Amazon Is Sold on a Deal In New York and Virginia,
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VOL. CLXVIII . . . No. 58,146 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2018 U(D54G1D)y+&!]!%!#!{ Seventy-five years after the painter’s “Four Freedoms” series ran in The Saturday Evening Post, a number of artists are offering more-modern ver- sions of his vision of America. PAGE C1 ARTS C1-8 Updating Norman Rockwell An eruption of hostilities between Israel and Hamas militants raised questions about how the two sides got here again and the implications for any potential peace process. PAGE A8 INTERNATIONAL A4-10 Gaza’s Latest Flare-Up Missy Robbins’s new place in Brooklyn has many ways to impress beyond items like the corzetti, above. PAGE D7 FOOD D1-10 At Misi, Pasta and Much More Frank Bruni PAGE A27 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27 For weeks the president warned of a looming threat from a caravan of Cen- tral American migrants heading toward the United States. But that was before the midterm elections. PAGE A12 NATIONAL A11-21 Trump Goes Silent on Caravan Bowing to pressure over youth vaping, Juul will restrict sales of nearly all its flavored pods to online only, and stop most social media promotion. PAGE A15 Juul Says It Will Cut Back “Chop Suey,” a 1929 oil on canvas by Edward Hopper, conjurer of the solitary realities of 20th-century life, sold at auction for $91.9 million. PAGE A25 NEW YORK A22-25 Hopper Tops $90 Million When medical centers join forces to save money, they argue that prices go down. But an analysis shows that the patients often spend more. PAGE B1 BUSINESS B1-8 Hospitals Merge. Patients Pay. At 13, Allonzo Trier appeared on the cover of The New York Times Maga- zine. A winding basketball journey led him to the Knicks. PAGE B10 SPORTSWEDNESDAY B10-13 The Prodigy Grows Up On a late October day, Amazon executives flew to New York to an- swer a final question before they committed to opening a massive technology center in Queens: Could Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio stop bicker- ing long enough to see the project through? “They wanted to just trust — but verify — that everybody was on the same page,” said Alicia Glen, a deputy mayor who was at the meeting with Mr. de Blasio. After meeting with both men separately that day, the Amazon officials decided the two Demo- crats could put aside their long- standing differences. Soon after, documents were exchanged, and re-exchanged, ironing out details of a package worth more than a billion dollars in tax incentives and state grants. The politicians even agreed to a plan to circum- vent the City Council to prevent future roadblocks. The deal for the Queens devel- opment, in Long Island City, was announced on Tuesday, after Am- azon concluded a 14-month, coun- trywide search for a location for a second headquarters for some 50,000 well-paid tech workers. The company, which ended up picking two sites and dividing the new workers between them, is also opening a huge corporate site in Arlington, Va., in an area across the Potomac River from Washing- ton. Amazon said the new devel- opments, both to be called head- quarters, would require $5 billion in construction and other invest- ments. The company also said it would develop a much smaller opera- In New York and Virginia, Amazon Is Sold on a Deal A Decision 14 Months in the Making By KAREN WEISE and J. DAVID GOODMAN Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, left, and Mayor Bill de Blasio. CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page A23 To attract Amazon, New York’s leaders agreed to remake plans for the Queens waterfront, move a distribution center for school lunches and provide a sweeping package of $1.7 billion in incen- tives from the state and hundreds of millions more from the city. They even agreed to allow a he- lipad for Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive. Under the plan, within 15 years the company could occupy as much as eight million square feet of office space, the rough equiva- lent of three Empire State Build- ings. An image of what life will be like with the arrival of Amazon be- came clearer on Tuesday, even if many questions remain unan- swered. The company has agreed to fol- low city guidelines for the design of its outpost in Long Island City. But gone is the city’s vision of a mixed-use community filled with apartments, some of them for resi- dents of more modest means. In its place will rise office buildings that will house 25,000 or more workers. The kayakers bobbing on the East River will now be joined by helicopters overhead. In some quarters of Queens, op- position was quickly building. “Ask not what we can do for Am- azon. Ask what Amazon can do for us,” said State Senator Michael Gianaris, a Democrat who repre- sents the neighborhood. But Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio seemed re- lieved to be able to finally discuss the long-secret negotiation and appeared jovial on Tuesday as they spoke about the economic benefits. Yes, it is among the state’s larg- est-ever incentive packages, the governor said, but the return on investment would be nine to one. Yes, they were circumventing the usual land-use process and es- sentially eliminating any veto power by the City Council. But, Mr. de Blasio said, the project was so large that Amazon “needed a certain amount of certainty.” Cost of Queens Prize: $1.7 Billion and Up By J. DAVID GOODMAN Continued on Page A23 PARADISE, Calif. — It is a measure of how frequent and deadly wildfires have become in California that identifying badly burned remains has become an area of expertise. Once again ca- daver dogs have been summoned, forensic dental experts will follow and coroners and anthropologists are using their experience from previous wildfires to locate the victims. One search team on Tuesday toured the foundation of a flat- tened home in this singed stretch of Paradise, Calif. Carefully they circled the charred bathtub, the melted kitchen floor, the skeletal playground — poking everywhere with long metal poles. In white hazmat suits and red hard hats, the group of specialists was searching for two things no one wants to find: bodies and bones. “Checked the bathroom,” Tess Koleczek said. “That’s where I would probably go, to the bath- room, with the water running as long as I could.” Scanning the sunken ground, she poked at the debris. “The problem is,” she said, “how do you tell a bone from a rock at a certain point?” At least 48 people were killed in the Camp Fire, the deadliest wild- fire in California history, and many more are missing. A Grim Search As Fatal Blazes Grip California By JULIE TURKEWITZ and THOMAS FULLER Smoke hovered over Malibu, Calif., on Tuesday as firefighters worked to halt the Woolsey Fire, which has leveled hundreds of homes. ERIC THAYER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page A14 The 2018 midterm election looked last Tuesday like a serious but not crippling setback for Re- publicans, yet the picture has grown grimmer for the party since then as a more complete tally of votes has come in across the country. What looked at first like a mod- est Democratic majority in the House has grown into a stronger one: The party has gained 33 seats so far and appears on track to gain between 35 and 40 once all the counting is complete. And Democratic losses in the Senate look less serious than they did a week ago, after Kyrsten Sinema was declared the winner in Arizona on Monday. It now looks like Democrats are likely to lose a net of one or two seats, rather than three or four as they feared last Tuesday. The underlying shifts in the electorate suggest President Trump may have to walk a precar- ious path to re-election in 2020, as several Midwestern states he won in 2016 threaten to slip away, and once-red states in the Southwest turn a purpler hue. The presi- dent’s strategy of sowing racial di- vision and stoking alarm about immigration failed to lift his party, and Democratic messaging about health care undercut the benefit Republicans hoped to gain from a strong economy. David Winston, a Republican pollster who advises congres- sional leaders, said his party should not use victories in the Senate to paper over severe losses As Days Pass, Democratic Gains Grow Stronger By ALEXANDER BURNS NEW SENATOR Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, won in Arizona by appealing to moderates. Page A17. ERIN SCHAFF FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Shifts in the Electorate Complicate Trump’s Re-election Path Continued on Page A16 WASHINGTON — She bad- mouthed the defense secretary. She was the hatchet woman for John R. Bolton, the famously com- bative national security adviser, and drove out staff members from the National Security Council who were deemed insufficiently con- servative or loyal. But in disparaging two mem- bers of Melania Trump’s staff who traveled with Mrs. Trump, the first lady, on her trip last month to Africa, Mira Ricardel, a deputy na- tional security adviser, appar- ently went too far. In a White House where the drama has been constant, but al- most always behind the scenes, an email to reporters on Tuesday from Stephanie Grisham, a spokeswoman for the first lady, was unusually direct: “It is the po- sition of the Office of the First Lady that she no longer deserves the honor of serving in this White House.” The email was sent less than an hour after Ms. Ricardel appeared at an official White House event with President Trump. There were nonetheless con- flicting reports by late afternoon on whether Ms. Ricardel had actu- ally been fired. The Wall Street Journal reported that she was brusquely escorted off the grounds of the White House, only First Lady, Flexing Political Muscle, Demands Removal of Aide This article is by Maggie Ha- berman, Helene Cooper and Ron Nixon. Continued on Page A12 BANGKOK — Boeing faced new scrutiny on Tuesday over the crash of one of its planes into the sea off Indonesia last month, as airlines, pilots and regulators sought to determine whether the company had underplayed the complexity of a new emergency system suspected of having mal- functioned on the doomed jetliner. Investigators have been fo- cused on whether the plane, Lion Air Flight 610, crashed because the system, which is designed to pull the plane out of a dangerous stall, activated based on inaccu- rate data transmitted or pro- cessed from sensors on the fu- selage. The plane plunged nose down into the sea, killing all 189 people on board. The precise cause or causes of the crash remain un- clear. Boeing has been selling the model that crashed, the new 737 Max 8, as requiring little addi- tional pilot training for airlines that already use the previous ver- sion of the plane. The 737 Max 8 is in a ferocious competitive battle with an update of the Airbus A320, and minimizing the costs of up- grading to the new model is one of Hunt for Cause of Jet Disaster Homes In on Anti-Stall System This article is by Hannah Beech, Hiroko Tabuchi, James Glanz and Zach Wichter. Continued on Page A9 THE BAIT New York and Virginia offered Amazon billions in incen- tives. Did they overpay? PAGE B1 Late Edition Today, partly sunny, windy, colder, high 40. Tonight, partly cloudy, cold, low 28. Tomorrow, becoming cloudy, afternoon rain and snow at times, high 36. Weather map, Page A21. $3.00
Transcript of Amazon Is Sold on a Deal In New York and Virginia,
VOL. CLXVIII . . . No. 58,146 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2018
C M Y K Nxxx,2018-11-14,A,001,Bs-4C,E2
U(D54G1D)y+&!]!%!#!{
Seventy-five years after the painter’s“Four Freedoms” series ran in TheSaturday Evening Post, a number ofartists are offering more-modern ver-sions of his vision of America. PAGE C1
ARTS C1-8
Updating Norman RockwellAn eruption of hostilities between Israeland Hamas militants raised questionsabout how the two sides got here againand the implications for any potentialpeace process. PAGE A8
INTERNATIONAL A4-10
Gaza’s Latest Flare-Up
Missy Robbins’s new place in Brooklynhas many ways to impress beyonditems like the corzetti, above. PAGE D7
FOOD D1-10
At Misi, Pasta and Much More
Frank Bruni PAGE A27
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27
For weeks the president warned of alooming threat from a caravan of Cen-tral American migrants heading towardthe United States. But that was beforethe midterm elections. PAGE A12
NATIONAL A11-21
Trump Goes Silent on Caravan
Bowing to pressure over youth vaping,Juul will restrict sales of nearly all itsflavored pods to online only, and stopmost social media promotion. PAGE A15
Juul Says It Will Cut Back
“Chop Suey,” a 1929 oil on canvas byEdward Hopper, conjurer of the solitaryrealities of 20th-century life, sold atauction for $91.9 million. PAGE A25
NEW YORK A22-25
Hopper Tops $90 Million
When medical centers join forces tosave money, they argue that prices godown. But an analysis shows that thepatients often spend more. PAGE B1
BUSINESS B1-8
Hospitals Merge. Patients Pay.
At 13, Allonzo Trier appeared on thecover of The New York Times Maga-zine. A winding basketball journey ledhim to the Knicks. PAGE B10
SPORTSWEDNESDAY B10-13
The Prodigy Grows Up
On a late October day, Amazonexecutives flew to New York to an-swer a final question before theycommitted to opening a massivetechnology center in Queens:Could Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo andMayor Bill de Blasio stop bicker-ing long enough to see the projectthrough?
“They wanted to just trust —but verify — that everybody wason the same page,” said AliciaGlen, a deputy mayor who was atthe meeting with Mr. de Blasio.
After meeting with both menseparately that day, the Amazonofficials decided the two Demo-crats could put aside their long-standing differences. Soon after,documents were exchanged, andre-exchanged, ironing out detailsof a package worth more than abillion dollars in tax incentivesand state grants. The politicianseven agreed to a plan to circum-vent the City Council to prevent
future roadblocks.The deal for the Queens devel-
opment, in Long Island City, wasannounced on Tuesday, after Am-azon concluded a 14-month, coun-trywide search for a location for asecond headquarters for some50,000 well-paid tech workers.The company, which ended uppicking two sites and dividing thenew workers between them, isalso opening a huge corporate sitein Arlington, Va., in an area acrossthe Potomac River from Washing-ton. Amazon said the new devel-opments, both to be called head-quarters, would require $5 billionin construction and other invest-ments.
The company also said it woulddevelop a much smaller opera-
In New York and Virginia,Amazon Is Sold on a Deal
A Decision 14 Months in the Making
By KAREN WEISEand J. DAVID GOODMAN
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, left,and Mayor Bill de Blasio.
CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Continued on Page A23
To attract Amazon, New York’sleaders agreed to remake plansfor the Queens waterfront, move adistribution center for schoollunches and provide a sweepingpackage of $1.7 billion in incen-tives from the state and hundredsof millions more from the city.
They even agreed to allow a he-lipad for Jeff Bezos, Amazon’schief executive.
Under the plan, within 15 yearsthe company could occupy asmuch as eight million square feetof office space, the rough equiva-lent of three Empire State Build-ings.
An image of what life will be likewith the arrival of Amazon be-came clearer on Tuesday, even ifmany questions remain unan-swered.
The company has agreed to fol-low city guidelines for the designof its outpost in Long Island City.But gone is the city’s vision of amixed-use community filled withapartments, some of them for resi-dents of more modest means. Inits place will rise office buildingsthat will house 25,000 or moreworkers. The kayakers bobbingon the East River will now bejoined by helicopters overhead.
In some quarters of Queens, op-position was quickly building.
“Ask not what we can do for Am-azon. Ask what Amazon can do forus,” said State Senator MichaelGianaris, a Democrat who repre-sents the neighborhood.
But Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo andMayor Bill de Blasio seemed re-lieved to be able to finally discussthe long-secret negotiation andappeared jovial on Tuesday asthey spoke about the economicbenefits.
Yes, it is among the state’s larg-est-ever incentive packages, thegovernor said, but the return oninvestment would be nine to one.
Yes, they were circumventingthe usual land-use process and es-sentially eliminating any vetopower by the City Council. But,Mr. de Blasio said, the project wasso large that Amazon “needed acertain amount of certainty.”
Cost of Queens Prize:$1.7 Billion and Up
By J. DAVID GOODMAN
Continued on Page A23
PARADISE, Calif. — It is ameasure of how frequent anddeadly wildfires have become inCalifornia that identifying badlyburned remains has become anarea of expertise. Once again ca-daver dogs have been summoned,forensic dental experts will followand coroners and anthropologistsare using their experience fromprevious wildfires to locate thevictims.
One search team on Tuesdaytoured the foundation of a flat-tened home in this singed stretchof Paradise, Calif. Carefully theycircled the charred bathtub, themelted kitchen floor, the skeletalplayground — poking everywherewith long metal poles.
In white hazmat suits and redhard hats, the group of specialistswas searching for two things noone wants to find: bodies andbones.
“Checked the bathroom,” TessKoleczek said. “That’s where Iwould probably go, to the bath-room, with the water running aslong as I could.”
Scanning the sunken ground,she poked at the debris. “Theproblem is,” she said, “how do youtell a bone from a rock at a certainpoint?”
At least 48 people were killed inthe Camp Fire, the deadliest wild-fire in California history, andmany more are missing.
A Grim SearchAs Fatal BlazesGrip California
By JULIE TURKEWITZand THOMAS FULLER
Smoke hovered over Malibu, Calif., on Tuesday as firefighters worked to halt the Woolsey Fire, which has leveled hundreds of homes.ERIC THAYER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Continued on Page A14
The 2018 midterm electionlooked last Tuesday like a seriousbut not crippling setback for Re-publicans, yet the picture hasgrown grimmer for the partysince then as a more completetally of votes has come in acrossthe country.
What looked at first like a mod-est Democratic majority in theHouse has grown into a strongerone: The party has gained 33seats so far and appears on trackto gain between 35 and 40 once allthe counting is complete.
And Democratic losses in the
Senate look less serious than theydid a week ago, after KyrstenSinema was declared the winnerin Arizona on Monday. It nowlooks like Democrats are likely tolose a net of one or two seats,rather than three or four as theyfeared last Tuesday.
The underlying shifts in theelectorate suggest President
Trump may have to walk a precar-ious path to re-election in 2020, asseveral Midwestern states he wonin 2016 threaten to slip away, andonce-red states in the Southwestturn a purpler hue. The presi-dent’s strategy of sowing racial di-vision and stoking alarm aboutimmigration failed to lift his party,and Democratic messaging abouthealth care undercut the benefitRepublicans hoped to gain from astrong economy.
David Winston, a Republicanpollster who advises congres-sional leaders, said his partyshould not use victories in theSenate to paper over severe losses
As Days Pass, Democratic Gains Grow StrongerBy ALEXANDER BURNS
NEW SENATOR Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, won in Arizona by appealing to moderates. Page A17.ERIN SCHAFF FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Shifts in the Electorate Complicate Trump’s
Re-election Path
Continued on Page A16
WASHINGTON — She bad-mouthed the defense secretary.She was the hatchet woman forJohn R. Bolton, the famously com-bative national security adviser,and drove out staff members from
the National Security Council whowere deemed insufficiently con-servative or loyal.
But in disparaging two mem-bers of Melania Trump’s staff whotraveled with Mrs. Trump, thefirst lady, on her trip last month toAfrica, Mira Ricardel, a deputy na-tional security adviser, appar-ently went too far.
In a White House where the
drama has been constant, but al-most always behind the scenes, anemail to reporters on Tuesdayfrom Stephanie Grisham, aspokeswoman for the first lady,was unusually direct: “It is the po-sition of the Office of the FirstLady that she no longer deservesthe honor of serving in this WhiteHouse.”
The email was sent less than an
hour after Ms. Ricardel appearedat an official White House eventwith President Trump.
There were nonetheless con-flicting reports by late afternoonon whether Ms. Ricardel had actu-ally been fired. The Wall StreetJournal reported that she wasbrusquely escorted off thegrounds of the White House, only
First Lady, Flexing Political Muscle, Demands Removal of AideThis article is by Maggie Ha-
berman, Helene Cooper and RonNixon.
Continued on Page A12
BANGKOK — Boeing facednew scrutiny on Tuesday over thecrash of one of its planes into thesea off Indonesia last month, asairlines, pilots and regulatorssought to determine whether thecompany had underplayed thecomplexity of a new emergencysystem suspected of having mal-functioned on the doomed jetliner.
Investigators have been fo-cused on whether the plane, LionAir Flight 610, crashed becausethe system, which is designed topull the plane out of a dangerousstall, activated based on inaccu-
rate data transmitted or pro-cessed from sensors on the fu-selage.
The plane plunged nose downinto the sea, killing all 189 peopleon board. The precise cause orcauses of the crash remain un-clear.
Boeing has been selling themodel that crashed, the new 737Max 8, as requiring little addi-tional pilot training for airlinesthat already use the previous ver-sion of the plane. The 737 Max 8 isin a ferocious competitive battlewith an update of the Airbus A320,and minimizing the costs of up-grading to the new model is one of
Hunt for Cause of Jet DisasterHomes In on Anti-Stall System
This article is by Hannah Beech,Hiroko Tabuchi, James Glanz andZach Wichter.
Continued on Page A9
THE BAIT New York and Virginiaoffered Amazon billions in incen-tives. Did they overpay? PAGE B1
Late EditionToday, partly sunny, windy, colder,high 40. Tonight, partly cloudy, cold,low 28. Tomorrow, becoming cloudy,afternoon rain and snow at times,high 36. Weather map, Page A21.
$3.00
