gop concedes fight to obama on internet rule

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VOL. CLXIV . . . No. 56,788
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NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2015
© 2015 The New York Times
G.O.P. CONCEDES
FIGHT TO OBAMA
ON INTERNET RULE
In Greek Crisis,
Rare Moment
Of Consensus
Conflict Set Aside as
Bailout Is Extended
NO FAST AND SLOW LANES
An Advance for Net
Neutrality, the Web
Seen as a Utility
By JIM YARDLEY
ROME — For the past month,
as Greece once again emerged as
a threat to the global economy, a
new generation of populist Greek
leaders vowed to shatter Europe’s austerity politics in what
threatened to become an unbridgeable divide with the European establishment, especially
Germany. There were insults,
predictions of calamity and accusations of double-dealing and deceit.
Until Tuesday, when, with surprising ease, Greece and Europe
suddenly made nice — at least for
the moment.
Eurozone finance ministers
and other creditors agreed to extend the Greek bailout program
for another four months, with
caveats, after signing off on a reform plan hurriedly put forward
by the Greek government. A
tough confrontation that symbolized the polarized politics and
deep economic divisions of Europe had taken a Kumbaya
pause.
It will probably not last long,
and the fact that both sides are
claiming victory underscores the
fuzziness and fragility of the new
agreement. Tuesday’s accord
does not resolve Greece’s dire
economic situation and pushes
many of the major problems
down the road. Nor has this latest
Greek crisis forced Europe’s
leaders to address the fundamental problems of the economic and
political structure of the eurozone.
Yet the political dynamic has
undeniably changed. The new
Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, and his leftist Syriza party
were elected last month as insurgents, promising to end austerity
in Greece and inspire a broader
backlash across Europe. But to
avoid a banking crisis and keep
the loan money flowing, Mr. Tsipras discarded his confrontational stance and is now committed to
pushing through structural reforms and tougher tax collections: positions long advocated
by European creditors.
In turn, Mr. Tsipras is claiming
a measure of victory, symbolic
and tangible, by forcing Europe
to revise, if modestly, the terms of
the bailout program and winning
some commitments to address
the “humanitarian crisis” created
by austerity. His close advisers
Continued on Page A3
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
STEPHEN CROWLEY/THE NEW YORK TIMES
A Senate Bid to Break an Impasse
Mitch McConnell, third from left, proposed splitting legislation on Homeland Security funding and immigration. Page A14.
Once ‘Fixed,’
Teenage Girl Leaves for ISIS, and Others Follow
girls, Shamima Begum, had sent
Now Pensions
Twitter message to a woman on
Quiet Young Scot Is aFeb.
15, a couple of days before
LONDON — Aqsa Mahmood’s
Haunt Christie family
they left Britain, but declined to
saw her as an intelligent
Now Called a Top
By KIMIKO DE FREYTAS-TAMURA
By KATE ZERNIKE
TRENTON — Four years ago,
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey
signed bipartisan legislation to
overhaul public employee pensions and declared he had “fixed”
the problem that was crushing
state and local governments
across the country with enormous debts. He held up New Jersey as a model.
On Tuesday, he was back at the
State House here talking about
public employee pensions, pushing again “a bipartisan solution”
that he vowed would be a “national model” to “once and for all
fix this problem.”
The broad outlines of his plan,
like his language, were much the
same as what he signed in 2011 —
public employees will give up
benefits, the state will promise to
make full payments into the pension system.
“We will not push this off,” he
declared. “We will not leave it for
another day, for another year, for
another generation.”
The fact that he was making
essentially the same case about
Continued on Page A20
and popular teenager who helped
care for her three younger siblings and her grandparents at her
home in Scotland. She listened to
Coldplay, read Harry Potter novels and drank Irn Bru, a Scottish
soft drink.
She aspired to be a pharmacist
or a doctor, and they did not expect her to leave her home in
Glasgow in November 2013 to go
to Syria, where the authorities
now say she is one of the most active recruiters of young British
women to join the Islamic State.
The authorities are investigating possible links between Ms.
Mahmood, who goes by the name
Jihadi Recruiter
Umm Layth (meaning Mother of
the Lion), and the disappearance
last week of three teenagers from
London. They, too, are believed to
have traveled to Syria to join the
terrorist group also known as
ISIS or ISIL.
The apparent trend of studious, seemingly driven young
women leaving home to join violent jihadists has become disturbingly familiar.
A Metropolitan Police official
said on Monday that one of the
disclose her name.
Experts who track jihadist activity online, including Audrey
Alexander at the International
Center for the Study of Radicalization, in London, have identified that woman as Ms. Mahmood, 20.
She is now thought to live in
Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital
of the Islamic State, where she
married a jihadist and acts as a
virtual den mother offering
sometimes stern advice to peers
who would follow in her footsteps.
As the families of the three
missing girls made tearful apContinued on Page A5
Cause Célèbre, Scorned by Troops
WASHINGTON — Senior Republicans conceded on Tuesday
that the grueling fight with President Obama over the regulation
of Internet service appears over,
with the president and an army
of Internet activists victorious.
The Federal Communications
Commission is expected on
Thursday to approve regulating
Internet service like a public utility, prohibiting companies from
paying for faster lanes on the Internet. While the two Democratic
commissioners are negotiating
over technical details, they are
widely expected to side with the
Democratic
chairman,
Tom
Wheeler, against the two Republican commissioners.
And Republicans on Capitol
Hill, who once criticized the plan
as “Obamacare for the Internet,”
now say they are unlikely to pass
a legislative response that would
undo perhaps the biggest policy
shift since the Internet became a
reality.
“We’re not going to get a
signed bill that doesn’t have
Democrats’ support,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of
South Dakota and chairman of
the Senate Commerce Committee. “This is an issue that needs
to have bipartisan support.”
The new F.C.C. rules are still
likely to be tied up in a protracted
court fight with the cable companies and Internet service providers that oppose it, and they could
be overturned in the future by a
Republican-leaning commission.
But for now, Congress’s hands
appear to be tied.
The F.C.C. plan would let the
agency regulate Internet access
as if it is a public good. It would
follow the concept known as net
neutrality or an open Internet,
banning so-called paid prioritization — or fast lanes — for willing
Internet content providers.
In addition, it would ban the intentional slowing of the Internet
for companies that refuse to pay
broadband providers. The plan
would also give the F.C.C. the
power to step in if unforeseen impediments are thrown up by the
handful of giant companies that
run many of the country’s broadband and wireless networks.
Republicans hoped to pre-empt
Continued on Page A3
Oil Pipeline Bill Vetoed
By DAVE PHILIPPS
Nearly two dozen soldiers from
an Army platoon were on patrol
in a dangerous valley in southern
Afghanistan when a motorcycle
sped toward them, ignoring commands to stop.
As he tells it, First Lt. Clint Lorance, the platoon leader, ordered
his men to fire just seconds before the motorcycle bore down on
them that July day in 2012. But
the Afghans were unarmed, and
two died. The next year, Lieutenant Lorance was found guilty at a
court-martial of second-degree
murder, one of the few times an
American soldier has been convicted of a crime for actions in
PHOTOGRAPHS BY METROPOLITAN POLICE, VIA REUTERS
combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.
He is serving a 19-year sentence
at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
But the case is far from over.
Mr. Lorance, who was dismissed
from the Army, has become a
cause célèbre for conservative
commentators, including Sean
Hannity of Fox News, who say
the Obama administration punished a soldier for trying to defend his troops. Three Republican House members — Duncan
Hunter of California, Matt Salmon of Arizona and Ryan Zinke of
Montana — have asked the secreContinued on Page A17
Security images at Gatwick Airport near London showed, from left, Kadiza Sultana, 16, Amira
Abase, 15, and Shamima Begum, 15, as they headed to a flight to Turkey last week.
After Babies Are Switched in France, a Lesson in Maternal Love
By MAÏA de la BAUME
GRASSE, France — When
Sophie Serrano finally held her
daughter, Manon, in her arms after the newborn, suffering from
jaundice, had been placed under
artificial light, she was taken
aback by the baby’s full head of
glossy hair.
“I hadn’t noticed it before, and
it surprised me,” Ms. Serrano
said in an interview at her home
here in southern France, not far
from the Côte d’Azur.
Ms. Serrano, now 39, was baffled again a year later, when she
noticed that her baby’s hair had
grown frizzy and that her skin
NATIONAL A11-17
INTERNATIONAL A4-10
BUSINESS DAY B1-10
Conviction in ‘Sniper’ Case
A Russian Warning to Ukraine
Marketing Disease, Then Drug
Eddie Ray
Routh, a mentally disturbed
veteran, was
found guilty of
murder in the
death of Chris
Kyle, left, the
former Navy
SEAL who inspired the movie “AmeriPAGE A11
can Sniper.”
Russia told Ukraine it could run out of
natural gas in two days because of a dispute over payments, and the bitter feud
has become a subplot of a wider political
conflict between Moscow and Kiev over
PAGE A7
the past year.
Critics say Shire’s strategy for marketing its drug to treat binge eating,
Vyvanse — which hinges on raising
awareness of the disorder — goes too
far because the drug, an amphetamine,
has a high potential for abuse. PAGE B1
NEW YORK A18-21, 24
FOOD D1-6
Out of Staten Island Obscurity
A Vegetarian Expansion
Daniel Donovan Jr., the prosecutor who
handled the inquiry into the chokehold
death of Eric Garner, defended his
record as he seeks the congressional
seat Michael Grimm vacated. PAGE A18
Dirt Candy,
where the chef
and owner
Amanda Cohen
serves dishes
including vegetable ice cream
salad, has a
new and larger
PAGE D1
Lower East Side location.
No Charges in Florida Killing
The Justice Department closed its investigation into the shooting death
three years ago of Trayvon Martin without filing hate-crime charges against the
gunman, George Zimmerman, who was
acquitted of second-degree murder in a
PAGE A11
state court in 2013.
Chicago Mayor in Runoff
Rahm Emanuel, who was easily elected
mayor of Chicago four years ago, came
in first among the five candidates on the
ballot but failed to seal a second term after getting too few votes to avoid a riskiPAGE A11
er runoff election in April.
President Obama rejected a
Republican challenge, vetoing
legislation to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline. Page A16.
SPORTSWEDNESDAY B12-16
Sharing DNA and a Dream
The identical
twins Lexi and
Tori Weeks, the
country’s top
female prep
pole-vaulters,
are aiming for
the Olympic
trials. PAGE B12
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23
Thomas L. Friedman
PAGE A23
U(D54G1D)y+"!}!@!#!,
color was darker than hers or her
partner’s.
But her love for the child
trumped any doubts. Even as her
relationship unraveled — in part,
she said, over her partner’s suspicions — she painstakingly
looked after the baby until a paternity test more than 10 years
later showed that neither she nor
her partner was Manon’s biological parent. Ms. Serrano later
found out that a nurse had accidentally switched babies and given them to the wrong mothers.
The story made headlines in
France for the first time this
month, when a southern court orContinued on Page A10