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When North Korea launchedlong-range missiles this summer,and again on Friday, demonstrat-ing its ability to strike Guam andperhaps the United States main-land, it powered the weapons witha rare, potent rocket fuel thatAmerican intelligence agenciesbelieve initially came from Chinaand Russia.

The United States governmentis scrambling to determinewhether those two countries arestill providing the ingredients forthe highly volatile fuel and, if so,whether North Korea’s supply canbe interrupted, either throughsanctions or sabotage. Amongthose who study the issue, there isa growing belief that the UnitedStates should focus on the fuel, ei-ther to halt it, if possible, or to takeadvantage of its volatile proper-ties to slow the North’s program.

But it may well be too late. Intel-ligence officials believe that theNorth’s program has advanced tothe point where it is no longer asreliant on outside suppliers, andthat it may itself be making thedeadly fuel, known as UDMH. De-spite a long record of intelligencewarnings that the North was ac-quiring both forceful missile en-gines and the fuel to power them,there is no evidence that Washing-ton has ever moved with urgencyto cut off Pyongyang’s access tothe rare propellant.

Classified memos from both theGeorge W. Bush and Obama ad-ministrations laid out, with whatturned out to be prescient clarity,

Nuclear BoastsOf North KoreaHinge on a Fuel

By WILLIAM J. BROADand DAVID E. SANGER

Continued on Page A9

On a muggy, late springevening, Tuan Pham awoke to thepolice storming his house in Ha-noi, Vietnam.

They marched him to a policestation and made their demand:Hand over your Facebook pass-word. Mr. Tuan, a computer engi-neer, had recently written a poemon the social network called“Mother’s Lullaby,” which criti-cized how the communist countrywas run.

One line read, “One century haspassed, we are still poor and hun-gry, do you ask why?”

Mr. Tuan’s arrest came justweeks after Facebook offered amajor olive branch to Vietnam’s

government. Facebook’s head ofglobal policy management,Monika Bickert, met with a topVietnamese official in April andpledged to remove informationfrom the social network that vio-lated the country’s laws.

While Facebook said its policiesin Vietnam have not changed, andit has a consistent process for gov-ernments to report illegal content,the Vietnamese government wasspecific. The social network, they

have said, had agreed to help cre-ate a new communications chan-nel with the government to pri-oritize Hanoi’s requests and re-move what the regime consideredinaccurate posts about seniorleaders.

Populous, developing countrieslike Vietnam are where the com-pany is looking to add its next bil-lion customers — and to bolster itsad business. Facebook’s promiseto Vietnam helped the social me-dia giant placate a government

Facebook Is Navigating a Global Power StruggleThis article is by Paul Mozur,

Mark Scott and Mike Isaac.A Fracturing Internet

as Nations ErectNew Hurdles

Continued on Page A6

KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES

Elisabeth Moss, right, won best lead actress for “The Handmaid’s Tale,” named best drama. Page C1.An Emmy for a Handmaid

GAMBELL, Alaska — In amodest boardinghouse on anAlaskan island just 30 milesacross the sea from Russia, ahandwritten order form hangs onthe refrigerator. There are photosof cakes a few women in this vil-lage can make for you: rectanglesof yellow cake and devil’s food en-robed in buttercream, with localnicknames piped out in pink.

“Happy Birthday Bop-Bop,”one reads. Another, “Happy Birth-day Siti-Girl.”

Traveling out here, where huge

bones from bowhead whales litterthe beach, takes a 90-minute jetride north from Anchorage andanother hour by small plane overthe Bering Sea. In this vast, wildpart of America, accessible onlyby water or air, there may not beplumbing or potable water, the lo-cal store may not carry perish-ables and people may have to relyon caribou or salmon or beardedseal meat to stay fed.

But no matter where you go,

you will always find a cake-mixcake.

Elsewhere, the American appe-tite for packaged baking mixes iswaning, according to the marketresearch firm Mintel, as con-sumers move away from pack-aged foods with artificial ingredi-ents and buy more from in-storebakeries and specialty pastryshops. Yet in the small, mostly in-digenous communities that dotrural Alaska, box cake is a stal-wart staple, the star of every com-munity dessert table and a potentfund-raising tool.

“Cake mixes are the center ofour little universe,” said CynthiaErickson, who owns the only gro-cery store in Tanana, an Athabas-can village of 300 along the YukonRiver in central Alaska. “I havefour damn shelves full.”

Eating in rural Alaska is allabout managing the expense andscarcity of store-bought foodwhile trying to take advantage ofseasonally abundant wild foods.Cash economies are weak, utili-ties and fuel are expensive andmany families live below the fed-eral poverty line.

To offset the cost of living,Alaska Natives here rely on tradi-tional practices of hunting, fishingand gathering, known as “subsist-ence.” In a good year, they fillfreezers with moose, berries, car-ibou, salmon or marine mammals,depending on where they live. In abad year, they have to buy morefrom the store.

The offerings in village storesoften resemble those in the mini-marts or bodegas of America’s ur-ban food deserts, at two and three

Boxed Cake Mix Sweetens LifeIn Far-Flung Regions of Alaska

By JULIA O’MALLEY

A lemon-blueberry cake bakedby Cynthia Erickson.

RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A17

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump’s legal team is wrestlingwith how much to cooperate withthe special counsel looking intoRussian election interference, aninternal debate that led to an an-gry confrontation last week be-tween two White House lawyersand that could shape the course ofthe investigation.

At the heart of the clash is an is-sue that has challenged multiplepresidents during high-stakesWashington investigations: howto handle the demands of investi-gators without surrendering theinstitutional prerogatives of theoffice of the presidency. Similarconflicts during the Watergateand Monica S. Lewinsky scandalsresulted in court rulings that lim-ited a president’s right to confi-dentiality.

The debate in Mr. Trump’s WestWing has pitted Donald F. Mc-Gahn II, the White House counsel,against Ty Cobb, a lawyer broughtin to manage the response to theinvestigation. Mr. Cobb has ar-gued for turning over as many ofthe emails and documents re-quested by the special counsel aspossible in hopes of quickly end-ing the investigation — or at leastits focus on Mr. Trump.

Mr. McGahn supports coopera-tion, but has expressed worryabout setting a precedent thatwould weaken the White Houselong after Mr. Trump’s tenure isover. He is described as particu-larly concerned about whetherthe president will invoke execu-tive or attorney-client privilege tolimit how forthcoming Mr. Mc-Gahn could be if he himself is in-terviewed by the special counsel

Lawyers ClashOver StrategyBy West Wing

Requests From MuellerReveal New Tensions

By PETER BAKERand KENNETH P. VOGEL

Continued on Page A16

At a time when the UnitedStates is in the grip of an opioidepidemic, many insurers are lim-iting access to pain medicationsthat carry a lower risk of addictionor dependence, even as they pro-vide comparatively easy access togeneric opioid medications.

The reason, experts say: Opioiddrugs are generally cheap whilesafer alternatives are often moreexpensive.

Drugmakers, pharmaceuticaldistributors, pharmacies and doc-tors have come under intensescrutiny in recent years, but therole that insurers — and the phar-macy benefit managers that runtheir drug plans — have played inthe opioid crisis has received lessattention. That may be changing,however. The New York State at-torney general’s office sent letterslast week to the three largestpharmacy benefit managers —CVS Caremark, Express Scriptsand OptumRx — asking how theywere addressing the crisis.

ProPublica and The New YorkTimes analyzed Medicare pre-scription drug plans covering 35.7million people in the second quar-ter of this year. Only one-third ofthe people covered, for example,had any access to Butrans, apainkilling skin patch that con-tains a less-risky opioid,buprenorphine. And every drugplan that covered lidocainepatches, which are not addictive

INSURERS PUTTINGCOST OVER SAFETYWITH PAINKILLERS

CHEAP OPIOIDS FAVORED

Many Plans Limit Accessto Drugs With Lower

Risk of Abuse

By KATIE THOMASand CHARLES ORNSTEIN

Continued on Page A17

BALUKHALI, Bangladesh —Nazir Hossain, the imam of a vil-lage in far western Myanmar,gathered the faithful around himafter evening prayers last month.In a few hours, more than a dozenArakan Rohingya Salvation Armyfighters from his village wouldstrike a nearby police post with anassortment of handmade weap-ons.

The men needed their cleric’sblessing.

“As imam, I encouraged themnever to step back from their mis-sion,” Mr. Hossein recalled of hisfinal words to the ethnic Rohingyamilitants. “I told them that if theydid not fight to the death, the mili-

tary would come and kill theirfamilies, their women and theirchildren.”

They fought — joining an Aug.25 assault by thousands of thegroup’s fighters against Myan-mar’s security forces — and theretaliation came down anyway.Since then, Myanmar’s troops andvigilante mobs have unleashed ascorched-earth operation on Ro-hingya populations in northernRakhine State in Myanmar, send-ing hundreds of thousands fleeingtheir homes in a campaign thatthe United Nations has called eth-nic cleansing.

Fears That Crisis Could Lead Rohingya to Terror on World StageBy HANNAH BEECH

Rohingya refugees crossed the Naf River into Bangladesh this month as smoke rose from a nearby burning village in Myanmar.PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADAM DEAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Nazir Hossain, an imam in western Myanmar, gave his blessingto Rohingya fighters before they attacked a police post in August.Continued on Page A11

Facebook must provide moredetail about the Russian ads, JimRutenberg says. Page B1.

Russian Facebook Meddling

Arrivals of migrants in Italy haveplunged in recent months, but the re-versal is provoking questions. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-12

Italy Stalls Flow of Migrants

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey,the part-time mayor of Port Arthur hasbeen too busy helping his neighbors toclean up his own flooded house. PAGE A13

NATIONAL A13-17

Texas Mayor Puts City First

Owning a low-price retail store offersimmigrants an alternative to restaurantand garment factory jobs. PAGE A18

NEW YORK A18-21

A Dollar Store and a Dream

Complaints from male fans about thesound of female sports announcers’voices may mask worries about some-thing deeper. PAGE D1

SPORTS D1-6

The Meaning of ‘Shrill’The Holocaust Museum is at the centerof a debate over the Obama administra-tion’s legacy in Syria. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Backlash Over Syria Report

Nikki R. Haley has cast herself assomeone who can sway PresidentTrump on foreign policy. PAGE A10

Test for Trump’s U.N. Envoy

Despite affirmative action, black andHispanic students are more underrepre-sented at top colleges nationwide,though some schools saw gains. PAGE A15

Diversity Efforts Fall Short

FEMA mobilized all 28 of its search-and-rescue teams for Hurricane Har-vey, and 22 for Hurricane Irma. PAGE A14

Help From Across the U.S.Thousands turned out at St. Patrick’sCathedral to view relics of St. Padre Pio,an Italian canonized in 2002. PAGE A18

The Faithful Honor a Saint

For many Latino major leaguers, thelong-running sitcom is as educationalas it is entertaining. PAGE D1

They’ve Got to Have ‘Friends’

On the eve of the magazine’s 50th anni-versary, Wenner Media offers its staketo buyers. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-7

Rolling Stone Is for SaleShinzo Abe PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

At the Cornell Tech campus on Roose-velt Island, large art installations aim tospur students’ imaginations. PAGE C5

Inspiring Art at Cornell Tech

Late Edition

VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 57,724 © 2017 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

Today, morning fog, humid, variablycloudy, high 79. Tonight, someclouds, fog late, low 67. Tomorrow,cloudy, some rain, windy, high 75.Weather map appears on Page B6.

$2.50