TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Un-raveling a police state is nevereasy, and just how fraught theprocess can be has been playingout in a basement cell in Uzbeki-stan, a rare example of a countryseeking to tame a vicious securityapparatus at a time when manyother nations are doing the oppo-site.

The detention center inTashkent, the Uzbek capital, iswhere Bobomurod Abdullaev, afreelance journalist, was takenand, according to his wife and law-yer, tortured after agents of Uz-bekistan’s feared National Securi-ty Service grabbed him off the

street in September.But it was also where Mr. Ab-

dullaev, who has been chargedwith “conspiracy to overthrow theconstitutional regime,” was lastmonth allowed to meet with aprominent human rights lawyerthe security service had initiallybarred — and tell him of his mis-treatment.

Two security officers in chargeof the investigation have nowbeen removed from the case and

are themselves under investiga-tion for misconduct amid a rollingpurge of Uzbekistan’s once-un-touchable security service.

The twists and turns in Mr. Ab-dullaev’s case point to what, 18months after the death of Uzbeki-stan’s longtime dictator, Islam Ka-rimov, is the central questionhanging over efforts by new lead-ership to open up one of theworld’s most repressive coun-tries: Can a brutal and once all-powerful security apparatus withroots deep in the former Soviet re-public be transformed into a lawenforcement agency?

Mr. Abdullaev, along with manyother government critics, is still

‘The Ice Is Melting’: Dismantling a Police StateBy ANDREW HIGGINS

Continued on Page A8

Restoring Civil Libertiesin Uzbekistan

VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,920 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2018

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BERRYVILLE, Va. — For more than amonth now, the questions have ricocheteddown this Main Street culled from a Nor-man Rockwell dreamscape — past the duel-ing barbershops and the outdoor broomsale and the mural with the horse — quietlyat first, when the Florida massacre was stillfresh, and then not so quietly.

Why would this time be different? Whyshould it be?

“Every time something happens, every-

body’s hollering,” Garland Ashby, 77, theowner of an estimated 75 guns, said of therecent protests over gun control, rubbing athis cigarette stub from a park bench in thistown of 4,200. “A couple of months it’s in thenews, and then it’s gone.”

More than a week has passed since some800 student-led marches pulsed throughthe country and abroad — more than aweek for momentum to build, or stall out, ormorph into something beyond anyone’scontrol. And in this tossup congressionaldistrict, a short drive from the demonstra-tion’s nexus in Washington, and in otherHouse battlegrounds nationwide, a consen-

sus has formed on at least this much: Bothsides think they are being underestimated.Both insist their adversaries will tire even-tually, punching themselves out.

“It’ll go away,” Mr. Ashby predicted,grinding the cigarette into the mud. “Likeall the other times.”

“They’re looking for us to get bored,” saidRosie Banks, 17, a high school junior about40 miles east in Sterling, Va., whose bed-room includes the “Am I Next?” sign shehauled across the capital last month and afish named Malcolm X. “We’re not going toget bored.”

‘A couple of months it’s in the news, and then it’s gone.’

Garland Ashby, 77

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JARED SOARES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

‘They’re looking for us to get bored. We’re not going to get bored.’Rosie Banks, 17

Gun Control and Fall Elections: Moment or Movement?

Continued on Page A10

By MATT FLEGENHEIMERand JESS BIDGOOD

In 2010, when the Justice De-partment allowed the two mostdominant companies in the livemusic business — Live Nation andTicketmaster — to merge, manygreeted the news with dread.

Live Nation was already theworld’s biggest concert promoter.Ticketmaster had for years beenthe leading ticket provider. Criticswarned that the merger wouldcreate an industry monolith, onecapable of crippling competitorsin the ticketing business.

Federal officials tried to re-assure the skeptics. They pointedto a consent decree, or legal settle-ment, they had negotiated as partof the merger approval. Its termswere strict, they said: It wouldboost competition and block mo-nopolistic behavior by the new,larger Live Nation.

“There will be enough air andsunlight in this space for strongcompetitors to take root, grow andthrive,” said the country’s top an-titrust regulator, Assistant Attor-ney General Christine A. Varney.And she went further, suggestingthat reduced ticket service fees,even lower ticket prices, might beon the horizon.

Eight years after the merger,the ticketing business is still domi-nated by Live Nation and its oper-ations extend into nearly everyaspect of the concert world.

Ticket prices are at recordhighs. Service fees are far from re-duced. And Ticketmaster, part ofthe Live Nation empire, still tick-ets 80 of the top 100 arenas in thecountry. No other company has

Live Nation promotes 30,000 concerts around the world eachyear, including recent tours by artists like Jay-Z and Rihanna.

Roster of Stars Lets Live NationFlex Ticket Muscles, Rivals Say

By BEN SISARIO and GRAHAM BOWLEY

Continued on Page A12

SILVER SPRING, Md. — Withforecasters expecting the unem-ployment rate to sink further thisweek, the chorus of complaintsabout worker shortages — fromcustodians to computer prodigies— has swelled.

Yet companies that turn to laborrecruiters like Ray Wiley tend tohave an especially tough time:The jobs they offer are in out-of-way places; the work is low-paidand disagreeable; and native-born Americans, particularlywhite men, are generally not in-terested.

“We have employers call us allthe time,” said Mr. Wiley, who pri-marily works with meat-process-ing plants and lumber mills thathave trouble retaining workerseven when the jobless rate is wellabove its historically low level of4.1 percent.

The economy is on solid footingin the ninth year of the recovery,and even entry-level workershave more options. So in Atlanta,San Diego and other cities, Mr. Wi-ley’s company, East Coast LaborSolutions, finds workers, primari-ly refugees from war-ravagedcountries who don’t speak Eng-lish. Other candidates includePuerto Ricans discouraged by theisland’s lack of jobs, as well as im-migrants — here legally, he em-phasizes — who have no problempassing a drug test.

“If you told me there’s 1,000 ref-

EAGER REFUGEESCOURTED FOR JOBSIN TIGHT MARKET

CHANGING FACE OF WORK

Undesirable, Low-PayingLabor, Snubbed byMany in the U.S.

By PATRICIA COHEN

Continued on Page A14

The student had been caughtvaping in school three times be-fore he sat in the vice principal’soffice at Cape Elizabeth HighSchool in Maine this winter andshamefacedly admitted what bythen was obvious.

“I can’t stop,” he told the viceprincipal, Nate Carpenter.

So Mr. Carpenter asked theschool nurse about getting theteenager nicotine gum or a patch,to help him get through the schoolday without violating the rulesprohibiting vaping.

E-cigarettes have been toutedby their makers and some publichealth experts as devices to helpadult smokers kick the habit. Butschool officials, struggling to con-trol an explosion of vaping amonghigh school and middle school stu-dents across the country, fear thatthe devices are creating a newgeneration of nicotine addicts.

In his four years at Cape Eliza-beth, Mr. Carpenter says he can’trecall seeing a single studentsmoke a cigarette. But vaping issuddenly everywhere.

“It’s our demon,” he said. “It’sthe one risky thing that you can doin your life — with little conse-quence, in their mind — to showthat you’re a little bit of a rebel.”

Schools say the problemsneaked up on them last fall, whenstudents arrived with a new gen-eration of easily concealed de-vices that have a sleek high-techdesign. The most popular, madeby Juul, a San Francisco-basedcompany that has received ven-ture capital money, resemble aflash drive and have become soubiquitous students have turnedJuul into a verb.

Tasting like fruit or mint, thesedevices produce little telltale

With BarelyA Puff, VapingFloods Schools

A New Generation ofNicotine Addicts

By KATE ZERNIKE

Continued on Page A16

Francis urged “reconciliation” in theMiddle East and pressed for “the fruitsof dialogue” in Asia. PAGE A7

INTERNATIONAL A4-8

The Pope’s Plea for PeaceTrying to cut labor costs and stay aheadof Amazon, companies are testing waysto automate shopping. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-6

Retailers Race to Automate

People are calling for boycotts, butFacebook, Apple, Amazon and Googleare nearly inescapable. PAGE B1

The Impossible Tech Boycott

Charles M. Blow PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

Now somewhere around 80, the cele-brated tenor-turned-baritone gave yetanother great performance in “LuisaMiller” at the Metropolitan Opera,Zachary Woolfe writes. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

The Passion of Plácido Domingo

It was sweet redemption forCharles Kushner last year whenhis son Jared was named seniorWhite House adviser. A dozenyears earlier, a sordid scandalstemming partly from a familyfalling-out had reduced the seniorMr. Kushner from real estate bar-on to felon making wallets at aprison camp in Alabama.

Now, with his son newly in-stalled as a top aide to the presi-dent, Mr. Kushner even expressedhope, one close family friend said,that he might receive a pardon.

Absolution, however, is notwhat the White House has con-ferred on the Kushners. For thepatriarch and his family, the pin-nacle of American political powerhas turned out to be a wellspringof trouble.

Jared Kushner is embroiled inthe special counsel inquiry, includ-ing questions about whether hediscussed the family’s businesswith foreign officials — a sugges-tion he has denied. His youngerbrother, Josh, has opposed theTrump presidency, driving awedge between the men in a fam-ily that prizes close ties.

The elder Mr. Kushner, his com-pany and his family are assailedby criminal and regulatory inquir-ies largely rooted in their new-found access to presidentialpower. The family’s East Coast-based real estate empire is undera fiscal and ethical cloud, shunnedby some investors who fear beingdragged into the spotlight trainedon the Kushner nexus with Presi-

Continued on Page A16

Political PowerHas Backfired

For Kushners

By SHARON LaFRANIEREand KATIE BENNER

The Yankees’ new slugger, previouslyknown as Mike Stanton, said changingback to his given name was a matter ofappreciating what’s important. PAGE D2

SPORTSMONDAY D1-9

Embracing ‘Giancarlo’

Before a shooting in Ferguson, Mo., put aspotlight on how the police treat blackmen, Los Angeles was synonymous withpolice brutality and racism. PAGE A9

NATIONAL A9-17

Killing Recalls a Troubled PastAs Richard A. Carranza takes the helmof New York’s schools, he faces manychallenges, like combating segregationand closing the education gap. PAGE A18

NEW YORK A18-21

Chancellor’s Long To-Do List

Fifty years after the assassination ofthe Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,three documentaries explore his impacton the nightly newscasts, and on hismore disillusioned final years. PAGE C1

Dr. King and the Evening News With a clutch of newly flippable Houseseats, the state has become a focal pointin the fight for control of Congress,strategists in both parties say. PAGE A17

All Eyes on Pennsylvania

In a series of tweets, President Trumpblamed Democrats and Mexico for anincreasingly “dangerous” flow of illegalimmigrants. PAGE A15

Venting on DACA and Nafta

An operation to smear a nerve agent onSergei Skripal’s door was so risky, itprobably involved the Kremlin. PAGE A5

Clue in Russian Spy Poisoning

TONY DEJAK/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A buzzer-beater by Arike Ogunbowale, right, gave Notre Dame the N.C.A.A. women’s title. Page D1.Champions, With 0:00.1 to Spare

Late EditionToday, morning snow, clouds andsunshine, cooler, high 46. Tonight,increasing cloudiness, low 39. To-morrow, cloudy, rain at times, high49. Weather map is on Page A17.

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