General William P. Barr defended himself on Wednesday against withering criticism of his handling of the special counsel investiga- tion as Democrats accused of him of deceiving Congress and acting as a personal agent for President Trump rather than a steward of justice. At a contentious hearing marked by a deep partisan divide, Mr. Barr denied misrepresenting the investigation’s conclusions de- spite a newly revealed letter by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, protesting the initial summary of its findings. Mr. Barr dismissed the letter as “a bit snitty” and the controversy over it as “mind-bendingly bizarre.” But in a series of aggressive in- terrogations, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee ex- pressed indignation and asserted that the attorney general had been “purposely misleading,” en- gaged in “masterful hairsplitting” and even “lied to Congress.” Sev- eral Democrats on the committee, elsewhere in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail called for Mr. Barr’s resignation or even impeachment. The conflict escalated after- ward when Mr. Barr announced that he would not show up for a parallel hearing on Thursday be- fore the Democrat-controlled House Judiciary Committee. Mr. Barr objected to the format of questioning, which would have in- cluded questioning by staff law- yers, not just lawmakers. Demo- crats may now opt to subpoena him, setting up a possible show- down in court. “He is terrified of having to face a skilled attorney,” said Repre- sentative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the committee’s chairman. In just 11 weeks in office, Mr. Under Fire, Barr Defends Actions on Mueller Report Will Skip Hearing in House After Fierce Session in Senate By PETER BAKER Attorney General William P. Barr navigated aggressive questioning in the Senate on Wednesday. ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES Senator Mazie K. Hirono exco- riated the attorney general. ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS Continued on Page A14 Female track athletes with na- turally elevated levels of testos- terone must decrease the hor- mone to participate in certain races at major competitions like the Olympics, the highest court in international sports said Wednes- day in a landmark ruling amid the pitched debate over who can com- pete in women’s events. The decision was a defeat for Caster Semenya, a two-time Olympic champion at 800 meters from South Africa, who had chal- lenged proposed limits placed on female athletes with naturally ele- vated levels of the muscle-build- ing hormone testosterone. At a time when the broader cul- ture is moving toward an accept- ance of gender fluidity, the ruling affirmed the sports world’s need for distinct gender lines, saying they were essential for the out- come of women’s events to be fair. “The gender studies folks have spent the last 20 years decon- structing sex and all of a sudden they’re facing an institution with an entirely opposite story,” said Doriane Lambelet Coleman, a law professor at Duke and an elite 800-meter runner in the 1980s who served as an expert witness for track and field’s world govern- ing body. “We have to ask, ‘Is re- specting gender identity more im- portant or is seeing female bodies on the podium more important?’” Semenya’s biology has been un- der scrutiny for a decade, ever since she burst on the scene at the 2009 world track and field cham- pionships and was subjected to sex tests after her victory. In South Africa, leaders complained of racism. The issue of whether a rare biological trait was causing an unfair advantage for Semenya and a small subset of women quickly morphed into a battle about privacy and human rights, and Semenya became its symbol. Sports Court Backs Distinct Gender Lines, in Defeat for Olympian By JERÉ LONGMAN and JULIET MACUR Caster Semenya, who has naturally high levels of testosterone, in a 1,500-meter race last year. SAEED KHAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES Continued on Page A11 WASHINGTON — It was a for- eign policy role Joseph R. Biden Jr. enthusiastically embraced dur- ing his vice presidency: brow- beating Ukraine’s notoriously cor- rupt government to clean up its act. And one of his most memora- ble performances came on a trip to Kiev in March 2016, when he threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine’s leaders did not dismiss the country’s top prosecutor, who had been accused of turning a blind eye to corruption in his own office and among the political elite. The pressure campaign worked. The prosecutor general, long a target of criticism from other Western nations and inter- national lenders, was soon voted out by the Ukrainian Parliament. Among those who had a stake in the outcome was Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden’s younger son, who at the time was on the board of an en- ergy company owned by a Ukrain- ian oligarch who had been in the sights of the fired prosecutor gen- eral. Hunter Biden was a Yale-edu- cated lawyer who had served on the boards of Amtrak and a num- ber of nonprofit organizations and think tanks, but lacked any expe- rience in Ukraine and just months earlier had been discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine. He would be paid about $50,000 per month for his work for the company, Burisma Holdings. The broad outlines of how the Bidens’ roles intersected in Ukraine have been known for some time. The former vice presi- dent’s campaign said that he had always acted to carry out United States policy without regard to any activities of his son, that he had never discussed the matter with Hunter Biden and that he learned of his son’s role with the Ukrainian energy company from news reports. But new details about Hunter Biden’s involvement, and a deci- sion this year by the current Ukrainian prosecutor general to reverse himself and reopen an in- vestigation into Burisma, have pushed the issue back into the For Biden, a Ukraine Matter That Won’t Go Away By KENNETH P. VOGEL and IULIIA MENDEL New Spotlight Falls on Son’s Employer in a Revived Inquiry Continued on Page A10 VOL. CLXVIII . . . No. 58,315 © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2019 C M Y K Nxxx,2019-05-02,A,001,Bs-4C,E2 NEWS ANALYSIS WASHINGTON — Nobody said regime change was going to be easy. President Trump’s top advis- ers woke up Tuesday believing that a rebellion in the Venezuelan military that day would galva- nize a popular uprising and topple a leader they have de- scribed as a reviled despot who must be replaced. But at day’s end, President Nicolás Maduro was still in power and Mr. Trump’s advisers were left to blame Cuba, Russia and three influential Venezuelan officials, who failed to switch sides, for frustrating their plans. The decision of the Venezue- lans to stand with Mr. Maduro — either because they were intimi- dated, got cold feet or never planned to defect — raised ques- tions about whether the United States had faulty intelligence about the ability of the opposition to peel away members of his government. It also raised questions about whether Mr. Trump’s aides had fallen victim to a misreading of events on the ground, or whether Mr. Trump, who officials say has sometimes outrun his aides in an enthusiasm for forcing out Mr. Maduro, might lose faith in the effort as it wears on. Mr. Maduro has been weak- ened at home and discredited abroad, but he remains a stub- born rival unwilling to step aside for the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, recognized by the United States as the country’s de facto leader. While the administration got off to a sure-footed start on Venezuela, rallying dozens of countries against the Venezuelan president, critics said its re- sponse had become haphazard and chaotic as the crisis has dragged on. Mr. Trump’s aides banked on Mr. Guaidó’s call for mass pro- tests and the defection of the Venezuelan officials on Tuesday as a turning point in the three- month campaign to oust Mr. Pressure Rises After Failure In Venezuela Questions for the U.S. as Maduro Hangs On By MARK LANDLER and JULIAN E. BARNES Continued on Page A7 U(D54G1D)y+=!:!&!#!} It was called the Economic Op- portunity Act, a measure intended to kick-start the sputtering post- recession economy in New Jersey, particularly in its struggling cit- ies. The state would award lucra- tive tax breaks to businesses if they moved to New Jersey or re- mained in the state, creating and retaining jobs. But before the bill was ap- proved by the Legislature, a se- ries of changes were made to its language in June 2013 that were intended to grant specific compa- nies hundreds of millions of dol- lars in additional tax breaks, with no public disclosure, according to interviews and documents ob- tained by The New York Times. Many of the last-minute changes to drafts of the bill were made by a real estate lawyer, Kev- in D. Sheehan, whose influential law firm has close ties to Demo- cratic politicians and legislative leaders in New Jersey. Mr. Sheehan was allowed by lawmakers to edit drafts of the bill in ways that opened up sizable tax breaks to his firm’s clients, ac- cording to a marked up copy of the legislation obtained by The Times, which identifies Mr. Sheehan’s changes. Nearly six years later, the fall- out from the legislation has set off an uproar in the State Capitol over allegations that the state’s $11 bil- lion in economic development pro- grams have been poorly managed corporate giveaways that have brought few benefits. How $11 Billion in Tax Breaks Has New Jersey in an Uproar By NICK CORASANITI and MATTHEW HAAG Continued on Page A22 THE SCIENCE An issue raises hard questions about biology, fairness and gender identity. PAGE B7 One professor’s quest to secure the future of a collection of women’s every- day clothing items. PAGE D1 THURSDAY STYLES D1-8 Rags or Riches? Capri has banned plastic and wants to limit boat traffic, too, to control the twin Italian ills: tourism and trash. PAGE A6 INTERNATIONAL A4-12 An Isle Preserving Its Beauty More people have been told that they are under investigation in the college- admissions scandal, while others worry that they soon will be. PAGE A20 NATIONAL A13-20 Admissions Scandal Widens The social media giant may create a privacy committee as part of a deal with regulators. PAGE B1 BUSINESS B1-6 Facebook Settlement Talks Stephen Curry helped lift a series that threatened to devolve amid feuds over officiating, Marc Stein writes. PAGE B7 SPORTSTHURSDAY B7-12 Warriors Put Complaints Aside Justin Gimelstob said he would resign from the ATP board to focus on resolving his personal and legal issues. PAGE B12 Gimelstob Exits Tennis Board James Comey PAGE A27 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27 A student who charged a gunman in a college classroom in Charlotte, N.C., “saved lives,” but he died in the attack, officials said. PAGE A19 Victim Hailed as a Hero Sedley Alley was executed based on scant physical evidence and a confession he said was coerced. His daughter hopes DNA testing will offer answers. PAGE A13 Was Her Father a Murderer? Companies are starting to offer com- fortable, attractive undergarments for transgender men and women. PAGE D1 A New Sexy for a New Time A murder placed focus on the region’s paramilitary groups. But economic stagnation drives violence, too. PAGE A4 Conflict in Northern Ireland A man who said he was upset about criticism of President Trump threat- ened to kill former President Barack Obama and a congresswoman. PAGE A22 NEW YORK A21-23 Prison for Racist Threats WASHINGTON — When Attor- ney General William P. Barr sum- marized the special counsel’s con- clusions in a March letter, prompt- ing President Trump to crow that he had been exonerated, the spe- cial counsel’s prosecutors knew immediately what the public would learn weeks later: The let- ter was a sparse and occasionally misleading representation of their exhaustive findings. What followed was a dayslong, behind-the-scenes tussle over the first public presentation of one of the most consequential govern- ment investigations in American history. A richer picture of that battle emerged on Wednesday — one of testy letters (Mr. Barr described one as “snitty”) and at least one tense phone call between the spe- cial counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and Mr. Barr. The two were long- time friends who found them- selves on opposite sides of an em- battled president. The growing evidence of a split between them also brought fresh scrutiny on Mr. Barr, who on at least three occasions in recent weeks has seemed to try to out- maneuver Mr. Mueller. First, he released his four-page letter on March 24 outlining investigators’ findings; then he held an unusual news conference on the day the Mueller report was released; and on Tuesday night, the Justice De- partment put out a statement that significantly played down the con- cerns among Mr. Mueller’s team. In other words, Mr. Barr, who said at a Senate Judiciary Com- mittee hearing on Wednesday that “we have to stop using the criminal justice system as a politi- cal weapon,” now stands accused of doing exactly that. The drama began around mid- day on March 22, when a security officer working for Mr. Mueller ar- rived at the fifth floor of the Jus- tice Department to deliver copies of his highly anticipated report to the attorney general and his top aides. Mr. Barr worked through that weekend reading the report, his aides in occasional contact with members of Mr. Mueller’s team. Two days later, hours before Mr. Barr’s letter was sent to Congress, Mr. Mueller’s investigators re- minded Justice Department offi- cials about executive summaries they had written to be condensed, easily digestible versions of their 448-page report. But Mr. Barr used almost none Private Tussle About Inquiry’s Summary Gets ‘a Bit Snitty’ By MARK MAZZETTI and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT Continued on Page A15 Indigo is expanding to the United States with its new model for how a big bookstore chain can thrive. PAGE B1 Selling Books and a Lifestyle Late Edition Today, variably cloudy, showers, warmer, high 73. Tonight, cloudy, a few showers, low 50. Tomorrow, showers or thunderstorms, cooler, high 59. Weather map, Page B12. $3.00 Having grown up riding the New York City subways by herself at age 11 or 12, suburban New Jersey mom Kasia Bardi was fine the first time her 12-year-old boy, Fabrizio, rode an Uber alone to an “important soccer game.” ❚ Bardi ordered and monitored the five-minute drive, and it probably didn’t hurt that her son, even at that age, was 6 feet tall and looked older than he was. ❚ Now, 15 and 6-foot-4, Bardi’s son rides in an Uber without an adult three to four times a year, though always as a “last resort,” Mom says. ❚ “A comfy mon- itored ride has got to be way safer than the subway in the ’80s, right?” Bardi asks, though she concedes that her neighbors, and for that matter her husband, aren’t quite as comfortable with the idea as she is. ❚ As it turns out, neither is Uber or Lyft. Would you let your kids ride by themselves? Parents weigh time and safety – and the rules Edward C. Baig USA TODAY See UNDERAGE, Page 3A USA TODAY ILLUSTRATION, AND GETTY IMAGES RIDE-SHARING $2.00 ❚ THE NATION'S NEWS THURSDAY QIJFAF-04005w(L)i ©COPYRIGHT 2019 USA TODAY, A division of Gannett Co., Inc. SOURCE FBI JANET LOEHRKE/USA TODAY USA SNAPSHOTS© Bank heists down in the USA Bank robberies, burglaries and larcenies: 0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 3,033 5,546 ’10 ’18 IN NEWS UNC Charlotte shooter chose specific building Former student charged with killing two, wounding four in classroom US military action in Venezuela possible Trump administration says all options on the table in effort to oust Maduro IN MONEY Would a rate drop boost the economy? After Trump advocates for cut, Fed leaves key interest rates unchanged IN SPORTS Kentucky Derby helps fuel bourbon boom Connection between race, state’s distilling industry impossible to miss IN LIFE ‘SpongeBob’ at 20: Why he still matters Kelly Lawler: Pop culture institution has shaped a generation of humor SEAN RAYFORD/GETTY IMAGES 05.02.19 ‘Big Bang Theory’ prepares for end after epic run The CBS comedy found a formula to last for 12 years, but cheers, tears are likely as the cast absorbs reality. In Life JIM PARSONS BY CBS NEWSLINE HOME DELIVERY 1-800-872-0001, USATODAYSERVICE.COM STATE-BY-STATE 6B AMERICA’S MARKETS 6B MARKETPLACE TODAY 5B, 5D PUZZLES 5D TONIGHT ON TV 6D WEATHER 4A YOUR SAY 5A Barr’s testimony in a grueling four- hour Senate hearing, his first public re- marks since Mueller’s redacted report was publicly disclosed last month, had been widely anticipated. But the ses- sion took on new urgency in the hours before it opened when the Justice Department revealed that Mueller had privately objected to Barr’s initial sum- mary of the investigation, which he said “threatened to undermine” the purpose of the inquiry. Because Mueller’s office declined to draw a conclusion about whether Trump had committed obstruction, the attorney general told the panel that he acted to re- solve the question that had threatened to derail Trump’s presidency. WASHINGTON – Attorney General William Barr repeatedly clashed with lawmakers Wednesday over his han- dling of special counsel Robert Muell- er’s Russia investigation, rebutting Democrats’ complaints that he misrep- resented the report to favor President Donald Trump while defending his own conclusions that the president had not sought to obstruct the probe. In pointed exchanges, attorney general defends his handling of Mueller report William Barr repeatedly asserted that the report didn’t establish that a crime was committed. JACK GRUBER/USA TODAY Kevin Johnson and Bart Jansen USA TODAY See BARR, Page 3A “We’re out of it. We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon.” Attorney General William Barr Barr, lawmakers do battle WASHINGTON – Sexual assaults in the military rose nearly 38% from 2016 to 2018, according to survey re- sults obtained by USA TODAY. That spike in crime within the ranks comes after years of focused ef- fort and resources to eradicate it. The report, due to be released Thursday by the Pentagon, surveyed Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine personnel in 2018. Based on the survey, there were about 20,500 in- stances of unwanted sexual contact – an increase over the 14,900 estimated in the last biennial survey in 2016. Un- wanted sexual contact ranges from groping to rape. Enlisted female troops ages 17 to 24 were at the highest risk of being assaulted, said Nathan Galbreath, deputy director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Re- sponse Office. The Pentagon will target troops in that age range for pre- vention efforts, he said. “We’re very concerned about that,” Galbreath said. More than 85% of victims knew their assailant. Alcohol was involved in 62% of the total assaults. The findings require Congress to intervene, said Rep. Jackie Speier, D- Calif., chairwoman of the Armed Ser- vices Committee’s personnel panel. “The department must accept that current programs are simply not working,” Speier said. “Congress must lead the way in forcing the de- partment to take more aggressive ap- proaches to fighting this scourge.” The Pentagon is set to release the recommendations of a task force formed at the urging of Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., to deal with sexual assaults in the military. McSally, a re- tired Air Force officer and fighter pilot, revealed during an Armed Services Committee meeting in March that she Military sexual assaults rise 38% Troops reported more than 20,000 instances Tom Vanden Brook USA TODAY See ASSAULTS, Page 6A USA TODAY EXCLUSIVE “What’s frustrating is that the brass keeps refusing to consider any bold changes like reforming the military justice system.” Don Christensen Protect Our Defenders * * * * * * THURSDAY, MAY 2, 2019 ~ VOL. CCLXXIII NO. 102 WSJ.com HHHH $4.00 DJIA 26430.14 g 162.77 0.6% NASDAQ 8049.64 g 0.6% STOXX 600 391.09 g 0.1% 10-YR.TREAS. g 2/32, yield 2.511% OIL $63.60 g $0.31 GOLD $1,281.40 g $1.40 EURO $1.1195 YEN 111.38 Bramson has a home and raises horses. The fight over the future of Barclays will help deter- mine whether any of Eu- rope’s banks can retain global ambitions. For centuries, the U.K. was synonymous with interna- tional banking, and London was the first stop for compa- nies and governments look- ing to raise money. Then its banks ventured overseas to grab a greater share of lend- ing and trading, bringing some of them close to death during the financial crisis a decade ago. Today, U.S. banks domi- nate fundraising and trading, buoyed by healthier balance sheets and robust American capital markets. Mr. Staley has a vision for Barclays, which absorbed much of Lehman Brothers af- ter its collapse. He wants it to become a compact version PleaseturntopageA10 Jes Staley runs one of the last full-service banks left in Europe that compete with Wall Street. The way the 62- year-old American banker sees it, his restructuring of U.K.-based Barclays PLC has primed it to take on the likes of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley. British-born investor Ed- ward Bramson couldn’t agree less, and his New York firm has bought a sizable stake in Barclays. He is trying to force the bank to scale back its Wall Street ambitions, to be- come a consumer and com- mercial lender with smaller investment-banking opera- tions. So far, Mr. Staley, the chief executive, is having none of it. “He wants us to retreat into a foxhole? He should go back to Connecticut,” Mr. Staley has told colleagues, re- ferring to the state where Mr. BY MARGOT PATRICK Barclays CEO Wages Fight to Stay Wall Street Player A big investor, who is seeking a board seat, opposes Jes Staley’s global ambitions Billy Joel Didn’t Start The Fire i i i But his helicopter, and others, are irking Long Island BY LESLIE BRODY CENTRE ISLAND, N.Y.—In a decade as mayor of a wealthy enclave perched on Long Is- land’s North Shore, Lawrence Schmidlapp has presided over countless meetings of the board of trustees, which nor- mally draw just a handful of neighbors. There is one issue that can pack Village Hall: Whether to ban personal helipads. “We can run out of chairs,” says Mr. Schmidlapp, who is also the police commissioner and husband of the village clerk. Four private helipads sit among roughly 185 households on this small island about 40 miles east of Midtown Manhat- tan on the northern coast of Long Island. A helicopter flight home from Manhattan can take less than 15 minutes. By con- trast, driving in evening rush hour can take about two hours. PleaseturntopageA10 Oracle will cut your Amazon bill in half when you run the same (i) data warehouse workload on Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse; or (ii) transaction processing workload on Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing, as compared to running on Amazon AWS. Pricing is based on Oracle’s standard published pricing for bring your own license and Amazon’s standard published pricing as of March 1, 2019. Each workload compared shall be evaluated based on the actual required number of OCPU/VCPUs, the amount of storage, and the time required to complete the workload. The minimum workload is one hour for this offer. If Oracle determines that you are due a credit, we will apply this credit to your Universal Credit cloud account. Please contact your sales team to exercise this offer. Offer valid through November 30, 2019. Copyright © 2019, Oracle and/or its affiliates. Oracle Autonomous Database Any Amazon Database There’s the cloud… and there’s the Oracle Autonomous Cloud. #thinkautonomous oracle.com/thinkautonomous Cut Your Amazon Bill in Half Easy to Move—Guaranteed Savings Attorney General William Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday about his handling of the Mueller report. opposition leader Juan Guaidó. The talks would mark the first known contact between the government and the opposi- tion since Mr. Guaidó declared himself interim president in late January, sparking the most serious challenge yet to Mr. Ma- duro’s rule. Fifty-four countries, including the U.S., recognize the opposition leader as Venezu- ela’s legitimate president. “We know that a part, a large part, a majority of the high command were talking with the Supreme Court and Juan Guaidó about a change, a change in government, with the departure of Maduro, and with guarantees for the military,” Mr. Abrams told Venezuelan online TV network VPItv on Wednesday. The opposition believed it was close enough to a deal that PleaseturntopageA8 WASHINGTON—Attorney General William Barr criticized Robert Mueller’s decision not to reach a conclusion about whether President Trump ob- structed justice during a conten- tious hearing that laid bare a rift between him and the special counsel over the politically charged investigation. In his first congressional tes- timony since releasing a re- dacted version of Mr. Mueller’s 448-page report, Mr. Barr faced pointed criticism from Senate Democrats over his handling of the findings on Russian election interference in 2016. for Thursday over disagree- ments about the format of the appearance—and that an unre- dacted version of the Mueller report, which had been subpoe- naed by the committee, wouldn’t be provided. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.), who leads that committee, also threatened to hold the attorney general in contempt of Con- gress—a prelude to a possible court battle—for his continued refusal to turn over the unre- dacted Mueller report, a poten- tially big escalation of tensions between Democratic lawmakers and the Trump administration. Mr. Barr has said he can’t re- lease the entire unredacted re- port in part because it contains grand-jury material and infor- mation about ongoing criminal cases that can’t be made public. The attorney general has invited some top lawmakers and their staff to view a less redacted re- port in a special facility, an offer Democrats have refused. Wednesday’s Senate hearing offered a dramatic public dis- play of the behind-the-scenes jockeying to give Mr. Mueller’s findings their proper airing. It came just after the Justice PleaseturntopageA4 “If [Mr. Mueller] felt he shouldn’t go down a path of making a traditional prosecutive decision, then he shouldn’t have investigated,” Mr. Barr told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday. “That was the time to pull up.” Meanwhile, the Justice De- partment late Wednesday told House Democrats that Mr. Barr wouldn’t appear at a Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled By Sadie Gurman, Byron Tau and Kristina Peterson Attorney General, Democrats Clash Over Mueller Report WASHINGTON—Federal Re- serve officials agreed to keep their benchmark interest rate unchanged and signaled com- fort that their wait-and-see posture had steadied the econ- omy after fears of a slowdown had sent markets reeling at the end of last year. Fed Chairman Jerome Pow- ell, speaking at a news confer- ence Wednesday, played down concerns that recent soft in- flation might hint at broader economic weakness. He re- peatedly highlighted individual price declines that could prove transitory and, in doing so, pushed back against some market hopes the Fed might be preparing to lower interest rates later this year. “Overall the economy con- tinues on a healthy path, and the committee believes that the current stance of policy is appropriate,” Mr. Powell said after officials ended their two- day policy-setting meeting. For now, “we don’t see a strong case for moving [rates] in either direction,” he said. All 10 members of the cen- tral bank’s rate-setting com- mittee, comprising the five Fed governors and five regional PleaseturntopageA2 BY NICK TIMIRAOS Powell Signals No Need For Cuts Markets slide as Fed holds rates steady and chairman plays down low-inflation worries Jawbone Connected to Early Human Species CONTENTS Business News...... B3 Capital Account.... A2 Crossword.............. A14 Heard on Street. B12 Life & Arts....... A11-13 Management.......... B5 Markets............. B11-12 Opinion.............. A15-17 Sports....................... A14 Technology............... B4 U.S. News............. A2-6 Weather................... A14 World News........ A7-9 s 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved > What’s News Barr criticized Mueller’s decision not to reach a con- clusion about whether Trump obstructed justice during a contentious Senate hearing that laid bare a rift between the attorney general and the special counsel. A1 Venezuela’s opposition held secret negotiations with members of Maduro’s inner circle in recent months in an ill-fated bid to get him to leave power. A1 A family from China paid a college counselor $6.5 mil- lion for help securing a spot at Stanford and connected to the counselor via a Morgan Stanley financial adviser. A6 May fired her defense chief, saying he leaked infor- mation surrounding a review into the use of Huawei gear in the U.K.’s telecom network. A9 The Trump administration requested $4.5 billion from Congress to respond to the growing surge of migrants at the southern border. A4 The administration urged an appeals court to strike down the entire ACA, pre- senting its position oppos- ing all of the health law. A4 Sri Lankan authorities released the names of the bombers in the Easter attacks after completing DNA tests to confirm their identities. A7 The administration has hired consultants to estimate potential losses in the govern- ment’s student-loan portfolio, and is weighing selling all or portions of the debt. A6 A British judge sentenced Assange to 50 weeks in jail for skipping bail in 2012. A9 Fed officials agreed to hold their benchmark interest rate steady and signaled comfort that their wait-and-see posture had steadied the economy. A1 U.S. stocks fell, with the Dow down 0.6% at the close after the Fed reiterated that it will stay patient. Treasury prices fluctuated before ultimately ending lower. B11 Qualcomm said it would receive at least $4.5 billion from Apple as part of a legal settlement be- tween the companies. B1 The largest U.S. compa- nies are beginning to heed the demands of investors focused on environmental and social issues. B1 Disney shuffled execu- tive ranks at its film oper- ation, elevating studio Pres- ident Alan Bergman to help oversee the division. B3 CVS reported stronger- than-expected results as a combined health-care firm, easing concerns about its acquisition of Aetna. B3 Two big life insurers posted divergent earnings, with MetLife’s profit in- creasing 8% and Pruden- tial’s dropping 32%. B10 E-cigarette maker NJOY is pursuing a funding round that would value the firm at as much as $5 billion. B3 UBiome’s co-chiefs have gone on leave in the wake of a search of the com- pany’s offices by the FBI. B3 Carlyle posted stronger profit for the first quarter, as the private-equity firm recorded gains in invest- ment income and fees. B10 Business&Finance World-Wide DONGJU ZHANG/LANZHOU UNIVERSITY A fossil jaw found in Tibet’s Himalayan highlands belongs to a vanished human species called Denisovans, deepening the mystery of human evolution in Asia, a new study said Wednesday. A6 Venezuela’s opposition held secret talks with members of President Nicolás Maduro’s in- ner circle in recent months in an ill-fated bid to get Mr. Ma- duro to leave power and install a united interim government, according to U.S. officials and Venezuelan opposition figures. The talks involved the high- est levels of Mr. Maduro’s re- gime, including Defense Minis- ter Gen. Vladimir Padrino, Supreme Court Chief Justice Maikel Moreno and the presi- dential guard commander and head of military intelligence, Gen. Iván Rafael Hernández. The goal was to remove Mr. Maduro and restore democracy in the country, according to U.S. special envoy Elliott Abrams and people close to Venezuelan BY DAVID LUHNOW AND JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA Caracas, Opposition Held Transition Talks ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS Stocks dive, Treasurys end lower.............................................. B11 Heard on the Street: Low inflation dilemma for Fed... B12 P2JW122000-6-A00100-17FFFB5178F
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