VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,959 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, FRIDAY, MAY 11, 2018

C M Y K Nxxx,2018-05-11,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

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City buses burst into flames too fre-quently in the Italian capital, where anaging fleet lacks maintenance. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-15

Rome’s Buses Are Burning

In restaurants, living rooms and librar-ies, women who had largely ignoredpolitics now meet to plot strategy to helpDemocrats wrest back power. PAGE A16

NATIONAL A16-20

Political? Not Until Recently

An insurance tycoon went to prison aspart of an effort to tame risky borrowingwithout hurting the economy. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-6

How China Is Tackling Its Debt

A report claims the university has notrepaid thousands of workers at itsMiddle East expansion and has beenslow on compliance. PAGE A22

NEW YORK A22-25

N.Y.U. Derided Over Labor

Late Edition

A show at the Met features vestmentsfrom the Vatican, and designs inspiredby the Catholic faith. Above, an ensem-ble from Jean Paul Gaultier. PAGE C11

WEEKEND C1-22

At the Met, a Blessing of Cloth

WASHINGTON — KirstjenNielsen, the homeland securitysecretary, told colleagues she wasclose to resigning after PresidentTrump berated her on Wednesdayin front of the entire cabinet forwhat he said was her failure to ad-equately secure the nation’s bor-ders, according to several currentand former officials familiar withthe episode.

Ms. Nielsen, who is a protégéeof John F. Kelly, the White Housechief of staff, has drafted a resig-nation letter but has not sub-mitted it, according to two of thepeople. As the head of the Depart-ment of Homeland Security, Ms.Nielsen is in charge of the 20,000employees who work for Immi-gration and Customs Enforce-ment.

Mr. Trump’s anger toward Ms.Nielsen, who was sitting several

seats to his left at the meeting,was part of a lengthy tirade inwhich the president railed at hiscabinet about what he said was itslack of progress toward sealingthe country’s borders against ille-gal immigrants, according to oneperson who was present at themeeting.

Asked about the heated ex-change at the meeting, SarahHuckabee Sanders, the WhiteHouse press secretary, saidThursday that “the president iscommitted to fixing our brokenimmigration system and our po-rous borders.”

In a statement, Ms. Nielsen saidshe intended to “continue to direct

the department to do all we can toimplement the president’s securi-ty-focused agenda.” She said Mr.Trump was “rightly frustratedthat existing loopholes and thelack of congressional action haveprevented this administrationfrom fully securing the border.”

Tyler Q. Houlton, a spokesmanfor the Department of HomelandSecurity, disputed that Ms.Nielsen had drafted a resignationletter and was close to resigning,calling those assertions “false.”

Mr. Trump’s anger about immi-gration has grown in recentweeks, according to several offi-cials. He repeatedly claimed cred-it for the fact that during his firstyear in office, illegal border cross-ings dropped to their lowest levelsin decades. But this year, theyhave risen again, robbing him ofone of his favorite talking points.

In remarks to reporters beforeWednesday’s meeting, Mr. Trumphinted at the anger that wouldcause him to erupt once TV cam-eras were led out of the room.

“We’ve very much toughenedup the border, but the laws arehorrible,” Mr. Trump said. “Thelaws in this country for immigra-tion and illegal immigration areabsolutely horrible. And we haveto do something about it — notonly the wall, which we’re build-ing sections of wall right now.”

One person familiar with Mr.Trump’s blowup at the meetingsaid it was prompted by a discus-

A Tirade by Trump, Then a Resignation LetterBy MICHAEL D. SHEARand NICOLE PERLROTH

Continued on Page A17

But Homeland SecurityChief Didn’t Send It

After a Scolding

DOHA, Qatar — What do youdo when your multibillion-dollarsports network has been stolen?

Executives at Qatar’s beINSports pondered that questionlast week as they stared at a bankof screens inside their sprawlingheadquarters here. On the night ofMay 2, the network’s main chan-nel, which functions as the ESPNof the Middle East, televised thedeciding game of the ChampionsLeague semifinal between A.S.Roma and Liverpool.

They watched the beIN Sportsfeed as Liverpool scored to takean early lead. Then they watchedthe same play 10 seconds later onlive coverage from beoutQ, a boot-legging operation seeminglybased in Saudi Arabia, whoseroots lie in the bitter political dis-pute between Qatar and a coali-tion of countries led by its largestneighbors, Saudi Arabia and theUnited Arab Emirates.

That night, like every night forthe past few months, 10 beoutQchannels were live, almost all ofthem screening the ostensibly ex-clusive and very expensive con-tent of beIN, which owns some ofthe most valuable sports rights inFrance, Spain and Turkey.

The coalition countries havesubjected Qatar to a punishing

blockade over the past year. Thosecountries last year accused Qatarof supporting terrorism and criti-cized its relationship with Iran, anally of Syrian leader Bashar al-As-sad. They enacted an embargo,

cut off diplomatic ties and set upthe blockade of the energy-richemirate, closing Qatar’s access tomany of the region’s ports andmuch of its airspace. Qatar has de-

An Act of Piracy, Shown Live in the Middle EastBy TARIQ PANJA

An anti-piracy monitoring room at beIN Sports in Doha, Qatar.A hacked feed of the channel has aired throughout Saudi Arabia.

OLYA MORVAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A15

JERUSALEM — The tenseshadow war between Iran and Is-rael burst into the open earlyThursday as Israeli warplanesstruck dozens of Iranian militarytargets inside Syria. It was a furi-ous response to what Israel calledan Iranian rocket attack launchedfrom Syrian territory just hoursearlier.

The cross-border exchanges —the most serious assaults fromeach side in their face-off overIran’s presence in Syria — tookplace a little more than a day afterthe United States withdrew fromthe Iran nuclear agreement.

Israel’s defense minister saidthat Israeli warplanes had de-stroyed “nearly all” of Iran’s mili-tary infrastructure in Syria afterIran launched 20 rockets at Is-raeli-held territory, none reachingtheir targets.

Iran struck shortly after Presi-dent Trump pulled out of the nu-clear agreement, raising specula-tion that it no longer felt con-strained by the possibility that theAmericans might scrap the deal ifIran attacked Israel.

Israel appeared newly embold-ened as well, partly because ofwhat seemed like extraordinarylatitude from Russia, Syria’s mostimportant ally, allowing the Is-raelis to act against Iran’s militaryassets in Syria.

Moscow did not condemn Is-rael’s strikes, as it had in the past,instead calling on Israel and Iranto resolve their differences diplo-matically.

And Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu of Israel, who spent 10hours with President Vladimir V.Putin of Russia on Wednesday,told his cabinet on Thursday thathe had persuaded the Russians to

ISRAEL STRIKESMILITARY ASSETSOF IRAN IN SYRIA

SHADOW WAR ESCALATES

Fighting Erupts a DayAfter the U.S. Exits a

Nuclear Accord

By ISABEL KERSHNERand DAVID M. HALBFINGER

Continued on Page A8

Missiles seen from Damascus,Syria, on Thursday morning.

OMAR SANADIKI/REUTERS

WASHINGTON — A DefenseDepartment investigation of aSpecial Forces mission in Nigerlast fall found widespread prob-lems across all levels of the mili-tary counterterrorism operation,but focused in particular on the ac-tions of junior officers leading upto an ambush that killed fourAmerican soldiers.

The investigation, releasedThursday, found that the 11-mem-ber team had not undergone cru-cial training as a unit before it de-ployed to Niger because of “per-sonnel turnover” and had not re-hearsed its mission before leavingits base. It said the two junior offi-cers had “mischaracterized” themission in a required planningdocument filed before the team,which included Green Berets, de-parted.

It also found that soldierswounded on the mission — at leasttwo Americans and three Ni-geriens — were not evacuated formore than four hours, far longerthan the Pentagon had acknowl-edged.

Most Americans were unawarebefore the Oct. 4 ambush thatGreen Berets, and 800 otherAmerican troops, were stationedin Niger, and the attack led to thelargest loss of American lives dur-ing combat in Africa since the 1993“Black Hawk Down” debacle inSomalia.

The deaths of the four soldiers— Sgt. First Class Jeremiah W.Johnson, Staff Sgt. Bryan C.Black, Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wrightand Sgt. La David Johnson — setoff a fierce debate over secretiveAmerican military missions in re-mote and far-flung battlegrounds.

The investigation did not rec-ommend specific corrective ac-tion to avoid the confusion and laxoversight that contributed to thedeaths.

The findings have been metwith dissension inside the mili-tary, and there are questionswhether they glossed over blamefor senior commanders who hadordered an unprepared andpoorly equipped team on a searchfor a local militant leader in thedesert scrub of western Niger.

An unclassified executive sum-mary of the investigation and anhourlong briefing at the Pentagonby senior officers on Thursday of-fered only a glimpse of the deci-sions made before the local fight-ers linked to the Islamic State ini-tiated their ambush.

Even as it found “individual, or-ganizational and institutional”mistakes, the investigation re-vealed heroic efforts by a teamthat was battered and outnum-bered as it braced to take a last

In Niger Study,Junior Officers

Are the Focus

Team Was Unpreparedand Poorly Equipped

This article is by Helene Cooper,Thomas Gibbons-Neff and EricSchmitt.

Continued on Page A12

FLASH TO THE FUTURE SouthKorea gave Kim Jong-un a USBdrive with a plan to upgrade theNorth’s infrastructure. PAGE A10

THE DETAINEES Three freedAmericans joined 13 others whohave been held in North Koreaand released since 1990. PAGE A10

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia —The accounts of corruption arestaggering: at least $3.5 billionstolen from a government fundand spent on expensive real es-tate, jewelry and art, with $731million ending up in the personalaccounts of the prime minister,Najib Razak.

Malaysians were so enragedthat they threw out Mr. Najib innational elections this week, thefirst time the governing party haslost power since independencemore than 60 years ago.

In his place, voters turned to afamiliar face, Mahathir Mo-hamad, a 92-year-old formerprime minister who had teamedup in an unlikely alliance with hispolitical opponents, some of

whom he had jailed.Mr. Mahathir was sworn in on

Thursday as the new prime min-ister — the world’s oldest electedhead of government — promisingto fight corruption, prosecute Mr.

Najib and unite this diverse nationof 31 million people.

“You know the mess the coun-try is in,” Mr. Mahathir said at anews conference on Thursdaymorning, “and we need to attendto this mess as soon as possible.”

“The rule of law will be fully im-plemented,” he said later at theconference. “And if the law saysthat Najib has done somethingwrong, then he will have to facethe consequence.”

The ouster of the governingparty is striking in a region whereautocratic government, arbitrarykillings, imprisonment and mediacrackdowns have become com-mon.

From President RodrigoDuterte’s killing of drug users inthe Philippines, to the slaughter of

Malaysian Victor Vows to Clean House He Built

By RICHARD C. PADDOCK

Mahathir Mohamad, 92, isonce again the prime minister.

LAI SENG SIN/REUTERS

Continued on Page A6

Millions marched in parades to remem-ber relatives who died in World War II.Moscow Journal. PAGE A14

Russia Honors Its War Heroes

In a new memoir as he confronts cancerand his mortality, Senator John McCainyearns for a return to more civil poli-tics. On Washington. PAGE A19

Not One for Quiet Goodbyes

Rudolph W. Giuliani said hush money,like that paid to women on behalf of thepresident, was routine. His former lawfirm disagreed. PAGE A18

Giuliani and Firm Part Ways

The streaming service will no longerpromote artists it deems to have en-gaged in “hateful conduct.” PAGE B1

R. Kelly Runs Afoul of Spotify

He was M.V.P. He’s a “Seinfeld” legend,a quirky broadcaster and an author.Now Keith Hernandez is a social mediasavant. Of course, his cat helps. PAGE B7

SPORTSFRIDAY B7-11

I’m Hadji Hernandez. Meow.

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump, exulting in the release ofthree Americans from prison inNorth Korea, confirmed Thursdaythat he would meet Kim Jong-un,the North’s leader, in Singapore onJune 12, setting the date for a onceunimaginable encounter.

The choice of Singapore, a tidy,prosperous city-state with ties toboth the United States and NorthKorea, is a small victory for Mr.Trump’s advisers, who talked himout of meeting Mr. Kim in the De-militarized Zone between Northand South Korea — a far moresymbolic, but politically problem-atic, location.

“We will both try to make it avery special moment for WorldPeace!” Mr. Trump said in a mid-morning post on Twitter, hours af-ter he traveled in the middle of thenight to Joint Base Andrews nearWashington to greet the threemen: Kim Dong-chul, Tony Kimand Kim Hak-song.

North Korea’s release of theAmericans lifted a major obstacleto the summit meeting. Secretaryof State Mike Pompeo, who hastaken charge of the diplomaticopening to the North, finalized itsdate and location during a 90-minute meeting with Kim Jong-unin Pyongyang, the north’s capital.Afterward, Mr. Pompeo left withthe detainees on his plane.

For Mr. Trump, basking in theglow of floodlights and TV cam-eras, it was a jubilant moment ashe descended the steps of the air-craft with the three Americans,who flashed peace signs. But heacknowledged that the most diffi-cult phase of the negotiations —persuading North Korea to sur-render its nuclear weapons ar-senal — lies ahead.

“We’re starting off on a new

Trump to MeetKim for Talks

In Singapore

Gathering June 12 at aNeutral Asian Site

By MARK LANDLERand KATIE ROGERS

President Trump with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Americans freed by North Korea.TOM BRENNER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A11

David Brooks PAGE A27

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

Today, partly sunny, high 74. To-night, mostly cloudy, a few showerslate, low 56. Tomorrow, some show-ers and thunderstorms, high 72.Weather map appears on Page B14.

$3.00