VOL. CLXII . . . No. 56,259 © 2013 The New York Times NEW YORK, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2013

Late EditionToday, sunny to partly cloudy,breezy and cool, high 68. Tonight,clear skies, cool, low 56. Tomorrow,an abundance of sunshine, milder,high 75. Weather map, Page C8.

$2.50

By ELLEN BARRYand BETWA SHARMA

NEW DELHI — There was nomistaking the whoop of joy thatrose outside Saket District Courton Friday, when word got out thatfour men convicted in last De-cember’s horrific gang rape andmurder had been sentenced todeath by hanging. People burstinto applause. They hugged who-ever was beside them. Theypumped the air with their fists.

“We are the winners now,” saida woman holding a placard.Sweat had dried into white rivu-lets on her face, but she had thelook of a woman who had, finally,gotten what she wanted. And itwas true: A wave of protests af-ter the December rape have setremarkable changes in motion inIndia, a country where for dec-ades vicious sexual harassmenthas been dismissed indulgently,called “eve-teasing.”

But some of India’s most ar-dent women’s rights advocateshung back from Friday’s celebra-tion, skeptical that four hangingswould do anything to stem vio-lence against women, a problemwhose proportions are graduallycoming into focus.

“I think a lot of people werehugging each other because theythought this evil is localized, andit will be wiped out, and that isnot the case,” said Karuna Nun-dy, a litigator who has argued be-fore India’s Supreme Court. “Thesad truth is that it is not a de-terrent.”

From the moment it broke, thestory of the 23-year-old womanwho became known as “Nirb-haya,” or “fearless,” awoke realrage in the population.

Hoping for a ride home from amovie theater, she and a malecompanion boarded a privatebus, not realizing that the sixmen aboard had been cruisingDelhi in search of a victim. Afterknocking her friend unconscious,they took her to the back of thebus and raped her, then penetrat-ed her with a metal rod, inflictinggrave internal injuries. An hourlater, they dumped the pair outon the road, bleeding and naked.

DEATH SENTENCESSET IN GANG RAPETHAT SHOOK INDIA

CRIME LED TO CHANGES

Women’s Advocates Say

Violence Remains

Widespread

ALTAF QADRI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Women marched outside a court in New Delhi after the sentencing of four men in a gang rape and murder last December.

Continued on Page A10

By KATE ZERNIKE

Nick Dionisio is a third genera-tion Boardwalk guy. Havingpeeled shrimp as a 7-year-old inhis grandfather’s clam bar, he de-cided to go into banking, butwhen the markets collapsedcame back to what he knew, pull-ing his father out of retirement tohelp him start a fried-fish place,and then another a little more up-scale.

He was still trying to make upthe cost of starting the business-es when Hurricane Sandy hit 10months ago, flooding them withnine feet of water and ruining ex-pensive equipment. His fatherdied unexpectedly just weeks lat-er. The electricity and gas wererestored only five days beforeMemorial Day, the weekendwhen Boardwalk places typically

make up much of their rent. Sum-mer business was terrible, withso many renters and touristsstaying away. Still, Mr. Dionisiokept going, because he loved it.

The fire in the Jersey Shoretowns of Seaside Park and Sea-side Heights on Thursday did tohis restaurants what the hurri-cane had not: It destroyed them.

Flames ravaged about fiveblocks of boardwalk in the twotowns, which had been amongthose hardest hit by the storm. AsMr. Dionisio and other businessowners surveyed the rubble onFriday, they struggled to sum-mon what it would take to startover so soon after starting over.

“It’s like someone who’s in awar,” said Mr. Dionisio, 34, theowner of the two Park Seafoodstalls on the Seaside Park Board-walk. “After a time, they’re soused to seeing destruction, they

become numb to it.”“Everything has been a bad

dream already,” he added in aphone interview. “To have thishappen, it hasn’t even hit me yet.This sums up how awful this yearhas been. It doesn’t get anyworse than what it is right now.”

Investigators had roped off thescene with yellow police tape anddeclared it a crime scene, thoughthe governor and local officialswould not go so far as to spec-ulate that the blaze was arson.They said only that the cause wasunknown, and that the fire, whichapparently began in an ice creamshop, had been fueled by tar roofsand unusually strong winds.

Officials estimated the fire haddamaged between 30 and 50 busi-nesses. “Places where decades ofmemories were built for families

Water, Now Fire, and Shore Nightmare Goes On

LEFT, PIOTR REDLINSKI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; RIGHT, TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

The restored carousel in Seaside Heights, N.J., and its blackened remains on Friday. Page A17.

Continued on Page A16

By MICHAEL BARBARO and KATE TAYLOR

Michael R. Bloomberg, dissat-isfied with his potential succes-sors and unsure his politicalblessing would help anyone, onFriday ruled out making an en-dorsement in the general electionfor New York City mayor.

The surprise decision endedweeks of speculation that MayorBloomberg might try to tip thescales in a campaign that has be-come, in many ways, a referen-dum on his 12-year legacy in of-fice.

It was a curious turn for a manwho relishes giving his stamp ofapproval to candidates fromRhode Island to California andwho might never have becomemayor without the endorsementof his own immediate predeces-sor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, in thedays after the Sept. 11 attacks.

But Mr. Bloomberg and hisaides, who conduct their ownpolls and study the public moodcarefully, have concluded that theelectorate is not looking to himfor advice on the next occupant ofCity Hall, and they determinedthat his endorsement would offer

Mayor Decides Not to Weigh InOn a Successor

Continued on Page A15

It was early Thursday morningand Mister Cee, a D.J. on the hip-hop station Hot 97 and a promi-nent figure in New York hip-hophistory, was in tears. The day be-fore, an audio clip was released in

which he ap-peared to solicit asexual act from atransgender per-son, the latest in astring of inci-dents, includingarrests, revolving

around Mister Cee’s sexual activ-ities. During his Wednesday af-ternoon show he had announcedhis resignation, saying he didn’twant to draw negative attentionto his employer and colleaguesbecause of his actions.

So there he was on the air thefollowing morning, getting a lov-ing and concerned third degreefrom Ebro Darden, the programdirector for Hot 97 (WQHT 97.1FM), the station where MisterCee, 47, has worked for two dec-ades. The sober and wrenchingconversation lasted about a half-hour, all of it eye-opening.

In its detail and bluntness thetalk became not just a discussionabout one man’s personal strug-gles but also an intense and pub-lic conversation about hip-hopand sexuality.

“I am tired of trying to dosomething or be something thatI’m not,” Mister Cee said. “I’mtired. I’m tired.”

He initially insisted that he

wasn’t gay, but later, revisitingthe subject, said, “Even with mesaying that, I know I’m still in de-nial.”

Mister Cee’s acknowledgmentthat he is grappling with his sex-ual identity comes amid the grad-ual easing of hip-hop’s internal-ized homophobia. Over the lastcouple of years Frank Ocean, thesoul singer and affiliate of the

hip-hop crew Odd Future, openlydiscussed his love for a man;ASAP Rocky and Kanye Westhave loudly disavowed homopho-bia (though Rocky visibly strug-gled at the MTV Video MusicAwards last month when put onstage next to the openly gay bas-ketball player Jason Collins), andJay Z voiced his support for mar-riage equality.

This reflects a generationalshift in attitudes in the culture atlarge, a slight change in the classpositioning of hip-hop’s main-stream, and a broadening of hip-hop’s fan base. Antigay senti-ment has long been part of thatworld — two decades ago therewere virtual witch hunts to rootout rappers who might be gay —but as hip-hop becomes morecentral to pop culture, its valuesare evolving. It’s no longer ten-able for hip-hop to be an island.

Mister Cee, born Calvin Le-brun, treated the interview as aconfession and an unburdening,speaking with a frankness essen-tially unheard-of in the genre. Hewept several times. He said that

Hip-Hop, Tolerance and a D.J.’s Bared Soul: He’s Tired of Denial

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mister Cee of Hot 97 spoke bluntly about his personal struggle. Continued on Page A3

JONCARAMANICA

CRITIC’SNOTEBOOK

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

MIAMI — The clues were bur-ied in her bedroom. Before leav-ing for school on Monday morn-ing, Rebecca Ann Sedwick hadhidden her schoolbooks under apile of clothes and left her cell-phone behind, a rare lapse for a12-year-old girl.

Inside her phone’s virtualworld, she had changed her username on Kik Messenger, a cell-phone application, to “That DeadGirl” and delivered a message totwo friends, saying goodbye for-ever. Then she climbed a plat-form at an abandoned cementplant near her home in the Cen-tral Florida city of Lakeland andleaped to the ground, the PolkCounty sheriff said.

In jumping, Rebecca becameone of the youngest members of agrowing list of children and teen-agers apparently driven to sui-cide, at least in part, after beingmaligned, threatened and taunt-ed online, mostly through a new

collection of texting and photo-sharing cellphone applications.Her suicide raises new questionsabout the proliferation and pop-

ularity ofthese applica-tions andWeb sitesamong chil-dren and theability of par-ents to keepup with theirchildren’sonline rela-tionships.

For morethan a year,

Rebecca, pretty and smart, wascyberbullied by a coterie of 15middle-school children whourged her to kill herself, hermother said. The Polk Countysheriff’s office is investigatingthe role of cyberbullying in thesuicide and considering filing

Girl’s Suicide Points to Rise

In Apps Used by Cyberbullies

Rebecca Sedwick

Continued on Page A3

The Beijing police detained a venturecapitalist who has advocated more lib-eral political and social policies, friendsof the businessman said. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-10

Chinese Billionaire ArrestedThe grave site of Rabbi MenachemMendel Schneerson, a Lubavitcher lead-er, has received so many visitors thatthere is a special center in the cemeteryto accommodate them. PAGE A14

NEW YORK A14-17

Pilgrims Welcome Any TimeTwitter’s I.P.O. will not be nearly aslarge as Facebook’s $16 billion offeringlast year, but it will still create dozens ofmultimillionaires. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-8

A Payday for Twitter BelieversThe 5-foot-8 Floyd Mayweather Jr. has alarge security detail, in every sense ofthe term — four men with a combinedweight of 1,470 pounds on call 24 hours aday. PAGE D1

SPORTSSATURDAY D1-6

A Boxer Who’s Big on SecurityHe sings and more: Justin Timberlakehas become his generation’s master ofceremonies. T: THE STYLE MAGAZINE

THIS WEEKEND

Going His Own Way

Gail Collins PAGE A19

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19

A Spanish judge ordered a feuding cou-ple who could not afford separate homesto split their apartment. PAGE A10

Split-Up of Couple, and Home Consultants in China that help foreigncompanies with due diligence are find-ing themselves at risk. PAGE B1

In China, New Corporate Risk

A plan to create the first definitive edi-tion of the works of George and IraGershwin has been announced. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-7

Scholars to Watch Over ThemThousands of Colorado residents fledtheir homes in the face of flooding fromheavy rains. At least four died. PAGE A11

NATIONAL A11-13

Flight to Drier Ground

A Nebraska town braces for auto enthu-siasts as 500 cars of a former Chevroletdealer go to auction. AUTOMOBILES

A Fleet in a Field

By PETER BAKER and MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON — PresidentObama will not insist on a UnitedNations Security Council resolu-tion threatening Syria with mil-itary action, senior administra-tion officials said Friday, asAmerican and Russian negotia-tors meeting in Geneva movedcloser to an agreement thatwould seek to ultimately stripSyria of its chemical weapons.

After a second day of marathontalks in Geneva between Secre-tary of State John Kerry and For-eign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov ofRussia, both sides expressed op-timism, while American officialshere said they would give theprocess a couple of weeks to seeif it gained traction. But dauntingobstacles remain to dismantlingSyria’s vast chemical arsenal asnegotiators try to defuse a con-frontation that has inflamed poli-tics on three continents.

A significant sign of movementat the United Nations came whenthe Obama administration effec-tively took force off the table indiscussions over the shape of aSecurity Council resolution gov-erning any deal with Syria. Al-though Mr. Obama reserved theright to order an American mil-itary strike without the UnitedNations’ backing if Syria renegeson its commitments, senior offi-cials said he understood thatRussia would never allow a Secu-rity Council resolution authoriz-ing force.

As a strategic matter, thatstatement simply acknowledgedthe reality on the Security Coun-cil, where Russia wields a vetoand has vowed to block any mil-itary action against Syria, its ally.But Mr. Obama’s decision to con-cede the point early in talks un-derscored his desire to forge aworkable diplomatic compromiseand avoid a strike that would bedeeply unpopular at home. Itcame just days after France, hisstrongest supporter on Syria,proposed a resolution that includ-ed a threat of military action.

Instead, Mr. Obama will insistthat any Security Council resolu-tion build in other measures to

U.S.-RUSSIA TALKSON SYRIA’S ARMS

MAKE PROGRESS

2 SIDES ARE OPTIMISTIC

Obama Signals a U.N.

Resolution Need Not

Threaten Action

Continued on Page A8

U(D54G1D)y+%!_!.!#!@

C M Y K Nxxx,2013-09-14,A,001,Bs-BK,E2