C M Y K Nxxx,2019-09-22,A,001,Bs-4C,E3

WASHINGTON — By the timePresident Trump met with con-gressional leaders on the after-noon of June 20, he had alreadydecided to retaliate against Iranfor shooting down an Americansurveillance drone. But for once,he kept his cards close to the vest,soliciting advice rather than doingall of the talking.

“Why don’t you go after thelaunch sites?” a Republican law-maker asked.

“Well,” Mr. Trump replied with ahint, “I think you’ll like the deci-sion.”

But barely three hours later, Mr.Trump had changed his mind.Without consulting his vice presi-dent, secretary of state or nationalsecurity adviser, he reversed him-self and, with ships readying mis-siles and airplanes already in theskies, told the Pentagon to call offthe airstrikes with only 10 minutesto go. When Vice President MikePence and other officials returnedto the White House for what theyexpected would be a long night ofmonitoring a military operation,they were stunned to learn the at-tack was off.

That about-face, so typically im-pulsive, instinctive and removedfrom any process, proved a deci-sion point for a president who hasoften threatened to “totally de-stroy” enemies but at the sametime has promised to extricate theUnited States from Middle Eastwars. It revealed a commander inchief more cautious than criticshave assumed, yet underscoredthe limited options in a confronta-tion he had set in motion.

Three months later, some of Mr.

ABORTING ATTACKON IRAN SHOCKED

AIDES TO TRUMP

STANDOFF WITH TEHRAN

Decision in June LoomsLarge After Strike on

Saudi Oil Fields

This article is by Peter Baker, EricSchmitt and Michael Crowley.

Continued on Page 11

Elizabeth Warren did not wanta goodbye party. She told heraides there would be no grandsend-off, no celebration of a mis-sion accomplished.

The Consumer Financial Pro-tection Bureau had been her ideafrom the start: a new arm of the

government, uniquely empow-ered to police the kinds of loansand financial schemes that led tothe Great Recession. Ms. Warrenhad detailed the idea in a journalarticle, then cajoled and pres-sured Congress to make it law. Shewas tasked by President BarackObama in 2010 with setting up thebureau, and spent a year recruit-ing investigators and enforcersfor an office they saw as an exhila-rating cause.

But as spring turned to summerin 2011, Ms. Warren faced awrenching separation. The WhiteHouse had decided not to nomi-nate her to lead the bureau perma-nently. So she gathered the stafffor an “all hands” meeting andtold them her work there was over.

“She told us that we were readyto sail the ship, that we did notneed her there, and that we wouldbe able to do it on our own,” saidPatricia McCoy, a Boston Collegelaw professor who was a senior of-

ficial at the bureau.Ms. Warren was right. Under

her successor, Richard A. Cordray,the bureau would recover $12 bil-lion for consumers from financialinstitutions by 2017. It would be-come, to supporters, a prized ex-ample of the government takingon big banks after the 2008 finan-cial crisis. To opponents — Repub-lican lawmakers, business associ-ations and a few conservativeDemocrats — it would become anexample of “runaway govern-ment,” an agency to be curbed atthe first opportunity.

To Ms. Warren, the bureau issomething else as well: a forma-tive lesson in how an idea — a plan— can become reality. For it wasthrough creating a new financial

In Losing a Coveted Position,Warren Found a Larger Stage

By ALEXANDER BURNS

In 2009, Elizabeth Warren ledthe oversight panel for theTroubled Asset Relief Program.

RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 22

LESSONS IN POWER

How to Execute a Plan

ELK RAPIDS, Mich. — Notlong after Hefzur Rahman en-rolled at his new school in Michi-gan three years ago, his fifth-grade class studied the subhumanconditions that enslaved Africansendured in overcrowded shipsbound for North America.

He knew what it was like to beon a boat in fear for his life, he toldhis classmates.

At the age of 11, he had joinedhundreds of thousands of Rohing-ya refugees fleeing violent op-pression in Myanmar, cramming

onto boats piloted by smugglers.The men beat their human cargo,he recalled, and he watched des-perate people drink seawater onlyto die of dehydration. As his boatbegan to sink, Hefzur tied emptywater bottles around his waist andjumped into the ocean. “I thoughtI would pass away,” he said.

Today, Hefzur is safe, livingwith a foster family in small-townMichigan, where most of the boatsthat ply nearby Elk Lake are filledwith families headed for sunny af-ternoons on the water.

But he stays up at night worry-ing about his parents, who put himon the boat leaving Myanmar not

just to save his life, but also in thehope that he would help get therest of the family out. They arestill counting on him. “I feel like Iam in jail,” he told his fostermother, anxious that he wasspending too much time at school.“I want to work. I must sendmoney to my family.”

About 730,000 Rohingya fledMyanmar in the summer of 2017,and almost all of them, likeHefzur’s parents, are living incamps in neighboring Bangla-desh. A few thousand have beenadmitted to the United States —part of a dwindling number of ref-

Finding Safe Shores Was Only Half the StruggleBy MIRIAM JORDAN

TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Hefzur Rahman, a Rohingya refugee, at a lake near Elk Rapids, Mich., where his foster family lives.

Continued on Page 21

For years there have been frag-mentary reports of almost unbe-lievable acts of faith at the Nazideath camps during World War II:the sounding of shofars, the ram’shorn trumpets traditionally blownby Jews to welcome the High HolyDays.

These stories of the persistenceof hope even in mankind’s darkestmoments have been passed downdespite limited evidence and eye-witness detail.

But could camp prisoners havefound ways to sound these horns,piercing the heavens with sob-likewails and staccato blasts, withoutputting themselves in immediatemortal danger?

Now a new account that ad-dresses that question, and is em-braced by several historians as re-liable, has emerged from thedaughter of an Auschwitz sur-vivor, along with one of the se-creted shofars itself.

Dr. Judith Tydor Schwartz, anexpert on the Holocaust, says herfather, Chaskel Tydor, a longtimeprisoner entrusted as work dis-patcher at one of the more than 40Auschwitz subcamps, contrivedon Rosh Hashana 1944 to send fel-low prisoners on a distant detailwhere they might safely, and pri-vately, pray. He did not know thatthey carried something with

Show of Faith:A Jewish RelicThat Survived

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

Continued on Page 20

From Memorial Day to Labor Day, there were 26 mass shootings in the United States. They spannedthe nation, terrorizing crowded public places and shattering private homes. Among the 126 killed were a3-year-old girl and a 90-year-old man. And all we could do was ask why. And wait for it to happen again.

‘The world we live in now is one in which no place is safe,no lives really matter, when it comes to violence.’

I N S I D E A D E A D LY A M E R I C A N S U M M E R

PAGE 14 ■� BY MITCH SMITH

Eating, playing and dancing in the city’sstreets, from Brooklyn to the Bronx.

SPECIAL SECTION

Blocks and Blocks of Parties

As part of a push into Central America,China presented itself as a partner for ElSalvador’s future. The Trump adminis-tration countered with a warning. PAGE 6

INTERNATIONAL 4-12

Seeking Clout in El SalvadorTech workers used to think they weresaving the world. Then came the badheadlines. Now they’re admitting theyhave a problem and going to therapy —and founding start-ups, too. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Anxious in Silicon ValleySoccer teams in Greenland sail throughice floes and sleep in school gymnasi-ums to play a physically demandingchampionship season. PAGE 1

SPORTSSUNDAY

A One-Week World Cup

Australia’s largest city has a rare super-power: It turns urbanites into birdpeople, and birds into urbanites as theyinteract in daily adventures. PAGE 10

Sydney Is for the Birds

A priest has delivered millions of votesfor Poland’s governing right-wing Lawand Justice party, which has helped himbuild a business empire. PAGE 8

Mixing Church and Polish State

Bernie Sanders is taking “Medicare forAll” even further: He wants to elimi-nate billions owed by patients. PAGE 19

A Plan to Erase Health Debt

Bayer spent $63 billion to buy themaker of the agricultural chemicalRoundup and now may lose billionsover claims the chemical is unsafe. Butits market seems secure. PAGE 1

Still a Future for a Weedkiller

Al Gore PAGE 1

SUNDAY REVIEWWatching Italy’s transumanza, herdingcows to their seasonal pastures. PAGE 1

TRAVEL

Keep Them Dogies Rollin’

Millennials are called lazy and entitled,but it may just be that they understandthe proper role of work in life. PAGE 1

SUNDAY STYLES

No Burnout for Us, Thank You

U(D5E71D)x+%!{!/!#!}

DES MOINES — Allegationsthat President Trump courted for-eign interference from Ukraine tohurt his leading Democratic rival,Joseph R. Biden Jr., dominatedpresidential politics on Saturday,as Mr. Biden demanded a Houseinvestigation of Mr. Trump’sphone call with Ukraine’s leaderand as Mr. Trump lashed out, de-nying wrongdoing without releas-ing a transcript of the call.

With Mr. Trump seizing on a fa-miliar defense, saying Democratswere undertaking a “witch hunt”against him, Mr. Biden called onthe House of Representatives tobegin a new investigation ofwhether the president sought theinterference of a foreign govern-ment to bolster his re-electioncampaign.

“This appears to be an over-whelming abuse of power,” Mr. Bi-den said during a campaign swingin Iowa. “We have never seen any-thing like this from any presi-dent.”

Mr. Trump is said to have urgedthe Ukranian president on a July25 phone call to investigate Mr. Bi-den’s son, Hunter Biden, who didbusiness in Ukraine while his fa-ther was vice president. Mr.Trump’s request is part of a secretwhistle-blower complaint in theintelligence community that issaid to involve Mr. Trump makingan unspecified commitment to aforeign leader, according to twopeople familiar with the com-plaint.

The sharp accusations betweenMr. Trump and Mr. Biden elevatedthe president’s dealings withUkraine as a potentially signifi-

UKRAINE BECOMESCONTESTED POINTIN RACE FOR 2020

FALLOUT FROM JULY CALL

President Claims ‘WitchHunt’ as Biden Calls

for House Inquiry

By LISA LERERand REID J. EPSTEIN

Continued on Page 17

The young protesters are finding thatmany of the diplomats they are tryingto influence are unmoved. PAGE 20

NATIONAL 14-23

Collision at U.N. Climate Talks

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . No. 58,458 © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2019

Today, mostly sunny, very warm, hu-mid, high 84. Tonight, partly cloudy,warm, low 71. Tomorrow, clouds andsunshine, very warm, humid, high85. Weather map is on Page 24.

$6.00