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THURSDAY STYLES E1-8 The trend is to- ward function over click bait in Milan, where fall- winter menswear from labels like Jil Sander is on parade. PAGE E1 Wearable Looks The tech giant, which had seemed adrift, showed off a virtual- reality headset at a showcase for its latest version of Windows. PAGE B1 BUSINESS DAY B1-12 A New Gadget From Microsoft VOL. CLXIV ... No. 56,754 © 2015 The New York Times THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2015 U(DF463D)X+z!&!&!=!, ANDREA MOHIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES George Balanchine’s “Serenade,” opening the New York City Ballet’s winter season, weaves together the dancers’ lives. Page C6. Alone Together By JONATHAN GILBERT and SIMON ROMERO BUENOS AIRES — Intercept- ed conversations between repre- sentatives of the Iranian and Ar- gentine governments point to a long pattern of secret negotia- tions to reach a deal in which Ar- gentina would receive oil in ex- change for shielding Iranian offi- cials from charges that they or- chestrated the bombing of a Jew- ish community center in 1994. The transcripts were made public by an Argentine judge on Tuesday night, as part of a 289- page criminal complaint written by Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor investigating the at- tack. Mr. Nisman was found dead in his luxury apartment on Sun- day, the night before he was to present his findings to Congress. But the intercepted telephone conversations he described be- fore his death outline an elab- orate effort to reward Argentina for shipping food to Iran — and for seeking to derail the investi- gation into a terrorist attack in the Argentine capital that killed 85 people. The deal never materialized, the complaint says, in part be- cause Argentine officials failed to persuade Interpol to lift the ar- rest warrants against Iranian of- ficials wanted in Argentina in connection with the attack. The phone conversations are believed to have been intercepted by Argentine intelligence offi- cials. If proved accurate, the tran- scripts would show a concerted effort by representatives of Pres- ident Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government to shift suspicions away from Iran in or- der to gain access to Iranian mar- kets and to ease Argentina’s en- ergy troubles. The contacts came at a time when Iran was seeking to raise its profile in Latin America. In re- cent years, Iran has forged close ties with leftist governments in Release of Calls Adds Mystery In Argentina Hints of Effort to Shield Iran After Blast Continued on Page A10 By MATT APUZZO and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT WASHINGTON — Justice De- partment lawyers will recom- mend that no civil rights charges be brought against the police offi- cer who fatally shot an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Mo., after an F.B.I. investigation found no evidence to support charges, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. Attorney General Eric H. Hold- er Jr. and his civil rights chief, Vanita Gupta, will have the final say on whether the Justice De- partment will close the case against the officer, Darren Wil- son. But it would be unusual for them to overrule the prosecutors on the case, who are still working on a legal memo explaining their recommendation. A decision by the Justice De- partment would bring an end to the politically charged investiga- tion of Mr. Wilson in the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The Missouri authorities concluded their investigation into Mr. Brown’s death in November and also recommended against charges. But a broader Justice Depart- ment civil rights investigation into allegations of discriminatory traffic stops and excessive force by the Ferguson Police Depart- ment remains open. That investi- gation could lead to significant changes at the department, which is overwhelmingly white despite serving a city that is mostly black. Benjamin L. Crump, a lawyer for Mr. Brown’s family, said he did not want to comment on the investigation until the Justice De- partment made an official an- U.S. NOT EXPECTED TO FAULT OFFICER IN FERGUSON CASE F.B.I. FINDS NO EVIDENCE Justice Dept. to Oppose Civil Rights Charge, Officials Say Continued on Page A13 NEWS ANALYSIS By ROBERT F. WORTH WASHINGTON — Only months ago, American officials were still referring to Yemen’s negotiated transition from autoc- racy to an elected president as a model for post-revolutionary Arab states. Now, days of factional gun bat- tles in the Yemeni capital have left the president a puppet figure confined to his residence. The country appears to be at risk of fragmenting in ways that could provide greater opportunities both for Iran and for Al Qaeda, whose Yemeni branch claimed responsibility for the first Paris terrorist attack this month. The latest Yemeni crisis raises the prospect of yet another Arab country where the United States faces rising dangers but has no strong partners amid a landscape of sectarian violence. Although the Houthi rebels who now effec- tively control the state are at war with Al Qaeda, they are also al- lied with Iran and with Yemen’s meddlesome former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Houthis’ rise to a domi- nant position may set off local conflicts in ways that would give more breathing room to Al Qae- da’s local branch, which has re- peatedly struck at the United States. Yemen’s elected presi- dent, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, is a stalwart American ally but has almost no domestic support. “The Yemeni state has always been weak, but now there’s a real danger of economic meltdown, and of the kind of fragmentation that could ultimately make Yem- en almost ungovernable,” said April Alley, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, a non- profit organization that works to resolve conflicts. The Houthi takeover — which began in September and was re- inforced in recent days — has deepened sectarian and regional divisions in a desperately poor country that has long been a sanctuary for jihadists. And though the latest round of fight- ing appeared to end Wednesday when Mr. Hadi conceded to the Houthis’ political demands, the underlying crisis will continue to fester, analysts say. The deal announced Wednes- day addressed a number of the Houthis’ grievances, including a lack of representation in govern- ment bodies and complaints about provisions in a draft consti- tution. In return, the Houthis agreed to withdraw fighters from the presidential palace and other At Risk of Fragmenting, Yemen Poses Dangers to U.S. KHALED ABDULLAH/REUTERS Houthi fighters Wednesday in the streets of Sana, the Yemeni capital. They now control the city. Continued on Page A9 By JONATHAN WEISMAN and ASHLEY PARKER WASHINGTON — President Obama’s push for a new “middle- class economics” may go no- where in Congress, but his am- bitious array of proposals to raise stagnant incomes and provide more government support for struggling working families will frame his last two years in office and help make the politics of rich and poor a central issue in the campaign to succeed him. With the economy finally on more solid ground, even leading Republicans, on Capitol Hill and on the nascent 2016 presidential campaign front, are tempering complaints about overall eco- nomic growth and refocusing on the more intractable problem of income inequality. Mitt Romney, vowing a cam- paign to “end the scourge of pov- erty” if he runs for president a third time, has backed raising the minimum wage over the wishes of congressional leaders. Similarly, Jeb Bush’s new “su- per PAC,” announced with the fanfare of a presidential declara- tion, proclaimed, “While the last eight years have been pretty good ones for top earners, they’ve been a lost decade for the rest of America.” At a closed-door retreat last week, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the new majority leader, encouraged the Republi- can troops to refocus policy on the stagnant middle class. Just acknowledging a wealth gap represents a significant shift in language for Republicans, who have long held that market forces driving overall economic growth will ultimately yield higher in- comes without any help from government. Bill de Blasio, New York’s may- or, on Wednesday called middle- class wage stagnation “the domi- nant issue in our public discourse this year” and into next. “It’s a striking moment when even Mitt Romney is talking about income equality,” Mr. de Talk of Inequality Prods Republicans to Refocus Congress and 2016 Hopefuls Take Up the Wealth Gap Continued on Page A18 WHITE HOUSE MEMO By MICHAEL D. SHEAR WASHINGTON — The morn- ing after major Democratic losses in last year’s midterm elections, President Obama walked into the Roosevelt Room with a message for his despond- ent staff: I’m not done yet. “These next two years are go- ing to be the most interesting time in our lives,” he told them, according to a person in the meeting that day. On Tuesday, Mr. Obama of- fered an estimated 30 million viewers a glimpse of that attitude when he delivered a self-assured, almost cocky State of the Union address after a year in which cur- rent and former White House ad- visers said he was often frustrat- ed and at times discouraged. “The president holding back is counterproductive,” said Jennifer Palmieri, the White House com- munications director, who de- scribed the president as feeling liberated and emboldened. Although Republicans said Tuesday’s speech was further ev- idence that Mr. Obama lives in an alternate reality, divorced from their belief that voters repudiat- ed the president’s agenda last year, inside the West Wing, there was relief that the sometimes brooding leader of the past year was gone. The president’s state of mind, White House aides said, is a strik- ing change from last winter, when Mr. Obama was mired in legislative gridlock and watching his approval rating sink in the af- termath of the botched HealthCare.gov rollout. By June, he was trying to stop the tide of immigrants streaming across the border from Mexico. It was not until well into the summer, when overseas crises in Ukraine and Syria forced him to engage, that Mr. Obama seemed energized, people close to him said. They said the presidential funk returned during the congression- Gloom Lifts, And Obama Goes All Out Continued on Page A17 By BROOKS BARNES PARK CITY, Utah — The Sun- dance Television Festival this is not. That snarky, small-screen nickname is nonetheless being tossed around by some of the Hollywood attendees who are gathering here for the 31st Sun- dance Film Festival, which starts on Thursday. The reason: Like the rest of moviedom, the inde- pendent-film world is grappling with the incursion of television as a creative and financial force. Independent film used to de- fine the cutting edge in entertain- ment, but the indie crowd has lately ceded ground to television, which is turning out risk-taking shows like Amazon’s “Transpar- ent,’’ created by a Sundance film alumna. A vast majority of the 123 movies that will play Sundance this year will end up finding an audience not in a theater but on a video-on-demand system. The shift leaves Sundance, longtime attendees say, on the edge of an identity crisis. The fes- tival, fiercely proud of its herit- age as America’s foremost show- case for independent cinema, is working to hold on to that identi- ty. At the same time, it is tenta- tively embracing an art form, television, in which innovation Small Screen Is Big Player At Sundance Continued on Page B2 The Bronx Mu- seum of the Arts and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana plan to share works in 2016, like Rigoberto Torres’s “Daze.” PAGE C1 ARTS C1-8 An Art Exchange With Cuba The mayor of Boston signed a deal bar- ring city employees from speaking neg- atively of a bid for the Games. PAGE B13 SPORTSTHURSDAY B13-18 The Olympic Spirit, Mandated With colors that pulse, integrated speakers and other innovations, pro- grammable LEDs are booming. But ear- ly adopters still pay a premium. PAGE D1 HOME D1-8 Smartbulbs Get Smarter Gail Collins PAGE A23 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23 State health officials are fighting to con- tain a surge in cases that began at Dis- neyland, renewing concerns about an anti-vaccination movement. PAGE A13 California Measles Outbreak A plan to canonize the Rev. Junipero Serra, evangelizer of the western United States, has set off a debate. PAGE A12 Saint to Some, but Not All A captain and five guards lost their jobs after they hogtied and beat an inmate in April 2012. PAGE A20 6 Fired Over Rikers Beating An invitation to Israel’s Benja- min Netanyahu to address a joint gathering of Congress stunned the White House. Page A16. A Row Over an Invitation Divisions and discontent among the Taliban may be helping the Islamic State recruit in Afghanistan. PAGE A4 INTERNATIONAL A4-11 Taliban Discord Bolsters ISIS Sheldon Silver, the powerful New York Assembly speaker, is expected to face federal charges related to disclosure of outside income. PAGE A21 NEW YORK A20-21 Assembly Leader Facing Arrest Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are said to have scheduled a private meeting in Utah, raising the possibility that they will find a way to avoid competing presi- dential campaigns. PAGE A18 NATIONAL A12-18 Romney and Jeb Bush to Meet
