C M Y K Yxxx,2017-10-15,A,001,Bs-4C,E1

VOL. CLXVII . . . . No. 57,751 © 2017 The New York Times Company SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2017

INDIANAPOLIS — The man from Mexico fol-lowed a manager through the factory floor, pastwhirring exhaust fans, beeping forklifts, anddrilling machines that whined against steel. Work-ers in safety glasses looked up and stared. Otherslooked away. Shannon Mulcahy felt her stomachlurch.

It was December 2016. The Rexnord Corpora-tion’s factory still churned out bearings as it al-ways had. Trucks still dropped off steel pipes at theloading dock. Bill Stinnett, a die-hard Indiana Pac-ers fan, still cut them into pieces. The pieces stillwent to the “turning” department, where theywere honed into rings as small as a bracelet or asbig as a basketball. Then to “heat treat,” whereShannon — who loves heavy metal music andabandoned dogs — hardened them with fire. Thento “grinding,” where Shannon’s cousin Lorry Man-nix smoothed out any imperfections. And then to“assembly,” where Mark Elliott, a former Marine,joined two rings together, one inside the other, witha wheel of spinning rollers in between. The wholecontraption was encased in a cast-iron housingmachined by John Feltner, a father of three who’djust recovered from bankruptcy.

The bearings they made — modern-day equiva-lents of a gadget designed by Leonardo da Vinci —were packed into crates like enormous Christmasornaments and shipped around the world. To dig-

ging machines that claw the earth. To wheat com-bines that spin in the fields. To elevators and esca-lators in the cities.

Sometimes a bearing was rumored to haveended up in something notable — the retractingroof of the Dallas Cowboys football stadium or anuclear submarine — giving the workers a feelingof greatness. But mostly, the bearings wereunglamorous. Anonymous. Hidden from view.Like the workers themselves, they were rarelythought of beyond the factory walls.

That was fine with Shannon Mulcahy.When she first started working at the plant, at

For 17 years, Rexnord Corporation in Indianapolis was an anchor in Shannon Mulcahy’s otherwise tumultuous life.PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALYSSA SCHUKAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Work Freed Her. Then It Moved to Mexico.

ShannonMulcahy tookpride in her jobas a steelworker.The bearings she and hercolleagues madewere top-notch.But in the end, itdidn’t matter.

By FARAH STOCKMAN

Continued on Page 18

TERBOL, Lebanon — Ali She-hadeh, a seed hunter, opened thefolders with the greatest of care.Inside each was a carefully driedand pressed seed pod: a sweet clo-ver from Egypt, a wild wheatfound only in northern Syria, anancient variety of bread wheat. Hehad thousands of these foldersstacked neatly in a windowless of-fice, a precious herbarium, con-taining seeds foraged from acrossthe hot, arid and increasingly in-hospitable region known as theFertile Crescent, the birthplace offarming.

Mr. Shehadeh is a plant conser-vationist from Syria. He hunts forthe genes contained in the seedswe plant today and what he callstheir “wild relatives” from longago. His goal is to safeguard thoseseeds that may be hardy enoughto feed us in the future, whenmany more parts of the worldcould become as hot, arid and in-hospitable as it is here. Butsearching for seeds that can en-dure the perils of a hotter planethas not been easy. It has thrown

Mr. Shehadeh and his organiza-tion, the International Center forAgricultural Research in the DryAreas, or Icarda, squarely at amessy intersection of food,weather and war.

Icarda, though it received nostate funding, was once known asa darling of the Syrian govern-

ment. Based in Aleppo, its re-search had helped to make Syriaenviably self-sufficient in wheatproduction. But a drive to producethirsty crops also drained Syria’sunderground water over theyears, and it was followed by acrippling drought that helped to

Safeguarding Seeds That May Feed the FutureBy SOMINI SENGUPTA

Workers with seed samples that will go to seed banks. Seeds canbe withdrawn to replenish crops or breed new traits into crops.

DIEGO IBARRA SANCHEZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 10

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. —“Liddle” Bob Corker is kind of abig deal around here.

They knew it in high school,when he swaggered into the stu-dent body presidency withouthaving to campaign. They knew itin business, when locals could notturn their heads on many down-town streets for a time without en-countering a building he owned.

They knew it when he was may-or — more iconoclast technocratthan conservative crusader —with a habit of scooping up side-walk trash, calling in potholes andstaring up, nodding, at park-dwelling homeless men withgrievances to air.

And they know it now, on the oc-casion of a higher-profile con-frontation: Mr. Corker, Ten-nessee’s junior Republican sena-tor, has become PresidentTrump’s chief congressional an-tagonist, warning of gross execu-tive incompetence and a possible“World War III” in the mostsweeping intraparty indictmentyet of Mr. Trump’s fitness for of-

fice.The nation has seen a reliable

Republican from a deep-red statestunningly undermining his presi-dent. Chattanooga has seen itcoming, for better or worse.

“He’s certainly not a grand-stander, has never been that,” saidJon Kinsey, a Democrat, who pre-

ceded Mr. Corker as mayor. “He issimply saying what he thinks isthe truth. That can be alarming.”

On paper, Mr. Corker — a drawl-ing 65-year-old deficit hawk whodetests the Affordable Care Actand declined to oppose a singleTrump cabinet nominee — might

Hometown on Feud With Trump: That’s Just Bob

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

A feud between Senator Bob Corker and President Trump hasescalated since the senator said he would not seek re-election.

TOM BRENNER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 17

WASHINGTON — State elec-tion officials, worried about the in-tegrity of their voting systems,are pressing to make them moresecure ahead of next year’smidterm elections.

Reacting in large part to Rus-sian efforts to hack the presiden-tial election last year, a growingnumber of states are upgradingelectoral databases and votingmachines, and even adding cyber-security experts to their electionteams. The efforts — from bothDemocrats and Republicans —amount to the largest overhaul ofthe nation’s voting infrastructuresince the contested presidentialelection in 2000 spelled an end topunch-card ballots and voting ma-chines with mechanical levers.

One aim is to prepare for the2018 and 2020 elections by up-grading and securing electoraldatabases and voting machinesthat were cutting-edge beforeFacebook and Twitter even ex-isted. Another is to spot and de-fuse attempts to depress turnoutand sway election results by tar-geting voters with false news re-ports and social media posts.

West Virginia’s elections teamhas added a cybersecurity expertfrom the state National Guardwith a top-secret federal securityclearance. Colorado and Rhode Is-land will now verify election re-sults via an advanced statisticalprocedure called a risk-limitingaudit.

Delaware is moving its voter-registration list off the state’s ag-ing mainframe computer and pre-paring to replace a 21-year-oldelectronic voting system that doesnot leave a paper record of votesto be audited.

Last month, a panel of state,federal and private election ex-perts completed a sweeping revi-sion of guidelines for manufactur-ers of new voting equipment, thefirst major overhaul in a dozen

FEARING HACKERS,STATES UPGRADE

VOTING SYSTEMS

EFFORT BY BOTH PARTIES

A Response to RussianInterference in 2016

Presidential Vote

By MICHAEL WINES

Continued on Page 16

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump leaves little doubt aboutwhat he thinks of his predeces-sor’s top domestic and interna-tional legacies. The health care

program enacted byPresident BarackObama is “out-rageous” and “abso-lutely destroying

everything in its wake.” Thenuclear deal with Iran is “one ofthe worst and most one-sidedtransactions the United Stateshas ever entered into.”

Yet as much as he has set hissights on them, Mr. Trump afternearly nine months in office hasnot actually gotten rid of either.Instead, in the past few days, hetook partial steps to undercutboth initiatives and then left it toCongress to figure out what to donext. Whether either will ulti-mately survive in some form hasbecome a central suspense of Mr.Trump’s first year in office.

In the case of health care, Mr.Trump is making a virtue ofnecessity. Having failed to pushthrough legislation replacing theAffordable Care Act he is takingmore limited measures on hisown authority aimed at chippingaway at the law. On the otherhand, when it comes to the Irandeal, he has the authority to walkaway without anyone else’sconsent but has been talked outof going that far by his nationalsecurity team. Instead, by refus-ing to recertify the deal, he rhet-orically disavows the deal with-out directly pulling out.

These are not the only in-stances in which Mr. Trump’sexpansive language has not beenmatched by his actions duringthis opening phase of his presi-dency. On immigration, diplomat-ic relations with Cuba and inter-national accords like the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreementand a separate trade pact withSouth Korea, he has denounceddecisions made by Mr. Obama orother previous presidents with-out fully reversing them.

“Presidential campaigns arewon with big, simple, directional

Words OftenOutrun Deeds

For President

A Chipping Away at aPredecessor’s Legacies

By PETER BAKER

Continued on Page 17

NEWSANALYSIS

Donors to The New York Times Needi-est Cases Fund, in its 106th year, aremotivated by loved ones, mentors andstories of those who benefit. PAGE 15

NATIONAL 12-21

Tradition of Aiding NeediestSome of those who survived what isconsidered the deadliest outbreak offire that California has ever seen fledwith just seconds to spare. PAGE 14

NATIONAL 12-21

The Fire at Their DoorstepThe cheerleaders at Howard, a histori-cally black university, kneel during thenational anthem before football games.Players don’t get the chance. PAGE 1

SPORTSSUNDAY

‘Lucky to Have This Platform’America’s retailers, battling the inter-net, test unusual ideas in Columbus,Ohio. Table service at McDonald’s? Acold place to test down jackets? PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Alternate Shopping Universe Maureen Dowd PAGE 1

SUNDAY REVIEW

U(DF47D3)W+[!$!_!#!/

Printed in Chicago $6.00

Little morning rain north and east.Mostly cloudy. Clouds breaking forsunshine south and east. Highs inthe 50s to the mid-60s. Clear tonight.Weather map appears on Page SP8.

National Edition