C M Y K Nxxx,2018-10-14,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

She grew up picking ginseng and collecting butterflies in a remote Chinese village. She moved to Saipan, where she rana successful restaurant with her husband. Now she was crumpled outside the massage parlor where she toiled along

40th Road in Flushing, Queens, her blood pooling on the pavement. Her clients knew her as SiSi. The police called herJane Doe Ponytail. But her real name was Song Yang. By Dan Barry and Jeffrey E. Singer. SPECIAL SECTION

THE CASE OF JANE DOE PONYTAIL

TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

DUBLIN, Ohio — Robert Pe-ters and George Fidelibus walkedoff the 18th green at the Golf Clubof Dublin, then carried pints ofbeer to the patio overlooking thecourse, which was framed by$500,000 homes.

Their conversation quicklyturned to the president.

“I’m feeling better and betterabout him all the time,” said Mr.Peters, 63, a retired engineer.

Mr. Fidelibus, 75, a retiredbanker, had also once been skepti-cal of the president.

“I’m a supporter of Trump now,”he said “He may not always saythings the way most presidentsbefore him said them, but whatdoes it matter? They didn’t get thejob done.”

As a divided nation heads into acrucial election, much of the atten-tion is focused on the anti-Trumpanimus of suburban women.

Much less examined are theirmale counterparts. While recentpolls show that white women witha college degree favor DemocraticHouse candidates by 20 points ormore, white college-educatedmen — who focus more singularlyon economic issues, according tosurveys — are a potential bulwarkfor the president and his party. Itis especially true in suburban bat-

Suburban Men‘Feeling Better’

About TrumpBy TRIP GABRIEL

Continued on Page 16

WASHINGTON — The partici-pants nicknamed it “Davos in theDesert,” which captures the loftyambitions of the annual investorconference scheduled to convenein Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, thismonth.

Initially planned as an intimategathering, it grew quickly in sizeand scope, and the inauguralmeeting last year reflected the de-termination of its host, CrownPrince Mohammed bin Salman, tobe a player on the world stage.

In keeping with Muslim prac-tice, no alcohol was served. Wait-ers roamed the vast, opulent Ritz-Carlton Hotel, offering pale Saudicoffee and exotic fruit drinks. Out-side the hotel, female executiveskept their arms and legs covered.But the gathering was an extrava-gant embodiment of Crown PrinceMohammed’s dream to modern-ize Saudi Arabia and wean it off itsreliance on oil by 2030.

Speaking on stage to the FoxBusiness Network anchor MariaBartiromo, the prince said SaudiArabia “and all of its projects andprograms can reach new horizonsin the world.” Then he presentedhis blueprint for Neom, a $500 bil-lion planned city that would risefrom the sands — a futuristic Xan-adu of high-tech jobs and robotworkers.

Last week, that vision collidedwith the brutal realities of theMiddle East — a swirl of allega-tions that Crown Prince Moham-med’s family ordered the murderof a Saudi journalist in Turkey. Theensuing furor has tarnished thefuture king’s reputation and left

his conference in tatters, as for-eign investors confront the darkside of his Arabian dreams.

If last year’s conference servedas a grand coming-out party forCrown Prince Mohammed, thisyear’s gathering is a symbol of theWest’s deepening disillusionmentwith the young leader. No longerthe bold reformer bent on mod-ernizing his kingdom — a favoriteof President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner — he is nowregarded as an impulsive, unreli-able autocrat who falls back oncrude tactics to crush dissent.

The grisly, if unconfirmed, re-ports about the journalist, JamalKhashoggi, have prompted agrowing list of attendees andsponsors to bail out of the Riyadhmeeting. By week’s end, The NewYork Times and every majorWestern news organization, ex-cept Fox Business Network, hadcanceled its participation.

The chief executive of Uber,

Saudi Prince’s ShowcaseTarnished by Grisly Report

Global Conference in Tatters as SuspicionsAbout Critic’s Fate Shadow Monarch

Crown Prince Mohammed binSalman of Saudi Arabia.

ALASTAIR GRANT/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Continued on Page 8

By MARK LANDLER and KATE KELLY

JOHNNY MILANO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Whipped up by Hurricane Michael, the Gainer Bayou surged into the Panama City, Fla., home ofBill and Marie Duke. Inland, in some unlikely places, the devastation was just as bad. Page 24.

Florida Is Turned Inside Out

SCHOHARIE, N.Y. — It wassupposed to be a surprise.

Axel Steenburg had been plan-ning a birthday party for his wife,Amy, for a while. But the ever ex-citable Mr. Steenburg was notori-ously bad at keeping secrets and,somehow, she found out.

“He would try to hide it fromyou and then you would see himbiting his cheek. It was so obvi-ous,” his mother, Janet Steenburg,said. “And then he would say,‘You’re not going to believe what Ihave for you.’”

Mr. Steenburg coordinated apassel of friends through a groupchat, arranging for a tour and tast-ing at a popular upstate breweryand renting a party bus to makesure that anyone drinking wouldnot be driving. He even set aside

two spare bedrooms in his home inAmsterdam, N.Y., a small citynorthwest of Albany, in casesomeone was not sober enough todrive home. But the bus brokedown before picking them up, sohe booked whatever he could findat the last-minute: a white stretchlimousine.

It fit 18. They were 17. Thatwould do.

Behind the wheel of the 2001limousine was a husband holdingdown a part-time job as a driverfor a company whose vehiclesmade him worry for his safety.

About 25 miles to the south, aprofessor and his father-in-law

were out celebrating a family wed-ding and pulled over at a roadsidecountry store to take a break fromdriving.

All 20 would soon be dead.Their lives were cut short in a

violent limousine crash inSchoharie, N.Y., this month, thathas left in its wake a collection ofmourning families, a clutch ofyoung orphans and state and fed-eral officials trying to piece to-gether what went wrong.

On Wednesday, the operator ofthe limousine company, NaumanHussain, was arrested by theState Police and charged withcriminally negligent homicide asa result of renting out a vehicle —a hulking 2001 Ford Excursion —even though it had repeatedlyfailed inspections, including of itsbrakes, and had been deemed notroad worthy by state officials.

Mr. Hussain, 28, pleaded not

A Birthday Bash, 17 Friends and a Ragged LimoThis article is by Jesse McKinley,

Luis Ferré-Sadurní and KristiBerner.

How Trip to CelebrateEnded in Deadliest

Crash in Decade

Continued on Page 18

Over the past decade, JaredKushner’s family company hasspent billions of dollars buyingreal estate. His personal stock in-vestments have soared. His networth has quintupled to almost$324 million.

And yet for several years run-ning, Mr. Kushner — PresidentTrump’s son-in-law and a seniorWhite House adviser — appearsto have paid almost no federal in-come taxes, according to confi-dential financial documents re-viewed by The New York Times.

His low tax bills are the result ofa common tax-minimizing ma-neuver that, year after year, gen-erated millions of dollars in lossesfor Mr. Kushner, according to thedocuments. But the losses wereonly on paper — Mr. Kushner andhis company did not appear to ac-tually lose any money. The losseswere driven by depreciation, a taxbenefit that lets real estate invest-ors deduct a portion of the cost oftheir buildings from their taxableincome every year.

In 2015, for example, Mr. Kush-ner took home $1.7 million in sala-ry and investment gains. Butthose earnings were swamped by$8.3 million of losses, largely be-cause of “significant depreciation”that Mr. Kushner and his companytook on their real estate, accord-ing to the documents reviewed byThe Times.

Nothing in the documents sug-gests Mr. Kushner or his companybroke the law. A spokesman forMr. Kushner’s lawyer said that Mr.Kushner “paid all taxes due.”

In theory, the depreciation pro-vision is supposed to shield realestate developers from havingtheir investments whittled awayby wear and tear on their build-ings.

In practice, though, the allow-ance often represents a lucrativegiveaway to developers like Mr.Trump and Mr. Kushner.

Forms SuggestKushner PaidTax Bills of $0

By JESSE DRUCKERand EMILY FLITTER

Continued on Page 23

BEIJING — Rukiya Maimaiti, alocal propaganda official in Chi-na’s far west, warned her col-leagues to steel themselves for awrenching task: detaining largenumbers of ethnic Uighurs andother Muslim minorities.

The Chinese governmentwanted to purge the Xinjiang re-gion of “extremist” ideas, she toldher co-workers, and secular Ui-ghurs had to support the cam-paign for the good of their people.

“Fully understand that this taskis in order to save your relativesand your families,” Ms. Maimaitiwrote. “This is a special kind of ed-ucation for a special time.”

Her warning is one piece of atrail of evidence, often found onobscure government websites,that unmasks the origin of China’smost sweeping internment drivesince the Mao era and establisheshow President Xi Jinping andother senior leaders played a deci-sive role in its rapid expansion.

Speeches, reports and docu-ments online offer a clearer ac-count than previously reported ofhow China’s top leaders set in mo-tion and escalated an indoctrina-tion campaign aimed at eradicat-ing all but the mildest expressionsof Islam and any yearning for anindependent Uighur homeland.

Xi Began Drive To All but Erase

Islam in ChinaBy CHRIS BUCKLEY

Continued on Page 11

“Their tents were destroyed and thedead bodies were scattered,” a policespokesman said of the victims, includ-ing a world-record holder. PAGE 10

INTERNATIONAL 4-12

8 Climbers Die in Nepal StormIt’s tough for any Republican to winstatewide office in California. In his runfor governor, John Cox figures the firststep is telling people his name. PAGE 14

NATIONAL 14-25

The California Campaign TrailAt the Marriott credit union, which hasunusually high fees, service workersfind further stress on thin paycheckswhile their bosses get deals. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Banking Fees for Lowest PaidPatrick Mahomes, the 23-year-old quar-terback who is electrifying the N.F.L. asthe leader of the unbeaten Chiefs, hasKansas City smitten. PAGE 1

SPORTSSUNDAY

‘The Coolest Thing’ in Sports Susan Chira PAGE 1

SUNDAY REVIEW

U(D547FD)v+&!#!_!=!:

PASTOR MEETS TRUMP The presi-dent received the Rev. AndrewBrunson, who had been detainedby Turkey for two years. PAGE 19

Late Edition

VOL. CLXVIII . . . No. 58,115 © 2018 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2018

Today, mostly sunny, cool, high 59.Tonight, becoming cloudy, low 52.Tomorrow, mostly cloudy, somebrief showers, breezy, milder, high67. Details, SportsSunday, Page 12.

$6.00