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A Tennessee woman slippedinto a coma and died after an am-bulance company took so long toassemble a crew that one workerhad time for a cigarette break.

Paramedics in New York had tocovertly swipe medical suppliesfrom a hospital to restock their de-pleted ambulances after emer-gency runs.

A man in the suburban Southwatched a chimney fire burn his

house to the ground as he waitedfor the fire department, whichbilled him anyway and then suedhim for $15,000 when he did notpay.

In each of these cases, someonedialed 911 and Wall Street an-swered.

The business of driving ambu-lances and operating fire brigadesrepresents just one facet of a pro-found shift on Wall Street andMain Street alike, an investigationby The New York Times hasfound. Since the 2008 financial cri-sis, private equity firms, the “cor-porate raiders” of an earlier era,have increasingly taken over awide array of civic and financialservices that are central to every-day American life.

Today, people interact with pri-vate equity when they dial 911, paytheir mortgage, play a round ofgolf or turn on the kitchen tap for aglass of water.

Private equity put a uniquestamp on these businesses. Unlike

other for-profit companies, whichhave years of experience offeringa service, private equity is pri-marily skilled in making money.And in many of these businesses,The Times found, private equityfirms applied a sophisticatedmoneymaking playbook: a mix ofcost cuts, price increases and liti-gation.

In emergency services, this ap-proach creates a fundamental ten-sion: the push to turn a profitwhile caring for people in theirmost vulnerable moments.

For governments and their citi-zens, the effects have often beendire. Under private equity owner-ship, some ambulance responsetimes worsened, heart monitorsfailed and companies slid intobankruptcy, according to a Timesexamination of thousands ofpages of internal documents andgovernment records, as well as in-terviews with dozens of formeremployees. In at least two cases,lawsuits contend, poor service ledto patient deaths.

Private equity gained newpower and responsibility as a di-rect result of the 2008 crisis. Ascities and towns nationwidestruggled to pay for basics likepublic infrastructure and ambu-lance services, private equitystepped in. At the same time, asbanks scaled back their mortgageoperations after the crisis, privateequity firms — which face lighterregulation than banks — moved inthere as well.

The power shift has happenedwith relatively little scrutiny, evenas federal authorities have tight-ened the rules for banks. Unlikebanks, which take deposits andborrow from the government, pri-vate equity firms invest moneyfrom wealthy individuals and pen-sion funds desperate for returnsat a time of historically low inter-est rates.

Since the financial crisis, pri-vate equity firms have gone frommanaging $1 trillion to managing$4.3 trillion — more than the valueof Germany’s gross domesticproduct — according to the advi-sory firm Triago. Retirement nesteggs are fueling the growth andsharing in private equity’s risksand returns: Nearly half of pri-vate equity’s invested assetscome from pensions.

“There is private equity — a lotof it — and it’s happening every-

A firefighter for Rural/Metro,a company until recently fi-nanced by private equity.

DAVID JOLKOVSKI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

When You Dial 911

And Wall St. Answers

Squeezed for Profit by Private Equity,

Emergency Services Fail to Deliver

This article is by Danielle Ivory,Ben Protess and Kitty Bennett.

BOTTOM LINE NATION

Pitting Care Against Costs

Continued on Page 16

LONDON — Britain’s historicvote to leave the European Unionis already threatening to unravel ademocratic bloc of nations thathas coexisted peacefully togetherfor decades. But it is also generat-ing uncertainty about an even big-ger issue: Is the post-1945 orderimposed on the world by theUnited States and its allies un-raveling, too?

Britain’s choice to retreat intowhat some critics of the vote sug-gest is a “Little England” status isjust one among many looselylinked developments suggestingthe potential for a reordering ofpower, economic relationships,borders and ideologies around theglobe.

Slow economic growth has un-dercut confidence in traditionalliberal economics, especially inthe face of the dislocations causedby trade and surging immigration.Populism has sprouted through-out the West. Borders in the Mid-dle East are being erased amid arise in sectarianism. China isgrowing more assertive and Rus-sia more adventurous. Refugeesfrom poor and war-torn places arecrossing land and sea in recordnumbers to get to the better livesshown to them by modern com-munications.

Accompanied by an upending ofpolitics and middle-class assump-tions in both the developed andthe developing worlds, theseforces are combining as never be-fore to challenge the Western in-stitutions and alliances that wereestablished after World War IIand that have largely held globalsway ever since.

Britain has been a pillar in thatorder, as well as a beneficiary. Ithas an important (some would ar-gue outsize) place in the UnitedNations, and a role in NATO, theInternational Monetary Fund andthe World Bank — the postwar in-stitutions invested with promot-ing global peace, security and eco-

Pro-European Union protesters held the bloc’s flag at a demonstration in London on Saturday.

ANDREW TESTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A Test of WesternAlliances and Institutions

This article is by Jim Yardley, Ali-son Smale, Jane Perlez and BenHubbard.

Continued on Page 8

A CAUSTIC POSTWAR UNRAVELING

In Berlin, a reader of Bild, a German newspaper, caught up Sat-urday on news of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

AXEL SCHMIDT/REUTERS

For Hillary Clinton, Britain’semotionally charged uprisingagainst the European Union is thesort of populist victory over estab-lishment politics that she fears inthe coming presidential election.

Mrs. Clinton shares more withthe defeated “Remain” campaignthan just their common slogan,“Stronger Together.” Her funda-mental argument, much akin toPrime Minister David Cameron’sagainst British withdrawal fromthe European Union, is that Amer-icans should value stability and in-

cremental change over the risksentailed in radical change and thepossibility of chaos if Donald J.Trump wins the presidency.

She offers reasonableness in-stead of resentment, urgingvoters to see the big picture andpromising to manage economicand immigration upheaval, just asMr. Cameron did. She, too, is apragmatic internationalist bat-tling against nationalist anger,cautioning that the turmoil afterthe so-called Brexit vote under-scores a need for “calm, steady,experienced leadership in the

‘Brexit’ Revolt Casts a Shadow

Over Clinton’s Path of Caution

By PATRICK HEALY

Continued on Page 7

The sales pitches seeking toseparate Cheryl Lankford fromher money began during the re-cession as she struggled to getback on her feet after the death ofher husband, an American soldierserving in Iraq.

Two of them were from compa-nies that have boasted the Trumpname.

One was Trump University, thereal estate sales seminar thatDonald J. Trump promoted as away for average people to profitfrom opportunities in the housingmarket. Ms. Lankford said shespent $35,000 from an Army in-surance payment to learn Mr.Trump’s secrets.

Another was Cambridge Who’sWho, a vanity publisher promis-ing “branding services” thatseemed to complement the realestate business she hoped to cre-ate. She paid thousands of dollars

to Cambridge, whose spokesmanand “executive director of globalbranding” was Mr. Trump’s eldestson, Donald Jr.

Six years later, Ms. Lankford,who is 44 and has a son, has littleto show for the money she spent,aside from a nagging sense thatshe was taken advantage of. Sev-eral friends in her community inSan Antonio fell for similar offers,she said, but most are not eager totalk about it.

“As a widow, you find you wereso dependent on your husband,and when you make a mistake be-cause of predatory businesses, it’sembarrassing,” Ms. Lankfordsaid. “We’re an easy target.”

“Easy target” might describethe audience for several enter-prises stamped with the Trumpbrand that have been accused of

When the Name Was Trump,

Buyers Saw a Sign of Trust

By MIKE McINTIRE

Continued on Page 19

Charcoal has become one of the biggestengines of Africa’s informal economy,but it is also one of the greatest threatsto the continent’s environment. PAGE 6

INTERNATIONAL 6-10

Charcoal Boom’s Searing EffectThe United States has closed the caseon Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Finan-cial’s former chief, but people hurt byits lending have not. Fair Game. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Countrywide’s Harm Lives OnFor Michael Phelps, the road to becom-ing the Olympics’ most decorated ath-lete was steep. At 30, he is now on amore personal journey. PAGE 1

SPORTSSUNDAY

Phelps Finding Phelps

U(D547FD)v+$!]!/!#!]Tony Blair PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

American companies of all sizesworry that Britain’s decision maysignal the end of global open mar-kets. Sunday Business, Page 1.

Fearing Effects on Trade

LONDON — With British poli-tics in turmoil, there were alreadyclear indications on Saturday of atense and bickering divorce fromthe European Union.

Britons woke up to a diminishedcurrency and much confusionabout the consequences of theirvote on Thursday to quit the Euro-pean Union, including who wouldbe their next prime minister. Theleaders of the campaign to exit thebloc, or “Brexit,” continued to dis-agree over what kind of relation-ship they wanted with Europe,and thousands of Britons startedsigning a petition asking for a sec-ond referendum.

Meeting in Berlin, Europeanleaders told Britain to hurry upand begin the formal process ofexiting the union, while PrimeMinister David Cameron said thatprocess could wait until his re-placement was chosen in Octoberand leaders of the “Leave” cam-paign suggested it could comeeven later, after a new round oftalks with Brussels.

“I do not understand why theBritish government needs untilOctober to decide whether to sendthe divorce letter to Brussels,”Jean-Claude Juncker, the presi-

Europe Urges

Dazed Britain

To Get Moving

By STEVEN ERLANGERand DAN BILEFSKY

Continued on Page 8

The Tennessee distillery behind one ofthe world’s best-selling whiskeys isusing its 150th anniversary to open upabout its complicated roots. PAGE 4

NATIONAL 4, 13-19

The Slave Past of Jack Daniel’s

Bill Cunningham, who turnedfashion photography into his ownbranch of cultural anthropologyon the streets of New York, chroni-cling an era’s ever-changing socialscene for The New York Times bytraining his busily observant lenson what people wore — stylishly,flamboyantly or just plain sensi-bly — died on Saturday in Manhat-tan. He was 87.

His death was confirmed byThe Times. He had been hospital-ized recently after having astroke.

Mr. Cunningham was such asingular presence in the city that,in 2009, he was designated a livinglandmark. And he was an easyone to spot, riding his bicyclethrough Midtown, where he did

most of his field work: his bony-thin frame draped in his utilitarianblue French worker’s jacket,khaki pants and black sneakers(he himself was no one’s idea of afashion plate), with his 35-milli-

meter camera slung around hisneck, ever at the ready for thenext fashion statement to comearound the corner.

Nothing escaped his notice: notthe fanny packs, not the Birkin

bags, not the gingham shirts, notthe fluorescent biker shorts.

In his nearly 40 years workingfor The Times, Mr. Cunninghamsnapped away at changing dress

BILL CUNNINGHAM, 1929-2016

ALens on Style,

Low and High,

On the Street

By JACOB BERNSTEIN

The Times fashion chronicler Bill Cunningham in the 2010 film “Bill Cunningham New York.”

FIRST THOUGHT FILMS/ZEITGEIST FILMS

Continued on Page 18

VOL. CLXV . . . No. 57,275 © 2016 The New York Times NEW YORK, SUNDAY, JUNE 26, 2016 $6 beyond the greater New York metropolitan area. $5.00

Today, mostly sunny, very warm,high 87. Tonight, partly cloudy, mild,low 67. Tomorrow, sunshine givingway to increasing clouds, high 86.Details, SportsSunday, Page 12.