CMYK Nxxx,2015-02-24,A,001,Bs-BK,E2 Late Edition Today, a mix of clouds and sun, high 20. Tonight, turning mostly cloudy, flurries late, low 18. Tomorrow, clouds and sun, a snow shower, high 35. Weather map, Page B16. VOL. CLXIV . . . No. 56,787 $2.50 NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015 © 2015 The New York Times PALESTINE GROUPS ARE FOUND LIABLE AT TERROR TRIAL CONGRESSIONAL MEMO Funding Fight Poses Dangers For the G.O.P. NEW YORK JURY VERDICT Battle on Immigration Puts Security at Issue $655 Million for Attacks With U.S. Victims — Appeal Is Planned By CARL HULSE and ASHLEY PARKER WASHINGTON — After promising an era of responsible governing and an end to federal shutdowns, congressional Republicans find themselves mired in an immigration fight that could cause funding for the Department of Homeland Security to run out on Friday. It is a risky moment for the new congressional majority. A nasty partisan impasse over funding for a vital agency would probably damage the party’s brand just months after Republicans took power, and the impact could carry over into the next election cycle. “I don’t think shutdowns and showdowns are the way to win the presidency in 2016,” said Representative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican and a respected party strategist. He and many other lawmakers believe a last-minute resolution is possible, particularly given new terrorism threats, including one against the Mall of America in Minnesota. And Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, took the first steps toward trying to break the impasse on Monday night by proposing a measure that would allow the Senate to register its disapproval by blocking the president’s 2014 actions on immigration in one bill, while approving the security money in another. “It’s another way to get the Senate unstuck,” Mr. McConnell said. He acted after Senate Democrats for a fourth time blocked Republicans in their efforts to force debate on a $40 billion Homeland Security measure that would gut President Obama’s executive actions on immigration. The vote was 47 to 46, well short of the 60 needed. The prospect of an agency shutdown was seen as almost laughable until recently, most notably because Republicans are typically predisposed to fund security matters. But now the chances are increasingly serious. If the agency is shut down, roughly 30,000 of its 230,000 employees will be furloughed. The rest, deemed essential, would be Continued on Page A15 By BENJAMIN WEISER KHALED DESOUKI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES Paying Egypt’s Price for Protest, 5 Years in Prison Alaa Abd El Fattah, a blogger and activist, was convicted of taking part in an illegal demonstration and related charges. Page A7. Peanuts as Ally Kenya’s Catch-22: Terror Alerts May Fuel Terror sand beaches along Kenya’s is granted. It also warns tourists Against a Rise perch on the Indian Ocean have of possible “suicide operations, become ghost towns with palm bombings — to include car bombMOMBASA, Kenya — Every trees. In Nut Allergy morning ings — kidnappings, attacks on at the Tides Inn, a waitBy JEFFREY GETTLEMAN By ANDREW POLLACK Turning what was once conventional wisdom on its head, a new study suggests that many, if not most, peanut allergies can be prevented by feeding young children food containing peanuts beginning in infancy, rather than avoiding such foods. About 2 percent of American children are allergic to peanuts, a figure that has more than quadrupled since 1997 for reasons that are not entirely clear. There have also been big increases in other Western countries. For some people, even traces of peanuts can be life-threatening. An editorial published Monday in The New England Journal of Medicine, along with the study, called the results “so compelling” and the rise of peanut allergies “so alarming” that guidelines for how to feed infants at risk of peanut allergies should be revised soon. The study “clearly indicates that the early introduction of peanut dramatically decreases the Continued on Page A10 er trudges down from the restaurant to the beach with a huge blackboard advertising the daily specials — deep-fried fish and masala prawns, pepper steak and pizza, all listed in chalk and illustrated with cute drawings. But nobody ever comes by, not even for a gander. Up and down the Kenyan coast, it is the same picture. Tables sit empty, dance floors are deserted, crates of Tusker beer collect dust. The fabled white “It’s the worst time anyone can remember,” said Dhiren Shah, the Tides Inn’s owner. Kenya’s coastal tourism is collapsing, and part of the reason — a big part of the reason, Kenyan officials say — is Western travel warnings issued after a round of violence last summer in a remote coastal area. The American warning is perhaps the strictest, barring embassy personnel from setting foot anywhere on the coast, unless special permission She Runs S.E.C. He’s a Lawyer. Recusals and Headaches Ensue. civil aviation, and attacks on maritime vessels in or near Kenyan ports.” Kenyan officials are incensed, saying that the coast is hardly a raging war zone and that the Western travel warnings amount to “economic sabotage,” scaring away travelers who rely on government advisories to explain which places are safe and which are not. Worse, many Kenyans contend, and even some diploContinued on Page A10 ANDREW QUILTY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Refugees Say Pakistan Forced Them Out By PETER EAVIS and BEN PROTESS Their legal careers, and by extension their marriage, are the stuff of lore. Mary Jo White leads the Securities and Exchange Commission; her husband, John, practices law at an old-guard firm as elite as the corporations it represents. Together, they are a legal power couple that straddles Wall Street and Washington like few others. Their careers, however, can at times collide, generating headaches for the S.E.C. as it pursues wrongdoing in the nation’s financial markets, according to inter- views with lawyers and a review of federal records. In the nearly two years since Ms. White took over the agency, she has had to recuse herself from more than four dozen enforcement investigations, the interviews and records show, sometimes delaying settlements and opening the door, in at least one case, to a lighter punishment. The interviews and records detail for the first time the extent of Ms. White’s recusals and the implications of her absence. When Continued on Page B2 NATIONAL A11-16 Split in Bikram Yoga Empire A schism has emerged in the yoga empire of Bikram Choudhury, left. Many followers have stayed loyal while he faces six lawsuits in which he is accused of rape or assault. But others are walking away. A camp near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, is now home to many Afghan former refugees. Page A4. States Are Blocking Local Regulations, Often at Industry’s Behest By SHAILA DEWAN Darren Hodges, a Tea Party Republican and councilman in the windy West Texas city of Fort Stockton, is a fierce defender of his town’s decision to ban plastic bags. It was a local solution to a local problem and one, he says, city officials had a “God-given ARTS C1-8 A Trans-Atlantic Rules Gap Academy vs. Moviegoer Scores of chemicals that are banned or tightly restricted in the European Union are allowed in the United States, a regulatory disparity that highlights the potential stumbling blocks in the trans-AtPAGE B1 lantic trade talks. Little-seen best picture contenders and soft television ratings are among signs that the Academy Awards have become detached from movie viewers. PAGE C1 SCIENCE TIMES D1-6 Fox’s O’Reilly Defends Himself Drawing Faces, Based on DNA The Fox News host Bill O’Reilly used his Monday broadcast to fire back at claims that he exaggerated his experiPAGE B1 ences in the field. A growing ability to learn physical characteristics of crime suspects from DNA they leave behind can help the police, but poses questions about whether it could exacerbate racial profiling and infringe on privacy. PAGE D1 Corporal Guilty of Desertion SPORTSTUESDAY B10-14 A Marine accused of faking his abduction in Iraq in 2004 and evading punishment for years by fleeing to Lebanon PAGE A11 was convicted of desertion. A Surprise Early Arrival Judge Rules Against Christie A New Jersey judge said Gov. Chris Christie violated state law in declining to make full payments into the public pension system and ordered him to find PAGE A17 a way to put in $1.57 billion. right” to make. But the power of Fort Stockton and other cities to govern themselves is under attack in the state capital, Austin. The new Republican governor, Greg Abbott, has warned that several cities are undermining the business-friendly “Texas model” with a patchwork of ill-conceived regulations. Conservative legislators, already an- BUSINESS DAY B1-9 PAGE A11 NEW YORK A17-21 The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 in which Americans were killed and injured. The damages are to be $655.5 million, under a special terrorism law that provides for tripling the $218.5 million awarded by the jury in Federal District Court. The verdict ended a decadelong legal battle to hold the Palestinian organizations responsible for the terrorist acts, an effort that encompassed fights over jurisdiction, merit and even practicality: History has shown that it is difficult for victims of international terrorism to bring their civil cases to trial, let alone to recover damages. While the decision on Monday was a huge victory for the dozens of plaintiffs, it could also serve to strengthen Israel’s claim that the supposedly more moderate Palestinian forces were directly linked to terrorism. The Palestinian groups said in a statement that they intended to appeal the verdict, but did not address their willingness or capacity to pay. In at least two previous cases, in which judges entered default judgments against them for more than $100 million, the groups reached confidential settlements, court records show. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said that if the Palestinian groups refused to pay, they were confident that they would be able to seize the groups’ assets, both in the United States and abroad. The verdict came in the seventh week of a civil trial during which the jury heard emotional testimony from survivors of suicide bombings and other attacks in Jerusalem, in which a total of 33 people were killed and more than 450 were injured. “Money is oxygen for terrorism,” Kent A. Yalowitz, a lawyer for the families, said in a closing argument on Thursday, adding that the antiterrorism law “hits those who send terrorists where it hurts them most: in the wallet.” The case was brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows American citizens who are victims of international terrorism to sue in the United States courts. The law was used in September by a Brooklyn jury to find Arab Continued on Page A21 Alex Rodriguez came to Yankees camp two days early, after a yearlong suspension for using banned drugs. “I cringe sometimes when I look at some of the things I did,” he said. “But I paid my penalty, and I’m grateful that I have another opportuniPAGE B10 ty.” EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23 David Brooks PAGE A23 U(D54G1D)y+z!;!?!#!, gered by a ban on fracking that was enacted by popular vote in the town of Denton last fall, quickly followed up with a host of bills to curtail local power. “The truth is, Texas is being California-ized, and you may not even be noticing it,” Mr. Abbott said in a speech at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an influential conservative think tank, just before he took office last month. “Large cities that represent about 75 percent of the population in this state are doing this to us. Unchecked overregulation by cities will turn the Texas miracle into the California nightmare.” His salvo caught Texas cities Continued on Page A12