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MELNIK, Czech Republic —Working at his computer, as hedoes most weekends, on an anti-Western diatribe for a Czech web-site, Ladislav Kasuka was notsure what to make of the mes-sages that began popping up onhis Facebook page, offering himmoney to organize street protests.

“Do you need help?” read thefirst message, written in Russian,from a person he did not know.This was followed, in a mix of Rus-sian and garbled Czech, by gush-ing encouragement for streetdemonstrations and increasinglyspecific offers of cash.

An initial payment of 300 euros($368) was offered for Mr. Ka-suka, a penniless Czech Stalinist,to buy flags and other parapher-nalia for a protest rally in Prague,the Czech capital, against theNATO alliance and the pro-West-

ern government in Ukraine. Later,he was offered €500 ($558) to buya video camera, film the actionand post the video online. Othersmall sums were also proposed.

“It was all a bit unusual, so I wassurprised,” Mr. Kasuka recalled ina recent interview at a shoppingmall north of Prague where heworks on security and mainte-nance.

He decided the cash “was for agood cause” — halting the spreadof NATO and capitalist Westernways into the formerly commu-nist lands of Eastern Europe — sohe accepted.

The strange relationship thatfollowed, consisting of passionatesocial media exchanges aboutpolitics and a total of €1,500 in cashtransfers, was one of many forgedacross Eastern and Central Eu-

Foot Soldiers in Shadowy FightBetween Russia and the West

By ANDREW HIGGINS

Continued on Page A7

Juan Fermin was anxious thathe might be assaulted because ofhis job — selling tickets for sight-seeing cruises of New York Har-bor.

Approaching tourists at Man-hattan’s southern edge hardlyseems dangerous. But it placesMr. Fermin in the midst of an esca-lating and at times dangerous turfbattle over — of all things — theStatue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty belongs toall. But being on an island, it be-longs most of all to the boat com-panies that carry millions oftourists on sightseeing tripsaround the harbor each year. Thecompetition to pack those boats isfierce — and likely to grow fiercer

with the arrival of summer.Mr. Fermin, 30, is part of a

swelling army of street hustlerswho can earn around $20 for eachtourist they steer onto a particularboat. Wearing brightly coloredshirts and vests, they are a loud,in-your-face presence around Bat-tery Park and, often enough, in po-lice reports.

There have been reports of aslashing; beatings, including oneso severe a tourist suffered a frac-tured skull; and most recently, inApril, a shooting that woundedtwo. The victims include otherticket sellers as well as tourists,the police and others say.

“I worry about it,” Mr. Ferminsaid of the potential for violence.“You don’t want to be caught up inthose cross hairs.”

The police and politicians havea variety of explanations for theviolence. Some point to ticket sell-ers recently released from prisonor jail. Others place responsibilityon the boat operators, saying theyrefuse to clamp down on ag-gressive sales practices.

Jessica Lappin, the president ofthe Alliance for Downtown NewYork, a business improvementdistrict, said the men selling boattickets seem “to be engaging ingang warfare over their turf.”

“They make a lot of moneydown there,” Ms. Lappin added,“and they’ll defend it with knivesand guns if they need to.”

It is not the first tourist-centric

Center of a Violent Turf War in Manhattan: The Statue of LibertyBy JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN

and NATE SCHWEBER

The Statue of Liberty is a big draw for tourists, whose interest inseeing it up close is being fought over by pushy street hustlers.

VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES


PARACHUTE EVENT TURNS DEADLY

A Navy team member plunged intothe Hudson River after his para-chute failed to open fully. Page A16.

AGUAS BUENAS, Puerto Rico— Federal agents with body ar-mor and assault rifles stormed asmall house in this hillside townon a dark October night two yearsago, intent on arresting a retiredNational Guard captain suspectedof an elaborate scheme to defraudthe military. But in a sign of largerproblems to come in the investiga-tion, they raided the wrong house.Twice.

That night, scores of agentsfrom the mainland stormedhouses all over the island, arrest-ing at gunpoint 25 current and for-mer National Guard soldierswhom authorities accused ofclaiming hundreds of referral bo-nuses for recruits they had nevermet. They included Ángel PeralesMuñoz, the captain whose ad-dress they could not find. Heeventually learned about the raidsand turned himself in a few hourslater.

“That they couldn’t bother tocorrectly figure out where I liveshows everything about this in-vestigation,” Mr. Perales said in aninterview this winter, weeks be-

fore a federal trial in which hefaced up to 20 years in prison.“They never wanted to under-stand what was going on; theyjust wanted to show they weremaking arrests.”

The raids in Puerto Rico werepart of Task Force Raptor, a na-tionwide antifraud operation runby the Army’s Criminal Investiga-tion Command that has grown

Small Fish Caught in Wide NetIn an Erratic Army Crackdown

By DAVE PHILIPPS

Ángel Perales Muñoz was ac-cused of fraud connected to arecruitment incentive plan.

DENNIS M. RIVERA PICHARDO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES


JES AZNAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The family of a soldier killed in World War II says he is buried in this Manila grave and sued the Army, which disagrees. Page A10.Who’s Buried Here? A Hero or an ‘Unknown’?

BERLIN — Chancellor AngelaMerkel of Germany, Europe’smost influential leader, has con-cluded, after three days of trans-Atlantic meetings, that the UnitedStates of President Trump is notthe reliable partner her countryand the Continent have automati-cally depended on in the past.

Clearly disappointed with Mr.Trump’s positions on NATO, Rus-sia, climate change and trade, Ms.Merkel said in Munich on Sundaythat traditional alliances were nolonger as steadfast as they oncewere and that Europe should paymore attention to its own interests“and really take our fate into ourown hands.”

“The times in which we couldrely fully on others — they aresomewhat over,” Ms. Merkel add-ed, speaking on the campaign trailafter a contentious NATO summitmeeting in Brussels and a Groupof 7 meeting in Italy. “This is whatI experienced in the last fewdays.”

Ms. Merkel’s strong commentswere a potentially seismic shift intrans-Atlantic relations. With theUnited States less willing to inter-vene overseas, Germany is be-coming an increasingly dominantpower in a partnership withFrance.

The new French president, Em-manuel Macron, has shown a will-ingness to work with Germanyand to help lead the bloc out of itstroubles. And Ms. Merkel seesGermany’s future more and morewith the European Union of 27 na-tions, without Britain after its voteto leave the bloc.

“This seems to be the end of anera, one in which the UnitedStates led and Europe followed,”said Ivo H. Daalder, a formerUnited States envoy to NATO whois now the director of the ChicagoCouncil on Global Affairs. “Today,

WARY OF TRUMP, MERKEL DOUBTS U.S. IS SOLID ALLY

DISMAYED BY MEETINGS

A Call for Europeans to‘Take Our Fate IntoOur Own Hands’

By ALISON SMALEand STEVEN ERLANGER


A BORROWED COAT OF ARMS The emblem usedby the Trump Organization in the United Stateshad to be changed in Britain. PAGE B1

DEFENDING KUSHNER John F. Kelly, the home-land security secretary, played down reports of asecret channel to Russia. And the presidentresumed using Twitter as a weapon. PAGE A12

WASHINGTON — As the Pen-tagon prepares to conduct its firsttest in three years of the multi-billion-dollar effort to intercept aNorth Korean warhead, it hopes todemonstrate that it has fixed asystem that has worked in fewerthan half of its previous nine tests.

But just as the Defense Depart-ment seeks to prove that it canstrike a speeding target launchedover the Pacific — in this case, aninterceptor rocket is set to lift offfrom the California coast on Tues-day to try to smash a mock war-head — the North Koreans havedelivered a new challenge.

The North has recently test-fired a series of missiles based ona technology that would give theUnited States little warning of anattack. The new generation of mis-siles uses solid fuels, enablingthem to be rolled out from moun-tain hideaways and launched inminutes. That makes the job of in-tercepting them — already daunt-ing — far harder, given that theAmerican antimissile systemworks best with early alerts fromsatellites that a launch is immi-

nent.Even more worrisome is that

these missiles actually seem to befunctional, unlike older missilesthat kept exploding or falling pre-maturely into the sea in past tests.Recent major tests were clearlysuccessful, teaching the NorthKoreans a lot about how to firemissiles into space and drop war-heads on distant targets. Whilethe North has not yet flight-testedan intercontinental ballistic mis-sile capable of crossing the Pa-cific, it has repeatedly claimedthat it can strike the United Stateswith a nuclear warhead.

Evidence suggests that Ameri-can intelligence missed signalslast year that the North was mov-ing quickly to adopt the solid-fueltechnology, leaving Washingtonscrambling to catch up, accordingto current and former Americanofficials.

One former official who closelytracked the intelligence on NorthKorea said that while it should notbe called an intelligence failure,the American government had

North Korean Tests Add UrgencyFor U.S. to Fix Flaws in Defense

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD


The stylish Melania Trump occasionallystole the spotlight from the presidentduring their first trip abroad. PAGE A6

INTERNATIONAL A4-9

First Lady Exudes Star Power

The Taliban’s targeting of scholars hasbeen a reminder of the weight the insur-gents give to religion. PAGE A4

Killing Scholars of Islam

Senator John Kennedy, a freshmanRepublican from Louisiana, is startinghis Washington tenure as a low-keythrowback in turbulent times. PAGE A13

NATIONAL A10-15

Famous Name, Folksy Touch

“Kayaktivists” on the water and otherdemonstrators made noise at the SeniorP.G.A. Championship. PAGE A13

Protest at Trump Golf Course

John Severson, an artist and magazinefounder, likened surfing to a beautifuldance in nature. He was 83. PAGE B6

OBITUARIES B4-6

Pioneer of Surf Culture

A Pentagon breach suggests how easilypeople can be duped. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-4

Hacked via Social Media

The waterway’s odd and oversize cargoincludes 12 fermentation tanks. PAGE A16

NEW YORK A16-19

Beer Flotilla in the Erie Canal

Robert Pattinson has put “Twilight”behind him for indies like “Good Time,”a hit at this year’s film festival. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Ex-Vampire Reborn at Cannes

Nello Ferrara cobbled together adecade-long professional career with19 minor league teams. PAGE D1

Candy Heir as Hockey Bruiser

Takuma Sato held off the three-timechampion Hélio Castroneves to win the101st Indianapolis 500. PAGE D4

SPORTSMONDAY D1-6

A Duel, Then the Milk Toast

An 18th-century painting stolen by theNazis will go to auction after a family’s70-year effort to recover it. PAGE C1

Resolution Over Long-Lost Art

WASHINGTON — The mostsuccessful deal of Jared Kushner’sshort and consequential career inreal estate and politics involvesone highly leveraged acquisition:a pair of adjoining offices a fewpenny-loafer paces from his fa-ther-in-law’s desk in the WhiteHouse.

Over the past week, Mr. Kush-ner, who at age 36 occupies an ill-defined role somewhere betweenprinceling and President Trump’sshadow chief of staff, has seen hisfoothold on that invaluable real es-tate shrink amid revelations he isunder scrutiny in a federal investi-gation into whether there was col-lusion with Russian officials dur-ing the presidential campaign.

Mr. Kushner, an observant Jew,spent the Sabbath in fretful seclu-sion with his wife, Ivanka Trump,at his father-in-law’s resort inBedminster, N.J., unplugged, perreligious custom, from electron-ics. But he emerged defiant andeager to defend his reputation incongressional hearings, accord-ing to two of his associates.

What is less clear is how Mr.Kushner’s woes will affect hishard-won influence on a mercurialfather-in-law who is eager to putdistance between himself and ascandal that is swamping hisagenda and, he believes, threat-ening his family.

Some Democrats are calling onthe president to revoke Mr. Kush-ner’s security clearances. Repre-sentative Adam B. Schiff, Demo-crat of California and a chairmanof the House committee investi-gating Russian efforts to sway the2016 election, suggested in an in-terview on Sunday that the recentnews reports about Mr. Kushnerhave brought the investigationfrom the periphery of the Trumpcampaign and transition teamsinto the Oval Office.

“If these stories are accurate”in their description of Mr. Kushnerand Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’sousted national security adviser,“were they acting at the behest ofMr. Trump, then-candidate, orPresident-elect Trump? But

Kushner’s RoleIn White HouseIs Under Strain

Family Ties Tested asRussia Case Grows

This article is by Glenn Thrush,Maggie Haberman and SharonLaFraniere.


Paul Krugman PAGE A21

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A20-21

Late Edition

VOL. CLXVI . . . No. 57,612 © 2017 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, MAY 29, 2017

Today, morning rain and thunder, af-ternoon sunshine, high 68. Tonight,cloudy, low 58. Tomorrow, cloudsand sunshine, afternoon showers,high 74. Weather map, Page A18.

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