VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,482 + © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2019

C M Y K Nxxx,2019-10-16,A,001,Bs-4C,E2_+

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A judge in Thailand aquitted five men ofmurder, then after denouncing thepressure he was under to convict, shothimself before the courtroom. PAGE A6

INTERNATIONAL A4-12

A Judge’s Dramatic Protest

Two years after Rohingya Muslimswere executed, raped and displaced, theMyanmar government has covered up acampaign of ethnic cleansing. Above,the remains of a mosque. PAGE A8

How Myanmar Ignores a Stain

How did the decomposing corpse of aman end up in Manhattan under ametal street plate that can weigh asmuch as 300 pounds? PAGE A23

NEW YORK A23-25

Manhole Body Mystery

After decades of poor care from thegovernment-run Indian Health Service,Native American groups are taking overmanagement of hospitals. PAGE A13

Tribes Take Over Hospitals

Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, whostarred in “The Office,” have reunited torewatch every episode of the comedyseries for a new podcast. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-7

A Return to Dunder Mifflin

Whether battered and fried or steamedand cocktail-sauced, shrimp is a nationalobsession, Melissa Clark writes. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-8

Why We’re Big on Shrimp

Peter Navarro PAGE A27

EDITORIAL, OP-ED, A26-27

TAMIR KALIFA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

From left, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday in Westerville, Ohio.

DOHUK, Iraq — Russia as-serted itself in a long-contestedpart of Syria on Tuesday after theUnited States pulled out, givingMoscow a new opportunity topress for Syrian army gains andproject itself as a rising power bro-ker in the Middle East.

Russian and Syrian troopsdrove through a key town wherethe United States had held swayand picked over abandonedAmerican outposts to announcetheir presence in the area and de-

ter the Turkish incursion that be-gan last week.

The Russian advance, enabledby President Trump’s decisionlast week to withdraw, may boostRussia’s Syrian ally, President Ba-shar al-Assad, while blunting theTurkish incursion. It was a tellingdemonstration of how influenceover the eight-year-old conflict inSyria has shifted from the UnitedStates to Russia. But in this case,

there appeared to be little balanceleft in the Americans’ favor.

“Look at how they were prepar-ing the base,” a Russian-speakingreporter said in a video shot insidean abandoned American outpostin northeastern Syria, its watertanks, communication towers,tents and fridges full of soda allleft behind. “They thought theywere going to be here for a longtime.”

Moscow Picks Up Reins as the U.S. Departs SyriaThis article is by Ben Hubbard,

Anton Troianovski, Carlotta Galland Patrick Kingsley.

Continued on Page A10

Russia Seizes Role ofBroker in Mideast

Gregory Rodriguez thought hehad the flu when he went to theemergency room on Sept. 18, feel-ing feverish, nauseated and shortof breath.

He woke up four days later in adifferent hospital, with a tubedown his throat connecting him toa ventilator, and two more tubes inhis neck and groin, running his

blood through a device thatpumped in oxygen and took outcarbon dioxide. The machineswere doing the job of his lungs,which had stopped working.

“I was basically on the verge of

death,” he said.Mr. Rodriguez, 22, a college stu-

dent, is one of the nearly 1,300 peo-ple in the United States who havebecome seriously ill because ofvaping. Like him, about 70 percentare young men. And also like him,many vaped THC, the psychoac-tive ingredient in marijuana.

Vaping is odorless and easy tohide, and Mr. Rodriguez slipped

Vaping Habit Led 22-Year-Old to ‘Verge of Death’

By DENISE GRADY

Continued on Page A21

Severe Illness Resultedin Lung Failure

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump has for weeks sought to un-mask the whistle-blower whoshed light on his Ukraine dealings.But instead aides have fixated onone another: Advisers began afact-finding review that some fearis a hunt for a scapegoat, accord-

ing to White House aides andother people familiar with it.

Even as the impeachment in-quiry intensifies in Congress,White House lawyers are leadingtheir own review, the people said.

They are seeking to understandWhite House officials’ actionsaround Mr. Trump’s July 25 callwith President Volodymyr Zelen-sky of Ukraine, which is central tothe whistle-blower’s allegationthat Mr. Trump abused his power.

The lawyers’ inquiry centers onwhy one of their colleagues, thedeputy White House counsel JohnA. Eisenberg, placed a rough tran-script of the call in a computer sys-

Aides at Odds as Trump Call Gets Internal ReviewThis article is by Julian E. Barnes,

Maggie Haberman and Michael S.Schmidt.

Continued on Page A18

Advisers Said to FearHunt for Scapegoat

TURKISH BANK INDICTED The U.S.claims a state-owned bank helpedIran evade sanctions. PAGE A11

MATT EDGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A robotic hand solved a Rubik’s Cube in about four minutes — after months of training. Page B1.A Feat, if Not Exactly the Robot Apocalypse

WASHINGTON — A seniorState Department official incharge of Ukraine policy told im-peachment investigators on Tues-day that he was all but cut out ofdecisions regarding the countryafter a May meeting organized byMick Mulvaney, the acting WhiteHouse chief of staff, describing hissidelining by President Trump’sinner circle as “wrong,” accordingto a lawmaker who heard the testi-mony.

The revelation from George P.Kent, the deputy assistant secre-tary in the Bureau of Europeanand Eurasian Affairs, emerged ashe submitted to hours of closed-door testimony to the House com-mittees investigating how Presi-dent Trump pressured Ukraine toinvestigate his political rivals.

Despite an edict by the WhiteHouse not to cooperate with whatit has called an illegitimate inqui-ry, Mr. Kent was one of a proces-sion of top officials who havemade the trip to the secure roomsof the House Intelligence Commit-tee on Capitol Hill, unspooling aremarkably consistent tale. Theyhave detailed how Mr. Trumpsought to manipulate Americanpolicy in Ukraine to meet hisgoals, circumventing career diplo-mats and policy experts and in-serting his personal lawyer Ru-dolph W. Giuliani into the process,raising alarms in the West Wingand throughout the government.

“Here is a senior State Depart-ment official responsible for sixcountries, one of which is Ukraine,who found himself outside of aparallel process that he felt wasundermining 28 years of U.S. pol-icy and promoting the rule of lawin Ukraine,” Representative Ger-ald E. Connolly, Democrat of Vir-ginia, said of Mr. Kent, after de-parting from the room where hewas being deposed.

“And that was wrong,” Mr. Con-nolly said. “He used that word,‘wrong.’”

After the May 23 meeting calledby Mr. Mulvaney, Mr. Kent told in-vestigators, he and others whoseportfolios included Ukraine wereedged out by Gordon D. Sondland,the United States ambassador tothe European Union; Kurt D.Volker, the special envoy forUkraine; and Rick Perry, the ener-gy secretary, who “declared them-selves the three people now re-sponsible for Ukraine policy,” Mr.Connolly said.

The meeting occurred on thesame day that Mr. Sondland, Mr.Volker and Mr. Perry urged Mr.Trump in an Oval Office briefingto support and arrange a White

White HouseSidelined Him,Diplomat Says

Ukraine Expert Is theLatest to Testify

This article is by Nicholas Fandos,Kenneth P. Vogel and Michael D.Shear.

Continued on Page A18

A bidding war for the department storechain could be about to begin betweenbuyers with dueling visions: One maymean liquidating all stores; the othermay preserve some of them. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-6

Placing Bets on Barneys

WESTERVILLE, Ohio — Sena-tor Elizabeth Warren of Massa-chusetts faced a sustained bar-rage of criticism from her Demo-cratic rivals at a presidential de-bate in Ohio on Tuesday, tanglingwith a group of underdog moder-ates who assailed her liberal eco-nomic proposals, while formerVice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.appeared to fade from the fray af-ter parrying President Trump’sattacks on his family.

The debate confirmed that theprimary race had entered a newphase, defined by Ms. Warren’sapparent strength and the in-creasing willingness of otherDemocrats to challenge her. Shehas risen toward the top of thepolls while confronting limited re-sistance from her opponents, andin past debates she attracted afraction of the hostility that Demo-crats trained on Mr. Biden.

That changed in a dramaticfashion on Tuesday, when a groupof her rivals voiced sharp skepti-cism of Ms. Warren’s agenda oraccused her of taking impracticalstances on issues like health careand taxation. Mayor PeteButtigieg of South Bend, Ind., in-sistently charged Ms. Warrenwith evading a “yes-or-no” ques-tion on how she would pay for a“Medicare for all” health care sys-tem, while Senator Amy Klo-buchar of Minnesota cast parts ofMs. Warren’s platform as a “pipedream.” Former RepresentativeBeto O’Rourke of Texas brandedMs. Warren’s worldview as overly“punitive.”

Ms. Warren sought at everyturn to dispense with her criticsby casting them as lacking ambi-tion or political grit. When she ad-dressed criticism of her proposalto tax vast private fortunes, for in-stance, Ms. Warren suggested heropponents believed it was “moreimportant to protect billionairesthan it is to invest in an entire gen-eration” but did not single out herrivals.

The debate unfolded in a drasti-cally altered political landscape,with Mr. Trump facing impeach-ment and Mr. Biden in the centerof a firestorm over his son’s finan-cial overseas financial dealings.The candidates were prompted tocover a wide range of issues, in-cluding a number that had fea-tured little or not at all in past de-bates, such as the impeachment of

RACE TAKES TURN AS WARREN FACES BARRAGE ONSTAGE

RIVALS HIT HEALTH PLAN

Less Focus on Biden —Foreign Policy Comes

to the Forefront

By JONATHAN MARTINand ALEXANDER BURNS

Continued on Page A15

A political team in Washington by-passed West Coast staff when theagency delivered a list of environmentalcomplaints to California. PAGE A21

NATIONAL A13-22

E.P.A. Skirted Norms in FeudWashington swept St. Louis to win thefranchise’s first N.L. pennant. In theA.L., Houston took a 2-1 series leadagainst the Yankees. PAGES B10-11

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B10-13

Now It’s the Nationals’ League

WESTERVILLE, Ohio —Senator Elizabeth Warren lookeddown, performatively takenaback. She raised her hand tospeak — surely it was her turnagain. She shrugged a little.

For about an hour on Tuesday,Ms. Warren had been the primetarget of her debate rivals, com-pelled to defend as never beforethe hard-charging progressivismand soak-the-rich economicapproach that has elevated herto the top of the polls. BetoO’Rourke, the former Texascongressman, had a theory aboutall of that.

“Sometimes, I think SenatorWarren is more focused on beingpunitive or pitting some part ofthe country against the other,” hesaid, using a question about thewealth tax to lash Ms. Warren’sbroader political philosophy,“instead of lifting people up andmaking sure this country comestogether.”

Ms. Warren turned to Mr.O’Rourke, then back to the cam-eras. “So, um, I’m really shockedat the notion that anyone thinksI’m punitive,” she said.

Perhaps. But she should nothave been surprised.

Plans Galore,But No ShieldFrom Sniping

By MATT FLEGENHEIMERand KATIE GLUECK

Continued on Page A14

NEWS ANALYSIS

Late Edition

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