to social divides shots are fired, · last night i told my wife i would take a bullet for the kids,...

VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,879 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2018

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SAN FRANCISCO — One hourafter news broke about the schoolshooting in Florida last week,Twitter accounts suspected ofhaving links to Russia releasedhundreds of posts taking up thegun control debate.

The accounts addressed thenews with the speed of a cablenews network. Some adopted thehashtag #guncontrolnow. Othersused #gunreformnow and #Park-landshooting. Earlier on Wednes-day, before the mass shooting atMarjory Stoneman Douglas HighSchool in Parkland, Fla., many ofthose accounts had been focusedon the investigation by the specialcounsel Robert S. Mueller III intoRussian meddling in the 2016presidential election.

“This is pretty typical for them,to hop on breaking news like this,”said Jonathon Morgan, chief exec-utive of New Knowledge, a com-pany that tracks online disinfor-mation campaigns. “The bots fo-cus on anything that is divisive forAmericans. Almost systemat-ically.”

One of the most divisive issuesin the nation is how to handleguns, pitting Second Amendmentadvocates against proponents ofgun control. And the messagesfrom these automated accounts,or bots, were designed to widenthe divide and make compromiseeven more difficult.

Any news event — no matterhow tragic — has become fodder

SHOTS ARE FIRED,AND BOTS SWARMTO SOCIAL DIVIDES

SURGE OF RUSSIAN POSTS

Florida School ShootingDraws an Army Ready

to Spread Discord

By SHEERA FRENKELand DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI

Continued on Page A13

TAMARAC, Fla. — The shoot-ing was all over, but the emotionalreckoning had just begun, and soon Saturday the teachers of Brow-ard County packed their unionhall to discuss what it meant tohave become the nation’s humanshields.

“Last night I told my wife Iwould take a bullet for the kids,”said Robert Parish, a teacher at anelementary school just miles fromMarjory Stoneman Douglas High,where a former student killed 17people, including three facultymembers who found themselvesin the line of fire.

Since the attack last week, saidMr. Parish, “I think about it all thetime.”

Across the country, teachersare grappling with how their roleshave expanded, from educatorand counselor to bodyguard andprotector. They wonder if theirclassrooms are properlyequipped, if they would recognizethe signs of a dangerous student,and most of all, if they are pre-pared to jump in front of a bullet.

In the last few days, teacherswrote to Congress, urging bans onassault weapons, and to state law-makers, seeking permission tocarry firearms to school. They at-tended local protests and re-viewed safety plans with stu-dents. And in the evenings, theyspoke with friends and familyabout an excruciating reality —that teachers, who once seemedmostly removed from the life-or-death risks faced by the ranks ofpolice officers and firefighters,might now be vulnerable.

“I visualized what it would looklike, and it made me sick,” saidCatherine Collett, 28, a sixth-grade teacher in Northern Virgin-ia who has spent recent days run-

Educators FaceDaunting Role:

Student Shield

Being Class BodyguardIs Now Part of Job

By JULIE TURKEWITZ

A group called Teens for Gun Reform conducted a “lie-in” near the White House on Monday to draw attention to school shootings.ZACH GIBSON/GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page A12

KIEV, Ukraine — Nearly fouryears into a grinding war againstrebels armed by Russia, Ukraine’sDefense Ministry proudly an-nounced last month that it had im-proved its previously meagermedical services for its woundedtroops with the purchase and de-livery of 100 new military ambu-lances.

Not mentioned, however, wasthat many of the ambulances hadalready broken down. Or that theyhad been sold to the military un-der a no-bid contract by an autocompany owned by a senior offi-cial in charge of procurement forUkraine’s armed forces. Or thatthe official, Oleg Gladkovskyi, isan old friend and business partnerof Ukraine’s president, Petro O.Poroshenko.

Ukraine’s spending on defenseand security has soared since theconflict in the east started in 2014,rising from around 2.5 percent ofits gross domestic product in 2013to more than 5 percent this year,when it will total around $6 billion.

This bonanza, which will pushprocurement spending in 2018 tomore than $700 million, has en-abled Ukraine to rebuild its dilapi-dated military and fight to a stand-still pro-Russian rebels and theirheavily armed Russian backers.

But by pumping so muchmoney through the hands of

Crooked DealsAs Kiev Fuels

War Machine

By ANDREW HIGGINS

Continued on Page A7

MERRIMACK, N.H. — GwenHurd got the letter just before hershift at the outlet mall. Her healthinsurance company informed herthat coverage for her family ofthree, purchased through the Af-fordable Care Act marketplace,would cost almost 60 percentmore this year — $1,200 a month.

She and her husband, a contrac-tor, found a less expensive plan,but at $928 a month, it meant giv-ing up date nights and saving fortheir future. Worse, the new policyrequired them to spend more than$6,000 per person before it cov-ered much of anything.

“It seems to me that people whoearn nothing and contribute noth-ing get everything for free,” saidMs. Hurd, 30. “And the people whowork hard and struggle for everypenny barely end up surviving.”

A few miles away in anotherwooded suburb, Emilia DiCola, 28,an aspiring opera singer whoscrapes by with gigs at churchesand in local theaters, has no suchcomplaints. She qualifies for Med-icaid — free government healthinsurance that millions more low-income Americans have gainedthrough an expansion of the pro-gram under the Affordable CareAct.

“I am very lucky to have thecoverage I have,” said Ms. DiCola,who lives with her parents alongthe Merrimack River in Litchfield.

President Trump’s attempts toundermine the health law haveexacerbated a tension at the heartof it — while it aims to providehealth coverage for all, the law is

far more generous to the poor andnear poor than the middle class.By taking steps that hurt the indi-vidual insurance market, Mr.Trump has widened the gulf be-tween people who pay full pricefor their coverage and those whoget generous subsidies or freeMedicaid. That, in turn, has deep-ened the resentment that has longsimmered among many who donot qualify for government assist-ance toward those who do.

Such attitudes have helped shiftwhite working-class voters to theright and were integral in the elec-

tion of President Trump. They un-derlie the sharp cuts to social wel-fare programs in the budget pro-posal he released this week. Theyhelp explain why the national de-bate over health insurance hasbeen so bitter, and why the onlygovernment programs with broadsupport are those that everyonebenefits from, Social Security andMedicare.

They are also likely helping fuelthe renewed Democratic push fora single-payer system, or at leastone that provides broader accessto government health insurance.

“Democrats have begun to rec-ognize the political costs of play-ing into the narrative that theyonly care about the poor,” saidJoan C. Williams, a professor atthe University of California Hast-ings College of Law and author of

The Heartburn Behind Free Care for Only SomeBy ABBY GOODNOUGH How U.S. Health Law

Pits the Poor Againstthe Middle Class

Continued on Page A10

CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Norway, the medals leader at the Pyeongchang Olympics, earned an 11th gold when Andreas Stjer-nen helped win the large hill team ski jumping competition. Olympic coverage begins on Page B6.

Where Norway Looms Largest

WASHINGTON — More than15 months after a general electionthat was stained by covert Rus-sian interference, the chief elec-tion officials of some states saythey are still not getting the infor-mation they need to safeguard thevote.

They say the federal govern-ment is not sharing specificsabout threats to registered voterdatabases, voting machines, com-munication networks and othersystems that could be vulnerableto hacking and manipulation.

In some cases, the election offi-cials say they have no legal accessto the information: After a year ofeffort, only 21 of them have re-ceived clearance to review classi-fied federal information on elec-tion threats.

Top federal officials havepromised to do better. Still, someleaders worry that there will notbe enough time to protect the in-tegrity of the midterm electionseason, which will kick off in somestates in the next few weeks.

“It’s not about 2020, it’s notabout November 2018 — it’s aboutprimaries that are upon us now,”said Alex Padilla, California’s sec-retary of state.

The state officials expressedtheir unhappiness at a meeting ofthe National Organization of Sec-retaries of State that ended onMonday. The officials from Wash-

States Say U.S.Must Do MoreTo Protect Vote

By MICHAEL WINES

Continued on Page A13

SCREENING The president is open to improvements in federal back-ground checks for gun buyers, the White House said. PAGE A13

Donated land anchors a system thatwill be three times the size of Yosemiteand Yellowstone combined. PAGE A6

INTERNATIONAL A4-8

Park System Is Born in Chile

Scientists are racing to understand whyimmunotherapy drugs have cured a fewpatients who had a seemingly fatal formof ovarian cancer when the medicinesshould have had no effect. PAGE D1

SCIENCE TIMES D1-6

Curing Cancer, UnexpectedlyKenneth C. Frazier, the chief executiveof Merck who quit President Trump’sbusiness advisory council after racialviolence in Virginia, speaks out. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-5

Standing Up for ‘Basic Values’Deaths are down after the city spent$38 million to expand policing andtreatment. But whether these effortsare helping enough is unclear. PAGE A16

NEW YORK A16-17, 20

Money for the Opioid Problem

Beto O’Rourke, running for Senate,hopes to be the first Texas Democrat towin statewide office since 1994. PAGE A9

NATIONAL A9-15

The Lone Star Long ShotSeveral events are commemorating the25th anniversary of the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing. PAGE A17

The Bombing Before 9/11

Major league pitchers will get a littlelonelier under new pace-of-play rulesset down by the commissioner. PAGE B18

SPORTSTUESDAY B6-18

Baseball Limits Visits to Mound

Table-tennis-playing soloists swingpaddles, hand drums, gongs and even awine glass in an unconventional con-certo at David Geffen Hall. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Philharmonic Ping-Pong

Paul Krugman PAGE A18

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19Among the factors justices consider indeciding when to step down is partyloyalty, Adam Liptak writes. PAGE A15

Will Anthony Kennedy Retire?Windsor, Ontario, residents affected bya hum complain of sleeplessness, de-pression and headaches. PAGE A5

A Low Droning in the Distance

The Wfirst project, which would haveinvestigated the force of dark energy inthe universe and searched for moreplanets, has been cut from NASA’sproposed budget. PAGE D1

Dark Energy, Fading to Gray

The narcotics officers from the83rd Precinct didn’t get muchwhen they set up outside the J & CMini Market on Irving Avenue inBrooklyn on an autumn afternoonfour years ago.

Moving in on what seemed to bea crack deal, they seized two pack-ets, which turned out to contain lit-tle more than a residue of thedrug. Two men — said to be thebuyer and the seller — were ar-rested, but the charges againstone of the men were eventuallydismissed.

What the officers did get thatday was more than 20 hours inovertime for hauling in and pro-cessing the men. Collectively,court papers say, they earned as

much as $1,400 in extra pay.On Tuesday, four of the officers

involved in the arrests will appearin Federal District Court in Brook-lyn for the start of an unusual civ-il-rights trial, facing accusationsthat they detained one of the men,Hector Cordero, simply to in-crease their income.

If any of the officers are foundliable, another trial will be sched-uled, one that could represent thebiggest challenge to New York po-licing practices since stop-and-frisk. The second trial would ex-amine the broader question ofwhether the city’s police officershabitually use false arrests to bol-

Are Arrests ‘Collars for Dollars’?Federal Suit Scrutinizes the Issue

By ALAN FEUER and JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

Continued on Page A17

Late EditionToday, low clouds, fog, some sun-shine, record tying warmth, high 69.Tonight, partly cloudy, low 58. To-morrow, record breaking warmth,high 72. Weather map, Page B16.

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