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YELLOW VOL. CCLXIII NO. 126 ******** SATURDAY/SUNDAY, MAY 31 - JUNE 1, 2014 HHHH $2.00 WSJ.com SURUACÁ, Brazil—Never mind the World Cup. In this off- the-grid corner of Brazil’s Ama- zon, villagers are already en- grossed in a soccer tournament they take just as seriously: the Active Forest Cup. The tourna- ment, which be- gan in April, de- cides soccer bragging rights among dozens of small villages at the confluence of the Tapajós and Arapiuns rivers in Brazil’s remote rain forest. Games on fields of river silt play out un- der the broiling Amazon sun. In Amazon ball, players with shoes tend to dominate players with- out. Brazil, which hosts the World Cup starting June 12, calls itself BY JOHN LYONS “the country of soccer.” And the depth of soccer-mania on this Amazon frontier illustrates the point. For generations, small villages like Suruacá have trav- eled by boat for away-games that stoke intense intervillage rivalries. After- ward, rollicking postgame par- ties produce ac- tual intervillage marriages. “Soccer for us is a way to show people from the outside that here in the Amazon it’s not just monkeys, jaguars, pacas and turkeys, snakes and alligators. There’s also human beings here who like to have fun, cheer, score, see goals get scored,” says Djalma Lima, a wiry, wisecracking 50-year-old who coaches Suruacá’s men’s and women’s teams. Please turn to page A10 For Amazon Villagers, the World Cup Is Just a Warm-Up for the Big Game i i i Shoes Are Optional in Remote Tournament That Lasts Months; Silt Fields and Piranha Oil WEEKEND review VLADIMIR THE (NOT SO) GREAT REVIEW WSJ. MAGAZINE world cup mania n Investigators are pursuing an insider-trading probe into whether golfer Phil Mickel- son and Las Vegas sports bettor William “Billy” Wal- ters traded on nonpublic in- formation from Carl Icahn. A1 n Authorities in the U.S. are seeking to punish individual employees at France’s BNP and pressing the bank to fire at least a dozen people. B1 n Weak wage growth is dragging on the U.S. econ- omy, helping to hinder a long-awaited breakout. A1 n The Fed’s hawks aren’t speaking with a unified voice as officials discuss when to start raising interest rates. A2 n The S&P 500 rose in May, posting its biggest monthly gain since February, as markets were mostly higher Friday. B4 n Google moved to soften its opposition to a nascent Eu- ropean “right to be forgot- ten” on the Internet. B1 n Valeant boosted its bid for Allergan for the second time this week, offering about $52.7 billion in cash and stock. B3 n A jury cleared a manager of a New York-based hedge fund and two others of insider trad- ing, in a defeat for the SEC. B2 n L.A. Clippers owner Don- ald Sterling sued the NBA as he fights to retain control of the basketball franchise. B3 What’s News i i i Business & Finance World-Wide i i i CONTENTS Books.......................... C5-10 Corp. News..................... B3 Eating........................... D7-9 Heard on Street ....... B12 Letters to Editor...... A12 Opinion.....................A11-13 Sports............................. A14 Style & Fashion......D2-3 The Week....................... C4 Travel ............................ D4-6 U.S. News.................. A2-5 Wknd Investor........ B7-9 World News.............A6-9 s Copyright 2014 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved > Inside NOONAN A13 VA Scandal Is a Crisis of Leadership U .S. and Japanese leaders criticized Chinese moves in the South China Sea, saying Beijing’s efforts to bolster ter- ritorial claims risk undermin- ing the international order. A6 n Shinseki resigned as head of the VA, but his departure did little to solve problems over access to care at the agency or to relieve pressure on the Obama administration. A1, A4 n Russia and Ukraine edged closer to resolving their dis- pute over natural-gas prices, with Kiev agreeing to pay down part of its outstanding bill. A7 n Russia’s security service charged a Ukrainian film di- rector and three others with allegedly plotting a series of terrorist attacks in Crimea. A7 n A study said adding a hor- mone-suppressing shot to chemotherapy for some breast-cancer patients can aid fertility preservation. A3 n Officials confirmed a U.S. citizen is believed to have died in Syria while carrying out a suicide-bomb attack. A7 n India’s government faced increasing pressure to respond to the alleged rape and mur- der of two village girls. A6 n A man was charged with lying to investigators and seek- ing to destroy evidence about how well he knew the alleged Boston Marathon bombers. A3 n White House press secretary Carney is leaving his post. A5 Federal investigators are pursu- ing a major insider-trading probe involving finance, gambling and sports, examining the trading of investor Carl Icahn, golfer Phil Mickelson and Las Vegas bettor William “Billy” Walters. The Federal Bureau of Investi- gation and the Securities and Ex- change Commission are examining whether Mr. Mickelson and Mr. Walters traded illicitly on nonpub- lic information from Mr. Icahn about his investments in public companies, people briefed on the probe said. Investigators are examining whether over the past three years Mr. Icahn tipped Mr. Walters—fa- mous in Las Vegas for his sports- betting acumen—about potentially market-moving investments by Mr. Icahn’s company. The FBI and SEC are examining whether Mr. Walters on at least one occasion passed a tip on to Mr. Mickelson, these people said, and are studying the two men’s trading patterns. “We do not know of any inves- tigation,” Mr. Icahn said on Friday. “We are always very careful to ob- serve all legal requirements in all of our activities.” The suggestion that he was involved in improper trading, he said, was “inflamma- tory and speculative.” “Phil is not the target of any in- vestigation. Period,” said a lawyer for Mr. Mickelson, Glenn Cohen, on Friday, adding that an FBI agent had told him Mr. Mickelson wasn’t a target. The FBI declined to comment on Mr. Cohen’s state- ment. Two FBI agents approached Mr. Mickelson on Thursday after he Please turn to the next page BY SUSAN PULLIAM AND MICHAEL ROTHFELD Stock Probe Eyes Icahn, Gambler, Top Golfer Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned Friday, but his departure did little to solve entrenched problems over access to care at the VA or to re- lieve pressure on the Obama ad- ministration. After presenting President Ba- rack Obama with an internal VA assessment of improper appoint- ment-scheduling procedures and efforts to hide long wait times across the VA health system, the retired general offered to resign so his role wouldn’t be a distrac- tion from the need to fix prob- lems at the VA, Mr. Obama said. Mr. Obama said he accepted Mr. Shinseki’s resignation “with considerable regret,” and moved to take charge of VA problems saying, “This is my administra- tion. I always take responsibility for whatever happens.” But Mr. Shinseki’s departure presents a new set of challenges for a White House already on the defensive over mismanagement within the VA system. In addi- tion to having to shepherd a new VA secretary through a poten- tially contentious Senate confir- mation process, the administra- tion must find a way to bridge differences with Congress over how to fix an agency mired in problems. And this will have to occur under the microscope of increased congressional over- sight promised by House and Senate lawmakers. Moreover, the final results of continuing reviews from the VA Please turn to page A4 By Ben Kesling, Michael R. Crittenden and Colleen McCain Nelson Heat Stays on VA After Exit Shinseki Resigns, but Successor Faces Entrenched Health-Care Problems at Agency In her final weeks as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton wrote a private memo to President Barack Obama warning that relations with Russia had hit a low point and the heralded “reset” in relations was over, according to people who saw the document. Inside the White House, some officials were loath to ditch a cornerstone of Mr. Obama’s Rus- sia policy. Months passed before Russian Presi- dent Vladimir Putin gave sanctuary to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, prompting Mr. Obama to cancel a planned sum- mit in Moscow, a stark sign the reset was off track, if not dead. Mrs. Clinton, if she runs for president, likely will lean heavily on her experience as the nation’s top diplomat. Her memo, written in January 2013, illustrates two striking features of her four years in the post: She was often more hawkish than the White House she served, and at some key mo- ments was ineffectual at swinging policy her way. Mr. Obama and his White House advisers were the ultimate archi- tects of foreign policy and kept tight hold over major decisions. Mrs. Clinton, though she held strong views, didn’t push them hard in internal meetings, some of her former colleagues say. Mrs. Clinton will have a chance to tell her own story about her State Department record in her new memoir, “Hard Choices,” scheduled for re- lease on June 10. Her book tour could amount to a kind of trial run for her expected presidential bid, focusing on what she considered her mission of improving America’s image overseas. Her State Department record reveals she made progress on several fronts and sought to advance American economic interests, but notched no sweeping peace agreements or marquee break- throughs that reshaped the international stage. “If she runs, the No. 1 item on her résumé is going to be her term as secretary of state,” says Please turn to page A10 By Peter Nicholas, Adam Entous and Carol E. Lee FOREIGN AFFAIRS Clinton Legacy: Hawk With Clipped Wings A long-awaited liftoff in the U.S. economy is facing pressure from stubbornly weak wage growth, muddying the outlook for consumers and challenging Fed- eral Reserve policy makers who are counting on a pickup as they unwind the central bank’s extraor- dinary support for the recovery. Growth in wage and salary in- come slowed to just 0.2% in April from the prior month, marking the weakest monthly increase of the year, the Commerce Depart- ment said Friday. After adjusting for inflation, wage and salary in- come was up 2% from a year ear- lier. The figures came in a report showing that U.S. consumer spending fell in April for the first time in a year even while inflation crept up. The weak start to the second quarter, coming after the U.S. economy in the first quarter contracted for the first time in three years, is challenging the thesis of economists and inves- tors who have been counting on a 2014 growth breakout. Those expectations have pushed U.S. stock benchmarks to record lev- els, while yields on safe Treasury bonds have dipped in part due to softer economic data. The S&P 500 index hit a fresh record Friday, rising 3.54 points, or 0.2%, to 1923.57. It advanced 2.1% in May. Bonds also rallied during May, with the 10-year Treasury note posting its biggest monthly drop in yield—which moves in the opposite direction of its price—since January. Muted selling Friday pushed the yield up slightly to 2.459%. “We are not seeing job gains translate into wage pressures,” said Sterne Agee chief economist Lindsey Piegza. “It’s a question not just of quantity but also of quality” of the new jobs being Please turn to the next page BY JONATHAN HOUSE AND JON HILSENRATH Weak Wages Pose Threat To Liftoff For Economy Turkey Braces for Unrest on Anniversary of Mass Protests OPPOSED: Power-plant workers in Ankara protested privatization plans one day before the anniversary of demonstrations that rocked Turkey. A7 Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Political crossfire continues... A4 Lawmakers cite problems....... A4 Hillary Clinton before a speech at the World Bank in mid-May. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Fed hawks start circling........... 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