VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,892 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2018
C M Y K Nxxx,2018-03-05,A,001,Bs-4C,E2
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After reconciling with the Afghan gov-ernment, a former insurgent insists hecan broker a Taliban deal. PAGE A7
INTERNATIONAL A4-9
Ex-Warlord Alludes to Peace
Advisers defended the president’s planto impose tariffs on steel and aluminumimports, but they left room for him tochange his mind. PAGE A12
NATIONAL A10-18
Hedging Bets on Tariffs
Sometimes during fashion week youhave to just accept the fact it doesn’tmake sense, Vanessa Friedman says.
FASHION A21
Expressing Themselves in Paris
David Leonhardt PAGE A27
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27
The scene opened on a roomwith a red sofa, a potted plantand the kind of bland modern art
you’d see on atherapist’s wall.
In the room wasMichelle Obama,or someone wholooked exactly likeher. Wearing a
low-cut top with a black bravisible underneath, she writhedlustily for the camera andflashed her unmistakable smile.
Then, the former first lady’sdoppelgänger began to strip.
The video, which appeared onthe online forum Reddit, waswhat’s known as a “deepfake” —an ultrarealistic fake video madewith artificial intelligence soft-ware. It was created using aprogram called FakeApp, whichsuperimposed Mrs. Obama’s faceonto the body of a pornographicfilm actress. The hybrid wasuncanny — if you didn’t knowbetter, you might have thought itwas really her.
Until recently, realistic com-puter-generated video was alaborious pursuit available onlyto big-budget Hollywood produc-tions or cutting-edge re-searchers. Social media apps likeSnapchat include some rudi-mentary face-morphing technol-ogy.
But in recent months, a com-munity of hobbyists has begunexperimenting with more power-ful tools, including FakeApp — aprogram that was built by ananonymous developer using
open-source software written byGoogle. FakeApp makes it freeand relatively easy to createrealistic face swaps and leavefew traces of manipulation. Sincea version of the app appeared onReddit in January, it has beendownloaded more than 120,000times, according to its creator.
Deepfakes are one of the new-est forms of digital media ma-nipulation, and one of the mostobviously mischief-prone. It’s nothard to imagine this technology’s
It Was Only a Matter of Time: Here Comes an App for Fake Videos
KEVINROOSE
THE SHIFT
Continued on Page A18
On the morning of May 6, 1954, aThursday, Roger Bannister, 25, amedical student in London,worked his usual shift at St.Mary’s Hospital and took an earlyafternoon train to Oxford. He hadlunch with some old friends, thenmet a couple of his track team-mates, Christopher Chataway andChris Brasher. As members of anamateur all-star team, they werepreparing to run against OxfordUniversity.
About 1,200 people showed upat Oxford’s unprepossessing If-fley Road track to watch, andthough the day was blustery anddamp — inauspicious conditionsfor a record-setting effort — arecord is what they saw. Paced byChataway and Brasher and pow-ered by an explosive kick, his sig-nature, Bannister ran a mile in un-der four minutes — 3:59.4, to beexact — becoming the first manever to do so, breaking through amystical barrier and creating aseminal moment in sports history.
Bannister’s feat was trumpetedon front pages around the world.He had reached “one of man’shitherto unattainable goals,” TheNew York Times declared. Hisname, like those of Babe Ruth,
Bobby Jones and Jesse Owens,became synonymous with singu-lar athletic achievement.
Then, astonishingly — at leastfrom the vantage point of the 21stcentury — Bannister, at the heightof his athletic career, retired fromcompetitive running later thatyear, to concentrate on medicine.
“Now that I am taking up a hos-
Track Feat Achieved in 3:59.4Changed the Measure of a Mile
By FRANK LITSKYand BRUCE WEBER
Roger Bannister was 25 whenhe broke the four-minute mile.
ALLSPORT/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
Continued on Page A20
ROGER BANNISTER, 1929-2018
PALOS HILLS, Ill. — WhenRepresentative Daniel Lipinski, aconservative-leaning Democratand scion of Chicago’s politicalmachine, agreed to one joint ap-pearance last month with his libe-ral primary challenger, the dividein the Democratic Party was evi-dent in the audience that showedup.
Mr. Lipinski’s outnumberedsupporters were the diminishedlunch-pail Democrats who oncedominated his southwestern dis-trict. Those of his rival, MarieNewman, came from the party’sascendant coalition — young pro-gressives and women like Eliza-beth Layden, a Patagonia-cladteacher who explained her oppo-sition to Mr. Lipinski in bluntterms.
“Because he’s a dinosaur, ’causehe’s a phony, ’cause he’s a Republi-can who claims to be a Democrat,”said Ms. Layden, 49, who has beenmaking phone calls and knockingon doors to help unseat Mr. Lipin-ski, a seven-term House member,in the primary race this month.“Hello, women’s rights, and hello,my reproductive rights. Get out ofmy uterus.”
As the midterm election seasongets underway with races inTexas on Tuesday and Illinois onMarch 20, contests like this one il-lustrate the turmoil of the Trump-era Democratic Party. Democratsneed to pick up 24 seats to takeback control of the House and arehoping a surge of grass-roots en-ergy, activism and fund-raising atlevels unseen since the rise ofBarack Obama can help play acrucial role.
Yet the backlash to PresidentTrump’s divisive politics has alsofueled a demand by the party’sprogressive wing for ideological
DEMOCRATS FACEPRIMARY SHOVE
FROM NEW LEFT
KEY RACES THIS WEEK
Energized Upstarts AreChallenging Veterans
for Party’s Soul
By JONATHAN MARTINand ALEXANDER BURNS
Continued on Page A12
Maple syrup gumming up thegun belt isn’t normally a hazard ofpolice work. But it is a commonproblem for Cpl. Pamela Revelswhen students have been eatingpancakes at the school breakfast.
“Kids like to come up and giveyou a little bit of a hug,” CorporalRevels said. “They don’t wipetheir hands that well.”
Ms. Revels freely dispenseshugs and smiles at the schoolswhere she works around Auburn,Ala. But she is also a sheriff’s dep-uty who wears a sidearm and abulletproof vest, drives an officialS.U.V. and has an AR-15 semiauto-matic rifle stored nearby.
On Thursday afternoon, when areport came in about a man incamouflage carrying a gun nearschool, she sprang into action. Asworried students and teacherslocked themselves in classroomsand closets, she bolted outdoors,hurriedly walked around thesprawling campus and scannedthe nearby woods until she wassatisfied that it was safe for every-one to emerge.
“I can turn into a mama bear re-ally quick,” she said. “And I’vemade that decision that nobody isgoing to hurt my babies if I canhelp it.”
For millions of students, thefirst adult they see every day atschool is not a teacher, or princi-pal. It is a “school resource offi-cer” like Corporal Revels, an of-
Hugs, SmilesAnd a PistolAt the Ready
This article is by Stephanie Saul,Timothy Williams and AnemonaHartocollis.
Cpl. Pamela Revels, a school resource officer, greeting students after breakfast at Loachapoka Elementary School near Auburn, Ala.AUDRA MELTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Continued on Page A16
WASHINGTON — Before BenCarson accepted PresidentTrump’s offer to become secretaryof housing and urban develop-ment, a friend implored him toturn down the job to preserve thereputation he had earned as a bril-liant neurosurgeon and lost, inpart, as a politician.
The confidant, Logan DelanyJr., who was the treasurer of Mr.Carson’s 2016 presidential cam-paign, described HUD as a“swamp” of “corruption.” He pre-dicted in an email that Mr. Car-son’s “lack of a background inhousing” would make him prey tothe department’s career staff and
political appointees, as well aspredatory lobbyists.
To drive home the point, Mr. De-lany appended a link to an obitu-ary of Samuel R. Pierce Jr., theReagan-era HUD secretarywhose reputation as a trailblazingblack corporate lawyer was tar-nished by accusations that hesteered contracts to Republicancronies.
Mr. Delany’s most dire predic-
tion has not materialized. Butmany of the other problems out-lined in the memo have come topass during Mr. Carson’s first yearrunning a sprawling $47 billion-a-year community development bu-reaucracy that provides rentalsubsidies for about five millionfamilies and oversees people liv-ing in 1.2 million units of publichousing. And Mr. Carson’s ownlapses in judgment — combinedwith the questionable behavior ofhis family and his reluctance toaggressively engage Mr. Trump —have left him at the margins of thecabinet.
Mr. Carson, people close to himsaid, has been whipsawed by a jobhe has found puzzling and frus-
Brain Surgery No Match for HUD, Carson SaysBy GLENN THRUSH
Continued on Page A13
Wrangling Over BudgetLed Frustrated Chiefto Consider an Exit
PATRICK T. FALLON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Among Sunday’s Oscar honorees was Jordan Peele, for the screenplay of “Get Out.” Page C1.A Winning Story LineSECURITY BLITZ Schools are
being swamped with pitches forunproven products. PAGE A17
Xi Jinping’s power grab in China hasrattled Europe, which sees it as anincreased risk to its values. PAGE A9
Challenging the Global Order
In 1990, Kevin Germany left a hospitaland disappeared. In 2018, his familylearned where he had been. PAGE A22
NEW YORK A22-25
A Mother’s Agonizing SearchMembers of the United States women’ssoccer team have emerged as inspira-tions for female athletes around theworld. PAGE D1
SPORTSMONDAY D1-6
In Equality Fight, They’re No. 1Requirements for the elite EB-1 visaleave more room for interpretation thanits nickname suggests. PAGE A10
The First Lady’s ‘Einstein Visa’
David Ogden Stiers received two Emmynominations for playing Maj. CharlesEmerson Winchester III, a blue bloodwith wit and heart. He was 75. PAGE A19
OBITUARIES A19-20
Snobbish ‘M*A*S*H’ Surgeon
Members of San Francisco's middleclass, including teachers, copywritersand more, are moving into dorm roomscreated expressly for them. PAGE B1
BUSINESS DAY B1-6
Dorm Living for Professionals
Mayor Bill de Blasio pressed for morespending on housing last year even ascosts increased. PAGE A22
Costs of Affordable Housing
ROME — Italians registeredtheir dismay with the Europeanpolitical establishment on Sunday,handing a majority of votes in anational election to hard-right andpopulist forces that ran a cam-paign fueled by anti-immigrantanger.
The election, the first in fiveyears, was widely seen as a bell-wether of the strength of populistson the Continent and how far theymight advance into the main-stream. The answer was far, veryfar.
After Chancellor Angela Merkelof Germany and President Em-manuel Macron of France beatback populist and far-right insur-gencies, Europe seemed to enjoy areprieve from the forces threat-ening its unity and values.
That turned out to be short-lived.
In Sunday’s vote, early resultsshowed, the parties that did wellall shared varying degrees of Eur-oskepticism, with laments aboutBrussels treating Italians likeslaves, agitation to abandon theeuro and promises to put Italy be-fore Europe.
The most likely result will be agovernment in Italy — a foundingEuropean Union nation and themajor economy of the Mediterra-nean — that is significantly less in-vested in the project of a unitedEurope. All the while, geopoliticalcompetitors from Russia to Chinaare seeking to divide and weakenthe bloc.
The results were not just a dis-concerting measure of Italy’smood but also a harbinger of thetroubles that may yet lie ahead forEurope. Far-right and populistforces appeared to gain more than50 percent of the vote in Italy,where the economy has lagged,migration has surged and manyare seething at those in power.
But with no one party or coali-tion appearing to win enough sup-port to form a government, theelection offered up an outcome fa-miliar in Italy: a muddle. It maytake weeks of haggling to sort out
Populists WinIn Italian Vote,Unsettling E.U.
Fury Aimed at Brusselsand Immigrants
By JASON HOROWITZ
Continued on Page A6
Late EditionToday, periodic clouds and sunshine,breezy, high 44. Tonight, partlycloudy, low 31. Tomorrow, sunshinegiving way to increasing clouds,high 44. Weather map, Page A24.
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