VOL. CLXVIII . . . No. 58,452 + © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2019

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The United Automobile Work-ers union went on strike at Gen-eral Motors, sending nearly50,000 members at factoriesacross the Midwest and South topicket lines on Monday morning.

With the two sides far apart inthe talks, U.A.W. regional leadersin Detroit voted unanimously onSunday morning to authorize thestrike, the union’s first such walk-out since 2007. It began at mid-night, after the union’s currentbargaining agreement expired onSaturday.

“Today, we stand strong and saywith one voice, we are standing upfor our members and for the fun-damental rights of working-classpeople in this nation,” TerryDittes, a union vice president, saidafter the meeting.

The U.A.W. is pushing G.M. toimprove wages, reopen idledplants, add jobs at others andclose or narrow the difference be-tween pay rates for new hires andveteran workers. G.M. wants em-ployees to pay a greater portion oftheir health care costs, and to in-crease work-force productivityand flexibility in factories.

Although the company hasbeen earning substantial profits inNorth America — and it made $8.1billion globally last year — it hasidled three plants in the UnitedStates as car sales slide and over-all demand for vehicles weakens.

The strike is unfolding as Presi-dent Trump’s trade war withChina wears on manufacturersand has stirred fears of a slow-down.

50,000 WORKERSON STRIKE AT G.M.AFTER TALKS FAIL

A LABOR DEAL EXPIRES

Walkout Is Union’s FirstSince ’07 — Industry’s

Challenges Mount

By NEAL E. BOUDETTE

Continued on Page A16

One Border Patrol agent in Tuc-son said he had been called a “sell-out” and a “kid killer.” In El Paso,an agent said he and his col-leagues in uniform had avoided

eating lunch together except atcertain “BP friendly” restaurantsbecause “there’s always the possi-bility of them spitting in yourfood.” An agent in Arizona quitlast year out of frustration.“Caging people for a nonviolentactivity,” he said, “started to eataway at me.”

For decades, the Border Patrolwas a largely invisible security

force. Along the southwesternborder, its work was dusty andlonely. Between adrenaline-fueledchases, the shells of sunflowerseeds piled up outside the win-dows of their idling pickup trucks.Agents called their slow-motionspecialty “laying in” — hiding inthe desert and brush for hours, towait and watch, and watch andwait.

Two years ago, when PresidentTrump entered the White Housewith a pledge to close the door onillegal immigration, all thatchanged. The nearly 20,000agents of the Border Patrol be-came the leading edge of one ofthe most aggressive immigrationcrackdowns ever imposed in theUnited States.

This article is by Manny Fernan-dez, Caitlin Dickerson, Miriam Jor-dan, Zolan Kanno-Youngs andKendrick Brinson.

‘People Actively Hate Us’: Inside the Morale Crisis on the Border

Agents eating at Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q in McAllen, Tex. “I know a lot of guys just want to leave,” said one former agent.ILANA PANICH-LINSMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A18

JERUSALEM — They joinedforces three decades ago, rising topower as a political odd couple likenone Israelis had ever seen.

Benjamin Netanyahu was thesilver-tongued, M.I.T.-educatedsophisticate. Avigdor Libermanwas a penniless former bar bounc-er from Moldova, happy to be thehatchet man.

Ever since, the two right-wingpoliticians have alternately aidedand tormented each another, likelovers locked in an abusive rela-tionship.

Now they are barreling towarda climactic denouement, as Israel

votes in a national election onTuesday that could reshape thecountry’s political landscape anddetermine whether Mr. Netanya-hu, Israel’s longest-serving primeminister, will be sent into retire-ment, and whether Mr. Liberman,his former deputy, is launched ona path to one day replace him orinto political oblivion.

“Such a fight, between two peo-ple who’ve been like one entity,one man — a fight between twotwins — I don’t remember, ever,”said Shalom Yerushalmi, a vet-eran political writer at the newssite Zman Yisrael.

Mr. Liberman is not popularenough to replace Mr. Netanyahuhimself but his party is expectedto win enough seats to make him a

kingmaker, capable of throwingthe premiership to someone else.

Benny Gantz, a centrist formermilitary chief, is Mr. Netanyahu’smain challenger and poised to be-come prime minister if Mr. Netan-yahu loses.

But it was Mr. Liberman’s refus-al to join a coalition with Mr. Ne-tanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox Jewishpartners in the last election, justfive months ago, that denied Mr.

Netanyahu a majority and forcedthe unprecedented do-over elec-tion on Tuesday.

The gambit turned Mr. Liber-man into the champion of secularIsraelis and recast this election asone in which the usual battle of leftagainst right has been overshad-owed by the one between the secu-lar and the religious.

While there is a rough consen-sus in Israel on the vital issues ofnational security and relationswith the Palestinians, Mr. Liber-man has exposed a fault line onthe role of religion, appealing tosecular Israelis fed up with thespecial benefits and subsidies ac-corded the ultra-Orthodox.

The high stakes and extraordi-

The Ugly Breakup of Israel’s Odd Couple Could Turn an ElectionBy DAVID M. HALBFINGER

and ISABEL KERSHNERNetanyahu’s Fate May

Be in the Hands of aFormer Deputy

Continued on Page A8

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — At theDemocratic primary debate lastweek, Joseph R. Biden Jr.prompted some distress withinthe party with a rambling, dis-cordant answer to a questionabout the legacy of slavery, a mo-ment that highlighted his un-steady instincts, and mixedrecord, on matters of race.

Three days later, a heavily Afri-can-American crowd gave Mr. Bi-den a warm welcome as he deliv-ered a passionate address at the16th Street Baptist Church, a sym-bol of the civil rights struggle,where he denounced institutionalracism to mark the 56th anniver-sary of the bombing that killedfour young black girls here in1963.

The divergent responses under-score the uncertainty surround-ing whether Mr. Biden can trans-late his longstanding connectionto black voters into votes nextyear. His deep ties to black lead-ers, his service as Barack Oba-ma’s vice president and his popu-larity among older, more conser-vative African-Americans havegiven him a commanding lead inthe polls among a constituencythat is crucial to any Democraticcandidate seeking the nomina-tion.

But that support has never beenrigorously tested at the ballot boxoutside of his home state of Dela-ware, and missteps like his me-andering debate answer on slav-

Biden Has EdgeOn Black Votes,

But Not a LockBy KATIE GLUECK

Continued on Page A16

SAN FRANCISCO — The re-buttal sounded something like athreat. That seemed to be KamalaHarris’s point.

It was December 2003, a finaldebate in the final days before therunoff election in Ms. Harris’s

race for San Francisco district at-torney against her onetime boss,Terence Hallinan. And Mr. Halli-nan, the crusading progressive in-cumbent, was going low: Ms. Har-ris could not be trusted to pros-ecute city corruption, he sug-gested, because of herrelationship with Willie Brown —the outgoing mayor, peerless localkingmaker and Harris supporterwhom she had dated years earlier.“He has an interest,” Mr. Hallinanspeculated, “in having a friend in

Harris RevealedAn Early Knack

For the JugularBy MATT FLEGENHEIMER

Kamala Harris in 2006.JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A15

THE LONG RUN

A Brawler From the Beginning

A peaceful, if unauthorized, pro-democ-racy march by tens of thousands wasfollowed by street battles. PAGE A6

INTERNATIONAL A4-11

New Violence in Hong KongA touchdown by Saquon Barkley, above,gave the Giants an early lift, but theyfell to the Bills, 28-14. PAGE D3

SPORTSMONDAY D1-6

Giants Tumble to an 0-2 StartDisplays like Bruce Munro’s installation,above, in California herald a movementthat infuses culture in wine country, andblazes trails in cities, too. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-7

Let There Be Lots of Lights

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and SenatorChuck Schumer offered a “historicsigning ceremony” to urge the presi-dent to back a House bill. PAGE A18

NATIONAL A14-19

A Nudge on Gun ControlFacial recognition technology is draw-ing scrutiny in a country that has tradi-tionally sacrificed privacy more thanother Western democracies, mostly inthe name of security. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-8

Keeping Tabs in Britain

A second free presidential election, aregional anomaly, took place amideconomic and security fears. PAGE A10

Tunisia’s Tenuous Vote

How a National Weather Service officebecame ensnared in President Trump’shurricane forecast. PAGE 14

The Quiet Before the Storm

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo outlined a planSunday to make New York the secondstate to outlaw their sale. PAGE A21

NEW YORK A20-21

Snuffing Out Flavored E-Cigs

David Leonhardt PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

A committee of the Boeing board re-viewed how the company designs andbuilds planes. It identified areas forimprovement and major issues facingthe company. PAGE B1

Boeing Board to Urge Changes

Antonio Brown, recently accused ofrape, caught a touchdown pass in NewEngland’s rout of the Dolphins. PAGE D1

Brown Debuts for Patriots

The Trump administration in-tensified its focus on Iran Sundayas the likely culprit behind attackson important Saudi Arabian oil fa-cilities over the weekend, with of-ficials citing intelligence assess-ments to support the accusationand President Trump warningthat he was prepared to take mili-tary action.

The government released satel-lite photographs showing what of-ficials said were at least 17 pointsof impact at several Saudi energyfacilities from strikes they saidcame from the north or northwest.That would be consistent with anattack coming from the directionof the Persian Gulf, Iran or Iraq,rather than from Yemen, wherethe Iranian-backed Houthi militiathat claimed responsibility for thestrikes operates.

Administration officials, in abackground briefing for reportersas well as in separate interviewson Sunday, also said a combina-tion of drones and cruise missiles— “both and a lot of them,” as onesenior United States official put it— might have been used. Thatwould indicate a degree of scope,precision and sophistication be-yond the ability of the Houthirebels alone.

Mr. Trump, however, did notname Iran, saying he needed toconsult with Saudi Arabia first.

“Saudi Arabia oil supply was at-tacked,” he said in a Twitter poston Sunday evening. “There is rea-son to believe that we know theculprit, are locked and loaded de-pending on verification, but are

U.S. Is BuildingCase That IranHit Saudi Sites

A ‘Locked and Loaded’Warning by Trump

This article is by Eric Schmitt,Farnaz Fassihi and David D. Kirk-patrick.

A satellite image showing smoke from a Saudi oil plant on Saturday. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have claimed the attacks.PLANET LABS INC., VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

Continued on Page A11

CUSHIONING BLOW Experts saystockpiles make a severe oilmarket shock unlikely. PAGE A11

Late EditionToday, clouds and sunshine, show-ers, light winds, high 80. Tonight,partly cloudy, low 59. Tomorrow,sunny, low humidity, breezy, high 73.Weather map appears on Page A17.

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