
a sleepy game to life.

His quick thinking in the 32nd

minute allowed him to split Cro-
atia’s center backs and latch onto
a long pass from Enzo Fernandez
that ended with a quick touch and
a hard collision with Croatia goal-
keeper Dominik Livakovic. Messi
took the penalty, and made no mis-
take, but Alvarez had created the
opening. Croatia wobbled as he
then made a mockery of its repu-
tation for parsimony only five
minutes later.

Collecting the ball in the center

circle, Alvarez ran straight
through the heart of Croatia’s de-
fense, beating one player, then an-
other, then a third, bursting
through challenges for the ball
that would not have looked out of
place in a schoolyard.

His journey, aided by fortunate

ricochets off the defenders Josip
Juranovic and Borna Sosa, ended
when he pushed the ball beyond
Livakovic. When it was over, a
beaming Messi grabbed Alvarez
in a headlock and patted his hair.

Argentina had been here be-

Julian Alvarez scoring for

Argentina. He was a substitute
in the first two games.

fore. Only four days earlier, and in

the same stadium, it had been
comfortably ahead by two goals in
a high-stakes knockout game
against the Netherlands. Then
two Dutch goals nearly cost Ar-
gentina everything.
This time it would make no mis-
take: Alvarez and Messi would
make sure of that.

Messi, showing yet another

flash of genius to bamboozle the
Croatian defense, toyed with
Josko Gvardiol, the Croatian de-
fender who had been one of the
revelations of the tournament, to
create space along the end line to

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 460:

[ p pressreader
THE NEW YORK TIMES SPORTS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

N Bil

come his own tribute act.

With ten minutes to play of a

World Cup semifinal, at the age of
35, there he was, scurrying down
the wing, wriggling away from
Gvardiol, his unstinting shadow
all night, slowing down so he could
beat him again, making it into the
penalty area, slipping the ball
back for Alvarez, turning to his
fans, to his people, and accepting
not so much their congratulations
as their thanks.

That was when Argentina

knew. In those last few minutes, as
Argentina ticked down the clock

DAN MULLAN/GETTY IMAGES

and the songs echoed around the

Lusail, Argentina’s substitutes
stood on the sideline, that purga-
torial zone between the stands
and the field, with their arms
slung around each other’s shoul-
ders, joining in with the chorus.

At the tops of their voices, they

sang the anthems that have
sound-tracked Argentina’s month
in Qatar, its journey to the final,
the ones that are dedicated to the
country, to Maradona and, above
all,to Messi, the man they have all
come — fans and players alike —
to honor, and to adore.

pull the ball back. Then he found

Alvarez, a recipient with no sec-
ond thoughts, no doubts of what to
do when the moment counted.

Ahead of his marker’s desper-

ate lunge, Alvarez swept Messi’s
pass into the net. Argentina led,
3-0. No one doubted the suspense
was over. Argentina was back in
the World Cup final.

“In my family they must be go-

ing crazy, like the whole country I
guess,” Alvarez told reporters af-
ter the game.

The journey, the story of ateam

carried by star power or the rise of
anunexpected star, isa movie that
Argentina fans of a certain age
will remember well. But will it be
1986, when the best player in the
world — Maradona — carried his
team to the title? Or will it be

1990? The latter may be more rel-

evant, though Argentina will hope
for a better outcome this time.

That year, too, Argentina

opened the World Cup with a
shocking defeat (against Camer-
oon) and then methodically re-
grouped behind an aging legend
(Maradona) and a sudden star
(the substitute goalkeeper and
penalty-kick hero Sergio Goy-
cochea). The last step, though,
proved to be one too far: Ar-
gentina clawed its way to the final,
but then lost it to Germany.

Now Messi, and Alvarez, have

Argentina in another final. The
stars are aligning once more. Now
all Argentina needs to do is win.

“We're very nappy with what

we have achieved,” Alvarez said,
“and we want more.”

@ ©) Qatar

History Collides for Morocco and France

By CONSTANT MEHEUT
and TOM NOUVIAN

PARIS — Saturday night was both ex-

hilarating and confusing for Anas Daif.
Morocco and France had just advanced
to the World Cup semifinals, setting the
stage for a showdown on Wednesday,
and Daif couldn’t decide which team to
support — his country of descent or his
country of birth.

Then, Daif, a French Moroccan who

was born near Paris, said he thought
about the pride that Morocco’s historic
run has brought to Africa and the Arab
world. He envisioned how emblematic a
victory of the former colony over its for-
mer colonizer would be.

“T realized my heart went out to Mo-

rocco,” said Daif, a 27-year-old journalist
and podcast producer. “It’s a support
rooted in greater symbolism.”

Wednesday’s face-off between France

and Morocco will be about more than just
soccer. From their past colonial ties to
contemporary waves of immigration, the
two nations are intertwined by a cen-
tury-old shared history and culture.
There is great hope that these bonds, em-
bodied by a vast community of dual na-
tionals, will give the game a fraternal
tone.

But there is also fear that France's un-

easy relationship with its North African
population might make it frosty. Worries
are especially high that in a country
where the right has long stoked fears
that Muslim immigrants threaten the
fabric of French life, the game, whatever
its outcome, will be overshadowed by
politics.

“Tt’ll be dizzying,” said Yvan Gastaut, a

French historian of immigration and soc-
cer. “Decades of history are going to col-
lide with a 90-minute game.”

France’s colonial domination of Mo-

rocco lasted nearly half a century, from
1912 to 1956. But it was nowhere near as
brutal as in neighboring Algeria, where
decades of humiliating government rule
and a bloody war of independence have
fueled long-lasting animosity toward
France. As a protectorate, Morocco en-
joyed greater autonomy and its inde-
pendence was negotiated rather peace-
fully.

Since then, relations between the two

countries have been mostly cordial.
Many Moroccans emigrated to work in
French factories in the 1960s and 1970s,
forming a large diaspora that today num-
bers 1.5 million people, half of whom
have dual citizenship, according to a 2015
parliamentary report. The intertwining
is such that three members of Morocco’s
current World Cup team — coach Walid
Regragui and two players — are dual na-
tionals.

These bonds have been especially con-

spicuous since Morocco’s historic qualifi-
cation for the semifinals. A video went vi-
ral on social media, showing a French-
man waving and kissing Morocco’s red
flag in honor of Moroccan miners who
worked in northern France. A remix of
the French national anthem with North
African drum beats spread across Tik-
Tok and WhatsApp.

Many French Moroccans said that

their dual identity has made it challeng-
ing to choose which team to root for.

Oussama Adref, a youth soccer coach

in the Paris area, said everyone was
“torn.” Daif added that some of his ac-
quaintances had compared the decision
to “choosing between your father and
your mother.”

But Wednesday’s game may conjure

up more than family-style dilemmas.

Colonial overtones, in particular, will

be hard to escape. Should Morocco beat
France, it would be the third European
power that invaded Morocco to stumble
against it on the pitch, after Spain and
Portugal.

CHRISTOPHE PETIT TESSON/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK

Morocco supporters in Paris celebrating after the team reached the semifinals
of the World Cup. France's ties to Morocco, below, are deep and complex.

“Symbolically, it would restore the

prestige of a country and of peoples who
have been oppressed by colonial pow-
ers,” said Daif, noting how the African
continent and the Arab world have iden-
tified with the successes of the Atlas Li-
ons, as Morocco’s soccer team is known.

France has kept vivid memories of a

soccer game against Algeria in 2001, dur-
ing which Algerian supporters booed the
French national anthem and invaded the
pitch, highlighting how post-colonial
wounds remained unhealed.

The country’s difficult relationship

with North African immigrants from for-
mer colonies — often marginalized in
France, where they are subject to racism
and police violence — may have nur-
tured a bitterness that engenders more
support for Morocco, said Gastaut, who
teaches at the University of Nice.

“Tt’s a way of responding to their sta-

tus in French society,” he said of French
citizens of North African descent.

The game will come against a tense

backdrop in France, where immigration
and national identity are highly com-
bustible issues. French right-wing forces
have already fanned the flames of the de-
bate by denouncing support for Morocco
as a form of disloyalty to France, show-
ing that the country’s immigration policy
has failed.

On Monday, Jordan Bardella, the pres-

ident of the far-right National Rally
party, criticized second-generation im-
migrants “who behave like nationals of a
foreign state by constantly expressing a
feeling of revenge that may be linked to
our colonial history.”

The images of Morocco supporters

crowding the Champs-Elysées to cele-

EMILIO PARRA DOIZTUA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

brate their team’s success have also been

exploited by some right-wing politicians
as evidence ofa “great replacement”— a
racist conspiracy theory that white
Christian populations are being inten-
tionally replaced by nonwhite immi-
grants. The trope gained momentum
during this year’s presidential election in
France.

At a news conference on Tuesday in

Doha, Qatar, Didier Deschamps,
France’s coach, steered clear of politics,
but acknowledged the symbolism sur-
rounding the game.

“We know the history,” he told report-

ers. “There is a lot of passion, but as a
sportsman, I like to stay in my lane.”

Last week, scenes of euphoria on the

Champs-Elysées — featuring Morocco
supporters chanting, waving flags, honk-
ing their horns and playing the drums —
were also marred by clashes with the po-
lice, who fired tear gas to disperse the
crowds.

Gérald Darmanin, the country’s interi-

or minister, told reporters on Tuesday
that 10,000 police officers would be de-
ployed throughout the country, half of
them in the Paris region, on the day of the
game. But confrontations with the police
— whose management of this year’s
‘Champions League final proved chaotic
— may only compound the situation.

Daif said he deplored the identity de-

bates and what he called a form of “politi-
cal hijacking” of the game. Wednesday’s
face-off should instead be an opportunity
to celebrate the country’s multicultur-
alism, he said.

As for French Moroccans, he added,

the outcome will be the same. “We will
reach the final in any case.”

A French Forward Regains His Form

For Antoine Griezmann, the first few

months of this season drifted uncom-
fortably close to indignity. His status at
Atlético Madrid, it seemed, had dimin-
ished to the extent that he was a mere

curiosity, one of the most

RORY celebrated forwards of his

era reduced to something

SMITH between a meme anda

"a, punchline.

The problem was not,

soccet really, of his own making.
A few years ago, Griezmann had left
Atlético — the team that had helped to
make him a star — for Barcelona. The
move, announced in a glossy, LeBron
James-style documentary that did little
to endear him to anyone, did not work
out.
The Barcelona he had joined was
creaking and fading, the dull rumble of
thunder gathering in the distance.
Griezmann played well only in flashes
and flurries, not the sort of return ex-
pected — or needed, given the club's
increasing desperation — for his eye-
watering cost. Last year, he was per-
mitted to return on loan to Atlético, his
purgatory in Catalonia at an end.

The complications, though, did not

end. His loan deal ran for two seasons.
If he played a certain number of min-
utes in the second campaign, Atlético
would be compelled to pay Barcelona a
set fee to retain him permanently. Un-
willing to commit and hopeful of reduc-
ing the price, Atlético sought to find a
loophole.

Diego Simeone, the club’s manager,

started introducing Griezmann only as
a second-half substitute. He played 30
minutes here, 20 minutes there. Atlético
never confirmed the rationale, but it
seemed apparent that Griezmann was.
being held back as a negotiating tech-
nique.

ABBIE PARRY: ASSOCIATED PRESS:

Antoine Griezmann against England.

That particular issue was, thankfully,

sorted out before the World Cup. But
the damage — at least to Griezmann’s
reputation — had been done. Barcelona
did not want Griezmann. Atlético did,
but only on the cheap. He was no long-
er the impish, inventive forward who
had been regarded as one of the finest
players in the world only a few years
earlier. Now, he was an afterthought.

And then came Qatar. Griezmann is

not the most celebrated member of
France’s attacking line — that title
would go to Kylian Mbappé — and he is
not the most prolific, thanks to the
evergreen Olivier Giroud. He may not
have the world at his feet, like Aurélien
Tchouameni. But there is a compelling
case to be made that Griezmann is the
most important member of Didier Des-
champs’s squad.

Griezmann may not be France’s star,

but he is certainly its brain. It is Griez-
mann who provides imagination, and
guile, and craft. That is what has al-
ways appealed to Deschamps about
him, what has helped him accrue 72
consecutive appearances for his nation
over the past six years.

At this World Cup, though, it is an-

other trait that has made Griezmann.
invaluable. After injuries to Paul Pogba,
N’Golo Kanté and Karim Benzema,
Deschamps had to construct a new
approach for the French on the fly. He
had to recalibrate his midfield and
adjust the positioning of his attack.
Griezmann is the one who makes it all
work. He has the intuition to alter how
he plays, and where he plays, to keep
things running smoothly, and the versa-
tility to make sure he thrives wherever
he is required.

Griezmann has always had that gift,

of course. He has, at various stages in
his career, played on both wings, as a
lone striker, and as a central, creative
force. At club level, it is possible — even
likely — that his versatility has held
him back. Europe’s major teams now
play in high-definition systems, ones in
which the specialists required for every
role are recruited at vast cost. That
‘Griezmann is not quite so easily pi-
geonholed might, in some lights, look
like a drawback.

In international soccer, though, it is

quite the opposite. Even Deschamps,
beneficiary of the fruit of the sport’s.
most prolific talent farm, has to adjust
and adapt to what is available to him;
he cannot simply buy a solution to any
particular problem. In those circum-
stances, a player like Griezmann, some-
one who can be whatever the coach
needs him to be, is a rare and precious
thing: a Swiss Army knife that serves,
quite nicely, as a key.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

p pressreader
3 TELEVISION

On ‘The White Lotus, a

tragic demise. By ALEXIS SOLOSKI
4 ALBUM REVIEW

SZA revels in conflicting

impulses. BY JON PARELES

5 FILM

Stories about soccer

and the World Cup
go beyond the game.

BY BEATRICE LOAYZA

NEWS | CRITICISM

Arts

Che New ork Gimes

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022 C1

Judd Hirsch’s role in “The Fabelmans'’ is the latest

in a long career that has often taken him by surprise.

Has He Got a Story. Or Three.

By DAVE ITZKOFF

“Have we met before?” Judd Hirsch asked

enthusiastically as he strode into a French
bistro last month. “I’ve met everybody be-
fore. Maybe we met when you were a baby
and I said, ‘T’ll see you when you're older’”

When you invite Hirsch, the veteran ac-

tor and raconteur, on a lunch date, you're
going to hear stories on top of stories —
stories you knew you wanted and stories

you didn’t know you were going to get.

The instant he took his seat, Hirsch spun

a tale about the afternoon’s dining spot,
Boucherie West Village, whose building
once housed the Off Broadway theater
where he co-starred in the original 1979 pro-
duction of “Talley’s Folly” by Lanford Wil-
son.

As the actor told it, an agent affiliated

with the play wanted to replace Hirsch be-
cause his role in the hit sitcom “Taxi” was

going to conflict with a planned Broadway

transfer for “Talley’s Folly.”

Instead, Hirsch helped bring the play to

the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles,
where he performed it that summer and fall
during his downtime from “Taxi.” The next
winter, Hirsch said proudly, “I came back
and did it on Broadway, and it won the Pul-
itzer Prize.”

Riding on similar waves of showbiz

know-how and sheer bravado, Hirsch can

currently be seen barnstorming his way

through a crucial portion of “The Fabel-
mans,” the director Steven Spielberg’s
coming-of-age

semi-autobiographical
drama.

DANIEL ARNOLD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES,

Judd Hirsch doesn’t

know why he gets some
parts and not others but
says, “I’m old enough to
know that’s OK.”

Hirsch has only a few minutes of screen

time, playing Boris, the cantankerous
great-uncle of its adolescent protagonist,
Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle). But
the 87-year-old actor makes every frame

CONTINUED ON PAGE C7

JENNIFER SZALAI

| CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Effective Altruism,
On the Defensive

How Sam Bankman-Fried damaged a philanthropic movement.

THE DISGRACED CRYPTO ENTREPRENEUR

Sam Bankman-Fried wanted people to
know that the enormous risks he took were
in the service of humanity — that, at least,
was the impression he tried to give on Nov.
30 in an interview at The New York Times's
DealBook Summit. The jittery Bankman-
Fried, who was arrested on Monday night
on fraud charges, looked relatively subdued
as he Zoomed in for the interview from a
dimly lit room in the Bahamas, a tax haven
whose regulatory environment was partic-
ularly suited to his crypto ambitions.
“Look, there are a lot of things that I think
have really a massive impact on the world,”
Bankman-Fried said. “And ultimately that’s
what I care about the most. And, I mean, I
think frankly that the blockchain industry
could have a substantial positive impact. I
was thinking a lot about, you know, bed nets
and malaria, about, you know, saving peo-
ple from diseases no one should die from.”
This is the language of effective altruism
— or E.A. — a philanthropic movement
premised on the use ofreason and data to do
good. Bankman-Fried had long flaunted his
E.A. bona fides to distinguish himself from
other crypto billionaires. Earn a lot to give a
lot. Direct your bounty to where it will mat-

WINNIE AU FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sam Bankman-Fried, a prominent follower

of effective altruism and founder of the now
bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.

ter the most. Now his crypto exchange,

FTX, has collapsed, wiping out smallinvest-
ors and wreaking havoc in the industry. To
hear Bankman-Fried tell it, the idea was to
make billions through his crypto-trading
firm, Alameda Research, and FTX, the ex-
change he created for it — funneling the
proceeds into the cause of “bed nets and
malaria,” thereby saving poor people’s
lives.

But last summer Bankman-Fried was

CONTINUED ON PAGE C4

AN APPRAISAL

‘To the End, the Buzz Found Him

ASHLEY BICKERTON, VIA GAGOSIAN

“7°04'48.6" N/171°41'59.7"E” (2022), from Ashley Bickerton’s “Ocean Chunk”

series, uses resin and fiberglass to create the impression of water.

The artist Ashley Bickerton

was unflinchingly honest
about his work and illness.

By JAMIE BRISICK

“T can’t think of another artist who was both

brilliant on canvas and ona surfboard,” said
Paul Theroux, the writer. He was speaking
of one of the artists he most admired, Ash-
ley Bickerton, and these words of Theroux’s
inspired me to plan a trip to his home: “If
Gauguin had caught some waves in Tahiti,
then I think we'd have an apt comparison.”

Ashley rose to prominence in the

mid-1980s with ironic, abstracted construc-
tions focused on ideas of consumerism,
identity and value. He had been diagnosed
with ALS in 2021, and by July, when I finally
visited him in Bali, he needed help bringing
food to his mouth, and he could no longer
paint. But there was not an ounce of self-
pity. “I consider myself enormously lucky,”
said the artist from his power wheelchair.
“Tt’s an incredible luxury that I can sit here
on my big veranda on the hill overlooking
the Indian Ocean, spend time with my wife
and daughter, work on my computer, think,
dream and put my life in order.”

He was courageous, graceful, eloquent,

inspired. And full of gallows humor. After a
Thai feast at his sprawling compound on the
southern tip of Bali, I gestured toward his
wife and 3-year-old daughter, Io, who were
playing on the sofa, his paintings and sculp-
CONTINUED ON PAGE C2

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

ae

5
E
E
Q

ce
Ge N

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

AN APPRAISAL

‘To the End, the Buzz Found

CONTINUED FROM PAGE Cl

tures surrounding us, his swimming pool
and spectacular ocean view, and said,
“What a beautiful life you’ve made for your-
self.” With a rosy-cheeked grin he said,
“What's left of it.”

Ashley died on Nov. 30. He was 63.

Thad come to interview him as an adjunct

to his getting his affairs in order. We’d meet
in the early afternoon in his crow’s nest of
an office. Seated at his desk, often sipping a
Coke through a straw, he'd excitedly show
me the fantasy waves he’d been building in
Photoshop (a devout surfer, ALS had
robbed him of his daily fix). From there we'd
move on to weightier stuff — his biography,
his body of work, his family. He did not want
to get into the details of his diagnosis. His
face lit up when he spoke about the paint-
ings he was making for his forthcoming ex-
hibition in New York.

“Thad two big shows in New York earlier

this year,” he told me. “My whole plan had
been to throw everything I had into these,
then come back here and quietly rot away
and die on my hill. Then Larry Gagosian
stepped into the picture and ruined all my
plans.”

He was referring to his recent good news.

Gagosian had picked him up, scheduling his
first solo show with the gallery in 2023. The
announcement created buzz in the art
world: “Over the past few years, Bickerton
has brought his practice full circle, synthe-
sizing its heterogeneous modes and ges-
tures into an all-encompassing visual lan-
guage.”

“Tt was exhilarating and much wel-

comed,” said Ashley. “But I suddenly real-
ized that I’m going to be scrambling to the
edge of the precipice without a moment to
breathe.”

A Man of Two Worlds

Born in 1959 in Barbados to a clinical psy-
chologist mother and a linguist father, Ash-
ley’s childhood was itinerant, with stints in
South America, the Caribbean, West Africa,
England and eventually Hawaii, where he
came to surfing at age 12. At the California
Institute of the Arts, he studied with the
conceptual artists Barbara Kruger and
John Baldessari. “It was a real mind shake-
up,” said Ashley. “I was basically told that

everything I believed was rubbish, and that

I should be ripping up bits of cardboard and
locking myself in footlockers overnight and
bending every rule.” He spent 12 years in
New York, rising to fame in the 1980s along-
side the fellow Neo-Geo (for Neo-geometric
conceptualism) artists Jeff Koons, Peter
Halley and Meyer Vaisman.

Ashley’s early work drew from pop art,

Op Art and minimalism. He became known
for a mixed-media series titled as “Self-Por-
traits,” as “Commercial Pieces” or as “An-
thropospheres,” composed of screen
printed images of corporate logos. He even
invented a brand for himself, SUSIE (full
name: Susie Culturelux), which he said
would double as an artistic signature for fu-
ture art historians. In a clunky 1987-88 wall
piece titled “Tormented Self-Portrait (Susie
at Arles) #2” — there's a version in the Mu-
seum of Modern Art’s collection — his Susie
logo floats amid a sea of logos, among them
Nike, Con Edison, Marlboro, Renault and
Fruit of the Loom.

“My identity was forged in New York, my

language, my sense of being an outsider,”
said Ashley. “But New York never quite fit.
I’m a tropics man. I was at odds with the
Northeast winter.”

In 1993 he moved to Bali, where he re-

sided until his death. Reading aloud from a
manifesto he’d written some years back, he
said: “Choose your material carefully.
Avoid too many art fairs. And travel, limit
your footprint and disappear”

I first encountered Ashley via one of his

self-portraits in Surfer’s Journal magazine
in the late 90s. Surrounded by palm trees, a
near-naked woman, kids, dogs, tropical rap-
ture, he was working bare-chested at an
outdoor desk. He appeared robust, godlike.
Like Gauguin in Tahiti or Peter Beard in
Kenya, it was a portrait of an exotic, far-
flung, fecund life. It made me wonder what
the hell I was doing living in the East Vil-
lage. When I told Ashley this in July, he
chuckled.

“That was a sendup,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“That was a request for a bio photo from

Dakis Joannou’s DESTE Foundation [for
Contemporary Art, a nonprofit]. I was glee-
fully, intentionally shoveling horseshit. But
the photo got around, and people believed it.
So I ran with it.”

Ashley’s work includes painting, photog-

raphy, sculpture, assemblage and every

Jamie Brisick is a writer in Los Angeles.

combination therein. He melds beauty and

grotesquerie, playfulness and brutality. “A
friend said that when I'm serious I come off
as joking, but when I’m joking I’m dead seri-
ous,” Ashley told me. “That play has been
central to my work”

His “Blue Man” series plops a blue-

skinned tourist into clichéd tropical set-
tings. “He’s an avatar for the archetype of
the 20th-century antihero escapee from the
annals of the 20th-century canon of litera-
ture,” explained Ashley. “But now he’s adrift
in an alienating 21st-century world, trying
to live his Gauguin fantasy.”

Itold him I thought it a bold move, living

remotely, stepping away from “the conver-
sation.”

“Tf you think of the art world as a market-

place, we artists are the suppliers,” Ashley
said. “And if everyone's farming the same
soil, it creates a much more monocultural,
homogeneous marketplace. But if you go
further afield — both mentally and geo-
graphically — you can affect the psychol-
ogy, you can bring back to market some-
thing of interest that’s harder to come by.”

In recent years his work took on oceanic

themes, sometimes with a dystopian twist.
In the “Ocean Chunk” series, originally
dreamed up in New York shortly before his
move to Bali, he uses resin and fiberglass to

Top, from Ashley Bickerton’s

“Blue Man” series, “The
Bar” (2018), oil and acrylic
on jute in an artist-designed
wood frame inlaid with
mother-of-pearl, bamboo
and found objects. Above,
from left: “Extradition With
Computer” (2006); the
artist in his studio in Bali in
2016 with works from his
“Wall-Wall” series in
progress. Left, “Tormented
Self-Portrait (Susie at Arles)
#2” (1988). Below, “Sena,
Cherry and Kinez,” created
this year.

‘Choose your
material carefully.
Avoid too many art
fairs. And travel,
limit your footprint
and disappear.
ASHLEY BICKERTON

‘ASHLEY BICKERTON STUDIO.

create the impression of water. He imagined

these works as sensual material portals to
faraway seas, calling them “a contempo-
rary form of idolatry, a bulwark against
longing.” Presiding above the table where
we dined was a piece from his “Flotsam” se-
ries, a mixed-media painting made from
trash washed up on a beach near his home.

He told me that younger artists had re-

cently taken an interest in his work, and
how that was a barometer more important
to him than the marketplace.

“Ashley’s work has an abrasiveness and a

vulnerability that I really appreciate.” said
Jordan Wolfson, the multimedia artist
known for challenging assumptions about
gender, sexuality and the impact of technol-
ogy.
“T loved Ashley for being a man of two
worlds, navigating his way in the art hub
and the remote island, between his studio
and the great waves of Uluwatu,” said The-
roux.

He continued: “I admired him as an art-

ist, I related to him as a traveler and a
reader, I loved him as a friend. Henry
James's line ‘Live all you can — it’s a mis-
take not to’ applies to Ashley. In life, in love,
in marriages, in children — he had a huge
appetite for living, and it shows in his work.”

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ASHLEY BICKERTON, VIA GAGOSIAN

Works That Defy Categorization

Ashley was already established when Da-

mien Hirst, then an art student at Gold-
smiths in London, became a fan. They first
met in New York in the late ‘80s, and re-
mained close friends to the very end. “I
don’t think Ashley realized how much of a
hero he was to me,” said Damien. “His work
just blew my mind — it still does. It’s so
ahead of its time. You can’t categorize it.
There’s a huge sense of truth revealed, and
then a kind of emptiness where there’s no
truth, and it just keeps going on and on. He’s
always kind of revealing something and ob-
scuring it at the same time.”

Conversations with Ashley often veered

into humor. “I need levity. If you ask me my
politics I wouldn’t say Democrat, I’d say
George Carlin.” As his caregiver fed him
French fries he grinned and said, “The neo-
colonial lifestyle.” His speech was punctuat-
ed with tongue clicks and um-ahs. He fastid-
iously chose his words. Though wheelchair-
bound, he exuded a soaring jolliness. His
big, wry grin had a way of cradling you.

“I don’t have a Why me? or Oh, the injus-

tice of it all, that’s never even entered my
head,” he told me. “There’s sort of a weird,
detached bemusement, watching all this
happening to me, like, Oh, how interesting.
And then a continual need to improvise and
tackle new setbacks in my physical condi-
tion.” He smile-frowned. “You just keep
adapting to new indignities.”

He went on: “I’ve lost my legs com-

pletely. My hands are going soon. My voice
and my ability to eat will fall off, that’s the
natural course of the disease. But I’m happy
in the moment. I’m much more sanguine
about it all than I would expect to be at this
stage.”

He knew that his work for the Gagosian

show would be his last. He’d designed the
paintings down to the last detail, handing
the physical labor over to his assistant.
On the last afternoon I spent with Ashley,
we made our way down to the studio, he in
his wheelchair, his daughter, Io, ridiculously
cute in a pink tutu, chasing behind. In the
studio, Ashley inspected one of the paint-
ings from his new “Blur” series. It depicted
a muted, distant shape of a face, with a pair
of bright blue circles for eyes. “We're get-
ting so close,” he said to his assistant. “But
let’s get it right. These paintings are for-
ever.”

Io was gliding around the studio on her

Razor-style scooter, giggling wildly. She
pulled up alongside her father. Studying the
painting together, Ashley said, “Tell us what
we need to do, baby girl. We don’t know.
We're just grown-ups.”

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

[ p pressreade:
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

“The White Lotus’: Of Desire and Its Consequences

Mike White and Jennifer

Coolidge discuss the show’s
second-season finale.

By ALEXIS SOLOSKI

Mike White always knew how it would end.

Months before the shoot began for the

second season of HBO's “The White Lotus,”
which ended in a murderous finale on Sun-
day night (and if you have not yet seen that
finale, now would be a fine time to stop read-
ing), he called the actress Jennifer Cool-
idge, his friend and alongtime collaborator.
Coolidge’s Tanya, a lip-plumped heiress
with a tenuous connection to observable re-
ality, was one of only two characters to
carry over from the first season, set at a
five-star hotel in Hawaii, to this one, set ata
sister property in Sicily.

“Jennifer,” he told her. “I’m sorry. You’re

dying.”

He meant that in the finale, as not even

the most obsessive fan had predicted, Cool-
idge’s Tanya, having shot her way through a
yacht full of “high-end gays” intent on as-
sassinating her, misjudges the distance
from the deck to a dinghy and plunges, in-
eptly, to her death. In a filmed post-episode
interview, White described the death as
purposefully “derpy.”

Ina season focused on desire and its con-

sequences, the finale also saw a rekindling
of the romance between the unhappily mar-
ried Ethan (Will Sharpe) and Harper (Au-
brey Plaza); a new understanding among
the three generations of Di Grasso men (F.
Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli, Adam
DiMarco); and triumph for the local young
women Mia and Lucia (Beatrice Granno
and Simona Tabasco), Mostly unchanged:
Tanya’s assistant Portia (Haley Lu Rich-
ardson), still making questionable fashion
choices, and Cameron (Theo James) and
Daphne (Meghann Fahy), the happily enti-
tled young marrieds.

On Sunday night, at Coolidge’s home, she

and White watched the finale together. And
on Monday morning, each logged on to dis-
cuss Tanya’s gauche, tragic demise and
where the series, already renewed for a
third season, might go from here. These are
edited excerpts from the conversation.

If the first season centered on wealth and

privilege, why did this one fixate on sex and
desire?

MIKEWHITE Originally, I hada different con-

cept. And then when I went to Sicily, those
testa di Moro sculptures [figurines inspired
by a folk legend about sexual infidelity] are
everywhere. It felt like a place where some
classic male-female stories could be told
with contemporary characters.

Did you know from the start how Season 2

would end?

WHITE In the first season, Tanya’s last line

is, like, “I’ve had so many treatments in my

life. Death is the last immersive experience

I haven't tried.” I was like, maybe that’s
where to take her story. In Italian opera, the
women are supposed to cry and die, and I
just imagined that that could be an appro-
priate story for the site of Sicily and this bat-
tle ofthe sexes, and Tanya is a victim ofthat.

During this season, fans on and off social

media became obsessed with discovering
who would die and how. Did you pay atten-
tion to the theories?

JENNIFER COOLIDGE [| thought they were hi-

larious. There were crazy things people
said. Like, Tanya’s husband, Greg [proba-
bly in on the murder plot and played by Jon
Gries], needs to come back and save her
from those gays. But I loved it. Every possi-
bility was exhausted.

WHITE It's funny, because 95 percent of the

theories would have been really shocking,
but as a writer, there’s no way I could have
pulled that off. Like, Daphne kills everyone!
But I do think this ending is a little more
wild. I usually work in amore modulated re-
ality. This was a bigger, operatic conclusion.
Because I felt like that’s what the vibe was
there. And also, the idea of Jennifer on the
boat with those guys just seemed so funny.

Jennifer, did you ever try to talk Mike out of

this ending?

COOLIDGE You can’t talk Mike White out of

anything, really. But whenever Mike was in

a really good mood, and laughing about
something, I’d go, like, “I don’t have to die,
right?”

WHITE Even when we were shooting the

scene in the ocean where Daphne finds her
body. She was like, “Should we just do one
take where I pull myself up on the shore?
Just one?”

cooLipGce That's an actress fighting for an-

other season! I wanted to be practical in
case Mike had a change of heart. I just
wanted to leave the possibilities open.

Why did you want a “derpy” death for Tan-

ya?

WHITE It reminds me a little of Jennifer, be-

cause Jennifer, like, she’ll come and do this
incredible performance and then lock her-
selfin a bathroom. I can see Jennifer in this
situation actually killing all the bad guys,
surviving this assassination attempt, and
then tripping on her way out the door. Part
of Jennifer is: She’s not going to go down
without a fight. She wants to live. But at the
same time, she’s maybe a little klutzy.

Did you do any of the final stunt, Jennifer?

cooLipce I begged to do it! But Mike al-

ready had the stunt double there at the
shoot. And she had been waiting for hours.
There was just no way Mike was going to
tell her, waiting out on the cold boat, that she

Mike White and Jennifer

Coolidge on the set of

wasn't going to have her moment. So Mike

wouldn’t let me do it.

wuite She really did want to jump off the

boat. Into freezing water. There was no way.

So will any of the Season 2 characters make

their way to Season 3?

wuiTe Thetruth is, I don’t really know. Ijust

don’t know.

Well, you've teased a season about Eastern

spirituality and death, so allow me to sug-
gest Ghost Tanya.

cootipce Thank you for trying to get mein

there.

WHITE I mean, especially if we're doing

something about the spiritual realm.

During the first season, you shot ina

Covid-19 bubble. This time, the actors and
characters could leave the hotel. Did this
shoot feel different?

cooLipGe Obviously, we had sucha fun time

on the first one. With the second one, I was
like, Oh my God, we’ll never have that ca-
maraderie. It’s impossible. Because with
Covid it was so intense.

Actually, I thought it was just as good. I

loved Hawaii, swimming in the ocean and
hanging out with all the castmates at the
end ofthe day and possibly getting eaten by
sharks, the drama of that. But Sicily is so
beautiful, and then the people ended up be-
ing really funny and interesting. I said to
Mike, “Not only do you give acting jobs to
people, you give them an experience.” It
was So unpredictable and extraordinary.

HEO)

the second season of

“The White Lotus.”

Do you have any regrets about the season?

Are you sorry you killed off Tanya?

wuite I really love this story. I really

thought it was a funny way to go. And right.
I don’t have regrets about that.

But yesterday, I went over and watched

the show alone with Jennifer. At one point, I
was kind of laughing and I looked over at
her, and she was so sad for Tanya. In that
moment, I was like, Oh, this is the end for
me and Jennifer. And Jennifer’s the reason I
did “White Lotus” in the first place. Because
Ijust wanted to write something for her and
just adore her. So it’s sad. I didn’t realize it
until yesterday, but now I am sad. It’s going
to be hard to do it without her There’s defi-
nitely going to be something missing.
cooLipcE [didn’t expect, last night, to be as
moved as I was,

Have you forgiven him for killing you off?

cooLipce No, not at all. I’ll forever be sad
about this.

The show has already been renewed for

Season 3. So let's just get this out of the
way: Who dies next time?

WHITE Maybe it’s like Kenny on “South

Park”: Every season Tanya has to come in
and just die all over again.

The New ork Gimes

Play wherever you are.

nytimes.com/games

The newest Colleen Hoover novel and the #1 book in the country

1} T| S| T

R/T TI H|U}S

3S
Two Not Touch

ANSWERS TO

Lo

Le

PREVIOUS PUZZLES
LL

Put two stars in each row, column and region of the grid. No two stars may touch,
not even diagonally.

Copyright © 2021 wow. krazydad.com

13 Oregon-based
shoe company

14 Ring light? mil.

1s The hate in hate

Brain Tickler

What part of the human body is an anagram of RICE BAG?

24 Unfashionable
unisex hairstyle
ACROSS 34 Fortunate

1 Word with straw Sout ne

orrextt to the shaded

5 Kept in the loop, letters.

away 37 Some tap

9 Ore. originally offerings, in brief

founded to 39 Susan of “LA.
protect carriage Law”
horses

40 Cousin of a
cassowary
41 Like some of the

1s Broken up 42 Actress

Atingl b Thompson of
16 Auingle, Maybe “Sorry to Bother
17 Gaelic language You"

44 Super-super-

mail 4s John who wrote

i9 Name in price The Pelican
lists? oe 4
so More up-and-
7 Larsen whe down, as a
Wee ter relationship
2015's“Room” $2 ek it
; s3 Guitarist’s
a1, HEIeMs accessory
22 Instruct for a 54 Surveillance org.
new job, say

ss Really hate
se Short meeting?

Crossword | Edited by Will Shortz

PUZZLE BY MATTHEW STOCK

12/14/22

62 A moose has a 11 Pastries with a 36 “Duck

PUZZLE BY WILL SHORTZ YESTERDAY'S ANSWER Despite their songwriting and

musicianship, nat one of the Beatles was able to read music. s7 French breakfast
big one portmanteau (classic Warner
26 Burros item that sounds 3 “Less Than Zero” name Bros. cartoon
27 Black-tie affairs like a response writer___ Easton 12 Where bills get short)
29 Projection from Meee Dope Ellis passed, for short 37 Gerund suffix
ennen the fashionably 58 au Sek te a 1s Swears 38 Bit of preachy
ANSWERS TO late 59 lewis mr DOWN 20 Meat-and- ae
3 Bx et = a a PREVIOUS PUZZLES 30 Short life? need rece isis 1 Big bakery/cafe
potatoes 42 Left base?
3 4 { 9 32 Groove 60 Avatar of Vishnu Pall tobe 21 Colonel Sanders 43 Emerges
= Ss 33 Fresh talk 61 Give up a fealure 4s Lack of musical
. 1/3]/2/14 a ae 5 duct 23 “URAQ-TI,"eg. skill
4 Place to conduct a "46 Take up again
= ANSWERTO PREVIOUS PUZZLE forensics af lkwagalla___ pee
[- |e 4 2 3 1 es French beloved: 2 Some Ph.D. 47 Oslo Accords
211/4/3 6 What sharing is sue pr
Ing 1s, i Gem
- = er a rhymin; 28 Fast-food chain 4s
12x a T+ ex: ft Z at eepression e with acowboy sa Earthy hue
7 Otherwise hatin its logo g3 Philippine
2 aMonimie. 31 Whatever you currency
i 6{5/3]1/4]2] | Je deer-est? say, hon 55 Start of a
L 9 Something you 33 Move furtively kindergarten
re aa al 5 need to do to 34 Showered, as ditty
1/214 G solve crosswords with gifts 56 Good picnic
io Universal 35 Quaint response forecast
Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so
that the digits within each solutions of agreement 57 56-Down, e.g.

heavily outlined box will produce the target number shown, by using addition,
subtraction, multiplication or

division, as indicated in the box. A 4x4 grid will use the digits 1-4. A 6x6 grid
will use 1-6.

For more games: www.nytimes.com/games

KenKene is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. Copyright © 2021 www.KENKEN.com.

all rights reserved.

T
R
u
Cc
K

‘Online subscriptions: Today's puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles,
nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).
Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

l p pressreade:
rc
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

JON PARELES | ALBUM REVIEW

Reveling in Mixed Emotions, and Styles

SZA puts craftsmanship into songs that sound like spontaneous confessions.

In her second effort, SZA

expands her sound as she
ponders conflicting impulses.

“| JUST WANT WHAT’S MINE,” SZA announces

in “SOS, the title song and opener of her
second studio album. She spends the rest of
the album wrestling with exactly what that
means. Does she want casual sex or lasting
love, relationships or independence, re-
venge or forgiveness, self-questioning or
self-respect, familiar problems or a new
start, power or trust? SZA’s music melts
down styles — singing, rapping, rock, R&B,
pop, folk, indie-rock, electronica — to pon-
der and interrogate her conflicting im-
pulses. And she juggles them all against the
backdrop of her career and the demands of
celebrity and of social media, where she
regularly galvanizes her fans with teasers
and snippets,

Solana Rowe, who records as SZA, has

only two official studio albums in a decade-
long career. “SOS” was preceded by “Ctrl,”
which she released in 2017 but expanded
with seven new songs in June. Yet albums
are only part of SZA’s sprawling output; she
has been releasing singles and EPs since
2012 and racked up guest spots with, among
many others, Kendrick Lamar, Summer
Walker, Lorde, Megan Thee Stallion and
Maroon 5. Even in collaborations, SZA‘s
voice always leaps out: pungent and plain-
tive, sometimes brazen and sometimes for-
lorn, easily demanding attention.

Along the way, SZA, 33, has moved from

the left-field electronic experiments of her
early EPs to savvy but still probing pop, as
the mainstream bends toward her ideas.
“Ctrl” has been certified multiplatinum;
“All the Stars,” her duet with Lamar on the

JEMAL COUNTESS/ GETTY IMAGES

“Black Panther” soundtrack, was nomi-
nated for an Academy Award, and she won

SZA

came, "SOS"
rick (TDE/RCA)

a Grammy singing with Doja Cat on “Kiss

Me More.”

SZA’s gift is her unpredictable and emo-

tionally charged flow, the complex crafts-
manship she puts behind songs that sound
like spontaneous confessions. Her vocal
lines flaunt quirks and asymmetries that
are simultaneously conversational and
strategic. SZA can race through syllables
like a rapper, then land on a melodic phrase
that soon turns into a hook. Her melodies
are casually acrobatic, like the syncopated,
ever-widening leaps she tosses off in “No-
tice Me”

With 23 songs, “SOS” arrives as a long,

nuanced argument SZA is having with her
companions and with herself. It’s not a nar-
rative concept album, but the songs are con-
nected by recurring threads: a roundelay of
infidelities and reunions, betrayals and con-
nections, self-doubt and self-affirmation.

The songs leap from personal beefs to

universal quandaries, while SZA challenges
herself as both musician and persona. She
presents herself not as a heroine but as a
work in progress who knows she'll make
more mistakes. “Now that I ruined every-
thing I’m so [expletive] free,” SZA exults in
“Seek & Destroy,” even as the slow, minor-
key track tries to drag her down.

“SOS” draws on multiple producers and

collaborators, invoking old styles and seiz-
ing recent ones. In “Kill Bill,” SZA fantasizes
about killing her ex and his new girlfriend,
sounding both lighthearted and dangerous
as the production spoofs a plush R&B bal-
lad. In “F2E” she starts with earnest folk-
pop and blasts into rock as she insists that
she’s only cheating with someone “because
I miss you.”

In “Gone Girl,” she warns a partner about

getting too clingy — “I need your touch, not
your scrutiny,” she sings, “Squeezing too
tight, boy you're losing me” — on the way to
achorus that echoes “She’s Gone” by Hall &
Oates. And in the delicate ballad “Special,”
she chides herself for letting someone de-
stroy her self-esteem using melodic hints of
“Creep” by Radiohead and “The Scientist”
by Coldplay. She sounds natural, even un-
guarded, in every setting.

“SOS” leans into every shade of SZA’s

mixed feelings. Slow-grind ballads like “I
Hate U,” “Used,” “Love Language,” “Open
Arms” and “Blind” detail her anger at boy-
friends’ bad behavior, yet admit she’s still
drawn to them. But in the quietly resolute
“Far,” she insists she’s “done being used,
done playing stupid,’ and in “Conceited”
she bounces assertive vocal lines off hoot-
ing keyboard chords and crisp pro-
grammed drum sounds as she declares, “I
been burnin’ bridges, I’d do it over again/
‘Cause I’m bettin’ on me, me, me.” And she
should. There’s bravery and beauty in ad-
mitting to uncertainty.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE Cl

telling The New Yorker’s Gideon Lewis-

Kraus something quite different. “He told
me that he never had a bed-nets phase, and
considered neartermist causes — global
health and poverty — to be more emotion-
ally driven,’ Lewis-Kraus wrote in August.
Effective altruists talk about both “nearter-
mism” and “longtermism.” Bankman-Fried
said he wanted his money to address
longtermist threats like the dangers posed
by artificial intelligence spiraling out of con-
trol As he put it, funding for the eradication
of tropical diseases should come from other
people who actually cared about tropical
diseases: “Like, not me or something.” (It
looks increasingly unlikely that the non-
profits he started will be able to honor their
financial commitments to his favored
causes.)

To the uninitiated, the fact that Bankman-

Fried saw a special urgency in preventing
killer robots from taking over the world
might sound too outlandish to seem particu-
larly effective or altruistic. But it turns out
that some of the most influential E.A. litera-
ture happens to be preoccupied with killer
robots too.

The movement itself is still a big tent;

there are effective altruists who remain
dedicated to targeted interventions with
proven results, including vaccination cam-
paigns (and, of course, antimalarial bed
nets). Holden Karnofsky, a former hedge
funder and a founder of GiveWell, an orga-
nization that assesses the cost-effective-
ness of charities, has spoken about the need
for “worldview diversification” — recogniz-
ing that there might be multiple ways of do-
ing measurable good in a world filled with
suffering and uncertainty.

JENNIFER SZALAI | CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK

Sam Bankman-Fried Put Effective Altruism on the Defensive

oan

PRECIPICE

Crk ate

A LiF

The books, however, are another matter.

Considerations of immediate need pale next
to speculations about existential risk — not
just earthly concerns about climate change
and pandemics but also (and perhaps most
appealingly for some tech entrepreneurs)
more extravagant theorizing about space
colonization and A.I. Sometimes the books
put me in mind of a bunch of smart, well-
intentioned people trying to impress and
outdo one another by anticipating the next
weird thing. Instead of “worldview diversi-
fication” there’s a remarkable intellectual
homogeneity; the dominant voices belong
to white male philosophers at Oxford.

Nick Bostrom’s “Superintelligence”

(2014) warns about the dangers posed by
machines that might learn how to think bet-
ter than we do; Toby Ord’s “The Precipice”
(2020) enumerates the cataclysms that
could annihilate us. William MacAskill has
translated such doomsday portents into the
friendlier language of can-do and how-to. In
his recent best seller, “What We Owe the Fu-
ture” (2022), MacAskill says that the case
for effective altruism giving priority to the

NICK BOSTROM
SUPERINTELLIGENCE
Paths Bangers Sistegiee

,:

Above, books that deal

with effective altruism:
from left, “What We Owe
the Future” by William
MacAskill; “The
Precipice” by Toby Ord;
and “Superintelligence”
by Nick Bostrom.

Us ch Sd

aCe ae Cm

aI Te mine esyilele

SURPRISE SCRE!
FILM COMMENT’S a FILA OF THE YEAR

ALL THE aE ao THE BLOODSHED

1:00, 3:30, 6:00PM

BROADWAY 3 ES
SIX
I ASI WIND's
THIS HOLIDAY SEASON INNER CIRCLE
GET TOSK ane eine
MEE ON ES
TONYAWDWINNSMIIOL | ae monsen
BROADWAY'S “ONE OF THE GREAT .
“EUPHORIC CELEBRATIONS MAHENEW YORK TIMES
“#1 MAGIC SHOW IN NYCI”
‘The New York Times Critic's Pick — an
; ASIWIND'SNNERORULE
(UCC(!)))) Sthompacn Sect
\WSIX/// (Across from Washington Square Park)
Sx
Written ‘hex ona Tony Award Winners. 9
Toy MARLOW ALUCY Noss THISSIGN a) WHEN FOLLOWING eae
foday at 7, Thu at 7, Friat 8 THE NAVE OF A THEATER,
Satat48, Suna 287 INDICATES THAT A SHOW |S
op SS, EQUIPPED WITH AN INFRARED
Cee eee Rew tra || ASSISTIVE LISTENING DEVICE.

The Netw York Times

nytcooking.com

Cooking

ihe

ONLY 3 PRESIDENTS
HAVE MARRIED WHILE
IN OFFICE —- JOHN
TYLER WAS THE FIRST
& HE WAS THE LAST

FOR THE CORRECT

JEOPARDY! TONIGHT
OR LOOK IN THIS
SPACE TOMORROW
IN THE TIMES.

Yesterday’s Response:
WHO IS FREDERICK
DOUGLASS?

Oa

PASE
ATCH

longtermist view can be distilled into three

simple sentences: “Future people count.
There could be a lot of them. We can make
their lives go better.”

At first glance, all of this looks straight-

forward enough. MacAskill repeatedly calls
longtermism “common sense” and “intu-
itive.” But each of those terse sentences
glosses over a host of additional questions,
and it takes MacAskill an entire book to ad-
dress them. Take the notion that “future
people count.” Leaving aside the possibility
that the very contemplation of a hypotheti-
cal person may not, for some real people, be
“intuitive” at all, another question remains:
Do future people count for more or less than
existing people count for right now?

This question is like an inflection point

between neartermism and longtermism.
MacAskill cites the philosopher Derek
Parfit, whose ideas about population ethics
in his 1984 book, “Reasons and Persons,”
have been influential in E.A. Parfit argued
that an extinction-level event that de-
stroyed 100 percent of the population
should worry us much more than a near-ex-
tinction event that spared a minuscule pop-
ulation (which would presumably go on to
procreate), because the number of potential
lives dwarfs the number of existing ones.
There are eight billion people in the world
now; in “The Precipice,’ Ord names Parfit
as his mentor and encourages us to think
about the “trillions of human lives” to come.

If you’re a utilitarian committed to “the

greatest good for the greatest number,” the
arithmetic looks irrefutable. The Times’s
Ezra Klein has written about his support for
effective altruism while also thoughtfully
critiquing longtermism’s more fanatical ex-
pressions of “mathematical blackmail.” But
to judge by much of the literature, it’s pre-
cisely the more categorical assertions of ra-
tionality that have endowed the movement
with its intellectual cachet.
In 2015, MacAskill published “Doing
Good Better? which is also about the virtues
of effective altruism. His concerns in that
book (blindness, deworming) seem down-
right quaint when compared with the as-
tral-plane conjectures (A.L., building an “in-
terstellar civilization”) that he would go on
to pursue in “What We Owe the Future.” Yet
the upbeat prose style has stayed consis-
tent. In both books he emphasizes the desir-
ability of seeking out “neglectedness” —
problems that haven’t attracted enough at-
tention so that you, as an effective altruist,
can be more “impactful.” So climate change,
MacAskill says, isn’t really where it’s at
anymore; readers would do better to focus
on “the issues around A.J. development,”
which are “radically more neglected.”

The thinking is presented as precise and

neat. Like Bostrom and Ord (and Parfit, for
that matter), MacAskill is an Oxford philos-
opher. Heis also one of the founders of effec-
tive altruism — as well as the person who, in
2012, recruited an M.I.T. undergraduate
named Sam Bankman-Fried to the effective
altruism cause.

At the time, the logic of MacAskill’s re-

cruiting strategy must have seemed impec-
cable. Among his E.A. innovations has been
the career research organization known as
80,000 Hours, which promotes “earning to
give” — the idea that altruistic people
should pursue careers that will earn them
oodles of money, which they can then do-
nate to E.A. causes.

“The conventional advice is that if you

want to make a difference you should work
in the nonprofit or public sector or work in
corporate social responsibility,” MacAskill
writes in “Doing Good Better.” But conven-
tional is boring, and if the math tells you
that your energies would be more effec-
tively spent courting promising tech sa-
vants with sky-high earning potential, con-
ventional probably won’t get you a lot of

new recruits.

“Earning to give” has its roots in the work

of the radical utilitarian philosopher Peter
Singer, whose 1972 essay “Famine, Afflu-
ence and Morality” has been a foundational
E.A. text. It contains his parable of the
drowning child: If you’re walking past a
shallow pond and see a child drowning, you
should wade in and save the child, even if it
means muddying your clothes. Extrapolat-
ing from that principle suggests that if you
can save a life by donating an amount of
money that won’t pose any significant prob-
lems for you, a decision not to donate that
money would be not only uncharitable or
ungenerous but morally wrong.

Singer has also written his own book

about effective altruism, “The Most Good
You Can Do” (2015), in which he argues that
going into finance would be an excellent ca-
reer choice for the aspiring effective altru-
ist. He acknowledges the risks for harm, but
he deems them worth it. Chances are, if you
don’t become a charity worker, someone
else will ably do the job; whereas if you
don’t become a financier who gives his
money away, who's to say that the person
who does become a financier won't hoard all
his riches for himself?

Still, some people need to become philos-

opher-influencers in order to spread the
word. “Will isn’t in finance,” Singer writes,
referring specifically to MacAskill. “That’s
because he believes that if he can influence
two other people with earning capacities

The dominant voices

among these books

belong to white male
philosophers at Oxford.

similar to his own to earn to give, he will

have done more good than if he had gone
into finance himself.”

Or maybe not. On Nov. 11, when FTX filed

for bankruptcy amid allegations of financial
impropriety, MacAskill wrote a long Twitter
thread expressing his shock and his an-
guish, as he wrestled in real time with what
Bankman-Fried had wrought.

“If those involved deceived others and

engaged in fraud (whether illegal or not)
that may cost many thousands of people
their savings, they entirely abandoned the
principles of the effective altruism commu-
nity,” MacAskill wrote in a tweet, followed
by screenshots from “What We Owe the Fu-
ture” and Ord’s “The Precipice” that em-
phasized the importance of honesty and in-
tegrity.

I’m guessing that Bankman-Fried may

not have read the pertinent parts of those
books — if, that is, he read any parts of those
books at all. “I would never read a book,”
Bankman-Fried said earlier this year. “?’m
very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say
no book is ever worth reading, but I actually
do believe something pretty close to that.”

Avoiding books is an efficient method for

absorbing the crudest version of effective
altruism while gliding past the caveats. In
the paperback edition of “Superintelli-
gence,” which laid out a framework for
thinking about a robot apocalypse, Bostrom
delivers the equivalent of a warning label to
“those whose lives have become so busy
that they have ceased to actually read the
books they buy, except perhaps for a glance
at the table of contents and the stuff at the
front and toward the back.”

But the books themselves may have in-

centivized blind spots of their own. For all of
MacAskill’s galaxy-brain disquisitions on
“A.I. takeover” and the “moral case for
space settlement,” perhaps the E.A. fixation
on “neglectedness” and existential risks
made him less attentive to more familiar
risks — human, banal and closer to home.

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

[ p pressreade:
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Soccer Movies Come With High Hopes

They are often eclectic,

drawing from multiple
continents and genres.

By BEATRICE LOAYZA

Every four years, the World Cup offers

something not unlike the movies. For a
whole month, it stops time, enveloping its
distant spectators in the electric-green glow
of the screen.

But there’s more to the “beautiful game”

than balletic ball moves and the cheek-
gnawing suspense of gameplay character-
ized by low score count. Ladj Ly’s 2019
crime thriller, “Les Misérables,” set in the
immigrant-populated underworld of the Pa-
risian banlieues, paints it vividly. In the
opening minutes, we’re plunged into the
Champs-Elysées, where throngs of fans
draped in red, white and blue celebrate
France’s victory at the 2018 World Cup. The
pulsing moment is one of communal exulta-
tion at odds with the film's forthcoming de-
piction of a fractious multiethnic society.

“The thing about football — the impor-

tant thing about football — is that it is not
just about football” the English author
Terry Pratchett wrote in the novel “Unseen
Academicals.” This observation could very
well apply to all sports built on mass follow-
ings and billion-dollar business deals, but
soccer — a potent symbol of globalization
heavy with historical baggage — is
uniquely revealing. The game is a prism
through which the ever-evolving world, and
the interconnected fortunes of people from
disparate parts of it, comes to light.

No wonder soccer movies are often eclec-

tic and at times unclassifiable, drawing
from multiple continents and genres. Take
John Huston’s World War I adventure
drama “Victory.” Pelé, the Brazilian striker,
is joined by Sylvester Stallone, Michael
Caine and real-life professional footballers
from across Europe and North and South
America to play ball against Nazi rivals.
And from Hong Kong, there’s Stephen
Chow’s hit kung fu comedy “Shaolin Soc-
cer,’ a nod to the fast-growing popularity of
soccer throughout Asia, released one year
before the 2002 World Cup in Japan and
South Korea. Not that soccer films are all
about global cooperation and underdog
badassery; other films poke fun at the
game’s biggest icons. For this, see the bril-
liantly unhinged “Diamantino,” a surreal
Portuguese spy movie spoof featuring a
Cristiano Ronaldo look-alike who gets in the
zone by imagining himself in a cotton-candy
field surrounded by elephant-size Pomera-
nians.

The men’s 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the

first to be contested in a Middle Eastern na-
tion, has courted countless controversies,
with the host country’s conservative tradi-
tions starkly at odds with the sport’s mod-
ern fandoms. FIFA and Qatar have been
pelted with accusations of corruption and
bribery, but most harrowing, perhaps, are
reports of the country’s exploitative use of
migrant labor, resulting in the deaths of
thousands of workers from primarily South
Asian and African countries. The documen-
tary “The Workers Cup” (2018) takes us to
the labor camps erected on the outskirts of
Doha, where we meet a handful of soccer-
enthusiast workers who come to terms with
the underpinnings of a brutal industry, the
same one responsible for nurturing their
own athletic dreams.

Since the start of the tournament, fans

and players have spoken out about the re-
gion’s thorny politics (including the crimi-
nalization of homosexuality) and religious
practices. On this front, and on the matter of
soccer's ability to ease or exacerbate ethnic

GRASSHOPPER FILM

tensions, the documentary “Forever Pure”

(2017) comes to mind. Directed by Maya
Zinshtein, it traces one of the ugliest
episodes in Israeli soccer, doubling as an ex-
posé into what it sees as the country’s sys-
temic racism. Consisting of interviews with
the players, owners and fans of the Beitar
Jerusalem Football Club, the documentary
examines the reactions of these individuals
against the addition of two Muslim players
tothe team and the language of racial purity
used to justify their opposition.

Less inflammatory but similarly illumi-

nating are two documentaries, both by the
Romanian auteur Corneliu Porumboiu, that
plumb political dimensions through in-
tensely personal stories of soccer obses-
sion. The first, “The Second Game,” fea-
tures voice-over commentary from Porum-
boiu and his father as the two watch a 1988
match refereed by the elder Porumboiu be-
tween two of Romania’s leading squads.
The game takes place one year before the
revolution that toppled the country’s totali-
tarian leader, Nicolae Ceausescu. It was a
period in which Romanian soccer was
openly a tool of political scheming. One
team was associated with the military while
the other was with the secret police. At the
same time, there’s the slightest hint of nos-
talgia as the two men look back on several
players, considered part of Romania’s gold-
en generation of soccer, who would eventu-
ally leave the country to play for more pres-
tigious professional teams in Western Eu-
rope.

The second film, “Infinite Football,” intro-

duces us to a hobbling ex-footballer-turned-
pencil-pusher with an elaborate plan to re-
invent the rules of the game, to better pre-
vent injuries like the one that ended his ath-
letic career. It’s a parable for the fractured
state of Romania itself through the lens of
one man’s desperate attempt to fix what
broke him.

Top row, from left:

Corneliu Porumboiu,
right, in his documentary
“Infinite Football,’ with
Laurentiu Ginghina;
Stephen Chow in
“Shaolin Soccer,” which
he also directed; and
Golnaz Farmani in
“Offside.” Above, Steve
Tientcheu in “Les
Misérables.”

ac

re

In the first week of this year’s tourna-

ment, members of the Iranian team refused
to sing the national anthem before their
game against England as a display of soli-
darity with an ongoing protest movement
against Iran’s leadership, spurred by the
killing of a young woman in police custody.
The confluence of these events brings to
mind one of the great soccer movies of the
past 20 years, “Offside” (2007) by Jafar
Panahi, the Iranian master who is impris-
oned for his political beliefs. A pointed cri-
tique of the country’s misogynist strictures
delivered at the pitch of a dark comedy, the
film follows a group of women who have
been caught disguising themselves as men
to enter a Tehran stadium where a match
will determine Iran’s qualification for the
2006 World Cup.

Like “Offside,” several international films

consider the way soccer fandom pits mo-
dernity against traditional ways of life, sim-
ply through the struggles of people attempt-
ing to watch a game. “The Cup” (2000) was
the first film from Bhutan to be submitted
for an Oscar, featuring real-life Tibetan
monks swept up in the frenzy of the 1998
World Cup. A group of novices lead make-
shift soccer games using a can of Coca-Cola
as a ball, and at night sneak away from the
monastery to watch the Cup in a nearby cot-
tage. Granted permission to set up a televi-
sion on monastery grounds for the final
game between France and Brazil, the boys
race to collect funds for a satellite dish and
set up the device in time for kickoff.

The same dynamic plays out across three

different remote locations in Gerardo Oliva-
res’s gentle mockumentary “The Great
Match” (2006), which is also structured
around the struggle to watch a World Cup
final, the 2002 showdown between Brazil
and Germany. The film follows the misad-
ventures of three unrelated groups of soc-
cer fans: Kazakh nomads from the Eastern

JULIEN MAGRE/AMAZON STUDIOS

Where to Watch

‘LES MISERABLES’ Stream on Amazon

Prime Video.

‘VICTORY’ Rent on multiple digital

platforms.

‘SHAOLIN SOCCER’ Stream on Paramount+

or the Criterion Channel.
‘DIAMANTINO’ Stream on major digital
platforms.

‘THE WORKERS CUP’ Stream on multiple

digital platforms.

‘FOREVER PURE’ Rent on Apple TV+.

‘THE SECOND GAME’ Stream on the

Criterion Channel or Mubi.

‘INFINITE FOOTBALL’ Stream on the

Criterion Channel or Kanopy.

‘OFFSIDE’ Stream on the Criterion Channel.

‘THE CUP’ Stream on the Criterion Channel.

*THE GREAT MATCH’ Stream on Tubi or Film

Movement Plus.

Mongolian steppes, camel-mounted Berber

tribespeople in the Sahara and Indigenous
Amazonians.

Both films present the love of soccer as a

universal bond, a bitter pill considering it
might also be the only common ground be-
tween us viewers and these disappearing
cultures. Soccer, after all, is nothing if not a
tool of cultural hegemony. At the same time,
though the stakes aren’t a matter of life or
death, the passion of these fans — the way
they persist in their efforts to seize a small
slice of pleasure in a world of tireless work,
exile and material hardship — might say
something about what soccer would have to
offer were it stripped of its territorial fanat-
ics and its billion-dollar pomp and ceremo-
ny.

Lawsuit Over Lyrics in Taylor Swift Song Is Dismissed

By BEN SISARIO

Weeks before a trial to determine whether

Taylor Swift stole lyrics in her hit song
“Shake It Off” a judge dismissed the case on
Monday after a joint request by lawyers for
Swift and the songwriters who accused her
of copyright infringement.

The brief filing by lawyers for both sides

gave no detail and did not mention any set-
tlement. Those lawyers did not respond to a
request for comment.
The case, filed five years ago, would have
been another blockbuster legal hearing for
the music industry, after similar lawsuits in-
volving Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” and
Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse.”

Those cases raised questions about just

which aspects of music are properly pro-
tected by copyright, and which remain part
of the public domain, available to any cre-
ator. The “Blurred Lines” case concerned
genre, while the “Dark Horse” case — and
another involving Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway
to Heaven” — had to do with commonplace
musical elements, like chord progressions
and melodic accompaniments.

Swift’s case involved only words, not mu-

sic, and drew commentary from legal ex-

lyrics.

perts over how such questions apply to

Taylor Swift performing in

London in 2018. Her song
“Shake It Off” was at the
center of a recent suit.

The lawsuit was filed by Sean Hall and

Nathan Butler, the songwriters behind
“Playas Gon’ Play,” a 2000 track by the R&B
group 3LW that contains the lines “Playas,
they gonna play/And haters, they gonna
hate.” They accused Swift of using those
lines without permission or credit on
“Shake It Off,” which was released in 2014
and became one of Swift’s defining hits,
notching four weeks at No.1 on the Bill-
board Hot 100 singles chart.

“Shake It Off,” written by Swift and the

producers Max Martin and Shellback —
who were also defendants in the case, along
with the record companies and music pub-
lishers associated with the track — features
a chorus that her fans can chant by heart:

’Cause the players gonna play, play, play,

play, play

And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate,

hate, hate

Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake,

shake, shake, shake
Shake it off, shake it off

Five months after the case was filed, it

was dismissed by a judge who said that the

lyrics in question were “short phrases that
lack the modicum of originality and creativ-
ity required for copyright protection.” That
judge, Michael W. Fitzgerald of the U.S. Dis-
trict Court in Los Angeles, opined further
about the lyrical description of players play-
ing and haters hating.

“The concept of actors acting in accord-

ance with their essential nature is not at all
creative,” Judge Fitzgerald wrote. “It is ba-
nal.”

The judge also noted the preponderance

of similar phrases in earlier pop songs, like
Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” (“Players only
love you when they’re playing”) and the No-
torious B.I.G’s “Playa Hater” (“There are
two kinds of people in the world today/We
have the playas, and we have the playa hat-
ers”).

Butin 2019, judges at the U.S. Court of Ap-

peals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the
case had been decided prematurely, and
sent it back to the district court, where
Judge Fitzgerald dismissed the case.

As the case wended through the courts, it

became a focal point in the music industry’s
ongoing debate over copyright and credit.

Since 2015, when a jury found that

“Blurred Lines” had infringed on the copy-
right of Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up,”
legal experts and music industry commen-
tators have argued that many such cases
had gone too far, and that the looming threat
of litigation could harm musical creativity
itself. Thicke and Pharrell Williams were or-
dered to pay $5.3 million to Gaye’s family.

The paper trail of Swift’s case included

some intriguing nuggets for fans.

Martin, the reclusive Swedish pop maes-

tro who has also written and produced hits
for Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Justin
Timberlake, Ariana Grande and the
Weeknd, said he rarely goes to concerts or
listens to the radio.

And in a declaration in August, Swift de-

scribed the creation of “Shake It Off,” saying
that the song’s lyrics “were written entirely
by me”

“Tn writing the lyrics, I drew partly on ex-

periences in my life and, in particular, unre-
lenting public scrutiny of my personal life,
‘clickbait’ reporting, public manipulation
and other forms of negative personal criti-
cism,” she said, “which I learned I just
needed to shake off and focus on my music.”

PRINTED ANO DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604
COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

er

p pressread
C6 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

English National Operas Future Is in Limbo

The loss of an annual grant of

$15 million could also affect
companies in other countries.

By ALEX MARSHALL

LONDON — When Leigh Melrose, a British

opera Star, looked at his calendar recently,
much of the next three years were blocked
out for one company: English National
Opera. He was signed up to sing multiple
roles there, starting with the lustful dwarf
Alberich in the company’s new “Ring” cy-
cle, a coproduction with the Metropolitan
Opera that was meant to head to New York.

Melrose said that he'd had his wig fitting

for that role, and that rehearsals for “The
Rheingold,” the first installment in Wagn-
er’s four-part epic, were scheduled to begin
on Dec. 28.

But now, he said, all those plans seemed

uncertain. Last month, Arts Council Eng-
land, a body that distributes government
arts funding here, announced it was shut-
ting off a grant to English National Opera
worth 12.4 million pounds a year, or about
$15 million. The Arts Council instead gave
the company a one-off grant to help it de-
velop “a new business model,” including a
potential move to Manchester, 178 miles
north of its current home at the London Col-
iseum.

On the same day, the Arts Council also

slashed funding to other major opera com-
panies including the Royal Opera House, by
10 percent, and Glyndebourne Productions,
by over 30 percent.

Melrose said those cuts came as a “total

shock,” adding that the long-term future of
the “Ring” in both London and New York
did not look good. If the E.N.O., as English
National Opera is known, had to leave Lon-
don, “How can it keep on doing the rest?”
Melrose asked. “How can it carry on doing
anything?”

For the past month, the fate of the opera

company has made headlines here. Musi-
cians, critics and politicians have been ar-
guing over whether the decision to cut the
company’s funding is a sensible response to
a declining interest in opera, or an act of cul-
tural vandalism. Concerns have spread be-
yond Britain, with companies in Europe and
the United States warning that the global
opera ecosystem may suffer, too.

Dozens of senior opera figures — includ-

ing Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s
general manager, and Yuval Sharon, the ar-
tistic director of Detroit Opera — signed a
recent letter to The Times of London, warn-
ing of a wider impact. “Everyone across the
world has long looked to the United King-
dom as a center of artistic excellence,” the
letter said. “We fear that this decision sig-
nals to the world that they — and we— must
now look elsewhere.”

Gelb said by phone that he had already

pushed the Met’s run of the “Ring” cycle
back a year, to the 2027-28 season, “for cast-
ing reasons.” But, he added, “if the E.N.O.
doesn’t exist, we obviously can’t collaborate
with it.”

Christopher Koelsch, the chief executive

of Los Angeles Opera, said that the E.N.O.
had “historically been a crucible for creativ-
ity and experimentation,” noting that nu-
merous stars, including the conductor Ed-
ward Gardner, the composer Nico Muhly
and the director Barrie Kosky, had done
early or important work at the company.

Los Angeles Opera had been planning a

new coproduction with the E.N,O, for its
2024-25 season, Koelsch said, though he de-
clined to give details and said he had not
been in contact with the company since the
funding cut was announced. “I think
they’ve got other things to focus on,” he
said.

Newspaper coverage of opera in Britain

is usually restricted to the arts pages, but
the ferocity of debate in recent weeks has
propelled it to the front pages, and made it a
major topic on social media.

The company has been urging opera fans

to pressure the government and the Arts
Council to overturn the funding decision.
More than 74,000 people have signed an on-
line petition started by the singer Bryn Ter-
fel.
John Berry, who was the E.N.O:'s artistic
director from 2005 to 2015, said that the
company had coped with funding cuts be-
fore: In 2014, it lost a third of its government
grant after failing to meet box office targets.
But it would be “impossible,” he said, for the
company to deal with a total loss of subsidy
unless “a guardian angel” appeared. That
was unlikely, given Britain lacked a culture
of philanthropy, he added.

Britain’s major opera companies have a

unique funding model that is halfway be-
tween American companies’ reliance on
philanthropy and European houses’ de-
pendence on state funding. The E.N.O’s
Arts Council grant represents over a third
of its income. In contrast, the Los Angeles
Opera gets about 5 percent of its income

Top, the London Coliseum,

home of English National
Opera, which last month lost
an annual government grant
worth $15 million. Center,
from left: protesters in.
London upset about arts
funding cuts; stylish shoes
outside the London
Coliseum last week. Above:
a 2018 staging by English
National Opera of “Porgy
and Bess,” a production that
came to the Metropolitan
Opera in 2019.

N.
TOLGA AKMEN/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK
from public grants; the Met, about 0.5 per-
cent.

English National Opera traces its history

to 1931, when Lilian Baylis, a theater owner,
established the Sadler’s Wells Opera Com-
pany to bring the art form to popular audi-
ences. That founding aim is still central to
the company, which stages all its work in
English. Those performances, at the Lon-
don Coliseum, have a more relaxed atmos-
phere than the ones at the nearby Royal
Opera House, with audience members often
wearing jeans rather than tuxedos, and
generous policies to give free or discounted
tickets to people under 35,

It made its global reputation in the 1980s

when it became the first British opera com-
pany to tour the United States and debuted
ahost of major productions, including Nich-
olas Hytner’s much-praised 1985 staging of
Handel's “Xerxes.” Under Berry’s leader-
ship, the company also started to act as a

‘TRISTRAM KENTON

test bed for productions heading to the Met,

with productions of Philip Glass’s “Satya-
graha,” Nico Muhly’s “Two Boys” and
Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” among oth-
ers, premiering in London before being
tweaked and sent to New York.

Despite those triumphs, John Allison, the

editor of Opera magazine, said in an inter-
view that the company had recently been
lurching from crisis to crisis with a string of
high-profile resignations, financial difficul-
ties and a declining number of works
presented.

Fewer performances meant that the Arts

Council was subsidizing each E.N.O. ticket
sold to a greater extent, and the company
was often criticized for providing poor val-
ue for public money.

A spokeswoman for the company said in

anemail that 90,000 people went to the com-
pany’s 63 performances last season, a fig-
ure that means each ticket was propped up

LAUREN FLEISHMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES,

with £137, or about $168, of state funding.

The spokeswoman added that attendance
was lower than usual that season, because
of the pandemic, and that the opera reached
many more people through other means, in-
cluding television broadcasts seen by 2.2
million viewers.

The Arts Council has defended its deci-

sion. Claire Mera-Nelson, the agency's di-
rector of music, said in a blog post that she
had seen “almost no growth in demand” for
large-scale opera over the past five years,
and had decided to prioritize funding for the
art form “at different scales, reimagined in
new ways,” such as staging productions in
parking lots, or pubs. Darren Henley, the
Arts Council’s chief executive, wrote in The
Guardian that “new ideas may seem heretic
to traditionalists,” but that opera needed to
reinvent itself to “remain exciting and
meaningful to future generations.”

Last Thursday, Henley told British poli-

ticians he was having discussions with the
English National Opera regarding ways to
keep showing work in London, as well as
elsewhere in England, but added, “We can’t
fund themin London.” (The Arts Council de-
clined an interview request for this article.)

While English National Opera’s future is

hanging on officials’ whims, its audience
seems hopeful that it will remain in London,
somehow. At the Coliseum last week, before
a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s
“The Yeomen of the Guard” the atmos-
phere was relaxed and informal. Audience
members in winter coats and bobble hats
arrived on foot, rather than in sleek cars,
and headed into the theater, where a mer-
chandise stall was selling T-shirts with the
slogans “Choose Opera” and “+loveENO.”

Nick McConagh, 72, said he had been

coming to the E.N.O. since the 1970s be-
cause its tickets were affordable. “It dis-
proves the belief that opera is for the rich,”
he said.

Nearby, Hatti Simpson, 30, with pink hair

and tattoos, said she fell in love with opera
after taking advantage of the company’s
cheap ticketing for young people. Cutting
the E.N.O?’s funding and forcing it to move
out of London would be “an absolute trav-
esty,” she said.

Two hours later, when the lights went

down at the end of the show, the audience of
nearly 2,000 applauded and cheered. After
the cast had taken several bows, Neal Da-
vies, a Welsh baritone, stepped forward and
quieted the crowd for one final number “I’m
here to sing the praises of English National
Op-er-a, who strive to make the medium
both radical and pop-ul-ar,” he sang, to the
tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's “I Am the
Very Model of a Modern Major General.”

If the company did not exist, “your life

would be a dull-er one,” he added. That
prospect, Davies bellowed, “was almost as
unthinkable as Gilbert without Sultiv-an.”

The audience cheered loudly. But it was

unclear if anyone outside the building was
listening.

2023 Tony Awards Will Be Held in Washington Heights

By MICHAEL PAULSON

After 75 years of ceremonies in and around

the New York theater district, the Tony
Awards will move uptown next year, hold-
ing the annual best-of-Broadway awards
ceremony in Washington Heights.
Tony Awards administrators made the
surprise announcement on Tuesday morn-
ing, saying that thenext ceremony would be
on June 11 at the United Palace, an ornate
theater in northern Manhattan that was
constructed as a movie theater and is now
used for religious and cultural activities.

The administrators did not immediately

offer a rationale for the move, but it brings
the ceremony to a neighborhood with a
large Hispanic population, and to a theater
that has been championed by one of Broad-
way’s best-known stars, Lin-Manuel Miran-

da. (Miranda’s first Broadway musical, “In

the Heights,” is named for, and takes place

in, that neighborhood.)

The ceremony, which will honor plays

and musicals that opened on Broadway be-

tween April 29, 2022, and April 27, 2023, will
be broadcast on CBS and streamed on Para-
mount+. The nominations will be an-
nounced on May 2.

The United Palace is a New York City

landmark that opened in 1930 as a Loew's
“Wonder Theater,” which were large and
luxurious movie palaces. The building has
3,400 seats, which makes it the fourth larg-
est theater in Manhattan — it is signifi-
cantly smaller than Radio City Music Hall,
where the Tony Awards have often taken
place, but larger than the Beacon Theater,
where the awards have sometimes been
staged in recent years.

FRED R. CONRAD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES.

The United Palace, a New

York City landmark, will be
the setting for next year’s
Tony Awards ceremony.

The Tony Awards have, since 1947,

changed locations multiple times. They
were initially held in hotel ballrooms, then
Broadway theaters before switching to
larger spaces in the 1990s.

Formally known as the Antoinette Perry

Awards, the Tonys were founded by the
American Theater Wing and are now
presented by the Broadway League and the
Wing. Next year’s ceremony will be di-
rected by Glenn Weiss, who has frequently
played that role; Weiss and his longtime col-
laborator, Ricky Kirshner, will produce the
broadcast with the League and the Wing.

~
JS

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1604 2784604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

ler

[ p pressread
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022 N C7

‘I never thought I'd play anything more than a construction worker, criminal or
some schlubby guy.
JUDD HIRSCH, AFTER STUDYING ACTING AT HB STUDIO IN NEW YORK EARLY IN HIS CAREER

NOLD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

CONTINUED FROM PAGE Cl

count as he delivers a galvanic speech to the
young Spielberg stand-in, exhorting him to
commit to his artistic aspirations while
warning that they will be in perpetual con-
flict with the needs of his family.

Hirsch’s unexpectedly intense perform-

ance in “The Fabelmans” — the latest in a
decades-long career spanning stage, screen
and a 1972 commercial for JCPenney poly-
ester slacks — would seem to be a testa-
ment to his endurance in a singularly fickle
industry.

But while he is happy for the plum oppor-

tunity in a prestigious year-end film, Hirsch
could not quite point to any particular rea-
son he should be enjoying another moment
in the spotlight right now.

“I have no idea why I get any part that

somebody else can play,” he said. “Or why I
don’t get one when I do want to play it. But
I’m old enough to know that’s OK”

Approval is always nice, but Hirsch sug-

gested that an actor’s temperament was
forged in far more frequent instances of re-
jection. When you don’t land a role, he ex-
plained, “you can say, ‘What the hell did
they see in me that made them turn me
down?’ Or you can say, ‘They don’t know
what the hell they’re missing’ ”

Though he’s long split his time between

Los Angeles and New York, Hirsch was
born and raised in New York and didn’t ex-
pect much for himself after studying acting
at HB Studio in the early 1960s. “I never
thought I'd play anything more than a con-
struction worker, criminal or some
schlubby guy,” he said.

Instead he went on to play a variety of

prominent roles on television (“Taxi,”
“Dear John,” “Numbers”), in film (“Ordi-
nary People,” “Independence Day,” “Uncut
Gems”) and onstage (“I’m Not Rappa-
port”).

Presently, when Hirsch wasn’t kibitzing

playfully with a waiter (“You don’t mind if I
don’t speak French?” the actor said, looking
over his menu. “I could say some of those
words with a French accent”), he was just
as fond of sharing anecdotes from an era
when he wasn’t well established.

There was, for instance, the fateful intro-

duction he received while visiting Universal
to audition fora TV movie in the early 1970s.

A woman working there began to show

him around to other people in the office:

MERIE WEISMI

-E/UNIVERSAL PICTURES AND AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT

Judd Hirsch was up for an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony for work in 1980 and didn’t win
any of
them. He plays opposite Gabriel LaBelle, above left, in Steven Spielberg’s “The
Fabelmans.”

“This is so-and-so;” Hirsch recounted.

“‘And this is so-and-so. This is Mr. Spiel-
berg, and he’s sitting behind a desk, and on
his desk is “Jaws,” which I had no idea was

anything. And she said" — his voice

dropped to a stage whisper — “‘He’s going
to be very big?”

“He would not have known of me,” Hirsch

said of the fleeting encounter. “Look at all
the Spielberg movies since — and I’m notin
any of them.”

But their trajectories intersected again a

half-century later on “The Fabelmans.” The
dramatist Tony Kushner (“Angels in Amer-
ica”), who wrote the screenplay with Spiel-
berg, said that the Boris character was
based on a member of the director’s ex-
tended family.

The real-life Uncle Boris “had worked in

some animal handling in the early days of
Hollywood, and he had been in the circus,”
said Kushner, who has collaborated with
Spielberg on “Munich,” “Lincoln” and “West
Side Story.” Kushner added that Boris “had
lived a wild, itinerant life, and that had
made him a fearsome figure to his sister,
and to his nieces and nephews.”

The scene written for the fictional Boris

was intended to impart a lesson about the
cost of pursuing an artistic life, Kushner
said: “Art has a power that one only imag-
ines one controls. When you access it, if
you're really practicing it, it’s going to take
you to the truth. And the truth is sometimes
going to be very dangerous.”

Hirsch, who was cast after a video con-

versation with Spielberg, said his prepara-
tion was far less weighty.

“He said you can play it with an accent or

not,” Hirsch recalled. “After I read it, I said,
what schmuck would not? He’s going to
have to like it this way because I’m not go-
ing to do it any other way.”

Hirsch said he could channel the frantic

passion of the film’s Boris, who feels frus-
trated that his message is not reaching
young Sammy. But the actor said there was
only one moment he was “truly scared to
do,” when the scene required him to get
physical with LaBelle.

“T line the kid up against the wall, and I

say, ‘Look at me — look at me, ” Hirsch said.
“After all that, 1 want him to see what I had
to go through.”

LaBelle said he encouraged Hirsch to

“beat the [expletive] out of me.”

“The moment where he pinches my face,

I was like, ‘No, no, hurt me. Come on, let’s do
it)” LaBelle recalled.

He added, “It’s not like I’m hanging on the

side of a plane. I’m just getting my face
pinched.”

Whether his “Fabelmans” performance

garners any attention for a year-end film
award, Hirsch noted that he had been down
this road before.

He pointed out that for work he did in

1980 alone, he was nominated for an Oscar
(for “Ordinary People”), an Emmy (“Taxi”)
and a Tony (“Talley’s Folly”) — and won
none of them. Though Hirsch didn’t men-
tion this, he did go on to win Emmys for
“Taxi” in 1981 and 1983.
Hirsch said he was relieved he didn’t win
for “Ordinary People,” in which he played a
psychiatrist treating a traumatized teen-
ager (Timothy Hutton), Both men were
nominated as supporting actors, and
Hirsch suggested that Hutton — who ulti-
mately won — was more deserving of the
honor.

“T said, what's the worst thing that could

happen to me?” Hirsch explained. “I win
this damn thing and then have to look at him
and make excuse, excuse, excuse — ‘They
made a terrible mistake; it should have
been you.”

After a server asked him if he would like

some black coffee (“That’s the usual color,
isn’t it?” Hirsch replied without missing a
beat), the actor resumed delving into his
trove of stories from projects that did not
earn him any trophies or recognition.

He spoke of his performance in the 1978

drama “King of the Gypsies,” in which his
character is shot by Eric Roberts and falls
out an apartment window to his death.

“So I said who’s going to do that?” Hirsch

recalled. “They said, “You. I said, ‘OK? I ar-
rive at the set and there’s one of those enor-
mous air mattresses in the street.”

Hirsch said he filmed three takes of his

fatal fall, but while the finished sequence in
the movie shows him taking gunfire and
toppling out the window, the part where his
character lands on a car was performed by
a stuntman.

“Luckily I didn’t have to hit a car,” he said.

“Otherwise, you and I would not be talking
here.”

Mariah Carey’s song leads a list

Mariah Carey's Anthem Retakes Top Spot

By BEN SISARIO

In 1994, Mariah Carey released the album

“Merry Christmas,” with an anchor track,
“All I Want for Christmas Is You,” that
mixed the R&B production style of the era
with nostalgic touches reminiscent of Phil
Spector. The song did well on the radio, and
the album reached No.3 on Billboard's
chart.

Flash forward a couple of decades and

Carey’s song had become a modern classic,
but chart domination had long eluded it. Af-
ter a yearslong promotional push that in-
cluded a concert residency at the Beacon

Theater in New York, an animated film and

a new music video — as well as the song’s
annual ubiquity on streaming playlists —
“All I Want” finally made it to No. 1 on Bill-
board’s Hot 100 chart in 2019, and repeated
the feat in 2020 and 2021.

Now Carey’s seasonal blockbuster has re-

turned to No.1 yet again, ending the six-
week reign of Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.”
Buoyed by streaming, “All I Want” leads a
new Top 10 dominated by decades-old holi-
day hits, including Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’
Around the Christmas Tree” (1958) at No. 2,
Bobby Helms’s “Jingle Bell Rock” (1957) at
No. 3 and Burl Ives’s “A Holly Jolly Christ-

mas” (1964) at No. 4.

On the album chart, “Heroes & Villains”

the new LP by the rap super-producer
Metro Boomin, opens at No.1 with the
equivalent of 185,000 sales in the United
States, including 233 million streams, ac-
cording to the tracking service Luminate.
Metro Boomin, whose real name is Leland
Wayne, has produced hits for artists like Mi-
gos, Future, Gucci Mane and Post Malone,
but “Heroes & Villains” is his third time at
No. 1 with an album of his own.

The release features a deep bench of

guest stars, like the Weeknd, 21 Savage,
Travis Scott, Future and Takeoff from Mi-

featuring decades-old holiday hits.

gos, who was shot and killed six weeks ago.

The actor Morgan Freeman also contribut-
ed his familiar voice-of-God narration to a
promotional short film and parts of the al-
bum, as he did on a joint LP by Metro
Boomin and 21 Savage two years ago.

Swift’s LP “Midnights” falls to second

place inits seventh week out, five of those at
No. 1. Drake and 21 Savage’s “Her Loss” is
No. 3, Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” is in
fourth place and Michael Bubleé’s 11-year-
old holiday favorite “Christmas” falls one
spot to No. 5.

Carey’s “Merry Christmas,” from 1994,

lands at No. 10 on the album list.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 460.
COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

[ p pressreade:
D2 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Pair the dish with a persimmon salad and

baked apples for a memorable winter meal.

WHATEVER YOU CALL IT, the centerpiece of

this winter menu — a slow-cooked dish of
lamb and beans — is not fast food.

In one pot, you’ll simmer lamb shanks to

obtain succulent meat and a savory broth.
In another, you'll cook beans. Then, you'll
combine them and bake them twice. If you
take your time, which you should, it will
take two to three days, but the result is a
dish of deep, enchanting flavor.

While it’s similar, it’s not a full-blown, tra-

ditional cassoulet, the regional specialty of
the French southwest, chock-full of sau-
sages, pork belly and duck confit. Some will

PERSIMMON AND
POMEGRANATE SALAD

TIME: 20 MINUTES
YIELD: 6 SERVINGS

6 Fuyu persimmons
Salt and black pepper

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

¥% cup pomegranate seeds (from 1

medium pomegranate)

2 tablespoons pomegranate juice

Mint leaves, for garnish

1. Peel persimmons with a vegetable peeler.

Cut lengthwise into 44-inch wedges or 44-inch
slices and place in a bowl. Season lightly with

salt and pepper, then dress with lemon juice

and oil.

2. Transfer to a shallow serving bowl or platter

and top with pomegranate seeds. Squeeze the
pomegranate juice over the salad — squeeze
the outer layer of the pomegranate if you need
alittle more juice — and garnish with mint
leaves.
CASSOULET-STYLE LAMB
SHANKS AND BEANS

‘TIME: 442 HOURS, PLUS COOLING

YIELD: 8 TO 10 SERVINGS:

For the Beans:

1% pounds dried white beans, such as

cannellini or great Northern
whole cloves.
small bay leaves
large onion, peeled and halved
Salt

eS)

For the Lamb:

4 bone-in lamb shanks (about 5 pounds

total)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
whole cloves
small bay leaves
large onion, peeled and halved
medium carrots, peeled
whole head garlic, cloves separated but
unpeeled, plus 1 teaspoon minced
garlic
strip of orange peel

Pee DD

DAVID TANIS

Feasting on Lamb and Hearty Beans

say it’s not a cassoulet at all, but it is none-

theless very satisfying. So I wondered:
Without all of the extra ingredients, could it
still bear the name cassoulet — or simply be
called cassoulet-ish?

I got in touch with Kate Hill, an American

who has lived in cassoulet country for dec-
ades and knows southwestern French cui-
sine like the back of her hand. She's written
several cookbooks, including one called
“Cassoulet: A French Obsession.” Was
there, I asked, a cassoulet made with lamb
only?

Her response was yes. Called cassolette

d’agneau, it’s something you might find as. a
daily special in a small village routier, or
roadside restaurant. (The earthenware
cooking vessel typical for any cassoulet-
EAKED APPLES WITH
HONEY AND APRICOT

TIME: 1 HOUR 10 MINUTES

YIELD: 6 SERVINGS

6 baking apples, such as Winesap,

Braeburn, Gala or Fuji
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1% cup diced dried apricots
¥ cup golden raisins
4% cup honey
6 teaspoons apricot jam, plus more for
optional glazing
¥% cup white wine or apple juice
1% cup toasted flaked almonds, for garnish
(optional)
Creme fraiche, for serving

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Peel apples

and remove core with a small spoon or melon
baller. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a large
skillet over medium heat. Brown apples on all
sides, then place them in a baking dish just
large enough to hold them.

1 tablespoon chopped rosemary

1 tablespoon chopped thyme
2 cups coarse dry bread crumbs
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus
more for drizzling
4 cup chopped parsley

1. Cook the beans: Pick out and discard any

debris, then rinse beans and put them ina
large pot. Use a clove to pin a bay leaf to each
onion half and add to the pot. Add about 8 cups.
water to cover the beans, set the pot over high
heat and bring to a boil. Turn heat to low and
let beans simmer until tender — cooked
through but firm — 1 hour to 134 hours, adding
a large pinch of salt at the 30-minute mark. As
beans cook, add water as necessary, keeping
the liquid about an inch above the beans. Let
beans cool in their own liquid. Taste for salt and
adjust as needed.

2. Meanwhile, cook the lamb: Season the

shanks quite generously all over with salt and
pepper. Let sit for an hour at room temperature
or overnight in the fridge. Put the shanks in a
large pot. Use a clove to pin a bay leaf to each

type recipe is called a cassole, which is

somewhat deeper than a standard gratin
dish.)

But what’s in a name? The most impor-

tant thing is that you use a key cassoulet
technique: moistening the beans with just
enough broth, which ensures that all the fla-
vor is concentrated as the beans bake. At
the end, the beans should be soft, juicy anda
little sticky, with an exquisite complexity.

With such a hearty main, there’s no room

for much more on the menu. Start the meal
by nibbling on radishes and olives, perhaps
some thinly sliced saucisson. A garlicky
green salad would be a fine accompani-
ment. But I wanted a different salad, some-
thing seasonal and refreshing, so I looked to
persimmons and pomegranates, my favor-

onion half, and add to the pot. Add carrots and

garlic cloves along with the orange peel, and fill
the pot with about 8 cups water. Set the pot
over high heat and bring to a boil. Turn heat to
low and let simmer. Skim off any foam, then
partly cover the pot. Cook until lamb is very
tender and begins to fall from the bone when
probed with a paring knife, about 1 hour 15
minutes to 1% hours. Leave lamb to cool in the
broth.

3. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Once the lamb is

cool enough to handle, strain the broth, taste
and adjust seasoning, and reserve. Tear lamb
into rough strips, about 1 inch by 2 inch. Chop
the cooked carrots and onion, and add to the
lamb. (Discard the garlic.)

4. Drain the beans, reserving any liquid for

future soups, and add them to a 9-by-13-inch
baking dish. Add the reserved lamb and
vegetables, minced garlic and half of the
rosemary and thyme, and mix with the beans.
Taste and season. Push down on the mixture so
it lays evenly, and add 2 cups lamb broth.
(Beans should be just a little soupy before
cooking, but not drowning.) Cover dish tightly

ite colorful fall and winter fruit. Be sure to

use squat Fuyu persimmons, which are deli-
cious raw, and not the pointy Hachiya type,
which must be fully soft and ripe to be palat-
able. To serve this salad as a first course,
you may add arugula or radicchio leaves.
Or, if serving it as an accompaniment, just
garnish with mint.

Baked apples are a humble dessert, but

these have a certain elegance. Stuffed with
dried apricots and raisins, glazed with hon-
ey and apricot jam, they can be served
warm or at room temperature with a dab of
créme fraiche. These, by the way, can also
be baked a day or two in advance.

With your cassoulet in the oven, a fire in

the hearth and a good bottle of red wine, a
fine winter feast is at hand. Take it slow.

2. Spoon an equal amount of diced apricots

and raisins into the cavity of each apple. Add 1
teaspoon honey, 1 teaspoon apricot jam and 1
teaspoon butter to each apple. Drizzle
remaining honey evenly over apples. Pour wine
or apple juice into the bottom of the dish.

3. Bake uncovered until the apples are golden

and easily pierced with a fork, about 45
minutes. Every 10 minutes or so, baste apples
with pan juices.

4. Pour remaining juices into a small saucepan,

and simmer over medium heat until it reduces,
about 7 minutes. Spoon reduced juices over
apples. If desired, paint apples with a little
warmed apricot jam. Serve warm or at room
temperature. Just before serving, sprinkle
apples with toasted flaked almonds, if using.
Give each apple a dollop of créme fraiche.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID MALOSH FOR THE NEW YORK

TIMES, FOOD STYLIST: HADAS SMIRNOFF.

with foil, place on a baking sheet and bake for

about 1 hour, until most of the liquid has been

absorbed and the dish bubbles at the edges.

5. Ina small bowl, mix together the remaining

rosemary and thyme, bread crumbs and 3
tablespoons olive oil. Season lightly with salt
and pepper. Sprinkle crumbs evenly over beans
and lamb, then pat them down over the surface
of the lamb and vegetables so they moisten a
bit. Drizzle over about 2 more tablespoons olive
oil.

6. Bake for 1 hour more, until the top is golden

and the dish bubbles at the edges. (You may
have to add up to 1 to 2 cups more lamb broth
if the beans seem dry.) Sprinkle with parsley
and serve.

Tip: This dish may be prepared up to 2 days in

advance, and the flavors will actually improve

with reheating. Cover with foil and reheat at

350 degrees, for 45 minutes, then remove foil
and let topping brown for 15 minutes. (It will be
necessary to moisten with more broth, as the
beans will have absorbed most of the liquid.)

PressReader.com +1 604 278 460:

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

[ p pressreade:
D4

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER JM, 2022

THE BEST OF 2022

New York City’s Top 10

New Restaurants

ARE WE BACK to normal?

As I shuffled through the archives to choose my favor-

ites of the new restaurants I reviewed this year, it sure
looked that way. New York City’s restaurant business,
among the first pieces of the economy to fall to the pan-
demic and among the last to recover, has come roaring
back on a flood of Negronis and orange wine.

Last year, particularly in the first half, openings were

scattered. Many new places had a provisional, shoe-
string approach. This was handy for adapting to a dis-
ease that seemed to change every few weeks.

The first night I went to Bonnie's, the dining room was

dark because half the staff was out sick, and | ate its in-
ventive and energetic Cantonese American food from
takeout containers at home.

Butreheated noodles in plastic cartons do not a world-

class restaurant city make. Diners who had been holed
up in their neighborhoods or out of town were starting to

By PETE WELLS

trickle back into Manhattan, eager to see those big-city

lights again. Restaurants designed to satisfy them take
time and money to build, along with some faith that the
world isn’t about to end. By the late summer and fall of
2021, expensive projects started before the pandemic by
Danny Meyer (Ci Siamo, on my list) and Ignacio Mattos
(Lodi, ditto) finally got up and running. In January, Vic-
toria Blamey opened Mena, a ferociously inventive
restaurant that would have landed close to the top of my
list had its owner not closed it, shortsightedly, in July.

The pace of big, ambitious openings hasn't let up

since, It’s reached an almost frantic, Lucy-in-the-choco-
late-factory speed in the past few weeks, as Tatiana and
Jupiter, Torrisiand Naro unlocked their doors. (Ihaven’t
reviewed these and some others yet, so they’re not eligi-
ble for this year’s list.)

Under the surface, the pandemic’s aftereffects linger.

The labor shortage means that restaurants keep earlier

1. YOSHINO
et

We could argue about when exactly it

happened, but I don’t think there can be
any doubt that New York is now the
most important city for sushi outside
Japan. This must have seemed obvious
to Tadashi Yoshida when he gave up his
acclaimed sushi-ya in Nagoya to start
over in Manhattan. Yoshino, the 10-seat
counter he opened on the Bowery last
year, should convince any last skeptics,
or at least those willing to pay $646 for
dinner, including tax and service. The
first half of the omakase meal, the
tsumami, will be a procession of focused,
shimmering little tastes: custard-soft
monkfish liver terrine with a searing dot
of wasabi; a sliver of pressed, salted
mullet roe draped, like a tiny orange
piece of prosciutto, over raw sea bream.
As Nobu Matsuhisa did years ago with
Peruvian flavors, Mr Yoshida weaves
ideas from French cuisine into his appe-
tizers. He will make, for instance, a
stunningly smooth vichysoisse and then
nestle lumps of hairy crab and a heap of
osetra caviar into it. Once he begins
shaping his elegantly small pieces of
sushi, the outside influences end. Most
of the effects for his nigiri come from old
techniques of aging, salting and curing
the fish. This part of dinner culminates
with tamago, the sweet egg omelet, and
it has a fragile sheet of burned sugar on
top like a créme britilée. It’s a last look
back at France. The city has sushi chefs
who excel at the Edomae school of nigiri,
and a smaller number who dazzle with
their appetizers. With a meal at Yoshino
you get the whole package, presented in
a space so intimate you can’t help being
drawn into the performance.

342 Bowery (Great Jones Street), East

Village; 917-444-1988; yoshinonewyork
com

2. SEMMA

UNSTARRED

Restaurants specializing in dosas and

other South Indian dishes haven't been
especially rare in and around New York
City, but Semma is the first one that feels
like a party. It’s not just that the bartend-
ers know how to slip jaggery and curry
leaves into the drinks. Or that the list is
full of wines that light up in the company
of tropical seasonings. Or that South
Indian pop plays all night. The cooking
itself is celebratory. The chef, Vijay
Kumar, seems thrilled to turn Manhattan
on to the lush, lavish cooking of his home
state, Tamil Nadu, and the region around
it. Some of it’s pretty rustic in its original
form, like the stir-fried snails or the
thick curry of goat intestines. As you'd
expect for a chef working in the Unapol-
ogetic Foods restaurant group, he’s
fearless about chiles — his sprouted
mung bean salad can make you wonder
whether your willis in order. But then
he’s fearless about milder spices like
turmeric and star anise and black stone
flower, a lichen that adds an earthy
essence to Chettinad-style braised veni-
son shank.

60 Greenwich Avenue (Perry Street),

Greenwich Village; 212-373-8900; semma
snye

3. LODI

UNSTARRED

Sitting on a corner that couldn't be any-

where but Manhattan, with a front-row
view of Rockefeller Plaza, Lodi does a
deadpan impression of a small Art Deco
cafe in Milan. Waiters walk around in
black neckties and cotton work jackets.
The coffee menu does not have a flat
white, let alone a peppermint mocha
latte, but the baristas will pull you a
sweet and creamy shot of espresso. If
you ask for a sugared bombolone or a
chocolate flauto, perhaps the most ex-
quisitely made Italian pastry in New
York, it will be brought to you on a lace-
paper doily. Sandwiches are made on
bread of a quality you rarely see outside
Europe. (It’s baked in the back, from.
freshly ground flour.) Hot dishes —
fagioli all’uccelletto, pork sausage with
mostarda — are Northern Italian in

YOSHINO

origin, few in number, modest in size. So

much about Lodi is almost guaranteed to
flummox tourists who came to Rockefel-
ler Center to get a glimpse of Al Roker
that I can’t quite convince myself that
Ignacio Mattos, the chef and owner,
didn’t conceive of it all as an elaborate
prank.

I Rockefeller Plaza (West 49th Street),

Midtown; 212-597-2735; lodinyc.com

4. CLAUD

hk

Sometimes you want fancy-restaurant

food without going to a fancy restaurant.
This was pretty much the idea behind
Momofuku Ko, at least at first, and it is a
good part of the idea behind Claud,
whose owners met while working at Ko,
The dining room gestures toward com-
fort, but doesn’t make any sort of grand
statement. It’s happy to let the food and
wine take the lead. Joshua Pinsky, the
chef and a partner, strips his dishes
down to their fundamentals; there’s
nothing superfluous. A small skillet of
hot oil contains dried chiles, garlic cloves
and red shrimp, which cook while you
watch. That’s the dish. Bistro-style es-
cargots are reconfigured as snail cro-
quettes — small, crunchy, panko-crusted
butter bombs. Chase Sinzer, the other
partner, oversees the wine list, which is
notable for prized, hard-to-find bottles
that will make certain drinkers froth at
the mouth. His by-the-glass list is rea-
sonably priced without giving up a sense
of adventure.

90 East 10th Street (Third Avenue), East

Village; 917-261-6791 ; claudnye.com

ZAAB ZAAB

hours and shorter weeks than before. [hear kitchens are

understaffed, and it’s obvious that a lot of servers are
still practicing their dance steps.

Therestaurant establishment, the part of the business

that gives you big and expensive projects from people
you've heard of, is well equipped to handle this. It gave
us some of the restaurants I liked best this year. I en-
joyed some underdogs, too, like Zaab Zaab and Eyval.
But with so many experienced operators arriving nearly
at once, it was hard for more modest projects to get a
word in edgewise. To try to atone, I’ve come up with a
short selection of less expensive restaurants that might
have made my top 10 in another, less competitive year.
(See Page 6.)

One note: I stopped awarding stars during the pan-

demic when things were just too weird. The stars came
back in June. That is why some of the restaurants below
got starred reviews and some didn’t.

KOLOMAN
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Me

‘
\

* Wut)
a ae f
g rs, “Pe

Zk

LE ROCK

5. ZAAB ZAAB

took

When anyone asks what makes Zaab

Zaab stand out from other Isan restau-
rants, I always say the sauces. There
must be a dozen of them — including
green and minty seafood nam jim, made
for the grilled head-on prawns, and the
dark and bitterly coffee-like jaew that
accompanies the grilled steak dish Cry-
ing Tiger. But each one tastes as if it was
fussed over until the basic elements of
sweet, sour, salty, hot and bitter had been
brought to the maximum state of tension.
Zaab Zaab’s chef, Aniwat Khotsopa, is a
master of building complexity without
losing clarity. His rotisserie catfish is
wildly aromatic but not overpowering;
the larb ped Udon from his hometown,
Udon Thani, is a symphony on the theme
of duck. Zaab Zaab is probably the great-
est Thai restaurant in the city at the
moment. Certainly it is the best one that
has chicken heads painted on its ceiling.

76-04 Woodside Avenue (76th Street),

Elmhurst, Queens; 631-526-1664;
zaabzaabnyc.com

6. LEROCK

tok
It’s a hot rod built from the best parts of
half a dozen styles of French dining.
Breaded tripe, tablier de sapeur, is bor-
rowed from grotty bouchons in Lyon; the
exceptional raw-bar menu a tribute to
the oyster-crazy cafes of Montparnasse;
the natural-wine list like a compilation of
the chalkboards in every bar a vins east
of the Opéra Bastille. But nothing at Le
Rock is quite the way you remember it.
The baba is soaked in a pale-green herb-
al liqueur that recalls absinthe. The steak
that’s served au poivre is a bison filet,
and it is as tender as pudding. The own-
ers, Lee Hanson and Riad Nasr, and their
chef, Walker Stern, have very little toler-
ance for clichés, which can turn into lies
if you repeat them often enough. A steak-
frites joint would do just fine here in
Rockefeller Plaza, but Le Rock is some-
thing better.

45 Rockefeller Plaza (entrance on West

50th Street), (West 50th Street), Mid-
town; 332-258-8734; lerocknyc.com

7. KOLOMAN

tote

Tf you’ve ever wondered what it takes to

not get yelled at by Gordon Ramsay,
check out Markus Glocker’s new place,
Koloman. Mr. Glocker survived ina
Ramsay kitchen for about two years, and
his food is so unbelievably precise and
painstaking that I have to imagine it met
with the occasional grunt of approval
from the boss. His beautiful salmon en
croute is so finicky it could drive a young
fish cook to tears; the Austrian boiled-
beef dinner known as tafelspitz is re-
worked, with the emphasis on worked,
into a stunning multilayered terrine.
Koloman is, among other things, a per-

DANIEL KRIEGER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

(CLAUD); KARSTEN MORAN FOR THENEW
‘YORK TIMES (LE ROCK AND SEMMA); EVAN
SUNG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES (KOLOMAN
AND YOSHINO); ADAM FRIEDLANDER FOR

‘THE NEW YORK TIMES (ZAABZAAB)

suasive argument that very old-school
European hotel cooking can still stop you
in your tracks.

16 West 29th Street (Broadway), NoMad;

212-790-8970; kolomanrestaurant.com

8. EYVAL

tok

Two charcoal grills sit at the heart of

Eyval’s kitchen. Kebabs are the focus of
the menu. But beyond this, Eyval does
not much resemble garden-variety Irani-
an restaurants in the United States,
where meals tend to revolve around row
after row of skewered meats and heaping
platters of rice. The chef, Ali Saboor, is
trying to imagine his way into a more
contemporary and nuanced view of
Iranian food. The mushroom kebab is
plated with pickled mushrooms and
stewed lentils; chicken kebab is less a
stick of meat than a thorough rethinking
of zereshk polo morgh, a dinner-party
Staple. Salads and dips are treated as
invitations to innovate; some of the most
appealing dishes are seasonal vegetables
on a bed of yogurt, derived from the class
of dips known as boranis.

25 Bogart Street (Varet Street), Bush-

wick, Brooklyn; no phone; eyvalnyc.com

9. CISIAMO

UNSTARRED

The trick of Hillary Sterling's Italian

cooking at Ci Siamo — well, one of the
tricks — is that it can do about 10 things
at once while remaining simple enough
that it is still at least arguably Italian.
She has lots of ideas, but expresses them
in a natural, relaxed style. The plates on
her long, long menu tick every box you'd
see on a “Top Chef” judge’s score sheet
— contrast, crunch, salt, spice, a splash
of acid. There’s smoke, too, from a wood-
burning hearth that Ms. Sterling can take
from simmering to scorching and all
stations between. This is a project of
Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality
Group, which means that you are at-
tended by a platoon of servers eager to
figure out what you want before you do.
It also means desserts by Claudia Flem-
ing, whose pared-down aesthetic nicely
suits not-too-sweet Italian sweets.

385 Ninth Avenue (3lst Street), Chelsea;

212-219-6559; cisiamonyc.com

10. BONNIE’S

UNSTARRED

The dining room is a maelstrom, every-

body taking a second helping of stuffed
rainbow trout and waving for a third
MSG martini. But Bonnie’s point of view
is clear and unmistakable. The chef,
Calvin Eng, cooks the Cantonese food of
his family like somebody who came of
age in 21st-century Brooklyn. This is
distilled in the char siu McRib that’s
equal parts Chinatown and McDonald’s.
It’s probably Bonnie’s most famous dish,
unless it’s the cacio e pepe mein — Chi-
nese-Italian noodles cooked with
pecorino and fermented tofu. Bonnie’s
magnifies some of the flavors beyond the
comfort point, but it does nothing with-
out a purpose. Nothing is dull, either.
398 Manhattan Avenue (Frost Street),
Williamsburg, Brooklyn; no phone;
bonniesbrooklyn.com

loo Tasty

om

lo Forget

Here, in no special order, is a year’s worth of

memorable dishes I ate around New York.
All come from places that did not make my
list of 10 favorite restaurants.

By PETE WELLS

Rice Balls

at Cafe Spaghetti

The world does not need cacio e

pepe bagels or cacio e pepe
breakfast cereal, but it probably
does need the cacio e pepe
arancini — dry and craggy out-
side, hot and gooey within — that
Sal Lamboglia makes in his little
red-sauce joint by the Brooklyn-
Queens Expressway.

126 Union Street (Columbia

Street), Columbia Street water-
front, Brooklyn; no phone;
cafespaghetti.com

Tacos Campechanos

at Taqueria Ramirez
Asking for a campechano in any
taqueria gets you a mix of meats.
At this one it means chopped
longaniza with smooth, tender
chunks of the beef cut called
suadero, braised together in hot
liquid as at a public bath.

94 Franklin Street (Oak Street),

Greenpoint, Brooklyn; no phone;
taqueriaramirezbk.com

Banh Beo Chen

at Saigon Social

Six of these delicate, slippery

cakes of steamed rice flour, each.
about the size of a littleneck,
appear at the table sprinkled
with assorted Vietnamese fla-
vors: fresh and powdered
shrimp, shallots fried to a golden
crisp, scallion oil and a couple
more. All that is left for you to do
is to spoon some fish sauce over
one and slip it into your mouth.
172 Orchard Street (Stanton
Street), Lower East Side; 646-
609-3202; saigonsocialnyc.com

Quenelle de Brochet

at Le Gratin

‘You can get Lyonnais quenelles

at other places, but not the way
Daniel Boulud makes them: a
fluffy raft of whipped pike, sub-
merged in a rich béchamel tast-
ing of mushrooms, fish stock and

Gruyére, and held under the

broiler until the top is as bubbly
and golden as the prettiest maca-
roni and cheese you've ever seen
on the cover of a food magazine.
5 Beekman Street (Nassau
Street), financial district; 212-597-
9020; legratinnyc.com

Scallion Leek Bolani

at Dunya Kabab House

These flaky fried Afghan pies are
about as crisp as a spring roll
and as thick as a beer coaster. Of
the several bolani fillings Dunya
offers, the most compelling,
somehow, is a plain green spread
of stewed leeks and scallions.
Never underestimate the power
of alliums.

696 Coney Island Avenue (Avenue

©), Kensington, Brooklyn; 718-
483-8451; instagram.com
/dunyakababhouse

Fatayer at Nabila’s

Is it the refreshing, tart, sumac-

laced spinach filling that packs
each fatayer on the counter at
the Lebanese restaurant Nabila?
The ultra-thin pastry crust? Or
the manageable size, each fa-
tayer about as big as a Ping-
Pong ball? In any case, 1am
usually reaching for my second
fatayer before I’ve finished my
first.

248 Court Street (Kane Street),

Cobble Hill, Brooklyn; 347-689-
9504; nabilasbk.com

Salatim at Laser Wolf

You will say this doesn’t belong

here, that Laser Wolf’s salatim is
not one dish but many, a Middle
Eastern pickle-and-salad platter
that just shows up no matter
what you order. I have no argu-
ment except to say that maybe
more meals ought to start with
pickles and salads.

97 Wythe Avenue (North 10th

Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn;
718-215-7150; laserwolfbrooklyn
com.

From top: the salatim platter at Laser Wolf; rice balls to remember at Cafe
Spaghetti; banh beo chen, among the Vietnamese dishes at Saigon Social.

eBeridchiT ANDRO CHRD SY wBPLichelE i

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER:

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604
D6 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

THE BEST OF 2022

Just What Your Budget Ordered

] loved a lot of restaurants in 2022. Here are some where a normal person can eat
an astoundingly good meal for about $10.
An abnormal person, by which | mean anyone who orders the way | do, might spent
twice as much. It will be worth it.

By PETE WELLS

ROWDY ROOSTER

Sanmiwago Taiwan
Dumpling House

As you wander through China-

town’s first Flushing-style food
court, your eye may be caught
by the signs hawking Sanmiwa-
go’s Taiwanese noodle soups
and fried chicken. Maintain
focus, because dumplings are
the goal. The choices are fairly
standard — chicken with cab-
bage; pork with kimchi, corn or
chives; steamed or pan-fried.
Once you've made your choice,
you're handed a beeper. Then
you wait. And wait. Each batch
is rolled at the last minute, and
just when you are thinking you
should just walk out to find
something else to eat the
beeper flashes, and you are
handed what may well be the
freshest-tasting dumplings in
Chinatown. The pan-fried ones
are especially good, with tissue-
thin wrappers that are both
tender and crisp at the same
time.

Inside Mott Street Eatery, 98

Mott Street (Canal Street), Little

Rowdy Rooster

The chef Chintan Pandya has

opened so many restaurants in
such a short time that it’s hard
to keep up; he’s in danger of
becoming the Joyce Carol Oates
of Indian food. Some time be-
tween the arrival of Semma and
the birth of Masalawala & Sons,
while the rest of us were nap-
ping, he whipped up this tiny,
speedy East Village kitchen.
The ostensible star is fried
chicken and it is very good,
tangy and tender, with a firm
shell that holds up whether you
order it by the piece or pressed
into a sandwich. But the vegeta-
bles are no afterthoughts. The
fried mashed potato sandwich
called vada pao looks small and
harmless but has been
drenched in thecha, a condi-
ment of coconut and garlic
mashed with dried chiles. Un-
derestimating it would bea
mistake.

149 First Avenue (East Ninth

Street), East Village; no phone;
rowdyrooster.com

Italy; 646-775-7884 ; no website.

EVELIA'S TAMALES

Evelia’s Tamales

With her first brick-and-mortar

location, Evelia Coyotzi finally
gets to stretch out a bit after
selling tamales on the sidewalks
of Queens for two decades. All
the standard tamales are here
— pork in a guajillo adobo,
chicken in salsa verde or mole
poblano — along with Oaxacan-
style tamales, shaped more like
muffins than cigars and stuffed
with things like fried pork skin
in tomatillo salsa. For the first
time, though, you can get que-
sadillas and picaditos, both
made with very good masa.
Sweet, colorfully dyed fruit
tamales are available for break-
fast, along with steaming cups
of atole. The doors open at 5
a.m., which is worth keeping in
mind the next time you have an
early flight at La Guardia, about
10 minutes away by car.

96-09 Northern Boulevard (96th

Street), North Corona, Queens;
718-255-1189; eveliastamales
.com

Burmese Bites

Myo Lin Thway began Burmese

Bites as a stall in the Queens
Night Market selling two items.
Later it operated from a cart
parked in downtown Long
Island City. Now it does busi-
ness in the food court at the foot
of the escalators in the Queens
Center mall, next to the Panda
Express outlet. The menu has
grown since the early days.
There is tea leaf salad, topped
with so many peanuts, rice
snacks and other crunchy bits
that you could serve it as bar
snack; the tangy and savory
rice-noodle salad nan gyi kauk-
swe thoke; and ohno kaukswe,
noodles in a creamy, fragrant
chicken-curry soup thickened
with coconut milk. But the main
event — not just of Burmese
Bites but of the food court itself
and perhaps the entire mall —
is still palata, the flaky flatbread
that Mr. Thway makes by twirl-
ing and tossing and thwacking
and stretching a lump of dough
until it is so thin that when he
holds it up in front of his face
you can see him on the other

S$ &PLUNCH

side. Then he folds it into a neat

envelope and cooks it on the
griddle. The most popular ver-
sion is keema palata, stuffed
with fragrantly spiced minced
chicken. The menu helpfully
describes this as a “Burmese
quesadilla.”

Inside the Queens Center food

court, 90-15 Queens Boulevard
(59th Avenue), Elmhurst,
Queens; (917) 560-2480;
instagram.com/burmesebites

S & P Lunch

True, this venerable pre-De-

pression lunch counter was
cheaper when it was still called
Eisenberg’s and you could get
tuna salad smeared over egg
salad on rye for $8. Now the
sandwich costs $13, but the rye
is better. So is almost every-
thing else. The old emblems of
Jewish New York are here:
sweet, pinkish chopped liver
with packets of saltines; pep-
per-crusted pastrami, steamed
overnight and sliced thick, but
not too thick. The new owners
also brought on some innova-
tions like a double-decker with
turkey, corned beef and Swiss
on rye. S & P calls it the Jersey
Joe in reference to its origins
across the Hudson River, where
it is known as a sloppy Joe.

174 Fifth Avenue (West 22nd

Street), Flatiron district; 212-
691-8862; sandwich.place

JehGy HUANG BOG Te eeW YORE TINS GHEE

), JOSE.A. ALVARADO JR. FOR THE NEW
YORK TIMES (EVELINS TAMALES), LANNA APISUKH

FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES (8 & PLUNCH)

WHERE TO EAT | NIKITA RICHARDSON

Christmas Lights, Seven Fishes and Marriage Morsels

Answering reader questions

about dining over the holidays.

LAST WEEK, I put a call out to Where to Eat

readers for holiday-themed questions. You
didn’t disappoint, sending in a fun mix of
dining inquiries. One reader wanted to
know which bars and restaurants have the
best holiday decorations; another was look-
ing for a special holiday meal before Christ-
mas Day. There was also a pressing ques-
tion from a reader who’s going to the Man-
hattan Marriage Bureau — colloquially
known as a “City Hall wedding” — in a few
weeks and wants to grab a bite after saying,
“T do.” (Not exactly holiday-themed, but I
had to help.) As always, keep sending your
questions and comments to my inbox by
emailing wheretoeat@nytimes.com, and
you may see yours here.

Where the Decorations Are Unrivaled

Which restaurants and bars have the biggest
and best holiday decorations? Gary B.
First, the obvious answer: Rolf’s, in Gram-
ercy, which goes all out. But if you want to
avoid a long line and get some New York
City history in, then make the five-minute
walk to Pete’s Tavern, which bills itself as
New York City’s oldest bar and restaurant.
(McSorley’s Old Ale House would like to
have a word about the “bar” part.) The ceil-
ing is hung with red string lights, which
might make you feel as if you're in the scene
where HAL turns on Dave in “2001: A Space
Odyssey” — or just full of holiday cheer. You
can also go for an understated Christmas
vibe downtown at Fraunces Tavern (Santa
will be putting in an appearance this Satur-
day). And add Rosemary’s, in the West Vil-
lage to the list, because for a decade they’ve
installed a Christmas tree on the roof, and
you can’t do that just anywhere.

Feast of the Seven Fishes and More

Hello! Are there any holiday-themed lunch

or dinner events at restaurants this month
(not on Christmas) ? I know Scarpetta has a

Sign up to get Nikita Richardson's restaurant

recommendations in your inbox every Tuesday,
only for Times subscribers:
nytimes.com/where-to-eat

"ALEX LAU FOR THE.NEW YORK TIMES

PETE'S TAVERN

DANIEL KRIEGER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Top, Pete’s Tavern, in the Gramercy neighborhood, glowing for
the holidays; left, dim sum at Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Chinatown;
above, pork chop with onion jus at Claud in the East Village.

special brunch... thanks! sARAH B.

I want to give you plenty of options, so here

goes: Union Square Cafe is having a Feast
of the Seven Fishes dinner on Christmas
Eve ($175/person), as is Gus’s Chop House
($150/person) in Carroll Gardens, Brook-
lyn, in collaboration with Popina. Claud, in
the East Village, the recent subject of a
three-star review from Pete Wells, is serv-
ing a special prime rib Christmas Eve lunch
(and Christmas Day dinner). And at Er-
nesto’s, on the Lower East Side, they've be-
gun serving two Basque-inspired Christ-
mas specialties: faisan asado, or roasted
pheasant with brandy and caramelized on-
ions, and pato mendizorrotz, a combination
of roasted duck breast and confit duck legs.
with apples and potatoes.

Get Hitched, Then Get to Chinatown

My fiancé and I am getting married at City

Hall in late December. Do you have any rec-
ommendations for a special, post-wedding
meal that won't break the bank?

JENNIFER G.

Let me be the first to say, congratulations!

The low-fuss, high-reward aspect of a wed-
ding at the City Clerk’s office is unrivaled.
Another plus? Its proximity to Chinatown,
one of the finest neighborhoods for an af-
fordable meal. I have two recommendations
for you: first, Nom Wah Tea Parlor, on Doy-
ers Street. At 102 years old, it’s as
quintessentially New York as your wedding
will be. The pork buns, shrimp siu mai and
fried egg rolls are just the ticket. If you're
looking for a restaurant that’s a little more
upscale but still affordable, consider Cha
Kee on Mott Street. Order the curry beef tri-
angles, Macao curry chicken and the fried
rice — preferably in the shape of a heart.

Pete's Tavern, 129 East 18th Street (Irving

Place); Fraunces Tavern, 54 Pearl Street
(Broad Street); Rosemary's, 18 Greenwich
Avenue (West 10th Street); Union Square Cafe,
101 East 19th Street (Park Avenue South);
Gus's Chop House, 215 Union Street (Henry
Street); Claud, 90 East 10th Street (Third
Avenue); Emesto’s, 259 East Broadway
(Montgomery Street); Nom Wah Tea Parlor, 13
Doyers Sireet (Pell Street); Cha Kee, 43 Mott
Street (Pell Street)

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Rockefeller Center Is an E.

A complex where the food skewed corporate is suddenly a dining

destination where chefs pursue their own ideas with delightful results.

By PETE WELLS

vent to Savor

WHEN THE REAL ESTATE FIRM Tishman

Speyer was trying to persuade chefs to join
what was turning into a murderers’ row of
restaurants at Rockefeller Center, it used
many of the deal-sweeteners that are stand-
ard in the trade: lower rents, prime loca-
tions, help with construction costs.

But the firm was also pitching a dream.

“You can make Rockefeller Center the epi-
center of food for New York City;’ one chef
said he was told.

Even if you account for standard real es-

tate hyperbole, it’s still a pretty bold vision.
For longer than anyone can remember,
Rockefeller Center’s place in the conversa-
tion about dining in New York was essen-
tially nonexistent. A lot of people ate there,
but nobody talked about it.

In the past three years, 12 sit-down

restaurants and seven other places to eat
and drink have opened in Rockefeller Plaza
and in the concourse, a network of under-
ground corridors beneath it. Four more are
due to arrive next year.

The former dining tenants in the complex

were a mix of national chains in the con-
course and competent but corporate opera-
tions at the ground level. The newcomers
have more boutique sensibilities. The larger
restaurants bear the distinct imprints of the
chefs who run them, and while there are still
some chains in the concourse, they tend to
be small, local ones like Ace’s Pizza and
Other Half Brewing. A similar change has
been happening in the center’s retail
spaces, which now hold several shops with
a distinctly nonchain sensibility, like the
record and book store Rough Trade.
It is too soon to tell how many of the new
places to eat will turn out to be important, or
even good. But in one respect they have al-
ready succeeded: People are talking about
them.

One of the less perceptive things you hear

people say is that only tourists eat in Rocke-
feller Center. This is, in a word, wrong.
Thousands of New Yorkers work in or pass
through the complex every day. Some of us
even look forward to it.

For starters, the architecture is one of the

city’s most reliable thrills. “The greatest ur-
ban complex of the 20th century,” Elliot Wil-
lensky and Norval White called it in the
“ATA Guide to New York City.” At Rockefel-
ler Center, we see all the elements that give
New York its character — the density, the
grid, the crowds, the volume of the build-

ings and their incredible heights. All this

has been emphasized, so we feel its power.
Atthe same time, it’s been controlled, so we
can actually enjoy it.

TWO OF THE best spots to take it all in are

new restaurants. Lodi, on the south side of
Rockefeller Plaza, and Le Rock, on the
north, are essentially the anchor tenants of
Tishman Speyer’s overhaul. Lodi is small,
precise and Italian. Le Rock is big, busy and
French. Each moves like clockwork. Seated
in either restaurant, you know you are in
New York, and nowhere else.

The design of the plaza, with its sunken

concourse leading to the skating rink and
the gilded sculpture of Prometheus, funnels
energy down to the below-ground spaces,
too. So Jupiter, the Italian restaurant that
opened last week just off the rink, has
nearly as much foot traffic as it would on a
street corner in another part of town.

A downtown restaurant called King is

home base for the three women who own
Jupiter. King has about 75 seats and a tiny
menu that changes each night. Whatever
you get always seems to be sort of acciden-

tally marvelous. Jupiter, with 70 more seats,

is serving eight pastas, one risotto and a
bunch of other stuff. On opening day, I tried
buckwheat noodles with potatoes, cabbage
and fonduta, a dish whose richness I would
have welcomed if I had just come in from
skiing the lower Alps, and a bow! of alpha-
bet pasta — the letters spelled out Jupiter —
in brodo that was blitzed with nutmeg.
Whatever else Jupiter turns out to be, it is
not standard expense-account Italian.

On the other side of the rink is Naro,

owned by Ellia and Junghyun Park. At the
counter of their restaurant Atomix, the
Parks skillfully use tasting menus to illumi-
nate Korean culture. Can the same format
work inside Naro’s glass box in the con-
course? I felt a bit like a fish in a bowl asI sat
through my 10-course, $195 dinner.

The chef Greg Baxtrom has taken an-

other approach to concourse dining at Five
Acres. The diners sit in the open behind a
little railing while commuters stream past
on either side. It sounds distracting, but I
didn’t find it so. Given that Mr. Baxtrom
likes to serve cocktails, oysters and s’mores
under glass that’s lifted to reveal a swirl of

Top, from left: the French

restaurant Le Rock and
Jupiter. Above, from left:
Naro and Lodi. Below
left, the sunken
concourse can have as
much foot traffic as the
sidewalks at street level.

Catching most of these

restaurateurs while they
have new things to say.

smoke, the ones who are most distracted

may turn out to be the commuters.

All the restaurant hounds I know are im-

pressed that Tishman Speyer has caught
most of these chefs and restaurateurs while
they still have new things to say. This hasn’t
always been the case with big develop-
ments in Manhattan. By the time Masa
Takayama, Thomas Keller and Gray Kunz
arrived at what used to be the Time Warner
Center, they had already made their major
statements. I would almost always rather
eat in the restaurant of somebody who's still
got something to prove.

The new lineup makes steps toward

greater diversity, which is noteworthy be-
cause Rockefeller Center is one of the most
public squares in the world. Ms. Park said
she had told her mother, back in South Ko-
rea, to look in her travel guides for pictures
of Rockefeller Plaza so she could see the ex-
act spot where her daughter now runs the
plaza’s first Korean restaurant.

Somebody who traveled from Nigeria to

see the Christmas tree can eat a rice bowl at
FieldTrip, owned by the Black chef JJ John-
son. A young girl skating in the rink can look
to her right and see a restaurant owned by
three women.

Rockefeller Center is far from a United

Nations of food, though. There are no
restaurants representing China, India,
Mexico, the Caribbean or most of the other
major sources of immigrants to New York,
with the exception of Italy, and the one Jap-
anese restaurant, Blue Ribbon Sushi Bar,
has non-Japanese owners. Tishman Spey-
er’s goal is to make Rockefeller Center feel
more like the rest of New York. But immi-
grant-owned businesses contribute so
much to the city’s street life that their omis-
sion from the center is bizarre.

What the new restaurants can do, and are

doing already, is persuade diners to eat in
Rockefeller Center on purpose. This is a
fairly new phenomenon, but in the end what
Tishman Speyer has built is not very differ-
ent from what developers have tried to do at

Gotham West Market, Hudson Yards, the |”

Tin Building and other places. These

planted clusters of eating establishments
are the seeds developers scatter on the
ground when they want to attract a new
breed of bird. As the birds, we can be im-
pressed by just how much food we've found
even if we know something about the situa-
tion isn’t quite natural.

Reader.com +1 604 278 460.

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

ITED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

[ p pressreade:
D8 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Shaobing at Lion
Dance Cafe
OAKLAND, CALIF.

There might be preserved vege-

tables, homemade pickles, tofu
nuggets or slabs of fried tofu.
There might be vegan mayon-
naise modeled on Kewpie, or
crunchy slaws. The distinct and
idiosyncratic sandwich changes
every week, but you can always
expect something thoughtful
and hefty, held together in the
restaurant’s own beautiful,
sesame-scented bread.

TEJAL RAO

Sonoran Pretzel
at Valentine
PHOENIX

Forget everything you know

about pretzels. In this version, a
crisp, crackled crust gives way
to a toasty, slightly tangy and
nutty interior. Swiped with
honey and whipped butter
made from hen fat, the pretzel
is the most unforgettable part of
the meal. PRIYA KRISHNA

Mushrooms With
Butter and Garlic
at Izakaya Seki
WASHINGTON

If a description-versus-deli-
ciousness matrix existed, this
slippery medley of shimeji,
sliced shiitakes and bits of king
oyster would occupy the corner
where “sounds unassuming”
and “can I drink a sauce in
public?” meet. The pool of
earthy, buttery broth that re-
veals itself underneath can
distract from even the most
luxurious fatty tuna sashimi.
TANYA SICHYNSKY
Grilled Oysters
at HaiSous
CHICAGO

Dolloped with mo hanh and

cooked on charcoal-fired clay
Pot grills called lo dat, these
bivalves are then singed and
splashed with nuac cham. Such
juicy evocations of Vietnamese
street cooking pair well with the
Dos Amigos, a citrusy, mezcal-
tequila cocktail.

BRETT ANDERSON

Breakfast Tacos
at Maria’s Cafe
SAN ANTONIO

The handwritten menu sprawls

across the walls of Maria’s, and
you can’t go wrong with any
filling wrapped in the restau-
rant’s buttery flour tortillas. But
might I recommend the Minion,
which comes with smoky
shreds of brisket and creamy-
crunchy migas? PRIYA KRISHNA

Palacsinta
at Agi’s Counter
NEW YORK

These Hungarian crepes come

with a Post-it note of salty
butter in the middle. Beneath
that slab is even more flavor: A
warm, jewel-tone compote
ensures that each forkful of
tender, airy and deeply golden
pancake is slicked with seasonal
fruit. TANYA SICHYNSKY

Celeriac Schnitzel
at Apteka
PITTSBURGH

Escorted by vegetable prepara-

tions — jammy beets, apple-
leek salad — that toe the line
between side dish and condi-
ment, these delicately crisp
schnitzels prove Apteka’s guid-
ing principle: Eastern Euro-
pean cuisine is an underused
vehicle for delicious plant-based
cooking. BRETT ANDERSON

THE BEST OF 2022

25 Restaurant Dishes

Pistachio Flatbread
at Al Badawi
NEW YORK

It may not be a pizza in the

classic sense, but it has a crust,
it’s covered in cheese and I
would buy it by the slice if
possible. NIKITA RICHARDSON

Pizza Bianca
at Pizzeria Sei
LOS ANGELES

This white pizza couldn’t be

simpler — cream, fior di latte
mozzarella, a touch of pre-
served lemon and olive oil —
but set on the puffed, lightly
charred dough, it made me feel
quite emotional about the way
pizza styles are alive and over-
lapping, continuously develop-
ing one pie at a time.

TEJAL RAO

Oxtails at Sambou’s
African Kitchen

JACKSON, MISS.

Sally Demba opened Sambou’s

early this year with Joseph and
Bibian Sambou, her son and
daughter, to showcase the cook-
ing of their native Gambia. The
gravy in the long-simmered
oxtails pulse with ginger; you'll
want to spoon it, along with the
spoon-tender meat, over your
side of coconut rice.

BRETT ANDERSON
Buttermilk Biscuit
at Ihatov
ALBUQUERQUE
It’s hard not to love an enor-
mous buttermilk biscuit. It’s
even harder not to love an
enormous buttermilk biscuit
with a crunchy, sugared bottom
and an inside that’s as soft as
aif. PRIYA KRISHNA

Black Sesame Passion

Fruit at Lady Wong
NEW YORK

This is the year I realized that

passion fruit is my favorite of all
the fruit flavors. This is the
pastry that brought me to that
realization. NIKITA RICHARDSON

Fried Whole
Huachinango
at Tet a Tet
LOS ANGELES

The minute we realized the

deliciousness of what we were
dealing with, my family turned
this whole fish in a crispy fried
suit of rice flakes and aromatics,
lounging in a pool of green
curry and fish sauce caramel,
into a cleaned cartoon spine on
an empty plate. TEJAL RAO

Seaweed Doughnuts
at Corvino Supper Club
KANSAS CITY, MO.

These savory beignets, deliv-

ered with a side of thick cream
studded with trout roe, are an
inspired pairing of texture, hot
and cold temperature and sub-
tle oceanic flavor. One bite and
you'll see why they’re a re-
quired order at the sleek bar
and live jazz venue attached to
the chef Michael Corvino’s
tasting-menu restaurant.
BRETT ANDERSON

‘CELERIAC SCHNITZEL AT APTEKA

SEAWEED DOUGHNUTS AT CORVINO SUPPER CLUB

PARISIAN EGG TART AT GRAND OPENING

KAKIGORI AT LOCUST

We Cant Stop [Thinking About

AS YOU WATCH the plate being cleared, you think: That was so good.
What made that so good? Why isn’t there just a little more? Months
later, your mind still glances back. You need to get back there.

In 2022, these were some of the dishes that did that for us.

In reporting our annual list of 50 favorite restaurants in the United

Kouign-Amann
at Yellow
WASHINGTON

Who knew that the center of a

puffed-pastry crown was such a
natural bed for the honey-lac-
quered walnuts that pack Greek
styles of baklava? The crunchy,
crushed pistachio-dusted top-
ping gives way to thin, flaky
layers for a treat that’s just the
right amount of sweet.

TANYA SICHYNSKY

Suya Fried Chicken

at Yum Village
DETROIT

The fried chicken at the West

African restaurant's flagship
location is a vivid thrill, thanks
to deeply seasoned meat (the
chicken is roasted before it’s
fried) and the tension between
suya pepper spices and agave-
based syrup on its sticky-crisp
exterior. That, and a side of
Senegalese maafe stew, war-
rants a return visit to Yum
Village. BRETTANDERSON

Won Ton in Brodo

at Zitz Sum

CORAL GABLES, FLA.

This marriage of Chinese and
Italian cuisine comes alive in its
luscious, dashi-Parmesan “tea.”
There’s a reason the dish, en-
riched with a swirl of olive oil, is
the only savory item that never
comes off Zitz Sum’s menu.
BRETT ANDERSON

Parisian Egg Tart

at Grand Opening

SAN FRANCISCO

Every cake, tart, cookie and pie

is a standout at this pop-up
bakery, but all year I’ve been
dreaming of picking up another
mahogany-brindled egg tart,
and spending just a little more
time with the flaky pastry and
melt-away cloud of wobbly
pastry cream. TEJAL RAO

Fried Chicken Skins

at Leah and Louise
CHARLOTTE, N.C.

Hot and crunchy and piled high

on a platter, with seasoning that
approximates the Cajun-y vin-
egar and jalapefio hit of Zapp’s
Voodoo chips, these come tem-
pered with a drizzle of creamy
ranch dressing blended with
green onion. You swear you
car’t eat that many fried
chicken skins until you're look-
ing at an empty platter.

KIM SEVERSON

Crab Claws at
Mosquito Supper Club
NEW ORLEANS

This dish changes with the

seasons, but in October, it was
simply dressed with drawn
butter, salt, pepper and red
pepper flakes. But it’s all about
the succulent blue crab from
Higgins Seafood down in the
bayou — a taste that truly can’t
be found anywhere else.

BRIAN GALLAGHER

States, our writers and editors ate hundreds of meals all over the
country. They meticulously cataloged menus, and took notes on
tastes and ingredients. In many cases, the restaurants mentioned
here were excellent overall, but at the very least these dishes make
them well worth a visit. BRIAN GALLAGHER

Baby Shrimp
‘Gunpowder’
at Camphor
LOS ANGELES

There are many kinds of podi,

the South Indian spice mixture
sometimes called gunpowder.
This one, used to dust a heap of
tiny, super-crisp shrimp, and
full of fried curry leaves and
mustard seeds, is particularly
satisfying and habit-form-

ing. TEJAL RAO

Wi

Fried Green Tomato

BLT at the

Tomato Place
VICKSBURG, MISS.

Your first question will be: Are

the fried tomatoes the “T” in the
BLT? No, they are marvelously
in addition, and achieve the
perfect balance of salty bread-
ing and acidic bite. On white
bread with an ample wipe of
mayo, this sandwich is surplus
to requirements — in the best
Way. BRIAN GALLAGHER

The Omelet at Lucian

Books and Wine
ATLANTA

The presentation could not be

simpler: A spoonful of salty
caviar crowns the tender,
creamy fold of egg, and an
herb-specked quenelle of créme
fraiche rides alongside. A sim-
ple but sophisticated balm.
Impeccable. KIM SEVERSON

Khichdi at Vrindavan
FRISCO, TEXAS

The daily changing thalis at

Vrindavan always include
khichdi — for a reason. Deeply
perfumed with whole, warming
spices, cozy with soft grains of
rice and lentils and enriched
with ghee, this tastes like the
best home cooking.

PRIYA KRISHNA

Kakigori at Locust
NASHVILLE

This shaved-ice dessert hides

bits of crunchy honeycomb
inside a dome of fluffy snow
flavored with passion fruit,
covered with a soft meringue
and topped with a sugared egg
yolk. KIM SEVERSON

JASON LITTLE (HAISOUS); RYAN YOUNG FOR THE

NEW YORK TIMES (PIZZERIA SEI); EMMA K MORRIS:
(LION DANCE CAFE), CHRISTINE ARMBRUSTER FOR
‘THE NEW YORK TIMES (APTEKA); MARTIN DIGCS/
CORVINO SUPPER CLUB (CORVINO SUPPER CLUB);
PETE LEE (GRAND OPENING); ANDREW THOMAS LEE
(LOCUST), SCOTT MCINTYRE FOR THE NEW YORK
SUM); DENNY CULBERT (MOSQUITO.

‘SUPPER CLUB); JOSH TELLES/CAMPHOR (CAMPHOR)

COPYRIGHT AND PRO TECTED BY APPLIC ABLE LAW

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

er

[arrests
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

THE BEST OF 2022

Simple, Fast and Popular, [oo

SOMETIMES THE CHaAos Of life calls for an all-day project — an artfully

arranged ombré gratin, a braided challah or a big pot of sauce —
something to busy your hands and settle your spirit. But most days,
what you need is an easy meal: a dish that is simply prepared, if not
simple in flavor, and won’t let you down. This year, as inflation pushed

food prices to new highs, the ingredients also couldn't cost a lot. These
are just the kind of recipes New York Times Cooking readers viewed
most in 2022. With the exception of a few special projects — we’re
looking at you, Thanksgiving! — they are all easy, economical and
exciting, recipes to live your messy, beautiful life by. marcaux Laskey

SAN FRANCISCO-STYLE VIETNAMESE

AMERICAN GARLIC NOODLES

BY J. KENJI LOPEZ-ALT
TIME: 15 MINUTES
YIELD: 4 SERVINGS

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

20 medium garlic cloves, minced or

smashed in a mortar and pestle

4 teaspoons oyster sauce

2 teaspoons light soy sauce or shoyu

2 teaspoons fish sauce

1 pound dry spaghetti

1 ounce grated Parmesan or Pecorino

Romano (heaping 14 cup)
Asmall handful of thinly sliced scallions
(optional)

1. Melt the butter in a wok or saucepan over

medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring,
until fragrant but not browned, about 2
minutes. Add the oyster sauce, soy sauce and
fish sauce, and stir to combine. Remove from
the heat.

STICKY COCONUT CHICKEN AND RICE

BY KAY CHUN
TIME: 45 MINUTES.
YIELD: 4 SERVINGS

1% pounds boneless, skinless chicken

thighs, each thigh cut into 2 equal-size
pieces

% cup neutral oil, such as safflower or

canola
2 teaspoons kosher salt (Diamond
Crystal)
1% teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
1 tablespoon minced garlic

1% cups short-grain white rice, rinsed until

water runs clear

1% cups low-sodium chicken broth

(13.5-ounce) can full-fat coconut milk

yellow bell pepper, cored, seeded and

chopped (14-inch pieces)

14 cup roasted cashews, coarsely chopped

scallions, green and white parts, thinly

sliced (4 packed cup)

2 tablespoons coarsely chopped cilantro

Hot sauce, for serving

ee

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Rub chicken with

1 tablespoon of oil, and season with 1 teaspoon
of salt and 34 teaspoon of pepper.

2. In a large Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of

the oil over medium. Working in two batches,
brown chicken, turing halfway, until no longer
pink, around 5 minutes per batch. Transfer to a
plate.

GREEK CHICKEN WITH

CUCUMBER-FETA SALAD

BY ALI SLAGLE
TIME: 30 MINUTES.
YIELD: 4 SERVINGS

1% cups plain Greek yogurt

3 garlic cloves, finely grated
Kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)
Black pepper
1 teaspoon dried oregano or mint
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken
thighs, patted dry
1% pounds cucumbers (preferably
Japanese, Persian or mini, seedless
cucumbers)
1 pound ripe tomatoes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus
more as needed
4 ounces feta, crumbled (about % cup)
1% cup Kalamata olives, pitted and halved

SANG AN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOOD STYLIST; SIMON ANDREWS.

2. Meanwhile, bring 144 inches of water to a

boil in a 12-inch skillet or sauté pan over high
heat. (Alternatively, heat up just enough water
to cover the spaghetti in a large Dutch oven or
saucepan.) Add the pasta, stir a few times to
make sure it's not clumping, and cook, stirring
occasionally, until just shy of al dente (about 2
minutes short of the recommended cook time
on the package).

3. Using tongs, transfer the cooked pasta to the

garlic sauce, along with whatever water clings
to it. (Reserve the pasta water in the skillet.)
Increase the heat to high, add the cheese to
the wok, and stir with a wooden spatula or
spoon and toss vigorously until the sauce is
creamy and emulsified, about 30 seconds. If
the sauce looks too watery, let it keep reducing.
If it looks greasy, splash some more cooking
water into it and let it re-emulsify. Stir in the
scallions (if using), and serve immediately.

3. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon oil, the

ginger and the garlic to the empty pot, and stir
until fragrant, 30 seconds. Add rice and stir
until evenly coated in the oil. Add broth,
coconut milk, bell pepper, cashews, scallions
and the remaining 1 teaspoon salt and 4
teaspoon pepper. Stir to lift up any browned
bits on the bottom of the pot. Arrange chicken
on top, add any accumulated juices from the
plate and bring to a boil over high.

4. Cover and bake until all of the liquid is

absorbed, rice is tender and chicken is cooked
through, 25 minutes. Scatter cilantro over the
chicken and rice, then divide among bowls.
Serve with hot sauce.

BROTHY THAI CURRY WITH SILKEN

TOFU AND HERBS

BY YEWANDE KOMOLAFE
TIME: 30 MINUTES
YIELD: 6 SERVINGS

2 (14-ounce) packages silken tofu,

drained

2. tablespoons neutral oil, such as.

grapeseed

2 shallots, peeled and minced

3 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced

1 (1-inch) piece ginger, scrubbed and

grated

3 tablespoons red curry paste

1 (14-ounce) can cherry tomatoes or

fresh cherry tomatoes

1 quart vegetable stock

1 (13.5-ounce) can full-fat coconut milk

Salt
Y% cup soy sauce
Freshly ground black pepper
1% cups mixed fresh herbs, such as
cilantro, basil and dill
2 scallions, thinly sliced
1 lime, cut into wedges, for squeezing

1. Pat the tofu blocks dry with a clean kitchen

or paper towel. Cut each block into 3 slices.

2. Heat a medium Dutch oven or

heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high. Add

the oil and shallots, and stir until softened, 2

minutes. Add the garlic, ginger and curry paste,
stir, and cook until fragrant and the paste turns

deep red, 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, stir

(CHRISTOPHER TESTANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOOD STYLIST: BARRETT WASHBURNE.

THANKSGIVING STUFFING

BY ERIC KIM

TIME: 1 HOUR 20 MINUTES

YIELD: 6 TO 8 SERVINGS
8 ounces crusty white bread, such as
country loaf or sourdough, cut into
¥,-inch dice (about 6 cups)

8 ounces store-bought or homemade

cornbread, cut into ¥2-inch dice (about
3 cups)

4% cup unsalted butter

10 fresh sage leaves, plus ¥% cup coarsely
chopped sage (34 ounce)

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon salt-free poultry seasoning

\% teaspoon ground cayenne

1 large yellow onion, finely diced

Salt and black pepper

2 celery stalks, finely diced

2 cups whole milk, plus more as needed

SANG AN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOOD STYLIST; SIMON ANDREWS.

1. In a large bowl, stir together the yogurt and

garlic; season to taste with salt and pepper.
Transfer ¥2 cup of the yogurt to. a medium bowl
and reserve for Step 5.

2. Coat the chicken: To the large bowl, add the

oregano and stir to combine. Season the
chicken all over with 134 teaspoons salt and a
few grinds of pepper. Add the chicken to the
large bowl and turn to coat; set aside.

3. Start the salad: Smash the cucumbers with

the side of your knife until craggy and split. Rip
into 34- to 1-inch pieces and transfer to a
colander placed in the sink. Slice or chop the
tomatoes into bite-size pieces. Add to the
cucumbers along with 1 42 teaspoons salt. (It
may seem like a lot of salt, but most will drain
away.) Toss to combine and leave to drain.

4. In a large nonstick or well-seasoned

cast-iron skillet, heat the olive oil over medium.
Scrape excess marinade off the chicken, then
cook the chicken in batches, adding oil to the

pan if necessary, until it's well browned and

releases from the pan, 5 to 7 minutes. Flip and
cook until cooked through, another 5 to 7
minutes. Transfer to plates to rest. (For grilling
info, see Tip.)
5. To the medium bow! of yogurt, add the feta
and mash with a fork until a chunky paste
forms. Shake the cucumbers and tomatoes to
get rid of any excess moisture. Add to the feta
yogurt along with the olives and stir until
coated. The balance is dependent on your
produce and feta, so season to taste with salt
and pepper until flavors are vivid. Eat alongside
the chicken.

Tip: To grill the chicken: Heat a grill to medium

and clean and grease the grates. Grill the
chicken over direct heat until it's well browned
and releases from the grates, 5 to 7 minutes.
Flip and cook until cooked through, another 5
to 7 minutes. (For a gas grill, close the lid
between flips.)

and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the tomato

juices thicken slightly, 4 minutes.

3. Pour in the vegetable stock, stir, increase the

heat to high and bring to a boil. Reduce the
heat to medium and simmer to slightly reduce
the liquid, 10 minutes. Stir in the coconut milk,
season to taste with salt and remove from the

4. While the broth is simmering, divide the soft

tofu into 6 bowls. Break each slice into 4 or 5
pieces. Season each bowl of tofu with 2
teaspoons of soy sauce and a few cracks of
black pepper, and top with about 4% cup of the

5. Ladle the hot broth and tomatoes over the

bowls of silken tofu. Top with sliced scallions
and serve hot, with lime wedges for squeezing.

ioe
DAN.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spread all the

bread cubes on a large sheet pan and bake
until brittle, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool completely
on the pan. (The cooled bread can be stored in
an airtight container for up to 5 days.) Raise
the oven temperature to 375 degrees.

2. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium

heat. Dip a wadded-up paper towel into the
melted butter and grease a 1%4- to 2-quart
shallow baking dish or pan with it. Unwad the
Paper towel and line a plate with it. Add the
whole sage leaves to the butter and cook,
stirring occasionally, until the speckled milk
solids at the bottom of the pan start to brown
and the sage leaves become crisp, 2 to 4
minutes. Using tongs, transfer the sage to the
paper towel-lined plate.

3. Add the chopped sage, fennel seeds, poultry

seasoning and cayenne to the browned butter
and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, 30
to 60 seconds. Add the onion and season
generously with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring
occasionally, until the onion begins to soften,
about 5 minutes. Stir in the celery and continue
cooking for 2 minutes. Stir in the milk and heat
until steaming. Taste and add salt and pepper;
the milk should be assertively seasoned.

4, Transfer the toasted bread cubes to a large

bowl. Pour the hot milk mixture over the bread
and gently toss with two spoons until the bread
is thoroughly soaked; add more milk if needed.
Spread the stuffing in the buttered baking dish
and cover with foil. Bake until warmed through,
10 to 15 minutes. Uncover and bake until the
top is crispy and a little darker in color, about
10 minutes. Scatter with the fried sage leaves
and serve.

BOBBI LIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOOD STYLIST: MONICA PIERINI.

(D presecd

COPYRIGHT AND PRO TECTED BY APPLIC ABLE LAW

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

er
D10 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

BLUDSO’S BBQ COOKBOOK:

A FAMILY AFFAIR
IN SMOKE AND SOUL

BY KEVIN BLUDSO
WITH NOAH GALUTEN

THE BEST OF 2022

Their Stories lold Through Food

FEW THINGS DELIGHT quite like sitting down on the couch with a newly
purchased cookbook, giving the spine a good crack and thumbing
through those glossy, yet-to-be-sauce-splattered pages. But when
hundreds of cookbooks publish every year, the opportunities for culi-
nary wonder can feel endless. Where does one begin? At the New
York Times Food desk, with a color-coded spreadsheet and an appe-

tite, of course. Our staff read and tested dozens of books in our annual
search for the most compelling stories, the sharpest cooking instruc-
tion and the most mouthwatering recipes. These 16 books managed to
transport, teach and entice in ways that distinguished them from the
pack — and to convince us that, yes, there’s always room for one more

title on the shelf. tanya sicHyNsKY

Illustrations by ROSS MacDONALD

DELECTABLE: SWEET
& SAVORY BAKING

BY CLAUDIA FLEMING

PLANT-BASED
INDIA: NOURISHING
RECIPES ROOTED
IN TRADITION

BY DR. SHEIL SHUKLA

Time is the secret ingredient for

transcendent barbecue, but as
Kevin Bludso shares in
“Bludso’s BBQ Cookbook” (Ten
Speed Press), generations of
barbecue know-how is key, too.
Mr. Bludso made a name for
himself with a Texas-style
barbecue restaurant in
Compton, Calif., but his first
book celebrates the family-style
cooking and the gifted cooks in
his family — like his Granny (his
paternal great-aunt Willie Mae
Fields) in Corsicana, Texas, who

taught him brisket, and his

uncle Kaiser in Compton, Calif.,
who taught his mother how to
barbecue. While recipes for
dishes like shrimp and grits
smothered in a deeply rich
gravy, red chili burritos and
smoked oxtails birria show his
culinary versatility, it is the
barbecue that will bring you to
tears. The brisket, just four
ingredients and your time, is
the best thing I cooked all year.
SARA BONISTEEL

Claudia Fleming’s first

cookbook, “The Last Course,” is
a cult classic among pastry
chefs, who still study the
irresistible plated desserts she
developed for Gramercy Tavern.
But I loved “Delectable”
(Random House) because it
brings her classic, cozy
sensibility to family-style
breads, cakes, tarts, cookies and
some savory baking — the olive-
and anchovy-rich escarole pie is
a marvel, with a particularly
light and flaky crust. Ms.

Fleming shares cup and spoon

measurements a bit reluctantly,
making it clear she’d prefer that
you use a scale and
thermometer as you follow her
recipes, but cook her buttery,
salty toffee to 295 degrees, and
you'll understand why.

TEJAL RAO

“Plant-Based India” (The

Experiment) has my favorite
kind of recipes: minimal effort,

high reward. Weeknight cooking

can often make you feel like you
have to sacrifice flavor for the
sake of efficiency. Dr. Sheil
Shukla’s dishes, many of them
rooted in his family’s Gujarati
roots, reminded me of the
complex-tasting spreads that
my mother would whip up from
six ingredients in 20 minutes
after getting home from work.
The makai no chevdo, made

with corn, cashew cream and

spices, was better than any
version of creamed corn I had
prepared. The ringan na palita,
eggplant coins crusted with
coconut, peanuts and spices, is
now in my weeknight rotation.
Don’t let the title scare you off
if you eat meat: This is
wholesome, exciting cooking

that just happens to not include

animal products. You won't

miss them. PRIYA KRISHNA

CHICANO BAKES: RECIPES

FOR MEXICAN PAN DULCE,

TAMALES, AND MY
FAVORITE DESSERTS

BY ESTEBAN CASTILLO

DIASPORICAN:
A PUERTO RICAN
COOKBOOK

BY ILLYANNA MAISONET

MY AMERICA:

RECIPES FROM A YOUNG

BLACK CHEF

BY KWAME ONWUACHI
WITH JOSHUA DAVID STEIN
|

Esteban Castillo was inspired to

write “Chicano Bakes” (Harper
Design) when he noticed that
readers of his first cookbook,
“Chicano Eats,” consistently
turned to its dessert section.
This book, which he created to
help people in Latino
communities who are
intimidated by baking, was built
on a foundation similar to that of
his first: Create something that
people could relate to, and
present Mexican food through a
Mexican American lens. Recipes
like horchata tiramisu, café con
leche flan and several versions

of his renowned chocoflan are

the result of that effort. This
cookbook is especially relatable
and fun for readers who feel
constantly pushed and pulled
between two cultures, as I do.
But it strikes a balance and
includes classic Mexican
desserts like conchas, pan de
muerto and moist,
poundcake-like pan de elote.
“Chicano Bakes” showcases Mr.
Castillo’s humility and passion
for teaching people how to bake
in the most practical ways
possible.

CHRISTINA MORALES

Despite the description on her

book’s cover, Illyanna Maisonet
writes early on in “Diasporican”
(Ten Speed Press), “This is not a
Puerto Rican cookbook.” Rather,
she states, it’s a cookbook for
Puerto Ricans who, like Ms.
Maisonet, are cooking from the
contiguous United States,
geographically close but
spiritually distant. You'll find the
classics: a pernil with
crackling-crisp skin anda
succulent underbelly, an arroz
con gandules spiced witha
vibrant homemade sazon. And
the not so classic: a Puerto

Rican laab, a Thanksgiving

mofongo dressing with salami.
Each recipe is easy to follow,
and each chapter is an
education on Puerto Rican food
and the colonial history that
shaped it. Ms. Maisonet lets us
into her own kitchen, alongside
her Mami and Nana, sharing
their resilience and care for one
another. “Diasporican” reads
like the best memoirs:
engaging, educational and, at
times, laugh-out-loud funny.
KRYSTEN CHAMBROT

Kwame Onwuachi’s first

cookbook, “My America”
(Knopf), is a love letter to the
“proper nouns” — his loved ones.
and culinary influences — in his
life. This collection of recipes
establishes a more inclusive
legacy of American food, one
that might be recognizable to
everyone: the America of jollof
rice and ata din din; of cheesy
grits, callaloo and collard
greens; of jerk spice, curry
powder and ginger-garlic purée.
“My America” honors a tradition
while moving it forward, and
each recipe includes cultural

origins to show how food travels

within the African diaspora. Itis
arobust, if not essential,
education for American food
lovers. As a Southerner, I’ve
made grits for years, but Mr.
Onwuachi’s carefully detailed
recipe showed me a different
way: Instead of dumping
everything in at once, he stirs
the grits with water, then
streams the mixture into
simmering milk for a result
that’s creamy and light. Pm
grateful for the lesson. ERICKIM

COOK AS YOU ARE:

RECIPES FOR REAL LIFE,

HUNGRY COOKS AND

MESSY KITCHENS

BY RUBY TANDOH

RUBY TANDOH

Cooly As

You eAre

PCHRD POR MEAL Lite, HUMOR CoH,

DYNAMITE KIDS
COOKING SCHOOL:
DELICIOUS RECIPES
THAT TEACH ALL THE
SKILLS YOU'LL NEED

BY DANA BOWEN AND

SARA KATE GILLINGHAM

RAMBUTAN: RECIPES
FROM SRILANKA

BY CYNTHIA
SHANMUGALINGAM

As soon as I started reading and

cooking from Ruby Tandoh’s
practical and generous new
book, “Cook as You Are”
(Knopf), I wanted to buy a copy
for just about everyone I know:
my 84-year-old friend who lives
alone and cooks most nights, my
cousins in their 30s who just had
a baby, my 17-year-old niece
applying to college. Ms. Tandoh
is a warm and deeply
considerate recipe writer who
understands that putting dinner
on the table is a daily necessity

that should bring you the

maximum amount of joy for the
Jeast amount of work. Her
recipes are clear, detailed and
easy to follow, and I love how
she squeezes in substitutions,
workarounds, shortcuts and
notes on storage and reheating
for each one. TEJAL RAO

There are a lot of children’s

cookbooks out there, but most
don’t pass muster with my kids,
who fancy themselves fairly
kitchen savvy. Some are too
complicated, others too
pedantic, but “Dynamite Kids
Cooking School” (Clarkson
Potter) by Dana Bowen and
Sara Kate Gillingham happily
straddles the line between fun
and educational. The
kid-friendly but not at all
babyish recipes — a Dutch baby,
pan-fried dumplings, lasagna

and salsa fresca — are ones that

my children want to cook and
the whole family can enjoy. Each
recipe teaches a tip or
technique, so readers can
bounce around among pages or
cook through the book from
start to finish like a cooking
class. There’s even a section on
pan sauces and mounting with
butter! My 10-year-old has
made the fresh pasta twice in
the last two weeks, and that
alone makes it worth the cover
price. MARGAUX LASKEY

“Rambutan” (Bloomsbury
Publishing) captures Cynthia
Shanmugalingam’s intimate
relationship with Sri Lankan
cuisine. The narratives are
personal and moving, the recipes
are inviting and approachable,
and the photography is
eye-catching and vibrant. Ms.
Shanmugalingam’s firm
instruction guided me as I
worked through parathas, curry
plantains, quick-pickled green
mangoes and her family’s aptly
named “love cake.” Trust her

voice: It’s there to lead you

through the beautiful cuisine of
Sri Lanka, from sourcing to
serving. But most rewarding
were her stories of immigrant
life and the rediscovery of the
self through food. I couldn’t wait
to return to the dishes,
described in her own words as
“the best recipes from my mum,
grandmother and all the
generous aunties and friends.”
Now go get some fresh curry
leaves! YEWANDE KOMOLAFE

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1604 278 4604
EOPYRGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

SAKA SAKA: ADVENTURES

IN AFRICAN COOKING,

SOUTH OF THE SAHARA

BY ANTO COCAGNE

SNACKABLE BAKES:
100 EASY-PEASY
RECIPES FOR
EXCEPTIONALLY
SCRUMPTIOUS
SWEETS AND TREATS

BY JESSIE SHEEHAN

TO THE LAST BITE:

RECIPES AND IDEAS FOR
MAKING THE MOST OF
YOUR INGREDIENTS

BY ALEXIS deBOSCHNEK

LO THE LAST BITE

“Saka Saka” (Interlink Books)

contains conversations with
artists and cultural icons from
across the African continent
alongside recipes inspired by
those conversations. The
collection strives to take readers
on a journey through East, West
and Central Africa. Anto
Cocagne’s solution to connecting
the cuisines south of the Sahara
is clever: Many of the base
sauces introduced in the
beginning of the book accent or
anchor the recipes throughout.

For example, the red nokoss, a

condiment, is the base for the
Central African red rice and is
used as a marinade for the
Ivorian rabbit kedjenou. By
revisiting these foundational
components, the recipes
highlight the versatility of the
regions’ ingredients.
Experienced cooks and those
with some familiarity of African
cuisines will feel challenged,
inspired and right at home.
YEWANDE KOMOLAFE

There are two camps in baking:

project bakers and on-the-fly
bakers. Some people really
enjoy making croissants, but
more often than not you just
need something delicious and
quick to bring to the gathering.
Jessie Sheehan gets that, which
is why she created a book of
low-effort, high-reward bakes
that look like you spent all day
on them, but that come together
in about an hour or so. In
“Snackable Bakes”
(Countryman Press) there is no

resting, chilling, proofing or

bain-marie-ing — just whisking
or mixing, setting and
forgetting. And though
dedicated project bakers might
not feel blown away by the
selection of simple but tasty
quick breads, muffins, cupcakes
and scones, there’s no denying
that sometimes there just aren’t
enough hours in the day — and
that’s when this cookbook will
be your best friend.

NIKITA RICHARDSON

It’s hard to know whether Alexis

deBoschnek has really
committed to the bit in “To the
Last Bite” (Simon & Schuster),
pitched as a guide to combating
climate change in the kitchen.
She tucks ideas at the end of
recipes that most efficient home
cooks already employ: Use a
spatchcock chicken carcass for
stock, make broth witha
Parmesan rind, use leftover red
onion in another recipe. But
even experienced cooks will find
a terrific, fresh cookbook from a

woman who made her name in

Buzzfeed Tasty videos before
returning to her roots in the
Catskills, where her mother had
taught her to grow food and
cook conscientiously. A puff
pastry pie with a jumble of
greens and herbs from the
refrigerator is endlessly
adaptable, and three members
of my household have already
made her tropical granola with
pecans, flakes of coconut and
nuggets of candied ginger.

KIM SEVERSON

SIMPLE PASTA:
PASTA MADE EASY.
LIFE MADE BETTER.

BY ODETTE WILLIAMS.

| Simple |
} Payee }

TOKYO UP LATE:
ICONIC RECIPES
FROM THE CITY
THAT NEVER SLEEPS

BY BRENDAN LIEW

Soon

THE VEGAN CHINESE

KITCHEN: RECIPES AND
MODERN STORIES FROM
A THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD
TRADITION

BY HANNAH CHE
If making homemade pasta
seems like one step too far into a
cheffy abyss, Odette Williams’s
new book, “Simple Pasta” (Ten
Speed Press), will change your
mind. The author of “Simple
Cake,” Ms. Williams streamlines
the pasta-making process,
removing every fussy obstacle.
She even makes a convincing
case for the soothing rhythm of
rolling out pasta dough by hand.
I tried it for her pansotti with
potatoes, leeks and Gruyére and
was surprised by how easy it
was. Ms. Williams's warm,
funny voice is encouraging and

thorough, but never judgmental.

If you don’t have the energy to
make the fresh stuff, she gets it:
“You can always use dried
pasta.” There are also dozens of
nonpasta recipes with stylish
twists, like a white Bolognese
with cannellini beans, burrata
with nectarines and cucumber,
and a killer sesame and honey
panna cotta. MELISSA CLARK

Many cookbooks delighted me

this year, but none delivered as
much openness and discovery in
the kitchen as Brendan Liew’s
“Tokyo Up Late” (Smith Street
Books). It’s a sharp look at
Tokyo nightlife through
carefully chosen recipes. The
dishes are recognizable
favorites, but there’s a real point
of view within them: rubbing
mayonnaise into your sticky rice
before frying it to separate the
grains, placing a
marinade-soaked towel over fish
so the yuzu-miso deliciousness

extends beyond the bottom. In

the basics section, there’s a

stovetop trick for onsen eggs,
those custardy soft-cooked eggs
that slip out of their shells like
oysters. This book is filled not
only with simple delights like
these, but also moments of
surprise. It’s in the step-by-step
instructions where you can
really understand a cook's voice
—and here, Mr. Liew’s is
vibrant. ERIC KIM

In “The Vegan Chinese Kitchen”

(Clarkson Potter), Hannah Che
chronicles her journey of
adopting a vegan diet in college
and the tension that arose when,
confronted with the seafood-
and meat-centric diet of her
parents, immigrants from
China. At first, she feared that
going vegan would alienate her
from her culture. Ultimately, she
realized that much of Chinese
food is inherently plant-based,
with a rich culture going back
thousands of years. She brings
that tradition to life in this book,
which is interspersed with

scenes from her time growing

up in China and the United
States, as well as culinary
history lessons. It’s a cookbook
for anyone who wants to
broaden their understanding of
Chinese cooking. There are two
chapters dedicated to tofu’s.
many forms and recipes
inspired by traditional Buddhist
temple dishes alongside recipes
from popular vegetarian
restaurants in China and much
more. KASIA PILAT

THE WOKS OF LIFE:

RECIPES TO KNOW AND
LOVE FROM A CHINESE
AMERICAN FAMILY

BY BILL, JUDY, SARAH AND

KAITLIN LEUNG
Bill, Judy, Sarah and Kaitlin
Leung, the family behind the
popular The Woks of Life blog,
have provided a wonderful
collection of classic Chinese
recipes in their first cookbook
(Clarkson Potter). I loved
learning how the recipes were
handed down through
generations and eventually
shared with their online

audience. In “The Woks of Life,”

the family offers an excellent
guide on kitchen tools, essential
pantry ingredients and key
techniques so you can
successfully execute every
recipe. While all of the recipes
are built on a similar base of
ingredients, they result in vastly
different flavor profiles. The salt
and pepper fried oyster
mushrooms are savory and
crunchy, and the vegan fuqi

feipian, which replaces beef with

seitan, is brightly spiced with
Sichuan pepper. Those who are
experienced in Chinese cooking,
as well as those who are cooking
Chinese food for the first time,
will find a lot to love.

NATASHA JANARDAN

How We Evaluated These Books

New York Times Food and

Cooking staff members reviewed

all of the books we considered

this year. Each book was read
cover-to-cover, and then one or
more testers chose at least two
recipes to cook at home. They
were asked to assess how easy it
was to find ingredients and to.
cook the recipes exactly as
written, determining not only
whether the recipes worked but
also whether they lived up to
their expectations. Each tester
provided detailed feedback of
their overall impression of the
book: How likely were they to
recommend it to a friend or

family member? Did it open their

eyes to a way of cooking they

hadn’t considered before? Did

they enjoy reading it and find the

visual elements compelling?

Were the recipes delicious, and
would they cook from the book
again? If they said yes to all, the
book landed on this list.We did
not test or include cookbooks

from writers who work with

New York Times Cooking or are
members of the New York
Times Food department to avoid
conflicts of interest. You can find
their works highlighted below.

BOOKS FROM NEW YORK

TIMES STAFF AND
CONTRIBUTORS

mw “Boards and Spreads:

Shareable, Simple
Arrangements for Every Meal”
(Clarkson Potter) by Yasmin
Fahr

mw ‘Dinner in One: Exceptional &

Easy One-Pan Meals” (Clarkson
Potter) by Melissa Clark

mw “Food52 Simply Genius:

Recipes for Beginners, Busy
Cooks & Curious People” (Ten
Speed Press) by Kristen
Miglore (with NYT Cooking
recipe developers)

m “I Dream of Dinner (So You

Don’t Have To): Low-Effort,
High-Reward Recipes”
(Clarkson Potter) by Ali Slagle
gw “Korean American: Food That
Tastes Like Home” (Clarkson
Potter) by Eric Kim

mw “Mi Cocina: Recipes and

Rapture From My Kitchen in
México” (Clarkson Potter) by
Rick Martinez

w “Ottolenghi Test Kitchen:

Extra Good Things” (Clarkson
Potter) by Noor Murad and
Yotam Ottolenghi

w “Watermelon & Red Birds: A

Cookbook for Juneteenth and
Black Celebrations” (Simon &
Schuster) by Nicole A. Taylor
mw “What's for Dessert: Simple
Recipes for Dessert People”
(Clarkson Potter) by Claire
Saffitz

mw “The Wok: Recipes and

Techniques” (W. W. Norton &
Company) by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

a:

| p pressreade:
Di4 N

THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

Sugary Secrets: Getting Candy Just Right

Foolproof ways to conjure

three festive confections.

By CLAIRE SAFFITZ

I won't sugarcoat it: Making candy is tricky.

Of all the pastry arts, confectionery, the

art of making sugar-based sweets, is an es-
pecially finicky category. But if you have the
will and the ambition, not to mention the
sweet tooth, to try, you'll be rewarded with
sweets that feel like sorcery in the kitchen.

Because candy is eminently giftable and

winter’s drier air makes it a more favorable
time to make it, the holidays present a great
opportunity for first-time confectioners.

The three recipes here are an especially

good place to start exploring, because they
offer a variety of styles, flavors, textures

Tricky Timing, Tender Nougat

and techniques.

Novices might begin with fudge, which is

a bit simpler than other confections be-
cause all of the ingredients are cooked to-
gether in a single process. Chewy caramels
are an intermediate candy, requiring two
cooking processes, and nougat is the most
advanced, incorporating two cooking pro-
cesses and whipped egg whites.

Before you begin, you'll need a candy

thermometer, which is essential for accu-
rate temperature readings. (To make sure
it’s calibrated correctly, place it in boiling
water: It should read 212 degrees.) You'll
also want to use a heavy saucepan with
thick walls, which will promote even cook-
ing and protect against scorching, as well as
a kitchen scale to precisely measure your
ingredients.

Nougat falls into a third category known as aerated confections, which are made
with
whipped egg whites. You'll need a stand mixer to work air into the nougat for two
reasons.
First, it requires quite a bit of power. But you'll also want your hands to be
free, since you'll
need to stream two different cooked sugar mixtures into the egg whites in quick
succession.
Because the timing can be tricky, make sure you're organized and pay close
attention to the
recipe. Honey is the primary flavor of nougat, and because honey’s flavor degrades
at high
temperatures, it’s cooked separately from the sugar syrup and added to the egg
whites first.
After the sugar syrup is added and the nougat is fully whipped, a small quantity of
fat is
added, which tenderizes it, followed by lots of toasted pistachios, which offset
the intense
sweetness (nougat tends to be very sweet). I also keep the proportion of sugar
relatively low,
which results in a softer, more marshmallowy nougat. It can be a bit sticky when
slicing, so I
recommend chilling the nougat beforehand and using an oiled knife. Wrap the
finished can-
dies in squares of wax paper or foil candy wrappers, then pack into tins, boxes or
jars.
(Fudge, in particular, has a tendency to dry out, so make sure it’s wrapped
airtight.) Finally,
gift them to friends and family, who will think you’ve worked magic.

NOUGAT WITH HONEY AND

PISTACHIOS

TIME: 45 MINUTES, PLUS AT LEAST 6 HOURS’ COOLING

YIELD: ABOUT 50 PIECES.

Vegetable oil spray

2% cups/314 grams shelled, skinless
pistachios (see Tip)
large egg whites
tablespoon/13 grams plus 144
cups/250 grams granulated sugar
4% teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond
Crystal)

4 cup/87 grams light corn syrup

¥% cup/188 grams honey

3 tablespoons refined coconut oil or

cocoa butter, melted
teaspoons vanilla extract

Bw

1. Prepare the pan: Lightly coat the inside of an

8-inch square pan with vegetable oil spray. Line
the bottom and sides with parchment paper,
smoothing to eliminate air bubbles, then lightly
spray the parchment paper. Set the pan aside.
2. Toast the nuts: Heat the oven to 350
degrees. Scatter the pistachios on a rimmed
baking sheet and toast, tossing once, until
they're golden and fragrant, 8 to 10 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees,
then remove the pistachios from the oven, and
let them cool on the baking sheet for 5
minutes. If needed, wrap loosely ina clean
kitchen towel and rub off as much of their skins
as you can. Turn off the oven, and return the
baking sheet to the still-warm oven to keep the
nuts warm.

3. Prepare to make the nougat: Combine the

egg whites, 1 tablespoon/13 grams sugar and
the salt in the bow! of a stand mixer fitted with
the whisk attachment. In a small, heavy
saucepan, combine the corn syrup, remaining
1% cups/250 grams sugar and 44 cup/57
grams water, and set aside. Fill a glass with
water, place a pastry brush inside, and set
aside.

4. Cook and stream in the honey: Place the

honey in a separate small saucepan and clip a
candy thermometer to the side. Bring the
honey to a boil over medium heat and cook,
swirling the saucepan occasionally. When the
honey reaches 235 degrees, turn the mixer on
medium-low and beat the egg white mixture
until the whites are broken up, about 20
seconds, then increase the speed to
medium-high and continue to beat until the
mixture forms medium peaks, about 1 minute.
When the honey registers 248 degrees, remove
the saucepan from the heat and, with the mixer
on medium-high, very slowly stream the honey
into the egg white mixture, pouring it down the
side of the bowl and avoiding the whisk to

prevent splatter. Continue to beat on

medium-high until the mixer bow! is warm (not
hot) to the touch.

5. Meanwhile, cook and stream in the sugar:

While the egg white mixture is whipping, set
the saucepan with the sugar mixture over
medium-high heat and stir gently with a
heatproof spatula just until sugar dissolves to
form a clear syrup, about 2 minutes. Let the
mixture come to a boil and use the wet pastry
brush to brush down the sides of the saucepan
to dissolve any stuck-on sugar crystals. (Don't
forget to check the egg white mixture and turn
off the mixer whenever necessary.) Clip the
candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan
(it's OK if it's coated in honey), reduce the heat
to medium and boil the mixture without stirring,
occasionally swirling the saucepan, until it
registers 310 degrees, then remove from the
heat immediately. With the mixer running on
medium-high speed, stream the sugar mixture
into the bow! just as you did the honey. Once
you've added all of the sugar mixture, increase
the speed to high and continue to beat until the
sides of the bowl are warm but not hot and the
mixture is very thick, dense and voluminous,
about 4 minutes (the mixer might strain against
the mixture).

6. Finish the nougat: Turn off the mixer, add the

melted coconut oil or cocoa butter and vanilla
to the bowl, and beat on high just until the
nougat is smooth. (The mixture will separate
but then come back together, which is normal.)
Turn off the mixer and remove the bowl.
Remove the nuts from the oven and add to the
bowl, then fold the nougat with a large flexible
spatula until the nuts are evenly distributed.
Scrape the nougat into the prepared pan and
smooth the surface, working it into an even
layer all the way to the sides and corners.
Cover the nougat with a piece of parchment
Paper sprayed with more oil and smooth, then
let it sit at room temperature until it’s
completely set, at least 6 hours but preferably
overnight.

7. Cut the nougat: Uncover the nougat and use

the parchment paper to lift it out of the pan and
transfer it to a cutting board. Use a serrated or
chef's knife coated in vegetable oil spray to cut
the slab into quarters in one direction, then
slice each third crosswise into 42-inch pieces to
make about 50 pieces.

Tips: Skinless pistachios are sometimes sold as

“blanched.” They might not be available in
typical grocery stores, but can be found at
specialty grocers. You can also roast regular
shelled pistachios, then simply rub off as much
of the skins as you can with a kitchen towel.

The nougat, stored airtight at room

temperature, will keep for up to 1 week.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LINDA XIAO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOODSTYLIST: BRETT REGOT.

The Finer Points of Fudge

The properties of sucrose, the chemical name for sugar, are central to candy
making: You're
managing many ofits attributes, but specifically, its tendency to crystallize.
Fudge, for exam-
ple, is a crystalline candy, meaning that the sugar is encouraged to crystallize as
the mixture
cools. First, though, sugar, milk, cocoa powder, corn syrup and honey are cooked
together to a
stage known as “soft ball.” The temperature range for a soft ball consistency is
235 degrees to
239 degrees. And, while you should use a thermometer, there's another test: Dribble
some of
the mixture into cold water, let it cool for a second or two, then fish it out and
roll it between
your fingers. It should form a malleable ball that holds its shape but flattens
easily when
pressed (hence the name!). Once the mixture reaches this soft ball stage, it’s
transferred toa
bowl, where unsweetened chocolate and butter are added. The mixture is left to cool
before
it’s agitated with a hand mixer, which initiates crystallization. The agitation
breaks up the
sugar crystals into tiny particles so they dissolve on the tongue, resulting in
fudge that’s.
creamy, not grainy. Too much agitation will make the fudge crumbly, so pay
attention as
you're beating the mixture and stop when it loses its sheen. The change can be
subtle, so if

you're not sure, mix less rather than more.

CHOCOLATE FUDGE

TIME: 1 HOUR 15 MINUTES, PLUS AT LEAST 3 HOURS’

RESTING
YIELD: 36 PIECES

2 cups/227 grams walnut or pecan

halves or pieces
Vegetable oil spray
4 ounces/113 grams unsweetened
chocolate (100 percent cacao),
chopped
3 tablespoons/42 grams unsalted butter,
cut into pieces
1% teaspoons kosher salt (such as
Diamond Crystal)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups/400 grams granulated sugar
% cup/21 grams unsweetened cocoa
powder
1 cup/240 grams whole milk
% cup/85 grams light corn syrup
2 tablespoons/42 grams honey

1. Toast the nuts: Heat the oven to 350

degrees. Scatter the walnuts or pecans on a
rimmed baking sheet and toast, tossing once,
until they’re golden brown and fragrant, 8 to 10
minutes. Let the nuts cool on the baking sheet.
Coarsely chop, then set the nuts aside.
Conquering Caramels

Chewy caramels, alternatively, are noncrystalline candies, meaning

the sugar is prevented from recrystallizing as it cooks, yielding a
smooth consistency. Their two-step process starts with cooking the
sugar to. a deep amber color, so it develops complex, bittersweet
flavors (the darker the color, the less sweet the candies). During this
step, you'll want to avoid stirring the mixture and wipe down the
sides of the saucepan with a wet pastry brush to dissolve any sugar
crystals, which could initiate crystallization. The inclusion of corn
syrup, a functional ingredient in candy making, is intentional and
necessary: It contains mostly glucose, a common ingredient in
noncrystalline candies, for its crystallization-inhibiting properties.
Don’t omit it (from this or any other candy recipe where it appears).
Once you've cooked a dark caramel, cream and butter are added to
halt the cooking. (I infuse the cream with coffee, which, though
optional, further counters the sweetness.) Then it’s cooked again to
a temperature between medium-ball stage and firm-ball stage,
depending on how you like your caramels: 250 degrees results in
softer, slightly oozier caramels, while 255 degrees results in firmer,
chewier caramels. It’s up to you.

ONLINE: AS CHEWY AS YOU LIKE (OR DON'T!)

} Find Claire Saffitz’s recipe for salted caramels, and many more:
hytcooking.com

2. Prepare the pan: Lightly spray the inside of

an 8-inch square pan with vegetable oil spray.
Line the bottom and sides with parchment
paper, smoothing to eliminate air bubbles, then
lightly spray the parchment paper. Set the pan
aside.

3. Melt the chocolate mixture: Fill a large,

heavy saucepan with about an inch of water
and bring to a simmer. In a large heatproof
bowl (big enough to sit atop the saucepan and
not touch the water), combine the chocolate,
butter and salt, and set the bowl over the
saucepan. Stir the mixture with a flexible
spatula until completely melted and smooth,
then carefully remove the bowl from the heat.
Stir in the vanilla extract, then set the bowl
aside.

4. Cook the sugar mixture: Empty and dry the

saucepan, and have at the ready a clean pastry
brush, a spoon, a small bow! filled with very
cold water and a separate large bowl. Add the
sugar and cocoa powder to the saucepan, and
whisk to combine and eliminate any lumps,
then add the milk, corn syrup and honey. Set
the saucepan over medium heat and stir the
sugar mixture gently with a heatproof spatula
until the sugar is mostly dissolved and it starts
to bubble at the sides.
5. Before the mixture comes to a rolling boil,
dip the pastry brush in water and use the wet
bristles to brush down the sides of the
saucepan and dissolve any stuck-on sugar
crystals. Let the mixture come to a boil, then
clip a candy thermometer to the side of the
saucepan. Boil the mixture without stirring,
occasionally swirling the saucepan gently and
brushing down the sides of the saucepan with
the wet pastry brush if you see crystals forming
as it reduces. (This is to prevent crystallization,
which would produce a crumbly, grainy fudge.)

6. Test the mixture for “soft ball”: When the

mixture reaches 235 degrees, reduce the heat
to low and continue to cook. When it reaches
238 degrees, spoon about 44 teaspoon of the
mixture into the bowl of cold water and let it
coal for a few seconds, then fish it out and
work it into a ball between your fingertips (the
mixture can still be cooking meanwhile). If it
forms a ball that holds its shape but flattens
easily between your fingertips, the mixture is
ready. If it is too soft to hold its shape, continue
to cook over low until it reaches 240 degrees
and repeat the soft ball test. Once you reach
the soft ball stage, remove the saucepan from
the heat and pour the mixture into the separate
large bowl but do not scrape the bottom or
sides.

7. Let the mixture cool and beat the fudge:

Scrape the reserved chocolate mixture into the
bowl with the sugar mixture but do not stir.
Thoroughly rinse and dry the candy
thermometer, then clip it to the side of the
bowl. Let the mixture cool until it registers 115
degrees, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the
thermometer, then beat the mixture with a
hand mixer on medium-low speed until it loses
its shine and becomes creamy, 8 to 10
minutes. Stop the mixer, add the nuts and fold
quickly with a flexible spatula until the nuts are
distributed evenly. Working quickly, scrape the
fudge into the prepared pan and smooth the
surface, working it into an even layer all the
way to the sides and corners. Let the fudge sit
at room temperature until it’s firm, at least 3
hours.

8. Cut the fudge: Use the parchment paper to

lift the slab of fudge out of the pan and transfer
to a cutting board. Use a chef's knife to cut the
slab in half in both directions to make 4 equal
squares, then cut each square into a 3-by-3
grid for a total of 36 squares.

Tip: The fudge will keep, well wrapped and

stored airtight at room temperature to prevent
drying, for 1 week.

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESSREADER

PressReader.com +1 604 278 460.

[ p pressreade:
THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022 N

D15

A Warsaw Bakery Bistro,

Jewish bread and pastries sit

right next to French favorites.

By JOAN NATHAN

WARSAW — In this city, where more than

350,000 Jews once lived, the past reverber-
ates.

Justyna Kosmala, an owner of the Char-

lotte chain of bakeries, remembers her par-
ents and grandparents telling of the compli-
cated history between Polish Jews and non-
Jews, ties that stretch back to the Middle
Ages and include the death of three million
Polish Jews and 1.9 million non-Jews in the
Holocaust. “The memory of what happened
is around us our whole life,” she said.

Ms. Kosmala, 41, is part of a generation of

Poles who grew up under the shadow of that
dark history. For her, a way to move forward
is in preserving Jewish culture — particu-
larly Jewish food, whose influence runs
deep in Polish cuisine — and offering a
space for dialogue. “Maybe common, every-
day life things, like food that we had in com-
mon, will draw us together,” she said.

Raised Catholic, Ms. Kosmala studied po-

litical science in Aix-en-Provence, France,
before taking an internship with the office
of the Polish representative to the Euro-
pean Union in Brussels, where she spent
time at coffee shops, like Le Pain Quotidien.
The experience inspired her to open some-
thing similar in Warsaw: a space where
ideas could be shared at a communal table,
over a cup of coffee.

Years later, in 2011, a friend approached

her to start a French bistro, bakery and cof-
fee shop. They chose the name Charlotte,
evoking a French influence.

One Charlotte soon became two (now

there are six), and an opportunity came
along in 2016 to collaborate with the Polin
Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

The museum offered Ms. Kosmala and

her partners a space for a new coffee shop
and bakery bistro, and encouraged them to
include Jewish items on the menu. Soon af-
ter, a branch of Charlotte, called Charlotte
Menora, a French bakery bistro with a Pol-
ish-Ashkenazic twist, opened in Polin’s ad-
joining space on Grzybowski Square. The
positioning is symbolic: It is in the heart of
the former Warsaw Ghetto, which was es-
tablished in 1940, before the Jewish popula-
tion was decimated. (There are only a few
thousand Jews in Warsaw today.)

Before opening Charlotte Menora, Ms.

Kosmala sought counsel from Michael
Schudrich, the rabbi at the nearby Nozyk
Synagogue and the chief rabbi of Poland.
She and her partners also traveled to Tel
Aviv in search of the Jewish food that ex-
isted in Poland before World War II. But, to
their surprise, they could not find it. In-
stead, they found only Israeli food — and an
idea: selling traditional French favorites
side by side with beloved Jewish pastries.
(Thierry Marx, a French Jewish chef whose
family comes from Poland, is also doing this
in his chic Parisian bakeries.)

For Charlotte Menora, Ms. Kosmala, who

serves as the Charlotte chain’s culinary ad-
viser, found inspiration in the Polin’s col-
lection of books and recipes. She piles slices
of pastrami on a half bagel with sweet on-
ions and sour pickles, loads her rugelach
dough with local farmer cheese instead of
cream cheese, and pairs latkes with créme
fraiche and trout caviar. Also on the menuis
her family’s bread pudding, made with chal-
lah or babka and flavored with Polish poppy
seeds and chocolate. (The use of challah is
especially notable, illustrating a shared cu-
linary history: Served on the Sabbath and
at Jewish holidays, it’s an everyday bread in
Poland, widely found in supermarkets.)

Since opening, Charlotte Menora moved

around the corner from its original location,
and a second location is opening soon in
Krakow, serving the more-inflated Ameri-
can style of bagels of today, rather than
slimmer, similar-looking Krakow pretzels.

And teaming with the Polin, Charlotte

Menora celebrates Hanukkah with paczki
(pronounced ponchki and ponchkes in Yid-
dish), doughnuts filled with strawberry
jam; potato latkes; and lit Hanukkah can-
dies in the window, a Jewish custom for cen-
turies in Poland. American-style bagels,
rugelach and chocolate-raspberry babka
are starting to appear in the other Char-
lottes and in bakeries across Warsaw.

“Jewish history is part of our history,” Ms.

Kosmala said. “I can just say to remember,
it is our place to change — for us, for our
children.”

CHALLAH BREAD PUDDING

RECIPE FROM CHARLOTTE MENORA

TIME: 30 MINUTES:
YIELD: 4T0 6 SERVINGS

2 cups/480 milliliters heavy cream

3 large eggs

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 tablespoons poppy seeds

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch of fine salt

8 to 10 (34-inch-thick) slices of challah

(about 12 ounces)

3 tablespoons 70 percent bittersweet

chocolate chips or chunks

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Ina wide bowl, whisk together the cream,

eggs, 3 tablespoons sugar, 142 tablespoons
poppy seeds, the vanilla, 34 teaspoon
cinnamon and the salt. Working with one slice
at a time, thoroughly dip the bread in the
mixture, then stand each piece vertically in a
deep, 9-inch or equivalent attractive baking
pan or baking dish. Fill in any holes with cut-up
pieces of dipped bread and pour any leftover
cream into the baking pan. (If not baking

a lwist

Justyna Kosmala, an
owner of the Charlotte
chain of bakeries, was
raised Catholic but is
helping to preserve
* =< Jewish culture in Poland.
‘ANNA LIMINOWICZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

immediately, cover and refrigerate up to 24

hours.)

3. Sprinkle the chocolate chips, remaining 4

tablespoon poppy seeds and remaining +4
teaspoon cinnamon on top and around the
bread. Brush the butter on top and sprinkle
with the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar.

.
DAVID MALOSH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOOD STYLIST: HADAS SMIRNOFF.

4. Bake on the middle rack for 20 minutes,

then broil on high for 1 to 2 minutes, watching
closely, until the very top gets a bit of burned
color. Serve immediately.

MELISSA CLARK | A GOOD APPETITE

The Sweeter Side

Of Noodle Kugel

A recipe celebrates a classic

that’s remarkably adaptable.

FOR MOST KUGEL LOVERS, the very best ver-

sion is whatever you grew up eating.
Whether you were raised on savory,
schmailtz-laden potato kugel or sour cream-
slathered noodle kugel dotted with raisins,
there’s very little crossover where kugel is
concerned.

This recipe is for all the sweet noodle

kugel enthusiasts out there. A mix of wide
ribbons of egg noodles, sour cream and cot-
tage cheese, it’s about as classic as the
dairy-filled versions come.

It’s also adaptable. You can add raisins or

other dried fruit, or skip them. Feel free to
use more sugar or less, depending on your
taste, and, while I think a little cinnamon is
nonnegotiable in every noodle pudding, you
can substitute other spices or even grated
jemon zest to brighten everything up.

To make the interior as plush and cheese-

cake-like as possible, I purée the cottage
cheese and sour cream until silky. If you
prefer obvious curds amid the curling noo-
dies, you can skip that step and just whisk
together the eggs, cottage cheese and sour
cream before mixing in the noodles. Should
you find a brick or two of old-fashioned
farmer cheese, you can substitute it for the
cottage cheese. It makes for a slightly
firmer, milkier kugel with a mild tang.

As for a topping, some kugel cooks like to

sprinkle cornflakes, bread crumbs or
chopped nuts over the pudding. But easier
— and I think better — is to leave the noo-
dles exposed. In the oven, their tips singe
and brown, turning irresistibly crisp. A little
melted butter drizzled on before baking is
allyou need to help this along. Just try not to
pick them all off the top before serving.

My Aunt Martha used to take her

crunchy kugel to the furthest degree, bak-
ing her noodle mix in muffin cups when I
was growing up, which made them crisp
through and through. Another crunch-for-
ward strategy is to spread the mixture in a
shallow sheet pan instead of a casserole
dish, increasing the surface area.

For this recipe, which could be lovely fora

celebratory Hanukkah dinner, I kept the
casserole dish in play. Its depth gives you a
contrast between the creamy, supple under-
layer of kugel and its pleasingly golden
crown of noodle shards on top. It’s arguably
the best of both worlds, a classic iteration
for the noodle kugel universe.

CLASSIC NOODLE KUGEL

TIME: 1% HOURS
YIELD: 8 TO 12 SERVINGS

4% teaspoon fine salt, plus more as

needed

10 tablespoons/ 142 grams unsalted

butter, melted

12 ounces/340 grams extra-wide egg

noodles

24% cup/106 grams raisins or diced dried

apricots, dates, apples or prunes

(optional)

large eges

cups/ 454 grams cottage cheese

cups/454 grams sour cream

¥% to % cup/66 grams to 132 grams light

brown sugar, depending upon how
sweet you like your kugel

¥% cup/79 milliliters whole milk

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, cardamom

or ginger or a combination, or use

grated lemon zest

44 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg or

black pepper (optional)

NNO

1. Place a rimmed sheet pan in the oven and

heat to 350 degrees. Bring a large pot of salted
water to a boil.

2. Grease a 2% quart baking dish or a

9-by-13-inch pan with 2 tablespoons melted
butter.

3. Add noodles to the boiling water and cook

according to the package directions until just
tender. Put the raisins or dried fruit, if using,

into a colander.

4. As the noodles cook, combine the eggs,

cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar, milk,
cinnamon, nutmeg or pepper (if using), and 42
teaspoon salt in a blender or food processor.
Pulse until well combined. Pulse in about 6
tablespoons of the butter, saving about 2
tablespoons for the top of the kugel.

5. When noodles are done, drain them in the

colander over the raisins. The boiling water
helps plump the raisins. Add drained noodles
(and any raisins) to a large bowl, add the
cottage cheese mixture, and use a spatula to
mix well.

6. Scrape into the prepared pan, evenly

spreading out the noodles. Drizzle with
remaining melted butter. Place the kugel on the
baking sheet in the oven. Bake for 45 to 55

minutes, until the top is browned in spots.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool for at least 20
minutes before serving.

7
"APPLICABLE LAW

PressReader.com +1 604 278 4604

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECT!

PRINTED AND DISTRIBUTED BY PRESS READER

[ p pressreade:
D16 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2022

The Finest Holiday Cakes Are the Simplest

Fruity, spiced and savory, these

recipes will make everyone in
your house feel at home.

By DORIE GREENSPAN

In this month of freshly fried doughnuts,

Christmas cookies and yule logs swathed in
buttercream, it’s easy to forget the charms of
the simplest cakes, the ones that sit on the
kitchen counter unadorned and out of the
spotlight. Everything that makes these
cakes satisfying is baked right into them.

The term kitchen cakes sometimes refers

to cakes at weddings set aside in the venue's
kitchen. I think of them as easygoing cakes
that make holidays sweeter and easier.
Rarely frosted and never elaborately deco-
rated, they offer so much pleasure in their
simplicity. A warm welcome, too. Having a
cake within reach of everyone who passes
through the kitchen (and everyone will) is a
way to make the people you care about feel
truly at home.

These three recipes are among my favor-

ites. Like all of the best kitchen cakes, they’re
good keepers, meant to stay out to be eaten
over a few days. Since they’re self-service
treats, they slice easily and hold their good
looks as they get smaller and smaller.
(Should they last long enough to go a bit
stale, they can be warmed or toasted.) And,
of course, they’re easy to make — the last
thing a baker needs now is a cake that calls
for coddling.

This tall and tender cranberry spice

Bundt is a textbook example of a kitchen
cake: beautiful straight from the oven, a little
spiffier with cranberry icing and tempting
either way. It has the look of a classic, but it
holds a surprise: It’s flavored with car-
damom, coriander and ginger, spices that
ping and stand up tothe pucker of fresh cran-
berries. With a combination of butter and oil,
and the addition of yogurt, it has a soft
crumb, But the yogurt can be sour cream or
buttermilk, and the spice can be warming
cinnamon. You can even swap the cranber-
ries for berries or a mix of dried fruit.
The Bundt is a morning to midnight cake,
good with coffee, tea or even milk, and so is
this baked-in-a-skillet gingerbread. The se-
cret ingredient here is apple butter (you can
make your own, or buy a jar), a great com-
panion to ginger, cinnamon and cloves and
part of the reason the cake holds so well. It’s
another recipe you can riff on, skipping the
cinnamon and cloves and going with some
grated or chopped fresh ginger. You can add
pieces of fresh apple, raisins or bits of prunes
to the batter, and you can glaze it. Chocolate
and gingerbread are an unbeatable combi-
nation (think about ganache for a topping).
No matter what you do, whenever you bake
it, you get a bonus: Your house will smell like
Christmas for hours.

Because there’s no rule book for kitchen

cakes, there’s nothing that says that they
can’t be savory. This loaf, speckled with
roasted red pepper, ham and three cheeses
(fontina, mozzarella and Parmesan), can be
cut into slices, fingers or little squares for
nibbling along with a glass of wine (try it
with a sparkler) or grabbed as a go-along for
soup or a salad. If you keep the basic propor-
tions, you can play with the elements: Swap
the olive oil for something that tastes neu-
tral; trade the chives for scallions or
chopped shallots; skip the herbs or change
them; use pancetta instead of ham; and
don’t think twice about rounding up a differ-
ent assortment of cheeses that soften, melt
and get delectably gooey in the oven.

HAM AND CHEESE QUICK BREAD

TIME: 65 MINUTES, PLUS COOLING

YIELD: 8 TO 10 SERVINGS

Butter or nonstick baker's spray, for the

pan
2 cups/272 grams all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
34 teaspoon fine sea salt
1% teaspoon red pepper flakes (or to taste)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg white, at room temperature
1% cup whole milk, at room temperature
% cup olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
4 ounces/ 115 grams shredded
mozzarella, preferably low-moisture (42
cup)
ounces/85 grams fontina, cut into
small (44- to 44-inch) cubes (2% cup)
ounces/85 grams ham or pancetta, cut
into %4-inch cubes (42 cup)
2 whole roasted red peppers (about 214
ounces/70 grams), halved, patted dry
and finely chopped*

ow

CRANBERRY SPICE BUNDT CAKE

TIME: 144 HOURS, PLUS COOLING

YIELD: 12 SERVINGS

For the Cake:

% cup/170 grams unsalted butter, at
room temperature and cut into chunks
(plus more for the pan if not using
nonstick baker's spray)

2% cups/320 grams all-purpose flour (plus

more for the pan if not using nonstick
baker's spray)
teaspoons baking powder
teaspoon fine sea salt
teaspoon baking soda
1%4 teaspoons ground cardamom
teaspoon ground coriander
teaspoon ground ginger
1% cups/300 grams granulated sugar

Finely grated zest of 1 orange or 2

small tangerines.
¥3 cup/80 milliliters neutral oil

3 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup/235 grams plain Greek yogurt, at

room temperature and drained of

excess liquid, if necessary

2 cups/200 grams fresh or frozen

(unthawed) cranberries, coarsely

chopped

Rw

eS

For the Icing:

244 cups/275 grams confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon (maybe a
bit more) cranberry or pomegranate
juice

1. Center a rack in the oven and heat it to 350

degrees.

2. Prepare the cake: Butter a large (12- to

13-cup) Bundt pan, dust the interior with flour
and tap out the excess, or coat the pan with
nonstick baker's spray.

3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt

and baking soda and then whisk in the
cardamom, coriander and ginger; set aside.

4. Put the granulated sugar in the bowl of a

stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment
or in a large mixing bowl that will work with an
electric mixer. Add the zest and, using your
fingertips, rub it into the sugar until you catch a
whiff of orange. Drop in the butter. Beat the
sugar and butter together on medium-high
speed for 3 to 4 minutes, until pale, creamy
and fluffy. Pour in the oil and beat for a couple
of minutes more to blend it in well, turn off the
mixer and scrape the bowl and beater(s).

5. One by one, beat in the eggs, beating for a

minute after each egg goes in. Beat in the
vanilla — the mixture will look like frosting —
then blend in the yogurt on low speed. Turn off
the mixer, scrape the bowl and beater(s) well

PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID MALOSH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. FOOD STYLIST: HADAS SMIRNOFF

and add half the flour mixture. Working on low,

mix until the dry ingredients are almost
incorporated. Turn the mixer off, add the
remaining flour mixture and, again, beat until
almost blended. It’s fine if you can still see flour
here and there. Working by hand with a flexible
spatula, fold in the cranberries and any
remaining flour. Scrape the batter into the pan
and push it gently into the pan's curves,
leveling the top as best as you can.

6. Bake the cake for 55 to 60 minutes, until a

tester inserted comes out clean. The cake will
be deeply golden brown and pull away from the
sides of the pan when prodded. Transfer the
pan to a rack, let rest for 5 minutes and then
unmold the cake onto the rack. Allow it to come
to room temperature before icing.

7. Make the icing: Put the confectioners’ sugar

in a medium bowl and sprinkle over the juice.
Stir the juice into the sugar. You're aiming for
an icing that flows easily off the side of a
spoon. If needed, add more juice by droplets.
Either keep the cake on the rack and slip a
piece of parchment or a sheet pan under the
rack to catch drips, or transfer the cake toa
platter. Spoon the icing over the cake, allowing
it to run down the sides. Let the icing dry before
serving. Covered, the cake will keep at room
temperature for at least 4 days. (If you haven't
glazed the cake, it can be wrapped well and
frozen for up to 2 months; defrost, still
wrapped, at room temperature.)

SKILLET GINGERBREAD CAKE WITH

APPLE BUTTER

¥% cup/45 grams finely chopped

crystallized ginger (see Tip)
2 tablespoons sanding sugar, for topping

4. Add half the flour mixture and, still working

‘on low, mix until it just disappears into the
batter. Blend in the buttermilk, followed by the

TIME: 1 HOUR, PLUS COOLING (optional) remainder of the flour mixture. When it’s
almost
YIELD: 12 TO 16 SERVINGS. 3 tablespoons Swedish pearl sugar, for incorporated, mix
in the ginger. You'll have a
topping (optional) thick batter. Scrape it into the skillet, nudging it

Nonstick baker's spray or cooking

spray, for the pan
2% cups/288 grams all-purpose flour
1% cup/60 grams whole wheat flour
¥% teaspoon baking soda
¥ teaspoon fine sea salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
14 teaspoon ground cloves.
3% cup/135 grams granulated sugar
4 cup/75 grams packed brown sugar
(light or dark)
5 tablespoons/70 grams unsalted butter,
at room temperature
¥s cup/80 milliliters neutral oil
1 large egg, at room temperature
¥_ cup/80 milliliters unsulfured molasses
% cup/160 liters apple butter
¥ cup/60 milliliters buttermilk, at room
temperature

1. Center a rack in the oven and heat the oven

to 350 degrees. Coat a 10-inch (7-cup) cast
iron skillet with bakers’ or cooking spray and set
aside.

2. Whisk the all-purpose and whole wheat

flours together with the baking soda, salt and
spices.

3. Working in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted

with the paddle attachment, beat the
granulated and brown sugars and the butter
together at medium speed for about 3 minutes.
The mixture will be pasty and that’s fine. Pour
in the oil and beat for another 2 minutes. (Don't
wash the measuring cup before using it for the
molasses. The oily residue will help the
molasses slide out of the cup easily.) Add the
egg and beat for a minute. With the mixer on
low, beat in the molasses followed by the apple
butter.

into the corners of the pan and smoothing the

top. If using, sprinkle over the sanding sugar
then top with the pearl sugar.

5. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the top of

the gingerbread is uniformly puffed, the cake
starts to pull away from the sides of the pan
and, most important, a tester inserted into the
center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer
the skillet to a rack and let the cake cool until
it’s just warm or reaches room temperature
before cutting. Left in the skillet and well
covered, the cake will keep at room
temperature for about 5 days.

Tip: The crystallized ginger needs to be moist

and pliable. If it’s not, soak it in hot water for 30
seconds, drain and pat dry.

74 ounce/20 grams shredded Parmesan

(3 tablespoons), plus more for
sprinkling

3 tablespoons snipped chives

1 teaspoon fresh thyme, finely chopped

1. Center a rack in the oven and heat the oven

to 350 degrees. Butter an 842- by 44-inch loaf
pan (glass or metal) or coat it with bakers’
spray. Line it with parchment paper, running
the paper along the bottom and up the long
sides of the pan. Leave extra paper on the long
sides; they make good handles for removing
the loaf from the pan.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour,

baking powder, salt and pepper flakes.

3. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs and

egg white, the milk, olive oil and honey until
well combined.

4. In another bowl, fold together the

mozzarella, fontina, ham, peppers, Parmesan,
chives and thyme to combine, breaking up any
cheese cubes that have stuck together.

5. Pour the liquid ingredients over the flour

mixture and, using a flexible spatula, stir a few
times, just to get things started. Top with the
cheese and ham mixture and, using as few
strokes as possible, mix them in. Be gentle and
don't be too diligent — it’s better to have a few
dryish spots than to overmix the batter. Scrape
the batter into the pan, level the top and
sprinkle with a little Parmesan.

6. Bake for about 50 minutes if using a glass

dish (you may need to bake it slightly longer if
using metal), until the bread is golden brown
and a tester inserted into the center comes out
clean. Because of all the cheese, you could
easily mistake a bit of cheese for a wet spot. If
you've got an instant-read thermometer, you
might want to test with it: the loaf should
register 195 degrees. Transfer the pan toa
rack and let sit for about 5 minutes before
unmolding. Remove the paper and allow the
loaf to come to room temperature on the rack.
Wrapped well, the cake will keep for about 3
days at room temperature. It can be frozen for
up to 1 month.

COPYRIGHT AND PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW

g
+
2
gz
a
+
S
3
+
—
8

z
5
a
Z
5
8
z
z
=
5
a
e
2
2
3
E
=

PressRead

er

[arrests