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VOL. CLXII . . No. 55,953
NEW YORK, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2012
© 2012 The New York Times
CUOMO WILL SEEK
$30 BILLION IN AID
FOR STORM RELIEF
TIMELINE SHOWS
F.B.I. DISCOVERED
AFFAIR IN SUMMER
CONGRESS MUST APPROVE
CONGRESS SEEKS INQUIRY
Obama to Visit — Toll
Put at $50 Billion,
2nd to Katrina
Involvement of Petraeus
Posed a Challenge
for Investigators
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo plans
to ask the federal government for
at least $30 billion in disaster aid
to help New York City and other
affected areas of the state re-
cover from the devastation of
Hurricane Sandy, according to
top administration officials.
In making the case for federal
aid, the governor’s advisers pro-
vided a staggering inventory of
need as the city and state contin-
ued to rebuild in the storm’s
deadly wake: $3.5 billion to re-
pair the region’s bridges, tunnels
and subway and commuter rail
lines; $1.65 billion to rebuild
homes and apartment buildings;
$1 billion to reimburse local gov-
ernments for overtime costs of
police, fire and other emergency
personnel; and several billion
dollars in federal loans and
grants to affected businesses.
In all, Hurricane Sandy caused
more than $50 billion in damage
in the New York region, accord-
ing to Cuomo administration offi-
cials, making it the country’s
costliest storm other than Hurri-
cane Katrina, which devastated
the Gulf Coast region in 2005.
That hurricane caused about $145
billion in damages, with the fed-
eral government providing about
$110 billion in disaster aid, ac-
cording to Cuomo officials.
In outlining the plan, Cuomo of-
ficials provided an assessment of
the economic toll of the storm in
New York. Businesses through-
out the city and state lost $13 bil-
lion after being forced to close for
days either because of damage to
their property or because em-
ployees could not get to their jobs
with travel restrictions widely in
place, according to Cuomo aides.
The governor’s move comes as
President Obama is scheduled to
appear on Thursday in the New
By SCOTT SHANE
and CHARLIE SAVAGE
WASHINGTON — High-level
officials at the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Justice De-
partment were notified in the late
summer that F.B.I. agents had
uncovered what appeared to be
an extramarital affair involving
the director of the Central Intelli-
gence Agency, David H. Pe-
traeus, government officials said
Sunday.
But law enforcement officials
did not notify anyone outside the
F.B.I. or the Justice Department
until last week because the in-
vestigation was incomplete and
initial concerns about possible se-
curity breaches, which would de-
mand more immediate action, did
not appear to be justified, the offi-
cials said.
The new accounts of the events
that led to Mr. Petraeus’s sudden
resignation on Friday shed light
on the competing pressures fac-
ing F.B.I. agents who recognized
the high stakes of any investiga-
tion involving the C.I.A. director
but who were wary of exposing a
private affair with no criminal or
security implications. For the
first time Sunday, the woman
whose report of harassing
e-mails led to the exposure of the
affair was identified as Jill Kelley,
37, of Tampa, Fla.
Some members of Congress
have protested the delay in being
notified of the F.B.I.’s investiga-
tion of Mr. Petraeus until just af-
ter the presidential election. Sen-
ator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat
of California and the chairwoman
of the Intelligence Committee,
said Sunday that her committee
would “absolutely” demand an
explanation. An F.B.I. case in-
volving the C.I.A. director “could
have had an effect on national se-
curity,” she said on “Fox News
Sunday.” “I think we should have
been told.”
But the bureau’s history would
make the privacy question espe-
cially significant; in his decades-
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Greeting and Remembering on Veterans Day
President Obama and the first lady joined families in a wreath-laying ceremony on Sunday at Arlington National Cemetery.
15 Inmates Fled in Hurricane,
Raising Questions on Security
WASHINGTON MEMO
In Debt Talks, Revived Obama
Is Ready to Go Beyond Beltway
By SAM DOLNICK
When the power failed at Lo-
gan Hall, a sprawling halfway
house in Newark that resembles
a prison, the rooms went dark.
Then the locks clicked open.
What happened next is likely
to fuel the debate over the future
of the large, privately run half-
way houses in New Jersey, which
have been criticized for misman-
agement and lax oversight.
As Hurricane Sandy raged out-
side, dozens of male inmates
burst into Logan Hall’s corridors.
They threatened female inmates,
tore apart furniture and ripped
signs inscribed with inspirational
sayings from the walls, witnesses
said.
At least 15 inmates escaped
from the halfway house, includ-
ing some who had served time
for aggravated assault, weapons
possession and armed robbery.
It was one of the largest mass
escapes in the recent history of
New Jersey’s corrections sys-
tem, according to official statis-
tics. All but one of the escapees
have since been recaptured.
After the violence broke out on
Oct. 29, about 50 law enforcement
officers from at least four state
and county agencies converged
on Logan Hall, officials said.
Many were called at home and
told to report immediately to the
halfway house.
Community Education Cen-
ters, the politically connected
company that runs the 650-bed
halfway house, appears to have
done little if anything to prepare
By JACKIE CALMES
WASHINGTON — President
Obama, emboldened by his deci-
sive re-election and lessons
learned over four years in office,
is looking to the renewal of budg-
et talks with Republicans this
week as a second chance to take
command of the nation’s policy
debates and finally fulfill his
promise to end gridlock in Wash-
ington, associates say.
As he prepares to meet with
Congressional leaders at the
White House on Friday, aides say,
Mr. Obama will not simply hun-
ker down there for weeks of
closed-door negotiations as he
did in mid-2011, when partisan
brinkmanship over raising the
nation’s debt limit damaged the
economy and his political stand-
ing. He will travel beyond the
Beltway at times to rally public
support for a deficit-cutting ac-
cord that mixes tax increases on
the wealthy with spending cuts.
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama will
meet with corporate executives
at the White House as he uses the
nation’s fiscal problems to start
rebuilding relations with busi-
ness leaders. Though many of
them backed Mitt Romney,
scores have formed a coalition to
push for a budget compromise
similar to the one the president
seeks. He hopes to enlist them to
persuade Republicans in Con-
gress to accept higher taxes on
the assurance that he can deliver
Democrats’ votes for future re-
ductions in fast-growing entitle-
ment programs like Medicare
and Medicaid.
“Every president learns les-
sons from their successes and
failures, and President Obama is
no different,” said Dan Pfeiffer,
his communications director.
“There is no question that les-
sons were learned in the summer
of 2011 that will impact his ap-
proach to the presidency for the
next four years.”
And with the election cam-
paign over, the campaign for the
Obama legacy begins: Mr. Oba-
Continued on Page A25
Continued on Page A3
Continued on Page A8
Influencing the Fiscal Fight
THE C.I.A. SEARCH
The search for
a new C.I.A. director comes at a
crucial moment.
PAGE A9
THE BIOGRAPHER
Friends praised
Paula Broadwell.
PAGE A9
Executives are starting an ad
campaign for quick action on fis-
cal policy, as they try to shape it
behind the scenes. Page B1.
Continued on Page A21
Child’s Education, but Parents’ Crushing Loans
cession, health problems, job loss
or lives that took a sudden hard
turn.
And unlike the angry students
who have recently taken to the
streets to protest their indebt-
edness, most of these parents are
too ashamed to draw attention to
themselves.
“You don’t want your children,
much less your neighbors and
friends, knowing that even
though you’re living in a nice
house, and you’ve been able to
hold onto your job, your retire-
ment money’s gone, you can’t
pay your debts,” said a woman in
Connecticut who took out $57,000
in federal loans. Between tough
times at work and a divorce, she
is now teetering on default.
In the first three months of this
year, the number of borrowers of
student loans age 60 and older
was 2.2 million, a figure that has
tripled since 2005. That makes
them the fastest-growing age
group for college debt. All told,
DEGREES OF DEBT
Families in Distress
By TAMAR LEWIN
When Michele Fitzgerald and
her daughter, Jenni, go out for
dinner, Jenni pays. When they
get haircuts, Jenni pays. When
they buy groceries, Jenni pays.
It has been six years since Ms.
Fitzgerald — broke, unemployed
and in default on the $18,000 in
loans she took out for Jenni’s col-
lege education — became a boo-
merang mom, moving into her
daughter’s townhouse apartment
in Hingham, Mass.
Jenni pays the rent.
For Jenni, 35, the student loans
and the education they bought
have worked out: she has a good
job in public relations and is pay-
ing down the loans in her name.
But for her mother, 60, the paren-
tal debt has been disastrous.
“It’s not easy,” Ms. Fitzgerald
said. “Jenni feels the guilt and I
feel the burden.”
There are record numbers of
student borrowers in financial
MOISES SAMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Female students at the Grand Mosque in Kairouan, Tunisia, a site of anti-Western sermons.
Tun
isia Bat
tles Over Pulpits, and Revolt’s Legacy
GRETCHEN ERTL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Michele Fitzgerald took out
student loans for her daugh-
ter, who now supports her.
thundered Dr. Khelif, whom the
ousted government had barred
from preaching for 20 years.
“Whoever fights Islam and im-
plements Western plans becomes
in the eyes of Western politicians
a blessed leader and a reformer,
even if he was the most criminal
leader with the dirtiest hands.”
Mosques across Tunisia blazed
with similar sermons that day
and, indeed, every Friday since,
in what has become the battle of
the pulpit, a heated competition
to define Tunisia’s religious and
political identity.
Revolution freed the country’s
estimated 5,000 officially sanc-
tioned mosques from the rigid
controls of the previous govern-
ment, which appointed every
prayer leader and issued lists of
acceptable topics for their Friday
sermons.
That system pushed a moder-
ate, apolitical model of Islam that
avoided confronting a dictator.
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
KAIROUAN, Tunisia — On the
Friday after Tunisia’s president
fell, Mohamed al-Khelif mounted
the pulpit of this city’s historic
Grand Mosque to deliver a full-
throttle attack on the country’s
corrupt culture, to condemn its
close ties with the West and to de-
mand that a new constitution im-
plement Shariah, or Islamic law.
“They’ve slaughtered Islam!”
distress, according to federal
data. But millions of parents who
have taken out loans to pay for
their children’s college education
make up a less visible generation
in debt. For the most part, these
parents did well enough through
midlife to take on sizable loans,
but some have since fallen on
tough times because of the re-
Continued on Page A6
Continued on Page B4
INTERNATIONAL A4-15
BBC Chief Calls for Overhaul
NATIONAL A16-21
A Surprise Civil War Trove
NATIONAL
Republicans Debate Direction
SPORTSMONDAY
Bad Day for Giants and Jets
The BBC needs to fix a “ghastly mess”
left by its coverage of a sexual abuse
scandal, its chairman said.
A cellar containing Civil War artifacts,
like the fragile inkwell below, was dis-
covered in Fredericksburg, Va., undis-
turbed through more than a century of
urban construction around it.
Looking for lessons in Tuesday’s elec-
tion losses, the Republican Party is de-
bating whether to rebrand itself or to
hold fast to ideological purity.
The Giants lost to the Bengals, 31-13,
ahead of a bye week, leaving them in the
unenviable position of stewing about
their poor play for two weeks before fac-
ing the Packers. The Jets, behind a poor
outing from Mark Sanchez, fell to 3-6 af-
ter a 28-7 loss to the Seahawks.
PAGE A12
PAGE A20
Syrian Rebels Sign Unity Deal
PAGE A16
No End Seen for ‘Super PACs’
Negotiating in Qatar, Syrian opposition
groups agreed to a broader coalition in
the hope of gaining foreign recognition
and military aid.
Although the groups did not deliver the
knockout punch that many believed
they would in the 2012 election, they are
here to stay. Political Memo.
PAGE D1
PAGE A6
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A28-29
SPORTSMONDAY D1-8
Taking Hit, but Moving Ahead
PAGE A21
Paul Krugman
PAGE A29
BUSINESS DAY B1-8
MSNBC’s Goals in a 2nd Term
Displaced by Hurricane Sandy, the foot-
ball team at Beach Channel High in the
Rockaway section of Queens found a
way to make the first round of the high
school playoffs on Saturday.
ARTS C1-8
Literary Prize’s Oscar Dreams
MSNBC, which has established itself as
the nation’s liberal news network, hopes
to capitalize on that identity.
U(D54G1D)y+[!/!#!#!?
Organizers are adding more glamour to
the National Book Awards.
PAGE B1
PAGE C1
PAGE D1
A2
THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2012
N
Inside The Times
INTERNATIONAL
NATIONAL
BUSINESS
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
U.S. Fears Hezbollah Agent
Held in Iraq May Go Free
A senior Iraqi official has told the
Obama administration that Iraq no
longer has a legal basis to hold a
Lebanese Hezbollah operative who
has been accused of helping to kill
American troops in Iraq.
PAGE A4
Homeless Crisis in Spain
The number of Spanish families fac-
ing eviction is mounting at a dizzy-
ing pace, and when they can’t move
in with relatives, they often take
over empty homes, and there are
plenty of them. PAGE A4
China Lauds Advances
China’s government said that it had
privatized thousands of publishing
companies, newspapers and cultur-
al groups but all are still under party
control. PAGE A10
Double Agent Celebrated
The 90th birthday of a double agent
from the height of the cold war who
left Britain for Moscow has been
made the occasion for extensive cel-
ebration in Russia. PAGE A12
Intervention Force for Mali
West African leaders at an emergen-
cy meeting agreed on a 3,300-strong
force to wrest control of northern
Mali from Islamist extremists.
PAGE A14
Sri Lanka Prison Scandal
Sri Lanka’s main opposition party
des
cribed the deaths of 27 inmates
after a prison riot as a “coldblooded
massacre” and demanded a parlia-
mentary investigation. PAGE A14
A Motel for Dog Romance
Animalle Mundo Pet, an emporium
in Brazil that includes a dog motel,
underscores the growing pet owner-
ship that has accompanied rising in-
comes. PAGE A15
Southern Republicans
Consider Changing Tone
Republican politicians who have
been winning in the mid- and Deep
South are now discussing how their
conservative platforms could be al-
tered for a national electorate.
PAGE A16
Reshaping Polling Tactics
Whether polling firms conducted
their surveys online or called cell-
phones made a big difference in pre-
dicting the election, with those that
only called land lines performing
poorly, writes Nate Silver.
PAGE A20
Greece Is Taking Aim
At Wealthy Tax Dodgers
The Greek government is scrutiniz-
ing the finances of 15,000 people to
see if they have stashed money
abroad — about $5 billion in all over
the last three years — to avoid pay-
ing taxes. PAGE B1
Patent Fights Continue
Apple has shut down one front in the
company’s legal war against An-
droid, Google’s mobile operating
system. But a truce in the patent
battles engulfing the mobile indus-
try is probably a ways off. PAGE B1
Voting by Smartphone
At a time when people can deposit
checks on their smartphone without
going to a bank, why do most people
still have to go to a polling place to
vote, asks Nick Bilton. Disruptions.
PAGE B1
China Tackles Bank Worries
China’s top banking regulators and
the chairmen of the four largest
banks tried to allay concerns that
the country was allowing its bank-
ing system to grow at a reckless
pace.
PAGE B3
‘‘
We continually
crank out moderate loser
after moderate loser.
’’
JOSHUA S. TREVIÑO,
a speechwriter in George W.
Bush’s administration, arguing
that voters have perceived “in-
authenticity” in many Republi-
can nominees. [A20]
ARTS
An Alternative to Textbooks
In Oliver Stone’s New Show
Showtime’s 10-part documentary
“Oliver Stone’s Untold History of
the United States” focuses on the
country’s missteps over the dec-
ades. Alessandra Stanley, Television
Review.
PAGE C1
‘Ivanov’ With Ethan Hawke
Chekhov’s 1887 drama features a
melancholy title character played by
Ethan Hawke in the Classic Stage
Company production. Ben Brantley,
Theater Review. PAGE C1
NEW YORK
Storm Took a Toll
On the Region’s Trees
Hurricane Sandy’s toll on trees is
coming into focus. Over 8,000 were
toppled on streets, and thousands
more were destroyed in parks and
woodlands. The largest could take
decades to replace. PAGE A22
An Appeal to Landlords
City, state and federal officials are
trying to assemble a pool of vacant
apartments in New York City that
could supplement the city’s shelter
system in housing families dis-
placed by storm damage.
PAGE A22
OP-ED
SPORTS
Paul Krugman
PAGE A29
When Times Look Bleak,
Lakers Call On Phil Jackson
The Lakers let Jackson go in 2004,
rehired him in 2005, let him go again
in 2011 and began talks to bring him
back a day after firing Mike Brown
as coach. PAGE D5
Nets Score a Tight Win
The Nets lost their flow, misplaced
their jump shots and still beat the
Orlando Magic. For that, they most-
ly had their defense, their rebound-
ing and their depleted opponent to
thank. PAGE D5
ONLINE
OBITUARIES
SLIDE SHOW
A look inside a crowd-
ed maternity ward in Manila.
nytimes.com/world
Ellen Douglas, 91
Ms. Douglas was a writer praised
for her unflinching but sympathetic
characterizations of the American
South. PAGE A27
Derek Hutchinson, 79
Mr. Hutchinson was one of the
grand old men of sea kayaking, com-
pleting a crossing of the North Sea
in a record 31 hours. PAGE A27
Bridge
C4
Crossword
C2
Obituaries
A26-27
TV Listings
C6
Weather
D8
Classified Ads
A26
Commercial
Real Estate Marketplace
B3
Corrections
FRONT PAGE
Because of an editing error, an
article on Friday about Iranian
warplanes’ firing at an American
military surveillance drone re-
ferred incorrectly to part of a
broadened list of Iranian individ-
uals and institutions affected by
sanctions against Iran. The list
includes Esma’il Ahmadi Mogh-
addam, who is the head of the
Iranian national police; the ex-
panded list does not include Mr.
Moghaddam
and
the head of the
national police.
A reporting credit on Friday
with an article about Congres-
sional efforts to avert a fiscal cri-
sis misstated the given name of a
writer who contributed from
Washington. He is Andrew Sid-
dons, not Andrews.
the hopes of many of China’s lib-
erals that Wang Chang, the top
official of Guangdong Province,
might win a spot on the Politburo
Standing Committee that runs
the country erroneously attribut-
ed a distinction to the three five-
year terms Mr. Wang could serve
were he elevated to the commit-
tee during the current Commu-
nist Party congress. Other com-
mittee members — most of whom
were or were slated to become
one of China’s top two leaders —
have served more than two
terms; a third term for Mr. Wang
would not be “unprecedented.”
ed, in some editions, the given
name of a production company
owner in Santo Domingo who
blamed the country’s budget
problems on the president and on
members of his party. The owner
is Jorgy Cruz Soto, not Jorge.
“Le Mariage de Figaro” by
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beau-
marchais. As the review and a
listing of credits with it correctly
noted, he is Charles Morey, not
Morley.
OBITUARIES
An obituary on Nov. 2 about
the architect and designer Gae
Aulenti referred incorrectly to
the newspaper Libération, which
wrote about the reaction to her
design of the Musée D’Orsay in
Paris. It is French, not Italian.
THE ARTS
Because of an editing error, a
picture caption on Wednesday
with a theater review of “Figaro,”
at the Pearl Theater in Manhat-
tan, misstated the surname of the
writer who adapted the play from
An article on Friday about the
fatal shooting of a medical stu-
dent on the campus of the Domin-
ican Republic’s largest public
university misstated the coun-
try’s budget deficit in some edi-
tions. It is $4.6 billion, not $4.6
million. The article also misstat-
Errors and Comments:
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Sullivan, at public@nytimes.com.
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INTERNATIONAL
An article
on Tuesday about
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THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2012
N
As Hurricane Raged, 15 Inmates Fled Detention
From Page A1
for the storm. The workers on
duty, many of whom were poorly
paid, did not know how to operate
the backup generator, witnesses
said. They did not even have
flashlights.
Gov. Chris Christie has long
been an outspoken supporter of
Community Education, which
dominates the halfway house
system in New Jersey. The Chris-
tie administration has not pub-
licly disclosed that there was a
disturbance that night at Logan
Hall.
Mr. Christie’s close friend and
political adviser, William J. Pala-
tucci, is a senior executive at
Community Education. Mr. Pala-
tucci announced last week that
he would step down from the
company. The company said the
resignation was not related to the
events at Logan Hall.
A spokesman for Mr. Christie
referred questions about Logan
Hall to the State Department of
Corrections.
Both the Corrections Depart-
ment and Community Education
played down the violence and the
escapes.
“To characterize this as some
sort of mass prison break is a
reckless exaggeration in support
of a false narrative,” a depart-
ment spokesman, Matthew Schu-
man, said.
He said any assessment of
what happened had to take into
consideration “the extraordinary
circumstances” of the storm.
Community Education said in a
statement, “A small number of
the 547 residents did take advan-
tage of the storm to create a mi-
nor disturbance and damaged a
few vending machines.”
The company noted that no
one suffered serious injuries at
Logan Hall, and added that it did
not experience problems during
the storm at its five other large
halfway houses in New Jersey.
Law enforcement officials,
workers and others who were at
Logan Hall acknowledged that
Hurricane Sandy was highly un-
usual and caused difficulties for
institutions across the New York
region.
But they pointed out that none
of New Jersey’s prisons or jails
suffered such a violent outbreak
during the storm.
Mayor Cory A. Booker of New-
ark, whose police force respond-
RICHARD PERRY/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Logan Hall in Newark. All but one of 15 inmates who recently escaped have been recaptured.
ed to the disturbance, called it
“obviously a serious event.”
David Thomas, executive di-
rector of the State Parole Board,
said in a statement that the dis-
turbance was quelled by officers
from four law enforcement agen-
cies: the Newark police, the Es-
sex County Sheriff’s Department,
the Essex County Corrections
Department and the Parole
Board.
Essex County officials said
they were investigating what
happened and had assigned extra
law enforcement officers to Lo-
gan Hall, which typically houses
parolees and inmates from the
county jail.
Democratic lawmakers in
Trenton have called for an over-
haul of the halfway houses since
The New York Times published a
series of articles in June that de-
scribed escapes, violence, drug
use and other problems in the
system.
Since 2005, roughly 5,200 in-
mates and parolees have escaped
from the state’s halfway houses,
according to state records. Cor-
rections experts said the high
number of escapes was an in-
dication that the system was
troubled. The Christie adminis-
tration has said in recent months
that it has put in place measures
to crack down on the escapes.
New Jersey has been at the
forefront of the movement to use
privately operated halfway
houses to reduce corrections
costs. The system handles thou-
sands of inmates annually.
The disturbance at Logan Hall
may have an impact on the Legis-
lature’s scrutiny of the system.
Assemblyman Charles Mainor,
a Hudson County Democrat who
is chairman of the Law and Pub-
lic Safety Committee, said he was
troubled that the administration
had not disclosed what hap-
pened.
“I did not know,” Mr. Mainor
said. “Of course, they wouldn’t
want me to know.”
A law enforcement officer, who
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity because he was not au-
thorized to speak to a reporter,
recounted harrowing moments
early on when the disturbance
could have spiraled out of control.
“The place was turned upside
down,” said Joe Amato, president
of the union representing Essex
County corrections officers,
which has long opposed the pri-
vately run halfway houses. “The
inmates basically rioted.”
At one point, a group of men,
many wearing improvised masks
that revealed only their eyes,
headed toward the back of the
building, where the female in-
mates were held, according to
workers and correction officers.
A supervisor tried to stop
them, demanding to know where
they were going.
“You know why we’re here!”
an inmate replied, according to a
halfway house worker and a cor-
rections officer who were there.
The supervisor managed to
fend them off. Workers then took
the group of female inmates to a
closed-off reception area, where
they huddled together for safety
until law enforcement officers ar-
rived.
“With the power out, no gener-
ator, no flashlights — you can’t
not be scared,” said a worker who
was there.
Dozens of men then headed
through the unlocked front door
to an open lot facing the street.
They took blankets to throw over
the barbed wire and chairs to
scale the fence, but soon saw that
the equipment was unnecessary.
The gate was open.
Six of those who escaped were
arrested quickly. Six others were
caught more than three days lat-
er. Two were on the run for about
a week, and one is still missing,
officials said.
When calm was restored, cor-
rections officers and workers
said they discovered that one tar-
get of the inmates’ rage had been
the signs in the hallways.
The signs bore motivational
slogans like “Stop Lying” and
“Admit When You Are Wrong.”
They had been torn down and
stomped on.
Zero May Be a Strange Number, but It’s Not Odd
Christie of New Jersey said noth-
ing regarding zero in his gas-
rationing announcement.)
“It’s absolutely not a matter of
debate,” said Walter Neumann,
the chairman of Barnard Col-
lege’s mathematics department.
He explained that even inte-
gers, or whole numbers, are de-
fined as numbers that can be di-
vided by two without producing
nonwhole numbers. Dividing
three by two produces 1.5, mak-
ing it odd; dividing four by two
produces two, making it even.
Zero divided by two equals zero
— no fraction or nonwhole num-
ber results. So zero is even.
“It’s very clear,” said Marc
Masdeu, an assistant professor at
Columbia University who special-
izes in number theory, sounding
puzzled at the question.
But tell that to the Parisian po-
lice officers who, during a smog
alarm in 1977, were assigned to
enforce a system under which
cars with odd-numbered license
plates could be driven on odd
days, and even plates on even.
Those with license plates ending
in zero drove with impunity, be-
cause the police did not know
what to do about zero, according
to a paper by Prof. Hossein
Arsham of the University of Balti-
more, who has written about the
concept of zero.
If anything, the mayor’s deci-
sion to single out zero under-
scores just how tricky a place it
occupies in the pantheon of num-
bers. Until Europeans adopted
Arabic numerals in the Middle
Ages, the concept of nothing, or
none, had no numerical repre-
sentation in the Western world.
And any elementary school stu-
dent can reel off a litany of arith-
metic rules that mark off zero as
special and strange.
“Treating zero as a number is
already interesting,” said Jona-
than Goodman, a professor of
mathematics at New York Uni-
versity. “If people don’t think
that zero’s a number, the ques-
tion of whether zero’s even or
odd doesn’t occur.”
Befuddlement over which way
zero swings persists on the In-
ternet. Last month, phrases like
“is zero odd or even” were
searched via Google more than
6,000 times globally.
And that is why Mr. Bloomberg
called out the number for men-
tion, Marc LaVorgna, a spokes-
man for the mayor, said. “Zero
can be a point of confusion, so we
wanted to be absolutely clear in
the rule.”
By VIVIAN YEE
In dealing with New York’s
worst gasoline crisis since the
1970s, Mayor Michael R. Bloom-
berg last week waded into an is-
sue that has stumped people for
years: Is the number zero odd,
even or neither?
“Those with license plates end-
ing in an even number, or the
number zero, will be able to buy
gas or diesel only on even-num-
bered days, such as Saturday,
Nov. 10,” the mayor said Thurs-
day as he announced the imposi-
tion of odd-even gas rationing.
Those with license plates ending
in odd numbers or a letter can
buy gas only on odd-numbered
dates.
To mathematicians, it was a lit-
tle astonishing that zero had to be
singled out at all. (Gov. Chris
A4
N
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2012
Israel Fires
Into Syria
After Shell
Hits Post
U.S. Fears Hezbollah Operative Held in Iraq May Go Free
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON — A senior Iraqi offi-
cial has told the Obama administration
that Iraq no longer has a legal basis to
hold a Lebanese Hezbollah operative
who has been accused of helping to kill
American troops in Iraq, and United
States officials are concerned that he
may soon be released, American offi-
cials said Sunday.
American officials said that the Unit-
ed States ambassador in Baghdad, Rob-
ert S. Beecroft, had been instructed to
seek a meeting with Prime Minister
Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq to urge
that the Hezbollah operative, Ali Musa
Daqduq, be kept in detention.
At the same time, however, American
officials are worried
that their efforts may
fall short, and they
quietly informed Con-
gressional leaders
last week that there
was a risk that Mr.
Daqduq may soon go
free.
Mr. Daqduq, who
was captured by Brit-
ish forces in Basra in
March 2007, was the
last detainee to be handed over to the
Iraqis by the United States as American
troops withdrew in December 2011.
American military officials have ac-
cused Mr. Daqduq of working with the
Quds Force — an Iranian paramilitary
unit that supports militant movements
abroad — to train Shiite militias in Iraq
during the war. One of the most serious
allegations stems from his suspected
role in helping to organize a January
2007 raid in Karbala that led to the
deaths of five American soldiers.
The case is politically delicate for the
White House not just because of the al-
legations against Mr. Daqduq but also
because of the timing. Some Iraqi offi-
cials have previously suggested that
they would seek to mollify the Obama
administration by putting off releasing
Mr. Daqduq until the presidential cam-
paign was over, but American officials
repeatedly insisted that they did not
want him released at all.
“The United States continues to be-
lieve that Daqduq should be held ac-
countable for his crimes,” said a State
Department official, who asked not be
identified because he was discussing a
delicate diplomatic issue. A spokes-
woman for the National Security Coun-
cil declined to comment.
Mr. Daqduq, a member of Hezbollah
since 1983, once supervised the security
detail for Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s
supreme leader. He worked in the
group’s external operations unit, and
has repeatedly visited the Tehran head-
quarters of the Quds Force.
Mr. Daqduq was captured during a
Ali Musa
Daqduq
By ISABEL KERSHNER
SDEROT, Israel — Israel con-
fronted fire along two of its borders
on Sunday, with rockets landing
from Gaza and a mortar shell crash-
ing in from Syria, prompting Israel
to respond with what its military de-
scribed as “warning shots” at a Syr-
ian position across the frontier for
the first time in 39 years.
From the early hours of Sunday
morning through nightfall, more
than 50 rockets fired by Palestinian
militants from Gaza struck southern
Israel. The first heavy barrage came
as residents of this rocket-battered
town near the Gaza border were
getting up to go to work and school.
Around noon, to the north, a stray
Syrian mortar shell hit an Israeli
military post on the Israeli-held Go-
lan Heights as Syrian government
forces battled armed rebels on the
other side of the Israeli-Syrian armi-
stice line that has been in place for
decades. It was the fourth time in
just over a week that spillover from
the Syrian civil war had crept to-
ward Israel.
After years of relative quiet along
the country’s borders, Prime Min-
ister Benjamin Netanyahu finds
himself tested on two fronts. Under
increasing pressure and with Israe-
lis scheduled to go the polls in Janu-
ary, the nation’s leaders are talking
tough and threatening broader ac-
tion.
“The world needs to understand
that Israel will not sit idly by in the
face of attempts to attack us,” Mr.
Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sun-
day morning. “We are prepared to
intensify the response.”
Israeli defense officials have
made it clear that Israel has no de-
sire to get involved in the fighting in
Syria. Israel already filed com-
plaints with the United Nations ob-
server force that monitors the armi-
stice agreement reached between
the Israeli and Syrian forces after
the 1973 war, and the United Nations
has warned that the spreading vio-
lence could jeopardize the cease-fire
between the two countries.
“We hope they get the message
this time,” Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s
minister of strategic affairs, told Is-
raeli television, referring to the mis-
sile fired at a Syrian mortar battery.
But while Israel views the fire
from Syria as unintentional, though
still unacceptable, the rockets from
Gaza are deliberately aimed at pop-
ulation centers. Hamas, the Islamic
militant group that controls the Pal-
estinian coastal enclave, has
claimed credit for participating in
several recent rounds of rocket fire.
The latest surge began on Satur-
day when Palestinian militants fired
an antitank missile at an Israeli mil-
itary jeep patrolling Israel’s increas-
ingly volatile border with Gaza,
wounding four soldiers. Four Pales-
tinian civilians were killed when Is-
rael returned fire with tank or artil-
lery shells, prompting new rocket
fire against southern Israel. At least
one Palestinian militant from a rock-
et-launching squad was killed in an
Israeli airstrike.
Responding to years of rocket at-
tacks, Israel carried out a three-
week offensive against the militant
groups in Gaza in the winter of
2008-9, resulting in an informal and
shaky cease-fire. After three civil-
ians were wounded by shrapnel in
the Sderot area early Sunday morn-
ing, Silvan Shalom, a vice prime
minister from Mr. Netanyahu’s con-
servative Likud Party, said that Is-
rael was “not eager” to embark on
another major ground operation in
Gaza, but that the military was pre-
pared to act. Yisrael Katz, another
Likud minister, called for the liq-
uidation of the Hamas leadership in
Gaza and said that Israel should
stop supplying the enclave with wa-
ter, electricity, food and fuel.
In a statement, the defense min-
ister, Ehud Barak, said that the mil-
itary had been “evaluating a host of
options for harsher responses
against Hamas and the other terror
organizations in Gaza” and that “it
is Hamas that will pay the heavy
price, a price that will be painful.”
In Sderot, residents were told to
stay close to fortified rooms and
bomb shelters. School was canceled.
A factory in the industrial zone suf-
fered a direct hit. Later, a rocket
landed on a house with the residents
inside, though they escaped injury.
“Israel could finish the whole
story in one day,” said Shimon
Biton, 75, who owns a hardware
store in the market area. “It has the
weapons and the intelligence. But
our hands are bound, because
America says ‘no.’ Gaza is packed
with civilians, and the rockets are
kept in their homes.”
Shulamit Amar, 40, said her 13-
year-old son was terrified of the
rockets, especially since one explod-
ed in the yard behind their apart-
ment block last year. “We raise our
eyes to heaven,” she said. “Only God
will help us.”
Continued on Page A10
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAMUEL ARANDA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
SEVILLE
Francisco Rodríguez Flores in a building where he and his family live that has been taken over by the homeless. It had been vacant for three years.
Wave of Evictions Leads to Homeless Crisis in Spain
By SUZANNE DALEY
SEVILLE, Spain — The first night af-
ter Francisco Rodríguez Flores, 71, and
his wife, Ana López Corral, 67, were
evicted from their small apartment here
after falling behind on their mortgage,
they slept in the entrance hall of their
building. Their daughters, both unem-
ployed and living with them, slept in a
neighbor’s van.
“It was the worst thing ever,” Mrs.
López said recently, studying her
hands. “You can’t image what it felt like
to be there in that hall. It’s a story you
can’t really tell because it is not the
same as living it.”
Things are somewhat better now. The
Rodríguezes are among the 36 families
who have taken over a luxury apart-
ment block here that had been vacant
for three years. There is no electricity.
The water was recently cut off, and
there is the fear that the authorities will
evict them once again. But, Mrs. López
says, they are not living on the street —
at least not yet.
The number of Spanish families fac-
ing eviction continues to mount at a diz-
zying pace — hundreds a day, housing
advocates say. The problem has become
so acute that Prime Minister Mariano
Rajoy has promised to announce emer-
gency measures on Monday, though
what they may be remains unclear.
While some are able to move in with
family members, a growing number,
like the Rodríguezes, have no such op-
tion. Their relatives are in no better
shape than they are, and Spain has vir-
tually no emergency shelter system for
families.
For some, the pressure has been too
much to bear. In recent weeks, a 53-
year-old man in Granada hanged him-
self just hours before he was to be evict-
ed, and a 53-year-old woman in Bilbao
jumped to her death as court officials
arrived at her door.
Yet at the same time, the country is
dotted with empty housing of all kinds,
perhaps as many as two million units,
by some estimates. Experts say more
and more of the evicted — who face a
lifetime of debt and a system of black-
listing that makes it virtually impossi-
ble for them to rent — are increasingly
taking over vacant properties or mov-
ing back into their old homes after they
have been seized.
Sometimes neighbors report such ac-
tivities. But often, experts say, they do
not. It is a temporary and often anxious
existence. But many see no alternative.
The Rodríguezes fell behind in their
payments trying to help their daugh-
ters, who both lost their jobs and have
three children between them. Their
daughters had come to live with them
after being evicted themselves. “I could
Mr. Hernández and his wife have
their eye on an empty apartment they
intend to occupy. Failing that, the cou-
ple will have to split up, he said. His wife
would go back to live with her mother,
who is behind in her own mortgage pay-
ments and already housing her other
adult children. Mr. Hernández would
live with his brother, who lives with his
young family in a studio apartment.
By the end of the morning, bank and
court officials had agreed to postpone
Mr. Hernández’s eviction for six weeks.
He still faces a debt of more than
$330,000, more than he paid for the
apartment. In Spain, mortgage holders
are personally liable for the full amount
of their mortgages. Then penalty in-
terest charges and tens of thousands of
dollars in court fees are added at fore-
closure. Bankruptcy is no answer, ei-
ther — mortgage debt is excluded.
Trying to stem the flow of homeless,
the Spanish government has asked the
banks to adhere to a code of conduct
that protects, to some degree, the very
poorest Spaniards, and many of the
banks have signed on. But advocates
say that the code offers relief to such a
narrow slice of homeowners — those
who have no working adults in their
household and who paid less than
$260,000 for their homes — that it is un-
likely to have much effect.
Elena Cortés, the councilor for public
works and housing for Andalusia, the
region that includes Seville, said that
during the boom years the government
rarely built any low-income housing. On
top of that, the country has never had
much rental property. Now, as families
are evicted they have nowhere to turn.
In a written statement, Spain’s banking
association, the A.E.B., said banks were
looking to avoid evictions whenever
they could through negotiation.
The Rodríguezes began living in the
luxury block, Corrala Utopía, in May
with only a few belongings, a move that
was organized by members of the 15-M
movement, the name given to people
who became organized after the coun-
trywide protests that began on May 15
last year. One member of the group,
Juanjo García Marín, said the property
was chosen because it was mired in le-
gal proceedings that might give the
families more time to stay there.
Neighbors have given them furniture,
and donations of food arrive most days.
On a recent evening, Mrs. López was
using a generator to keep her lights on
and her refrigerator running. Others in
the building also have generators, but
some cannot afford the gasoline to keep
them running.
After dinner, Mrs. López’s 13-year-old
grandson arrived, announcing that he
needed a place to do his homework. His
mother’s apartment upstairs had no
lights.
MADRID
Edward Hernández with his children the night before they
were to be evicted. The eviction was postponed after a protest.
GRANADA
Mourning a man who committed suicide before he was to
lose his home. Hundreds are evicted daily, housing advocates said.
not let my children and my grandchil-
dren starve,” said Mrs. López, who used
to work as a cleaner in a home for the
elderly.
No one tracks the number of squat-
ters. But Rafael Martín Sanz, the presi-
dent of a real estate management com-
pany, says squatting has become so
common that some real estate compa-
nies are reluctant to put signs on the
outsides of buildings indicating that an
apartment is available.
“The joke is that half the people tour-
ing apartments that are on the market
are actually just picking out which
apartment they want to squat in,” he
said.
Most of the evictions take place qui-
etly, with embarrassed families drop-
ping the keys off at the banks. But in
some working-class neighborhoods,
there are weekly clashes with the police
and bank officials, as housing advocates
and volunteers try to resist the evic-
tions.
In Madrid’s Carabanchel neighbor-
hood, a crowd protesting outside a base-
ment apartment recently shouted
“shame on you” to a cluster of bank and
court officials who had come to evict
Edward Hernández and his family. But
Mr. Hernández’s lawyer, Rafael Mayor-
al, sized up the picture and predicted he
would be able to negotiate a postpone-
ment. The crowd of supporters, he said,
outnumbered the police officers.
Mr. Hernández, 38, who worked in
construction, bought the apartment for
$320,000 in 2006, but he lost his job three
years later, he said. He thought he had
negotiated with his bank to pay less for
a while. But one day, he said, he got a
letter saying that his apartment had
been auctioned.
Rachel Chaundler contributed reporting.
.
K
A5
THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2012
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