VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,908 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 2018

C M Y K Nxxx,2018-03-21,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

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The last male northern white rhino hasdied, but scientists hope to prevent theextinction of the animal. PAGE A8

INTERNATIONAL A4-10

Rhino Subspecies on Brink

In a fiery opening to her campaign, the actress Cynthia Nixon questionedwhether Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was a“real Democrat.” PAGE A19

NEW YORK A19-21, 24

Nixon’s Premiere on the Trail

Some economists say the recoverycould continue for years. But many seethe seeds of the next crisis. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-9

Shadows in the Recovery

A male student was fatally shot shortlyafter he began shooting, and two stu-dents were wounded. PAGE A18

Gunfire at Maryland School

Thomas L. Friedman PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23Outdoor hockey is part of Canada’scultural identity. So what happens whenwinters get too warm to skate? PAGE A8

Backyard Rinks Turn to Slush

John Oliver’s parody of the Pence fam-ily’s book about a pet bunny is toppingthe Amazon best-seller list. PAGE A12

NATIONAL A11-18

Gay Bunny Tale Trolls PencesA sneak preview of “Isle of Dogs” in SanFrancisco was B.Y.O.D., or bring yourown dog. Above, Charlie Bucket and hisowner, Stephen Holland. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

No Barking During the Movie

Tariffs meant to protect makers of met-als will hamstring industries reliant onthem, Eduardo Porter writes. PAGE B1

A Remedy’s Weakness

Unless you have lived in the southernpart of Maryland or have celebrated aholiday there, you’ve probably neverheard of this tasty dish. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-8

A Stuffed Ham to Savor

Latino baseball players flock to Bravo, asupermarket near the Mets’ trainingsite in Florida whose cafeteria offersthem a taste of home. PAGE B10

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B10-14

Pitchers, Catchers, Plantains

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump called on Tuesday to con-gratulate President Vladimir V.Putin of Russia on his re-election,but did not raise with him the lop-sided nature of his victory, Rus-sia’s meddling in the 2016 presi-dential election or Moscow’s rolein a nerve agent attack on a for-mer Russian spy and his daughterliving in Britain.

Instead, Mr. Trump kept the fo-cus of the call on what the WhiteHouse said were “shared inter-ests” — among them, North Koreaand Ukraine — overruling his na-tional security advisers, who hadurged him to raise Russia’s recentbehavior.

“We had a very good call,” Mr.Trump told reporters in the OvalOffice, where he had just wel-comed Crown Prince Mohammedbin Salman of Saudi Arabia. “Wewill probably be meeting in thenot-too-distant future.”

The president’s upbeat charac-terization came five days after hisadministration imposed sanctionson Russia for its interference inthe election and for other “ma-licious cyberattacks,” the mostsignificant action it has takenagainst Moscow since Mr. Trumptook office. The United States alsojoined Britain, France and Ger-many in denouncing the Russiangovernment for violating interna-tional law for the attack on the spy,Sergei V. Skripal, and his daughterYulia.

Both actions highlighted a con-tradiction at the heart of theTrump presidency: the adminis-tration’s steadily tougher stancetoward Russia and Mr. Trump’sown stubborn reluctance to criti-cize Mr. Putin.

Mr. Trump, a senior official said,signed off on the sanctions and theharsh language in the administra-tion’s statements. But he was de-termined not to antagonize Mr.Putin, this person said, because hebelieves his leader-to-leader rap-port is the only way to improve re-lations between the two countries.

That strategy has put Mr.Trump at odds with his own advis-ers: In preparing the president forthe call, aides advised him to raisethe nerve-agent attack and wroteon his briefing materials, “DONOT CONGRATULATE.” TheWashington Post first reportedthese details.

A second official, however, saidthat while Mr. Trump’s briefingcards did contain those sugges-tions, he spoke to his aides byphone and never saw the cards.

The White House also insistedthat it was not the place of theUnited States to question howother countries conduct their elec-tions — a contention that is atodds with years of critical state-ments about foreign elections bythe United States, as well as re-cent statements by the Trump ad-

PRESIDENT’S CALLTO PUTIN DODGESTALK OF FOUL PLAY

GIVES CONGRATULATIONS

No Discussion of 2016Meddling in U.S. or

Attack on Ex-Spy

By MARK LANDLER

Continued on Page A9

MEXICO CITY — The con-tentious negotiations over the fateof the North American Free TradeAgreement have veered into oneof the world’s most pressinghealth issues: fighting obesity.

Urged on by big American foodand soft-drink companies, theTrump administration is using thetrade talks with Mexico and Cana-da to try to limit the ability of thepact’s three members — includingthe United States — to warn con-sumers about the dangers of junkfood, according to confidentialdocuments outlining the Ameri-can position.

The American stance reflectsan intensifying battle amongtrade officials, the food industryand governments across thehemisphere. The administration’sposition could help insulate Amer-ican manufacturers from pressureto include more explicit labels ontheir products, both abroad and inthe United States. But health offi-cials worry that it would also im-pede international efforts to con-tain a growing health crisis.

Obesity has at least doubled in73 countries since 1980. Manypublic health officials, worriedabout the rapid spread of highlyprocessed foods, have found hopein a new tactic: the use of vividwarnings on foods with high lev-els of sugar, salt and fat.

Officials in Mexico and Canada— along with governments inBrazil, Peru, Uruguay, Argentinaand Colombia — are discussingoptions like the use of colors,shapes and other easy-to-under-stand symbols that warn con-sumers of health risks. They wereinspired in large part by Chile’s in-troduction of stringent regula-tions in 2016 that include require-ments for black stop-sign warn-ings on the front of some pack-ages.

U.S. OpposesNew WarningsFor Junk Food

In Nafta Talks, Guidedby Big Companies

This article is by Azam Ahmed,Matt Richtel and Andrew Jacobs.

Black warning logos on snacksat a kiosk in Santiago, Chile.

VICTOR RUIZ CABALLEROFOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A9

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

WHITE HOUSE WELCOME Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was hosted by President Trump on Tuesday. Page A7.

AUSTIN, Tex. — The serialbomber who is terrorizing Texas’capital has not officially communi-cated with investigators. Yet, insome subtle ways, the bomber isdoing just that with each explo-sive-rigged package that is found.

Law enforcement officials in-vestigating one of the most brazen

and deadly serial explosion casesin America in decades are strug-gling to read his bombs for anyclues they can find. So far, fivehomemade explosive devicesplanted in packages and nearsidewalks have detonated inAustin and near San Antonio thismonth, killing two people, wound-ing five.

On Tuesday morning, a sixthbomb, this one unexploded, forcedthe shutdown of a FedEx facilitynear Austin’s airport. Hours later,

the authorities said, an old mili-tary device donated to a Goodwillstore went off in an employee’shands at a strip mall south ofdowntown, injuring a man in his30s and setting off another scarein a city on edge. But officials de-termined it was not related to theearlier package bombings.

Officials have launched asweeping manhunt, both forensicand physical, for the bomber,whose identity and motive remainunknown.

“It’s such a random sending ofthese bombs,” said Nelson W.Wolff, the top elected official inBexar County, which includes SanAntonio. “You’ve got somebodyout there, or possibly more thanone person, that’s obviously got asystem going, and that doesn’tmean it couldn’t be changed fromone town to the other.”

The explosions — the fifth wasat a FedEx center near San Anto-nio early Tuesday morning — do

Hunt for the Texas Bomber: Solving a Life-or-Death Jigsaw Puzzle

This article is by Manny Fernan-dez, Serge F. Kovaleski and John Is-may.

Continued on Page A15

TULSA, Okla. — When shewoke up one morning last week,Tiffany Bell, a teacher at HamiltonElementary School here, had $35in her bank account.

On take-home pay of $2,200 permonth, she supports her husband,a veteran who went back toschool, and their three children,all of whom qualify for the Chil-dren’s Health Insurance Program,a federal benefit for low-incomefamilies. The couple’s 4-year-oldtwins attend a Head Start pre-school — another antipoverty pro-gram.

Money is so tight for Ms. Bell,26, that she had to think twice be-fore spending $15 on Oreos for aclass project, in which her thirdgraders removed differingamounts of icing to display thephases of the moon.

She knew it would be hard tosupport a family on a teacher’ssalary. “But not this hard,” shesaid.

When West Virginia teachersmounted a statewide walkout lastmonth, earning a modest raise, itseemed like an anomaly: a suc-cessful grass-roots labor uprisingin a conservative state with weakpublic sector unions. But just afew weeks later, the West Virginiaaction looks like the potential be-ginning of a red-state rebellion.

In Arizona, teachers clad in red,the color of the teacher protestmovement, have conducted a se-

ries of #RedforEd demonstra-tions demanding higher pay. InKentucky, teachers have orga-nized rallies to protest proposedcuts to their pensions.

And in Oklahoma, where teach-ers have not had a raise from thestate in a decade, they have vowedto go on strike on April 2 if the Leg-islature does not act to increasepay and education budgets.

All three states are paragons ofausterity-minded budgeting,guided by a belief that taxesshould be as low as possible to en-courage people to spend more andcompanies to move there andgrow. But one result has been acutback in education, a sector inwhich a large and popular workforce is finding it has labor mus-cles to flex after all.

“We are hemorrhaging from alack of funding,” said Larry Cagle,a Tulsa teacher and organizer of

Fed Up, Teachers in Oklahoma May Walk NextBy DANA GOLDSTEIN

Tiffany Bell, a third-grade teacher in Tulsa, Okla., struggles to make ends meet on her salary.BRANDON THIBODEAUX FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Another Red BastionCould Go the Way of

West Virginia

Continued on Page A17

A former Playboy model whoclaimed she had an affair withDonald J. Trump sued on Tuesdayto be released from a 2016 legalagreement restricting her abilityto speak, becoming the secondwoman this month to challengeTrump allies’ efforts during thepresidential campaign to burystories about extramarital rela-tionships.

The model, Karen McDougal, issuing The National Enquirer’sparent company, which paid her$150,000 and whose chief execu-tive is a friend of PresidentTrump’s. The other woman, theadult entertainment star Steph-anie Clifford, better known asStormy Daniels, was paid$130,000 to stay quiet by the presi-dent’s personal lawyer, Michael D.Cohen. She filed a lawsuit thismonth.

Both women, who argue thattheir contracts are invalid, are try-ing to get around clauses requir-ing them to resolve disputes in se-

Ex-Model SuesTo Void Muzzle

By Trump Ally

By JIM RUTENBERGand REBECCA R. RUIZ

Continued on Page A14

WASHINGTON — Federal reg-ulators and state prosecutors areopening investigations into Face-book. Politicians in the UnitedStates and Europe are calling forits chief executive, Mark Zucker-berg, to testify before them. In-vestors have cut the value of thesocial networking giant by about$50 billion in the past two days.

They are all focused on thesame thing: whether Facebookmishandled users’ data.

Facebook has built its highly

profitable social network off its us-ers, selling advertisements basedon their ages, interests and otherdetails. But the scrutiny over thecompany’s vast trove of personaldata — following a report that apolitical consulting firm had im-properly obtained information of50 million users — is taking directaim at that lucrative formula.

“Investors are reacting to fearsof regulation and the conse-quences of regulation,” said BrianWieser, a senior research analystat Pivotal Research Group. “Thescale of errors can only lead one toconclude these are systemic prob-lems.”

So far, most of the social net-work’s top executives have beensilent. Mr. Zuckerberg, its founder,and Sheryl Sandberg, his top dep-

Facebook’s Lucrative FormulaUnder Pressure From All Sides

By CECILIA KANG

Continued on Page A10

DEFAMATION SUIT A judge said aformer “Apprentice” contestantmay sue the president. PAGE A14

C.E.O. SUSPENDED CambridgeAnalytica acted after recordingsof its chief emerged. PAGE A10

UNWELCOME CANDOR Facebook’sdeparting security evangelistoften ruffled feathers. PAGE B1

Late EditionToday, blustery, snow, high 34. To-night, evening snow, six to 10 inchestotal snowfall, mostly cloudy, windy,low 30. Tomorrow, sunshine, windy,high 42. Weather map is on Page B8.

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