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Extreme weather is making olive oilproduction far more erratic just asglobal demand is growing. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-11

Climate and Olive FarmsFor a new opera at the Met, the audiencewill hear tiny violins, brass instruments— and a door and salad bowl. PAGE C4

ARTS C1-7

Tiny Violins, With Salad BowlThe $250 tasting menus at Vespertinein the Los Angeles area have “per-plexed, impressed, annoyed or allthree,” Pete Wells writes. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-8

An Otherworldly Restaurant

Britain is asking Facebook, Twitter andothers about potential efforts by Mos-cow to influence Brexit voters. PAGE A4

New Request in Russia InquiryJoan Didion kept rejecting requests tomake a documentary about her life.Then two relatives asked her. PAGE C1

Documenting Aunt Joan

Senator John McCain PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

The philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobsscrapped Leon Wieseltier’s plans for ajournal as he apologized for “offenses”against female colleagues. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-9

Scandal Sinks a New Magazine

WASHINGTON — Senator JeffFlake, the Arizona Republicanwho has tangled with PresidentTrump for months, announced onTuesday that he would not seek re-election in 2018, declaring on theSenate floor that he “will no longerbe complicit or silent” in the faceof the president’s “reckless, out-rageous and undignified” behav-ior.

Mr. Flake made his announce-ment in an extraordinary 17-minute speech in which he chal-lenged not only the president butalso his party’s leadership. He de-plored the “casual undermining ofour democratic ideals” and “thepersonal attacks, the threatsagainst principles, freedoms andinstitutions, the flagrant disre-gard for truth and decency” thathe said had become prevalent inAmerican politics in the era of Mr.Trump.

The announcement appeared tosignal a moment of decision forthe Republican Party. Last week,Senator John McCain, the seniorsenator from Arizona, spoke inPhiladelphia, denouncing the“half-baked, spurious national-ism” that he saw overtakingAmerican politics. Former Presi-dent George W. Bush, in yet an-other speech, lamented: “We’veseen nationalism distorted intonativism.”

On Tuesday morning, Mr.Trump had renewed his attacks onanother critic in the RepublicanParty, Senator Bob Corker of Ten-nessee, saying he “couldn’t getelected dog catcher in Tennessee.”Mr. Corker, appearing moreweary than angry, said the presi-dent “is debasing our country.”

But Mr. Flake, choosing theSenate floor for his fierce denunci-ation of the president, appeared to

issue a direct challenge to his col-leagues and his party.

“It is often said that children arewatching,” he said. “Well, theyare. And what are we going to doabout that? When the next gener-ation asks us, ‘Why didn’t you dosomething? Why didn’t you speakup?’ What are we going to say?”

IN BITING SPEECH,FLAKE DENOUNCES

‘RECKLESS’ TRUMPAdds to Wave of Criticism Within G.O.P.

— Will Skip ’18 Re-election Fight

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Senator Jeff Flake, left, andSenator Bob Corker both hadsharp words for the president.

Continued on Page A14

WASHINGTON — A formerRepublican president. A seniorRepublican senator with a criti-cal illness. A retiring Republicansenator. And now an independ-

ent-minded Repub-lican senator whofaced a difficult, ifnot impossible,path to re-election.

George W. Bush.John McCain. Bob

Corker. And now Jeff Flake ofArizona, who delivered a sting-ing indictment of PresidentTrump and his own party on theSenate floor on Tuesday after-noon as he announced that hewould not seek another term. Hisstirring call to arms came min-utes after Mr. Trump concluded aprivate session with SenateRepublicans meant to unite themover their shared agenda.

The four men represent a newtype of freedom caucus, onewhose members are free tospeak their minds about the

president and how they see hiswords and actions diminishingthe United States and its stand-ing in the world without fear ofthe political backlash from hard-right conservatives.

But who — if anyone — willfollow?

Well aware of the mercurialnature of the president, mostcongressional Republicans areloath to do or say anything thatcould upset Mr. Trump and riskprovoking an early-morningTwitter tirade from the WhiteHouse when they are trying todelicately piece together a com-plex tax agreement. One canpractically sense Republicanstiptoeing around the Capitol,taking extra care not to awakenthe president to their presence ina way that could draw a scoldingor rebuke.

They are equally wary of rais-ing the ire of hard-right activistswho already had Mr. Flake in

Newfangled Freedom Caucus:Will There Be a Fifth Member?

Continued on Page A15

CARLHULSE

ONWASHINGTON

HOUSTON — She was alreadynine weeks into her first trimesterby the time she learned she waspregnant. And by then, she was al-ready in federal custody at theborder in Texas, one of the multi-tude of unaccompanied minorscaught trying to enter the UnitedStates without their parents orrelatives. She was 17 years old.

That simple pregnancy test setoff a dramatic legal battle betweencivil rights lawyers and the Trumpadministration, after the teenagermade it known that she wanted anabortion. Lawyers and advocatesfor the girl accused federal offi-cials of preventing her from hav-

ing an abortion and of taking ex-traordinary steps to persuade herand other undocumented preg-nant minors to have their babies.

On Tuesday, a federal appealscourt in Washington sided withthe girl, sending the case back to alower court, which immediatelyordered the Trump administra-tion to allow the girl to obtain anabortion “promptly and withoutdelay.” The ruling may be only oneof many legal chapters to come ifthe Justice Department decides toappeal to the Supreme Court.

The case has become a rare in-tersection of two of the most politi-

‘Perfect Storm’ of Divisive IssuesAs Immigrant, 17, Seeks Abortion

By MANNY FERNANDEZ

Continued on Page A17

SITTWE, Myanmar — TheBuddhist abbot tucked his legs un-der his robes and began to ex-plain.

Rohingya Muslims do not be-long in Myanmar, and they neverhave, he said. Their fertility al-lowed them to overwhelm the lo-cal Buddhist population. But now,somehow, many Rohingyaseemed to be gone.

“We thank the Lord Buddha forthis,” said U Thu Min Gala, the 57-year-old abbot of the DamaramaMonastery in Sittwe, the capital ofRakhine State in western Myan-mar. “They stole our land, our foodand our water. We will never ac-cept them back.”

An overwhelming body of pub-lished accounts has detailed the

Myanmar Army’s campaign ofkilling, rape and arson in Rakhine,which has driven more than600,000 Rohingya out of the coun-try since late August, in what theUnited Nations says is the fastestdisplacement of a people since theRwanda genocide.

But in Myanmar, and even inRakhine itself, there is stark deni-al that any ethnic cleansing is ta-king place.

The divergence between howMyanmar and much of the outside

world see the Rohingya is not lim-ited to one segment of local soci-ety. Nor can hatred in Myanmar ofthe largely stateless Muslimgroup be dismissed as a fringe at-titude.

Government officials, opposi-tion politicians, religious leadersand even local human-rights ac-tivists have become unified be-hind this narrative: The Rohingyaare not rightful citizens of Bud-dhist-majority Myanmar, andnow, through the power of a glob-ally resurgent Islam, the minorityis falsely trying to hijack theworld’s sympathy.

Social media postings have am-plified the message, claiming thatinternational aid workers areopenly siding with the Rohingya.Accordingly, the Myanmar gov-

Across Myanmar, a Denial of Ethnic CleansingBy HANNAH BEECH

A Rohingya Muslim woman and her child in Sittwe, Myanmar. Since August, more than 600,000 Rohingya have fled the country.ADAM DEAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A Hatred of RohingyaIs Stoked by Monks

and Social Media

Continued on Page A10

ERIKA P. RODRIGUEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

After more than a month, some schools in Puerto Rico reopened Tuesday, though few had power.People have had to be creative to get by since Hurricane Maria devastated the island. Pages A12-13.

Inching Back Toward Normal

BEIJING — China’s Commu-nist Party on Tuesday elevatedPresident Xi Jinping to the sameexalted status as the nation’sfounding father, Mao Zedong, bywriting his name and ideas intothe party constitution.

The historic decision, near the

end of a weeklong party congress,sent a clear signal to officialsthroughout China that question-ing Mr. Xi and his policies wouldbe ideological heresy.

The decision solidified Mr. Xi’sposition as China’s most powerfulleader in decades after only fiveyears of leading the country, mak-ing it harder for rivals to challengehim and his policies.

While there may be no “LittleRed Book” of quotations for massconsumption as in the bygoneMao era, Mr. Xi’s thinking will nowinfuse every aspect of party ideol-ogy in schools, the media and gov-ernment agencies. Schoolchildrenwill be required to study Mr. Xi’swritings and musings.

In the near future, Chinese peo-ple are likely to refer to Mr. Xi’s

doctrines as simply “Xi JinpingThought,” a flattering echo of“Mao Zedong Thought.”

“This is a way of trying toproject his historic stature,” saidWu Qiang, a political analyst inBeijing who formerly taught at Ts-inghua University. “The congressreport and the party constitution

China Sends Message in Elevating President to Mao-Like StatusBy CHRIS BUCKLEY

Continued on Page A8

Hillary Clinton’s campaign helpedfinance opposition research into DonaldJ. Trump, court records show. PAGE A17

Clinton Link to Trump Dossier

The chain is selling its Fifth Avenueflagship site to WeWork, a start-up, in asign that grand old shopping spacesmay be worth more as offices. PAGE A20

NEW YORK A18-21

Big Sale at Lord & Taylor

Los Angeles ace Clayton Kershawstruck out 11 over seven innings in a 3-1victory against the Houston Astros inGame 1 of the World Series. PAGE B11

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B11-15

Dodgers Take Series Opener

Senate Republicans voted onTuesday to strike down a sweep-ing new rule that would have al-lowed millions of Americans toband together in class-action law-suits against financial institu-tions.

The overturning of the rule,with Vice President Mike Pencebreaking a 50-to-50 tie, will fur-ther loosen regulation of WallStreet as the Trump administra-tion and Republicans move to rollback Obama-era policies enactedin the wake of the 2008 economiccrisis. By defeating the rule, Re-publicans are dismantling a majoreffort of the Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau, the watchdogcreated by Congress in the after-math of the mortgage mess.

The rule, five years in the mak-ing, would have dealt a seriousblow to financial firms, potentiallyexposing them to a flood of costlylawsuits over questionable busi-ness practices.

For decades, credit card compa-nies and banks have inserted arbi-tration clauses into the fine printof financial contracts to circum-vent the courts and bar peoplefrom pooling their resources inclass-action lawsuits. By forcingpeople into private arbitration,the clauses effectively take awayone of the few tools that individu-als have to fight predatory and de-ceptive business practices. Arbi-tration clauses have derailedclaims of financial gouging, dis-crimination in car sales and unfairfees.

The new rule written by theconsumer bureau, which was setto take effect in 2019, would haverestored the right of individuals tosue in court. It was part of a spateof actions by the bureau, which

Sparing Banks,Senate RepealsLitigation Rule

By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG

Continued on Page A16

Three House panels announced twoinvestigations into purported Obamaadministration malfeasance. PAGE A16

NATIONAL A12-17

G.O.P. Aims at Obama Era

Late Edition

VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,761 © 2017 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2017

Today, morning rain, afternoon sun-shine, high 67. Tonight, partlycloudy, low 51. Tomorrow, clouds andsunshine, breezy, stray showers,high 61. Weather map, Page C8.

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