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A Border Patrol agent was arrested inconnection with a killing spree that leftfour people dead in recent weeksaround the city of Laredo, Tex. PAGE 20

NATIONAL 4, 16-25

Border Agent Held in 4 KillingsDays before its season begins, NewYork City Ballet has fired two maledancers linked to the sharing of sexu-ally explicit photographs. PAGE 25

NATIONAL

Dancers Fired Over PhotosA look at the world, brought to you by the financial crisis.The economy is surging, but the wealthy are the biggestbeneficiaries. Some people never recovered. In the epicen-ter of the subprime bust, the housing market is hot again.

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Ten Years After Lehman’s Collapse

WASHINGTON — As Demo-crats enter the fall midterm cam-paign with palpable confidenceabout reclaiming the House andperhaps even the Senate, tensionsare rising between the WhiteHouse and congressional Republi-cans over who is to blame for poli-tical difficulties facing the party.

President Trump’s advisers arepointing to the high number ofG.O.P. retirements, while lawmak-ers are placing the blame squarelyon the president’s divisive style.

Yet Republican leaders doagree on one surprising elementin the battle for Congress: Theycannot rely on the booming econ-omy to win over undecided voters.

To the dismay of party leaders,the healthy economy and Mr.Trump have become countervail-ing forces. The decline in unem-ployment and soaring gross do-mestic product, along with the taxoverhaul Republicans argue is fu-eling the growth, have been ob-scured by the president’s inflam-matory moves on immigration,Vladimir V. Putin and other fronts,party leaders say.

These self-inflicted woundssince early summer have helpedpush Mr. Trump’s approval rat-ings below 40 percent and the for-tunes of his party down with them.

“This is very much a referen-dum on the president,” Represent-ative Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Re-publican, said of the November

CHAOS MAY OFFSETECONOMY’S SURGE,COSTING THE G.O.P.

MIDTERM TENSION RISES

Democrats See Chance toSway Voters Unsure

About President

By JONATHAN MARTINand ALEXANDER BURNS

Continued on Page 18

A BULLDOZER Millions facedpotential flooding as Florencemoved slowly inward. PAGE 22

WASHINGTON — Back whentheir relationship was fresh andnew, and President Trump stillcalled his defense secretary “MadDog” — a nickname Jim Mattisdetests — the wiry retired Marinegeneral often took a dinner breakto eat burgers with his boss in theWhite House residence.

Mr. Mattis brought briefingfolders with him, aides said, tohelp explain the military’s shared“ready to fight tonight” strategywith South Korea, and why theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organiza-tion has long been viewed as cen-tral to protecting the UnitedStates.

Using his folksy manner, Mr.Mattis talked the president out ofordering torture against terror-ism detainees and persuaded himto send thousands more Americantroops to Afghanistan — all with-out igniting the public Twitter cas-tigations that have plagued othernational security officials.

But the burger dinners havestopped. Interviews with morethan a dozen White House, con-gressional and current and for-mer Defense Department officialsover the past six weeks paint aportrait of a president who hassoured on his defense secretary,weary of unfavorable compar-isons to Mr. Mattis as the adult in

Mattis’s FutureIn Doubt as Ties

To Trump FrayBy HELENE COOPER

Continued on Page 17

KIGALI, Rwanda — Neighborswhisper that she is pregnant, adisgrace for a young, unmarriedwoman. The rumors mortify her.She hates her swollen belly.

But Florence Ndimubakunzi isnot pregnant. Her heart is failing.It pumps so poorly that bloodbacks up in her veins, bloating herliver and spleen, and filling her ab-domen with fluid. She is only 18.

For millions like her in poorerparts of Africa, Asia and other re-gions, this devastating heart dis-ease began insidiously. Duringchildhood, they contracted strepthroat — an infection caused bystreptococcal bacteria.

In the United States and otherrich countries, children with sorethroats are routinely tested forstrep and quickly cured with peni-cillin or other cheap antibiotics.

But in poor countries, strepthroat often goes undiagnosedand can become a long, slow deathsentence. Without treatment, itcan lead to rheumatic fever andrheumatic heart disease, in whichthe immune system attacks theheart valves — intricate flaps oftissue that must open and shutproperly 100,000 times a day forthe heart to work normally.

As the valves deteriorate, the

heart struggles and graduallywears out. Patients become weak,short of breath and unable to at-tend school or work. Many die be-fore they reach 30. Women withthe illness who become pregnantcan suffer severe and sometimesfatal complications.

Worldwide, 33.4 million peoplehad rheumatic heart disease in2015, and at least 319,400 diedfrom it, according to estimatespublished last year — a publichealth disaster caused by a pre-

ventable disease that has beenlargely wiped out in the UnitedStates and Western Europe.

Earlier this year, hoping to beatthe odds, Florence and her motherconsulted doctors from a humani-

tarian group, Team Heart, thatflies in from the United States andCanada once a year to performvalve-replacement surgery.

About 100 people showed up tobe screened for the lifesaving op-eration. The team could operateon only 16.

Lying on an examining table,eyes huge in her gaunt face, Flor-ence looked impossibly fragile,her arms thin as broomsticks, hershoulders jutting up like a skele-ton’s. She had wasted away to 78pounds; five were fluid.

Dr. Pat Come, a Harvard cardi-ologist, pressed a stethoscope toFlorence’s chest, back and neck,and palpated her belly. A sonogra-pher, Marilyn Riley, from Beth Is-rael Deaconess Hospital in Bos-ton, ran an ultrasound probe overFlorence’s chest, showing herheart valves in motion and meas-uring the pressure gradientsacross them, the blood flowthrough her heart and the size ofits chambers.

“She has significant disease oftwo valves,” Dr. Come finally said.“But the operative mortality islikely too high. Medical therapy isthe best option.”

A translator explained in Kin-yarwanda that Florence was toosick for surgery. Florence asked if

Where a Sore Throat Becomes a Slow Death SentenceBy DENISE GRADY A Team Visits Rwanda

to Repair Hearts Hurtby Untreated Strep

Florence Ndimubakunzi, 18, was among the candidates screenedby Team Heart for valve-replacement surgery in Rwanda.

ANDREW RENNEISEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 14

Jill Lepore PAGE 1

SUNDAY REVIEW

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WASHINGTON, N.C. — As theflat-bottomed fishing boat creptinto a swirling river that had oncebeen Summer Haven Lane, TrayTillman scanned the brown flood-waters and half-submergedhouses in search of somebody tosave.

“Today it’s been women andkids,” Mr. Tillman said.

Mr. Tillman, 26, a constructionforeman, was part of a makeshiftrescue flotilla that has pluckedhundreds of stranded people fromattics, second-floor bedrooms,church vestibules and crumblingdecks as relentless, record-settingrains from Tropical Storm Flor-ence flood rivers across the Car-olinas and send torrents of waterthrough downtowns miles awayfrom the coast.

Inland flooding is perhaps thebiggest continuing danger asFlorence trudges through the Car-olinas, and an improvised net-work of volunteers, some helpingfrom as far away as Africa, hassprung up to locate and rescuepeople who did not evacuate. Har-nett County, N.C., which is in thepath of a river that was expectedto crest overnight at 17 feet aboveflood stage, was one of many juris-dictions that ordered new evacua-tions. At least six deaths were con-firmed by Saturday afternoon.

“They’re used to flooding, butnothing like this,” said Dan Di-Renzo, who steered the boats withNew Jersey Task Force One Ur-ban Search and Rescue, one of theteams deployed by the FederalEmergency Management Agencyto North Carolina, South Carolinaand Virginia.

FEMA said it had more than1,000 workers in the Carolinas,and the Coast Guard said it hadships and search-and-rescuecrews at the ready. Tennesseesent firefighters and swift-waterrescue specialists, and Marylandsaid it would send its helicopteraquatic rescue team, includingtwo Black Hawk helicopters, onSunday. A team of specialists inurban search-and-rescue andmedical care left with boats toNorth Carolina from New YorkCity, and another team left fromNevada.

There are scores of highlytrained rescuers deployed by

In Carolinas,Rescue by BoatAs Rivers Rage

High-Tech Systems andMakeshift Flotillas

By JACK HEALYand SHERI FINK

Continued on Page 20

Annie Minnifield, 71, was rescued from her home by members of the New Bern and Greenville Fire Departments in New Bern, N.C.VICTOR J. BLUE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

KIEV, Ukraine — At firstglance, what happened toYevgeny G. Kaseyev hardlyseems like misfortune.

Without his knowledge, he says,unknown individuals set up multi-ple companies in his name and de-posited tens of millions of dollarsinto those companies’ bank ac-counts.

“Sometimes it seems fun,” Mr.Kaseyev, a 34-year-old hair-dresser, said with a shrug duringan interview. “I’m a secret million-aire.”

Until the authorities came call-ing, that is, seeking $30 million in

back taxes.One of the people who did busi-

ness with a company opened un-der Mr. Kaseyev’s stolen identitydidn’t mean anything to him. Butthe name certainly caught the eyeof investigators in the UnitedStates: Paul J. Manafort.

Mr. Manafort, who worked for adecade as a political consultant inUkraine before becoming chair-man of the Trump campaign in2016, made a deal worth hundredsof thousands of dollars with theshell company under the hair-dresser’s name. It was called Neo-com Systems Limited, accordingto a Ukrainian lawmaker.

This was just one example ofthe kind of complex financial ar-

rangements that caught the atten-tion of the special counsel, RobertS. Mueller III, and led to Mr. Man-afort pleading guilty to criminalcharges on Friday in Federal Dis-trict Court in Washington.

Looking into tax evasion by Mr.Manafort, Mr. Mueller’s investiga-tors found a web of offshore com-panies, some of which had direc-tors who, like Mr. Kaseyev, did noteven know their identities werebeing used.

Mr. Manafort was convicted inAugust on eight counts of finan-cial fraud and evading taxes onmillions of dollars he earned as aconsultant for pro-Russia politicalforces in Ukraine. He avoided asecond federal trial by pleading

guilty on Friday to conspiracy todefraud the United States, largelythrough the use of offshore com-panies, and conspiracy to obstructof justice.

There is nothing new about Mr.Manafort’s use of shell companiesto hide and launder money. Nor isit surprising that Mr. Manafortshould seek to use the scheme offake directors, say analysts ofUkrainian corruption. It is a com-mon form of subterfuge in formerSoviet states, though hardlyunique to them.

But the role — and sometimesthe plight — of the people whoseidentities were used has gonemostly unnoticed.

Manafort, a Ukrainian Hairdresser and a $30 Million Tax BillBy ANDREW E. KRAMER

Continued on Page 24Offshore companies were setup in Yevgeny Kaseyev’s name.

BRENDAN HOFFMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

TYPHOON IN PHILIPPINES Thedeath toll was initially low, but thefull impact is unknown. PAGE 10

Late Edition

VOL. CLXVII . . . No. 58,087 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2018

Today, mostly sunny, high 79. To-night, increasingly cloudy, humid,low 67. Tomorrow, mostly cloudy,spotty showers, more humid, high78. Details, SportsSunday, Page 8.

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