By KATE TAYLOR and DALIA SUSSMAN With Bill de Blasio’s inaugura- tion less than a month away, New Yorkers are highly optimistic about his mayoralty — but they remain skeptical that he can achieve major changes on some of the core issues that defined his candidacy, like the widening gap between the rich and poor and the scarcity of affordable hous- ing, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll. Despite his four years as the city’s public advocate, Mr. de Bla- sio — who surged from behind late in the primary season to cap- ture the Democratic nomination, and then coasted to a landslide victory in November — remains unfamiliar to many New Yorkers. More than half of city residents said they did not yet know enough about the mayor-elect, who takes office on Jan. 1, to form an opinion of him. Still, 73 percent of city resi- Poll Finds Hope Is Running High For Next Mayor Continued on Page A32 VOL. CLXIII ... No. 56,349 © 2013 The New York Times NEW YORK, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2013 Late Edition Today, periodic sun and clouds, windy, cold, high 30. Tonight, partly cloudy, low 24. Tomorrow, snow, around 3 inches, a mix at night, high 32. Weather map, Page A30. $2.50 U(D54G1D)y+,!z!,!#!@ By ANDREA ELLIOTT A MOB of spectators presses in, trying to see the tiny girl. Rap stars circle. The cameras roll. The crowd chants her name. “Da-Sa-Neee!” Her heart is racing. She looks up at the sky and extends her fingers, but cannot reach high enough to grasp the metal bar. A power- ful man hoists her up by the waist. In an instant, she is midair, pulling and twisting acrobatically as the audience gasps at the might of this 12-year-old girl. “She’s a giantess,” the man had an- nounced to the audience. “She’s tomorrow’s success, I’m telling you right now.” Dasani blinks, looking out at the smiling faces. She cannot make sense of the ser- endipity that has brought her here to Harlem, on this sparkling July day, to make her debut as a member of an urban fitness group teamed up with Nike. But there is her beaming mother, Chanel; her father, Supreme; and all seven siblings. They are cheering and clapping as well. “I thought it was a dream — make be- lieve — like this wasn’t happening,” she says. “You know, like in movies, people pinch them- selves like this ain’t real.” It was only two months earlier that Dasa- ni stood at the bus stop as her mother wept in the rain. Summer was fast approaching, a sea- son that, in this family, always brings change. The markers of Dasani’s life — her first months in the care of Grandma Joanie, the day her family moved into their first real Continued on Page A34 Amid Repressed Hopes, Reasons to Dream DASANI WITH HER FAMILY IN HARLEM. INVISIBLE CHILD Last in a series. PHOTOGRAPHS BY RUTH FREMSON By JEREMY W. PETERS WASHINGTON — If there is a rock bottom in the frayed rela- tionship between Senate Repub- licans and Democrats, it seemed uncomfortably close as the final days of 2013 on Capitol Hill de- generated into something like an endurance contest to see who could be the most spiteful. Thursday brought the week’s second late-night session — called by Democrats as a way of retaliating for Republicans’ de- laying tactics on confirmations — and before the senators headed in for the votes, they were chug- ging Red Bull or sleeping in their offices, and angrily assigning blame. “I think it resembles fourth graders playing in a sandbox, and I’ll give the majority leader, Harry Reid, 99 percent of the re- sponsibility for it,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and usually one of the more reserved members. “He’s going to have ‘The End of the Senate’ written on his tombstone,” Mr. Alexander com- plained. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, called this week “chaotic and confusing, and a shameful waste of time.” “I am loath to cast partisan blame,” he added, before doing just that. “But the plain fact is that there is a faction of the Re- publican Party that is essentially insisting on burning through all of these time deadlines.” Republicans, furious that Dem- ocrats last month stripped away TEMPERS FLARE AS NEW RULES STRAIN SENATE SESSIONS GO ALL NIGHT Democrats Call for Votes and G.O.P. Bemoans Filibuster Change Continued on Page A22 By DAVID E. SANGER WASHINGTON — A presiden- tial advisory committee charged with examining the operations of the National Security Agency has concluded that a program to col- lect data on every phone call made in the United States should continue, though under broad new restraints that would be in- tended to increase privacy pro- tections, according to officials with knowledge of the report’s contents. The committee’s report, the of- ficials said, also argues in favor of codifying and publicly announc- ing the steps the United States will take to protect the privacy of foreign citizens whose telephone records, Internet communica- tions or movements are collected by the N.S.A. But it is unclear how far that effort would go, and intelligence officials have argued strenuously that they should be under few restrictions when tap- ping the communications of non- Americans abroad, who do not have constitutional protections under the Fourth Amendment. The advisory group is also ex- pected to recommend that senior White House officials, including the president, directly review the list of foreign leaders whose com- munications are routinely mon- itored by the N.S.A. President Obama recently apologized to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Ger- many for the N.S.A.’s monitoring of her calls over the past decade, promising that the actions had been halted and would not re- sume. But he refused to make the same promise to the leaders of Mexico and Brazil. Administration officials say the White House has already taken over supervision of that program. “We’re not leaving it to Jim Clap- per anymore,” said one official, referring to the director of na- Obama Panel Said to Urge N.S.A. Curbs Finds Vast Call Logging Should Continue Continued on Page A3 By SABRINA TAVERNISE Tobacco companies are push- ing back against a worldwide rise in antismoking laws, using a lit- tle-noticed legal strategy to delay or block regulation. The industry is warning countries that their to- bacco laws violate an expanding web of trade and investment treaties, raising the prospect of costly, prolonged legal battles, health advocates and officials said. The strategy has gained mo- mentum in recent years as smok- ing rates in rich countries have fallen and tobacco companies have sought to maintain access to fast-growing markets in develop- ing countries. Industry officials say that there are only a few cases of active litigation, and that giving a legal opinion to govern- ments is routine for major play- ers whose interests will be af- fected. But tobacco opponents say the strategy is intimidating low- and middle-income countries from tackling one of the gravest health threats facing them: smoking. They also say the legal tactics are undermining the world’s largest global public health treaty, the W.H.O. Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which aims to reduce smoking by encourag- ing limits on advertising, packag- ing and sale of tobacco products. More than 170 countries have signed it since it took effect in 2005. More than five million people die annually of smoking-related causes, more than from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis com- bined, according to the World Health Organization. Alarmed about rising smoking rates among young women, Na- mibia, in southern Africa, passed a tobacco control law in 2010 but quickly found itself bombarded with stern warnings from the to- bacco industry that the new stat- ute violated the country’s obliga- tions under trade treaties. “We have bundles and bundles of letters from them,” said Na- mibia’s health minister, Dr. Rich- Tobacco Industry TacticsLimit Poorer Nations’ Smoking Laws Continued on Page A16 By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and ELISABETH MALKIN CIUDAD DEL CARMEN, Mex- ico — Every gas station in Mex- ico is stamped with the green- and-white logo of the state-owned oil monopoly, the economic life- blood of the government. Oil Ex- propriation Day, commemorating the day Mexico seized control of the industry from foreign compa- nies in 1938, is celebrated with speeches and even parades in some towns. An old song, “The Oil Worker Hymn,” credits oil with “saving our fatherland.” But now, in what could be the biggest economic change in two decades, President Enrique Peña Nieto is on the verge of rewriting the Constitution to open Mexico’s oil, gas and electricity industry to private investment — a provoca- tive move expected to lure in- ternational oil companies and ex- pand North America’s energy supply while testing the grip oil has on Mexico’s soul. “We must defend our oil,” Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, a three- time presidential candidate and son of the president who nation- alized the oil industry, declared in a television advertisement. The state oil company, he said, be- longs “to all Mexicans, and we must not allow it to go private.” The legislation, which won fi- nal congressional approval on Thursday afternoon, declares that Mexico still owns its oil. But it allows private businesses to drill for oil and natural gas in partnership with the state mo- nopoly, called Pemex, or on their own, returning international oil companies to territory they were kicked out of 75 years ago. “They have been waiting for a long time for a true opportunity,” Jeremy M. Martin, director of the energy program at the Institute of the Americas, said of the oil companies. In a country where oil is often equated with sovereignty and na- tional pride, the plan has set off furious debate. But while demon- strations helped thwart a more tepid attempt to open the indus- try in 2008, they were not ef- Mexico’s Pride, Oil, May Be Opened to Outsiders REUTERS Antonio García, a leftist politician, stripped down to his under- wear to protest a move to end 75 years of nationalization. Continued on Page A10 North Korea said that it had executed Jang Song-thaek, the uncle and pre- sumed mentor of its leader, Kim Jong- un, for plotting a military coup. PAGE A14 INTERNATIONAL A6-19 An Execution in North Korea The materials of classical Chinese art are overlaid by contemporary points of view in a show at the Metropolitan Mu- seum, Holland Cotter writes. PAGE C29 WEEKEND C1-40 Brush, Ink and a Leap in Time The Transportation Department is con- sidering banning the use of cellphones for voice calls onboard airplanes. Still, consumers are likely to soon be able to text and check email in flight. PAGE B1 BUSINESS DAY B1-8 Push for More Peaceful Flight Hilton’s public offering shows how a loss becomes a gain in the topsy-turvy world of private equity math. PAGE B1 Blackstone’s Payday on Hilton The Belgian Senate voted to extend to terminally ill minors a 2002 law that le- galized the practice for adults. PAGE A6 A Vote on Child Euthanasia The United Nations has identified five chemical attacks in Syria. PAGE A12 Chemical Warfare in Syria “American Hustle” and “12 Years a Slave” were the front-runners as the awards season begins. PAGE C1 Golden Globe Nominations Michael C. Skakel produced paintings, murals and drawings while in prison af- ter being convicted in the 1975 murder of Martha Moxley. PAGE A29 NEW YORK A29-36 An Inmate’s Artistic Touch The Obama administration moved to give people more time to sign up and pay for health insurance under the new health care law. PAGE A22 NATIONAL A20-28 More Leeway in Health Law Paul Krugman PAGE A39 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A38-39 A flat tax in Tennessee on visiting pro athletes hurts lower-paid players, who sometimes earn less per game than they are charged in taxes. PAGE B9 SPORTSFRIDAY B9-14 Athlete Tax Is Called Unfair As John D. Podesta becomes a senior White House adviser, his career offers a hint of lobbying’s blurry lines. PAGE A28 Links of a White House Aide