Life, Death and Careful Routine Fill the Day at a Liberian

VOL. CLXIV . . . No. 56,648 + © 2014 The New York Times WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2014

U(DF463D)X+[!#!@!#!&

The Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollahset off an explosive device that woundedtwo Israeli soldiers and rattled a rela-tively quiet Middle East border. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-11

Hezbollah Blast Shatters Calm

The Cardinals’ Matt Adams, above, hit athree-run homer that gave St. Louis a3-2 win and a spot in the NationalLeague Championship Series for afourth straight year. The Cardinals willface the San Francisco Giants, who beatthe Washington Nationals, 3-2. PAGE B11

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B11-14

Cardinals and Giants Advance

A federal appeals court struck downbans against same-sex marriage in Ida-ho and in Nevada. PAGE A19

NATIONAL A16-20

Two More Marriage Bans Fall

With quinoa or freekeh, grain bowls areon the menus of trendy restaurants, oryou can make them at home. PAGE D1

DINING D1-8

A Bowl of Flavor

A regal presence on Broadway for morethan a half-century who was especiallyknown for her performances of EdwardAlbee’s work, she was 86. PAGE A20

OBITUARIES A20-21

Marian Seldes, Actress, Dies

This article is by Mark Landler,Anne Barnard and Eric Schmitt.

WASHINGTON — As fighterswith the Islamic State bore downTuesday on the Syrian town ofKobani on the Turkish border,President Obama’s plan to fightthe militant group without beingdrawn deeper into the Syrian civ-il war was coming under acutestrain.

While Turkish troops watchedthe fighting in Kobani through achicken-wire fence, Turkey’spresident, Recep Tayyip Erdo-gan, said that the town was aboutto fall and Kurdish fighterswarned of an impending bloodbath if they were not reinforced— fears the United States shares.

But Mr. Erdogan said Tuesdaythat Turkey would not get moredeeply involved in the conflictwith the Islamic State unless theUnited States agreed to givegreater support to rebels tryingto unseat the Syrian president,Bashar al-Assad. That has deep-ened tensions with PresidentObama, who would like Turkey totake stronger action against theIslamic State and to leave thefight against Mr. Assad out of it.

Mr. Erdogan has also resistedpleas to send his troops acrossthe border in the absence of a no-fly zone to ward off the Syrian AirForce.

Even as it stepped up air-strikes against the militantsTuesday, the Obama administra-tion was frustrated by what it re-gards as Turkey’s excuses for notdoing more militarily. Officialsnote, for example, that the Amer-ican-led coalition, with its heavyrotation of flights and airstrikes,has effectively imposed a no-flyzone over northern Syria already,so Mr. Erdogan’s demand forsuch a zone rings hollow.

“There’s growing angst aboutTurkey dragging its feet to act toprevent a massacre less than amile from its border,” a senior ad-ministration official said. “Afterall the fulminating about Syria’shumanitarian catastrophe,they’re inventing reasons not toact to avoid another catastrophe.

“This isn’t how a NATO allyacts while hell is unfolding astone’s throw from their border,”said the official, who spoke anon-ymously to avoid publicly criticiz-ing an ally.

Secretary of State John Kerryhas had multiple phone calls inthe last 72 hours with Turkey’sprime minister, Ahmet Davuto-glu, and foreign minister, MevlutCavusoglu, to try to resolve theborder crisis, American officialssaid.

For Mr. Obama, a split withTurkey would jeopardize his ef-forts to hold together a coalitionof Sunni Muslim countries tofight the Islamic State, alsoknown as ISIS or ISIL. WhileTurkey is not the only countrythat might put the ouster of Mr.Assad ahead of defeating the rad-

TURKISH INACTIONON ISIS ADVANCEDISMAYS THE U.S.

THREAT ACROSS BORDER

Militants Move Against

Kurdish Fighters in

a Syrian Town

Continued on Page A11

By TRIP GABRIEL

NILES, Ohio — Just weeks be-fore elections that will decidecontrol of the Senate and crucialgovernors’ races, a cascade ofcourt rulings about voting rules,issued by judges with an increas-ingly partisan edge, are sowingconfusion and changing votingprocedures with the potential toaffect outcomes in some states.

Last week, a day before votingwas scheduled to begin in Ohio,the United States Supreme Courtsplit, 5 to 4, to uphold a cut in ear-ly voting in the state by oneweek; the five Republican ap-pointees voted in favor and thefour Democratic appointeesagainst. Cases from North Caroli-na and Wisconsin are also beforethe court, with decisions expect-ed shortly, while others are pro-ceeding in Texas and Arkansas.

The legal fights are over lawsthat Republican-led state govern-ments passed in recent years tomore tightly regulate voting, inthe name of preventing fraud.Critics argue that the restrictionsare really efforts to discourageAfrican-Americans, students andlow-income voters, who tend tofavor Democrats.

Ohio reduced early voting by aweek early this year, includingone day of Sunday voting whenblack churches conduct “souls tothe polls” voter drives. An ap-peals court composed of threeDemocratic appointees had ruledthat the cutbacks violated theConstitution’s equal-protectionclause and the Voting Rights Act,and proponents went to the Su-preme Court. The result, here aselsewhere, has been an increas-ingly charged environment inwhich voting rules have been asenmeshed in partisan politics asthe races themselves.

“The new voter suppression inthe 21st century is all this voter

Ballot RulingsSow ConfusionIn State Races

On Vote Fraud, Courts

Split on Party Lines

Continued on Page A18

By SHERI FINK

SUAKOKO, Liberia — The dirtroad winds and dips, passesthrough a rubber plantation andarrives up a hill, near thegrounds of an old leper colony.The latest scourge, Ebola, is un-der assault here in a cluster of co-balt-blue buildings operated byan American charity, Internation-al Medical Corps. In the newlyopened treatment center, Liberi-an workers and volunteers fromabroad identify who is infected,save those they can and try tohalt the virus’s spread.

It is a place both ordinary andotherworldly. Young men whofeel well enough run laps aroundthe ward; acrid smoke waftsfrom a medical waste incineratorinto the expansive tropical sky;

doctors are unrecognizable inyellow protective suits; patientswho may not have Ebola listen toa radio with those who do, sep-arated by a fence and fresh air.

Here are the rhythms of a sin-gle day:

7:20 A.M. Soon after their arrival,about a half-dozen doctors andnurses gathered near white-boards for the handoff from thenight shift. There were 22 pa-tients, and no deaths overnight.The center — which includes atriage area, a restricted unit forpatients suspected of havingEbola infections and another forthose in the grip of the disease —

is not teeming like some clinics inMonrovia, more than four hourswest. It is designed to accommo-date up to 70 patients, but it isstill scaling up after opening afew weeks ago and has just twoambulances to ferry patients.

An 8-year-old boy had been tooweak to lift a liter bottle of oral re-hydration solution to his mouththrough the night. Bridget AnneMulrooney, an American nurse,reported that she gave him asmaller bottle and sheets to keepwarm. A woman who had lostboth her baby and husband toEbola and was suspected of hav-ing the disease herself was refus-

ing food and medications forsymptoms and other possible ill-nesses, such as malaria. A man inhis 70s, a talkative staff favorite,was now confused, his sheet cov-ered in blood. He had been ad-mitted four days earlier, but lab-oratory tests confirming an Ebo-la diagnosis had not come backyet. “I think he’s positive,” saidDr. Colin Bucks, an American. “Ithink this will be an end-of-lifeevent.”

Eight patients needed intra-venous fluids to combat dehydra-tion. One patient was describedas happy. Another was playing

Life, Death and Careful Routine Fill the Day at a Liberian Clinic

DANIEL BEREHULAK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The morning rituals at an Ebola clinic in Suakoko, Liberia, where a team of workers takes food, water and medicine to patients.

Continued on Page A12

THE EBOLA WARD

The Rhythm of Illness

By JONATHAN MARTIN

CHICAGO — When he soaredto victory by almost 10 millionvotes in 2008, President Obamawon in states like Virginia thatDemocratic candidates had notcaptured since 1964. He wastrumpeted as a transformationalleader who remade Americanpolitics by creating a new elector-al map and a diverse voter coali-tion to shape the Democratic Par-ty for the 21st century.

But for now he has been re-duced to something else: an iso-lated political figure who isviewed as a liability to Demo-crats in the very states wherevoters by the thousands had oncestood to cheer him.

When Mr. Obama entered thecampaign fray last week, he didso by returning to the uncondi-tional embrace of his own home-town, in a blue state where the in-cumbent Democratic senatorfaces scant opposition and theDemocratic governor is runningin part on his support for the Af-fordable Care Act. On Tuesday,the president attended privatefund-raisers in Manhattan, to befollowed by similar events in LosAngeles and San Francisco. Ar-kansas it is not.

As November nears, Mr. Oba-ma and his loyalists are beingforced to reconcile that it is notonly Democrats in conservative-leaning states, like Senator Mark

In This Election,

Obama’s Party

Benches Him

Continued on Page A18

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

New York City is poised to re-define what constitutes a transi-tion from one sex to another, al-lowing a person’s own identity,not anatomy, to be the determin-ing factor.

The change, which is being ad-vanced both by the City Counciland the de Blasio administration,would allow alterations to birthcertificates with the blessing ofany of a broad range of healthcare professionals, including doc-tors and psychotherapists butalso physicians’ assistants, nursepractitioners and midwives.

The twin proposals, introducedon Tuesday, would allow some-one to amend the document solong as a qualified professionalattests that the requested change“more accurately reflects the ap-plicant’s sex” and is consistentwith “contemporary expertstandards regarding genderidentity.”

Officials and advocates saidthe policy would be among themost progressive for transgenderrights around the country, easinga long-established burden formany New Yorkers wadingthrough bureaucratic labyrinthsas they seek employment, driv-er’s licenses or pension benefits,among other things.

Currently, under city law, any-one hoping to change the genderon a birth certificate must pro-

Easing the Law

For New Yorkers

Shifting Gender

ED JONES/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong on Monday. Recent weeks’ conflict with Beijing hasserved only to bolster Hong Kong’s identity as separate from the rest of China. Page A4.

A People Apart

By ALEXANDRA ALTER

Of all the horrors Louis Zampe-rini endured during World War II— a plane crash into the Pacific,47 days stranded at sea, twoyears in a prisoner-of-war camp— the one experience that trulyhaunted him was when a Japa-nese guard tortured and killed aninjured duck.

The episode, recounted in Lau-ra Hillenbrand’s best seller “Un-broken,” also traumatized manyreaders, Ms. Hillenbrand said. Sowhen she was writing a new edi-tion aimed at young adults, sheleft that scene out.

“I know that if I were 12 andreading it, that would upset me,”Ms. Hillenbrand said.

Inspired by the booming mar-ket for young adult novels, a

growing number of biographersand historians are retrofittingtheir works to make them palat-able for younger readers. Promi-nent nonfiction writers like Ms.Hillenbrand, Jon Meacham andRick Atkinson are now grapplingwith how to handle unsettling orcontroversial material in theirbooks as they try to win over thisimpressionable new audience.

And these slimmed-down, sim-

plified and sometimes sanitizededitions of popular nonfiction ti-tles are fast becoming a vibrant,growing and lucrative niche.

Publishers are unleashing aflood of these books. Mr. Meach-am recently published his firstchildren’s book, a version of his759-page biography of ThomasJefferson tailored to readers 10

To Lure Young Readers, Nonfiction Writers Sanitize and Simplify

Continued on Page A3

EBOLA IN SPAIN More people were quarantined as health workers criti-cized their training and the health minister was urged to quit. PAGE A12

CHECKING TRAVELERS Officials promised extra measures to screen air-line passengers arriving in the United States. PAGE A14

Continued on Page A23

Three physicists were recognized forenabling the production of white lightfrom semiconductors. PAGE A7

LED Work Earns a Nobel

A review board found that complaints ofa banned police tactic increased as adisciplinary process fell short. PAGE A22

NEW YORK A22-23

Chokehold Report Is Released

The I.M.F. says cash-rich nations likeGermany have to increase spending tolift the flagging global economy. PAGE B1

BUSINESS DAY B1-10

Reversing a Global Slowdown

A collection of Flannery O’Connor’s pa-pers is headed to the university. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Emory Acquires Writer’s Trove

Independent oil refineries worry thatrising U.S. exports could mean highergasoline prices while major energy com-panies argue the opposite. SECTION F

SPECIAL TODAY

Energy

Thomas L. Friedman PAGE A25

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A24-25

C M Y K Yxxx,2014-10-08,A,001,Bs-BK,E2_+