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LONDON — Last week, for thefirst time in six months, PrimeMinister Theresa May enjoyed afew hours of sweet vindication inher efforts to allow the UnitedKingdom to leave the EuropeanUnion. She had passed the night inwhite-knuckled negotiation, andby sunrise was able to announcethe beginning of talks that wouldlay out a path to a controlled de-parture.

Another politician would havecrowed a little, or luxuriated in themoment. But not Mrs. May. Shelanded from negotiations in Brus-sels and her motorcade rushedstraight from the airport to aneighborhood of neat, red-brickhouses, where she attended agathering of Alzheimer’s patients,followed by a fund-raiser for achildren’s hospice and a Christ-mas tree festival. No reporterswere invited. She showed up be-cause she had promised to bethere.

The same old-fashioned,

unglamorous, dutiful approachhas guided Mrs. May, 61, through-out her struggle to guide the coun-try’s withdrawal from the E.U.,known as Brexit. There are no vic-tory laps. Instead she plows for-ward, scrambling to her feet aftereach roundhouse blow, most re-cently on Wednesday night, whenParliament secured the right toapprove — or veto — her finaldeal.

She has been undermined byher own cabinet ministers, derid-ed as pitiful in Brussels and

Rare Win, but No Victory Lap,For the Dogged British Leader

By ELLEN BARRY

Prime Minister Theresa MayPOOL PHOTO BY WPA

Continued on Page A12

In a generational changing ofthe guard, Arthur GreggSulzberger, 37, will become thepublisher of The New York Timeson Jan. 1. His father, Arthur OchsSulzberger Jr., announced onThursday that he was turningover the post to his son.

The ascension of the youngerMr. Sulzberger, who is known asA.G., comes just over a year afterhe was named deputy publisher ofThe Times. The New York TimesCompany’s board voted in favor ofthe move during a meeting onThursday.

The elder Mr. Sulzberger, 66,who will stay on as chairman ofThe New York Times Company,has been the publisher since 1992.

“This isn’t a goodbye,” Mr.Sulzberger said in a note to Timesemployees on Thursday. “But, be-ginning in the new year, the grandship that is The Times will beA.G.’s to steer.”

Best known for heading theteam that produced The Times’s“innovation report” in 2014, A.G.Sulzberger will be the sixth mem-ber of the Ochs-Sulzberger family

to serve as publisher since its pa-triarch, Adolph S. Ochs, pur-chased the paper in a bankruptcysale in 1896.

“I am an unapologetic cham-pion for this institution and its

journalistic mission,” A.G.Sulzberger said. “And I’ll continueto be that as publisher.”

Despite his in-house reputationas an innovator, the incoming pub-lisher said that he did not expect

to shake things up early in his ten-ure.

“I don’t expect there to be someflurry of change,” he said.

During his quarter-century ten-ure as publisher, the elder Mr.Sulzberger presided over the pa-per’s national expansion andguided it through the advent of theinternet. In 1996, he moved TheTimes online. In 2011, he instituteda pay wall that risked pushingaway readers but has since be-come the centerpiece of the com-pany’s growth model.

In recent years, as print adver-tising revenue declined sharply,The Times has focused on addingsubscribers and accelerating itsdigital expansion. With 3.5 millionpaid subscriptions (2.5 million ofthem are digital-only), The Timesis one of the few newspaper com-panies whose newsroom is grow-ing at a time when the industry isstruggling.

The elder Mr. Sulzberger as-sumed the job of publisher whenGeorge Bush was president andMax Frankel was the newspaper’sexecutive editor. To prepare forthe role, he served in a variety of

A.G. Sulzberger Will Become Publisher of The Times on Jan. 1By SYDNEY EMBER

Continued on Page A19

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., left, the current publisher of TheNew York Times, and Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, known as A.G.

DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

DECATUR, Ala. — One eveninglast fall, an informant for the Mor-gan County sheriff entered the of-fice of a small construction busi-ness near this old river town and,he said, secretly installed spy-ware on a company computer. Hehad no warrant.

The sheriff, Ana Franklin,wanted to know who was leakinginformation about her to a bloggerknown as the Morgan CountyWhistleblower.

The blogger had been zeroing inon the sheriff’s finances, specifi-

cally $150,000 that by law shouldhave gone toward feeding in-mates in the county jail. Instead ithad been invested in a now-bank-rupt used-car dealership run by aconvicted bank swindler.

Now the sheriff has become en-snared, along with others, in awide-ranging government inves-tigation. The Federal Bureau ofInvestigation is looking at herstewardship of taxpayer money,

as well as the dealership and its fi-nancial links to prominent peoplein town, including several statelaw enforcement agents, accord-ing to more than a half-dozen peo-ple who say they have spoken tothe F.B.I. Government divers re-cently searched the bottom of acreek for evidence.

What, if anything, investigatorshave uncovered is not known. ButThe New York Times found thatsince taking office in 2011, SheriffFranklin has failed to comply withcourt orders, has threatened crit-ics with legal action and has notpublicly accounted for tens ofthousands of dollars raised

A $150,000 Check and a Sheriff’s Broad DomainBy WALT BOGDANICHand GRACE ASHFORD

Sheriff Ana Franklin, left, last year at a big fund-raiser, the Sheriff’s Rodeo in Morgan County, Ala.VIA FACEBOOK

Continued on Page A22

Local Faces of the Law,Rarely Scrutinized

WASHINGTON — The FederalCommunications Commissionvoted on Thursday to dismantlerules regulating the businessesthat connect consumers to the in-ternet, granting broadband com-panies the power to potentially re-shape Americans’ online experi-ences.

The agency scrapped the so-called net neutrality regulationsthat prohibited broadbandproviders from blocking websitesor charging for higher-qualityservice or certain content. Thefederal government will also nolonger regulate high-speed inter-net delivery as if it were a utility,like phone service.

The action reversed the agen-cy’s 2015 decision, during theObama administration, to havestronger oversight over broad-band providers as Americanshave migrated to the internet formost communications. It reflectedthe view of the Trump administra-tion and the new F.C.C. chairmanthat unregulated business willeventually yield innovation andhelp the economy.

It will take weeks for the repealto go into effect, so consumers willnot see any of the potentialchanges right away. But the poli-tical and legal fight started imme-diately. Numerous Democrats onCapitol Hill called for a bill thatwould re-establish the rules, andseveral Democratic state attor-neys general, including Eric T.Schneiderman of New York, saidthey would file a suit to stop thechange.

Several public interest groupsincluding Public Knowledge andthe National Hispanic Media Co-

F.C.C. REVERSESRULES REQUIRING

NET NEUTRALITY

A 3-TO-2 PARTY-LINE VOTE

Critics Say Change WillHarm Start-Ups and

Consumers

By CECILIA KANG

Continued on Page A18

WASHINGTON — House andSenate Republicans faced a newround of uncertainty on Thursdayabout the fate of their $1.5 trilliontax bill with the possible defectionof a Republican senator, MarcoRubio of Florida, amid continuingquestions about how the bill willbe paid for and how much of thebenefits will flow to low- and mid-dle-income people versus corpo-rations.

Republicans, who reachedagreement Wednesday on amerged version of the House andSenate tax plans, expect to unveilthe final bill on Friday and vote onthe legislation early next week sothat it can be sent to PresidentTrump before Christmas.

But those plans were throwninto some disarray on Thursdaywhen Mr. Rubio said that he wouldvote no on the bill unless it includ-ed a greater expansion of the childtax credit, which he and anotherRepublican senator, Mike Lee ofUtah, have been pushing for tobenefit lower-income individuals.

“I think my requests have beenpretty reasonable and consistentand direct,” Mr. Rubio said. Aspokesman for Mr. Lee said hewas undecided on the bill.

Mr. Rubio and Mr. Lee havebeen pressing Republican leadersto bolster the child tax credit tomake it more generous for low-in-come families. That change wouldfurther drive up the cost of the taxbill, which can add no more than$1.5 trillion to federal deficits overa decade if the bill is to pass with-out Democrats’ support.

In a tweet on Thursday after-noon, Mr. Rubio needled Republi-can leadership, saying, “Tax nego-tiators didn’t have much troublefinding a way to lower” the top taxbracket and to have the corporatetax cut take effect a year early.

Republican negotiators respon-sible for merging the two bills

Tax Deal FacesFresh ConcernsOn Its Priorities

G.O.P. Senator WaversOver Child Credit

By ALAN RAPPEPORTand THOMAS KAPLAN

Continued on Page A17

LOS ANGELES — In a movethat will reverberate from Holly-wood and Silicon Valley to TVsand smartphones around theworld, the Walt Disney Companysaid Thursday that it had reacheda deal to buy most of 21st CenturyFox, the empire controlled by Ru-pert Murdoch, in an all-stocktransaction valued at roughly$52.4 billion.

While the agreement is subjectto the approval of antitrust regula-tors — and the Justice Depart-ment recently moved to block abig media company, AT&T, frombecoming even bigger — Disneyis acknowledging that the futureof television and movie viewing isonline. The acquisition, whichwould make Disney a colossus un-like anything Hollywood has everseen, is the biggest counterattackfrom a traditional media companyagainst the tech giants that haveaggressively moved into the en-tertainment business.

Disney has already announcedan ambitious plan to introducetwo streaming services by 2019.With this deal and the wealth ofmovies, TV shows and sports pro-gramming it provides, the com-pany will now have the muscle tochallenge Netflix, Apple, Amazon,Google and Facebook in the fast-growing realm of online video.

“The pace of disruption hasonly hastened,” Robert A. Iger,Disney’s chief executive andchairman, said in an interview.“This will allow us to greatly ac-celerate our direct-to-consumerstrategy, which is our highest pri-ority.”

At the same time, the dealmeans that one of moviedom’smost celebrated studios, 20thCentury Fox, will be downsized,with some operations folded intoWalt Disney Studios or refocusedto make films for online distribu-tion. Founded in 1935, the Fox stu-dio championed Marilyn Monroe,

In Buying Fox,Disney ShapesMedia’s Future

A Hollywood Colossusto Take On Tech

By BROOKS BARNES

Continued on Page A18

A study of Zika babies in Brazil says themost severely affected are falling fur-ther behind in their development andwill require a lifetime of care. Somecan’t see, walk or talk. PAGE A4

Zika Crisis Lingers for Babies

A deeply indebted conglomerate keepsmaking billions of dollars in foreigndeals, worrying banks, investors and,presumably, Beijing. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-7

Testing China’s Limits

Democrats may not yet be willing totalk about impeaching the president,but they are more than ready to pressfor hearings on allegations of sexualharassment. On Washington. PAGE A21

NATIONAL A14-23

Keeping the Heat on Trump

Conservative Christians worry theirreflexive support for divisive, scandal-plagued figures like Roy S. Moore, theAlabama Senate candidate, is hurtingtheir movement’s reputation. PAGE A20

Evangelicals’ Second Thoughts

For one night in Bay Ridge, it was 1977again, as Brooklyn celebrated the 40thanniversary of the New York premiereof “Saturday Night Fever.” PAGE A24

NEW YORK A24-27

Feverish in Brooklyn

A playwright imagines a love affair withRafael Nadal, exploring the famouslybare-chested 16-time Grand Slam cham-pion’s status as a gay icon. PAGE B10

SPORTSFRIDAY B8-11

No Shirt, No Problem

Our critics offer their top choices, from“Black Dada Reader” to “William Blakeand the Age of Aquarius.” PAGE C20

WEEKEND ARTS C1-26

2017’s Best Art Books

David Brooks PAGE A31

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A30-31

Scientists analyzed 27 extreme weatherevents from 2016 and found that globalwarming was a “significant driver” formost of them, including wildfires andArctic warmth. PAGE A8

INTERNATIONAL A4-12

Tracing Climate Change Effects

Late Edition

VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,812 © 2017 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2017

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Today, flurries, cold, high 31. To-night, partly cloudy, cold, low 26. To-morrow, sunshine and clouds,breezy, not quite as cold, high 38.Weather map appears on Page A26.

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