VIRUS BEGINNING TO OVERWHELM MANY HOSPITALS
58
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A2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
The day we received a text message tellingus that Jessika Loaiza was in labor inColombia, my colleague Federico Rios, aphotographer, jumped on his motorbikeand drove 18 hours to get to her. As theAndes bureau chief for The New YorkTimes, I live in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá,and got in a car to travel a mere 10.
Jessika was a Venezuelan mother livingin Colombia who had lost her job amid thepandemic. With her son, Sebastián, 6, shehad spent most of the year trekking be-tween the two countries, trying to find anew home. We had been following her formonths, aiming to help readers understandthe experience of millions of migrants whohave been displaced by the economicimplosion caused by the health crisis.
As we sped through the Colombia coun-tryside, my colleague Sofía Villamilworked the phones, making sure we wouldhave access to the hospital once we ar-rived. When we did, we were able to docu-ment some of Jessika’s first moments withher newborn baby. Together with the jour-nalists Isayen Herrera and AdrianaLoureiro Fernández back in Venezuela, wecovered Jessika’s 1,500-mile search forstability. How did we do it?
We first met Jessika and her family inMay, on the highway heading out of Bo-gotá. She was just 23 but seemed to becarrying the world on her shoulders.“Where will we sleep?” she wondered.“How will we eat?” And then here wasSebastián, about to make the journey of anadult. Together, they seemed to embodythe toll that the virus was taking on themany around the world whose lives hadalready been upended by war and politicaldysfunction. Once we decided to stick withthem, we needed to keep in touch overmany miles and a shuttered border.
This involved a coordinated effort fromfive journalists (including my editor Juli-ana Barbassa) for more than six months,with several of us driving thousands ofmiles to meet with Jessika and her familyalong the route. The Google documentholding our notes spanned 124 pages.
When they could, Jessika; Sebastián;Jessika’s partner, Javier; and her brother,Jesús, were also participants in the report-ing process, sending us hundreds of text
and audio messages from their journey,sometimes with photographs.
After the initial night on the road, Fede-rico visited Jessika and her family twicealong the route in Colombia, joining themin a smuggler’s truck over a frigid moun-tain pass, and then traveling with them allthe way to the Colombian border city ofCúcuta. Along the way, I sent questions forthe family and asked him to share thesounds, smells and textures of the journey.
As he traveled with them, I created aninteractive document that combined mynotes with our WhatsApp conversations,and I embedded visual and audio files, allof it in chronological order, to help merecreate the texture of the moment later.
Across the border in Venezuela, thefamily sent us images from a governmentdetention center where they were beingquarantined. And then we lost touch forweeks. Finally, we got lucky: The familywalked into an internet shop, and Jessika’sbrother, Jesús, opened Facebook and be-gan to message us.
We knew that to tell the full story, weneeded to visit them. But because of thevirus, the crossing into Venezuela wasclosed to foreigners like Federico and me.It was then that we called Isayen andAdriana, a reporting team living in Cara-cas, and asked them to go find Jessika.
Our 2,000-word piece, published on Nov.27, is a testament to The Times’s commit-ment to telling complicated stories in diffi-cult times. But the most remarkable part ofthis narrative is that Jessika and her fam-ily did all of this — allowing us to followthem for months, to document their mostdifficult and intimate moments — withoutasking for anything in return. They under-stood that their story would help others.
Days before the story ran, Jessika gaveme some of the first good news I’d heardfrom her. After they had spent severalnights on the street in Bogotá, her old bosshad given them a room to sleep in. Javierhad found a job at a recycler. And Jessikahad re-enrolled Sebastián in school.
Life was still precarious. But for a mo-ment, it seemed that the journey back toColombia had been worth it.
Inside The Times
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
Jessika Loaiza and Sebastián, her son, before going to sleep on the street in Bogotá, Colombia.
FEDERICO RIOS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Following a 1,500-Mile MigrationBy JULIE TURKEWITZ
Read the story at nytimes.com/by/julie-turkewitz.
December 10, 1992. “Buckingham Palace wrote the unhappy ending today to a storybookmarriage gone badly wrong,” The Times reported. In a seven-sentence statement read ontelevision by Prime Minister John Major, Britons learned that Charles and Diana, thePrince and Princess of Wales, were splitting up. The royal court said the couple did notintend to divorce, but they did four years later.
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N A3THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
By some counts, Leonardo da Vinci’snotebooks run to 16,000 pages; onlya fraction have been viewed.Opening Doors of Perception C4
•
It is impossible to know whoinvented the handbag, but bagsmade from linen, papyrus andleather were found in the tombs ofancient Egypt, dating from 2686 to2160 B.C.They Were Carried Away D1
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Last month, Disney’s chief executiveannounced that the Disney+streaming service had reached 74 million subscribers after 11months in operation. (Netflix tookseven years to reach that threshold,and now has 195 million customers.)Disney to Turbocharge Its Streaming Offerings B3
Chinese authorities have keptMichael Kovrig — a formerCanadian diplomat accused, withoutevidence, of espionage — so isolatedthat he was not aware of the detailsof the pandemic until October, hiswife, Vina Nadjibulla, said.Two Years of Uncertainty Under DetentionBy China for Canada’s ‘2 Michaels’ A17
Sixty-four percent of Gen Z adultwomen say that a possible change inabortion laws is a source of stress forthem in 2020, according to anAmerican Psychological AssociationSurvey in August.Abortion Rights Activists Take a Youthful Turn D1
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After its first day on the stock marketon Wednesday, the mobile deliverycompany DoorDash was valued at$72 billion, more than the marketcapitalization of Domino’s Pizza andChipotle Mexican Grill combined.DoorDash Soars 86% Over I.P.O. B1
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Cuba first made it possible to getinternet on cellphones two years ago.Over all, about two-thirds of thepopulation have some kind of accessto the web, government data shows.‘An Awakening’: Cubans’ Access to the InternetFosters Dissent A12
Of Interest
NOTEWORTHY FACTS FROM TODAY’S PAPER
JAMES JARVIS
“There will be no place for us to go if we get sick — that’s thebottom line.”SIMONE RUBI, who owns a coffee shop in Big Bend, a remote region of Texas with just one hospital in12,000 square miles and a surging number of coronavirus cases.
Quote of the Day
NOWHERE FOR THE SICK TO GOIN RURAL WEST TEXAS A1
A Year Like No Other: 2020 in Pictures
Construction of a field hospital in Wuhan, China. Angrycrowds in the United States. Vacant streets in London. Im-peachment, wildfires and more. The collection of images ofthese 12 historic months was the most read piece on Wednes-day. For more insights, see Spotlight (right).
‘There’s No Place for Them to Go’:
I.C.U. Beds Near Capacity Across U.S.
Amid the deadliest week of the pandemic for the nation, morethan a third of Americans live in areas where hospitals arerunning critically short of intensive care beds, federal datashowed. Doctors and researchers said the shortages werealready causing serious damage.
To Lose Weight With Exercise,
Aim for 300 Minutes a Week
Can exercise help shed pounds? Yes, suggests a new study,but to benefit, we probably have to exercise a lot. The studyreported that overweight men and women who exercised sixdays a week lost weight; those who worked out twice a weekdid not. This was among most emailed articles on Wednesday.
The Best Actors of 2020
Zoë Kravitz (“High Fidelity”) and Ethan Hawke (“The GoodLord Bird”) are among the actors who gave the best perform-ances of the year, our critics say. The list, which includes anargument for Cher for the 1987 film “Moonstruck,” was amongthe most popular articles on Twitter.
The Conversation
FOUR OF THE MOST READ, SHARED AND DISCUSSED POSTS
FROM ACROSS NYTIMES.COM
GETTY IMAGES
As part of the “Year in Pictures” project, the reporter DionneSearcey interviewed the featured photographers for insightson their images. On Twitter, she underscored their collectiveachievement. Her lightly edited comments are below.
Spotlight
ADDITIONAL REPORTAGE AND REPARTEE
FROM OUR JOURNALISTS
Look for the collection in a special section of Sunday’s newspaper.
The virus upended the very way photographers know
best to go about their jobs. Suddenly, intimacy and
spending long stretches of time with their subjects
could be deadly. Reporters like me could often work
from home, stuck working on stories by phone or Zoom.
That wasn’t an option for photographers, who lived
what they were shooting.
For Demetrius Freeman, that meant seeing people
marching in Black Lives Matter rallies echoing things
his mom always told him. “There are a lot of stories that
pull at me, but in this case I kept thinking, ‘Wow, that
could have been me.’”
The photographers’ job was to capture what everyone
was feeling. Ashley Gilbertson went out every day to try.
“Trying to find images that represent that uncertainty
and anxiety,” he said, “was a nightmare.”
Ash Adams went looking for Santa to capture the
moment. “I found him, and he had this glass plate and
a visor so he didn’t have to have a mask on, and I just
thought this was so telling of this time,” she said.
I was lucky to talk to some 70 photographers for this
project. I hope you take the time to look at their images
and read their words.
Dionne Searcey @dionnesearcey
The West Wing: Seasons 1-7 (Dec. 24)
This Aaron Sorkin political drama, whichran from 1999 to 2006, has been a Netflixmainstay for years. Warner Bros., whichproduced the series, now has its ownstreaming service, so the show will shift toHBO Max (which recently aired a reunionspecial) at Christmas. It remains potenttelevision comfort food.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Dec. 25)
The idea of another cinematic Spider-Manmay sound less than appealing. But this2018 adventure (which won the Oscar forbest animated feature) is both a winkinglyself-aware commentary and a thrillingstory, focusing on the teen Miles Morales’sdiscovery not only of his own spider-powers but also of additional Spider-men(and women) from other dimensions.
An Education (Dec. 31)
This 2009 release was the breakthroughfilm for Carey Mulligan, who stars as awhip-smart but socially awkward 16-year-old who becomes the unlikely object of theaffections of a much older man (played,with a delicate mixture of warmth andsleaze, by Peter Sarsgaard). The inappro-priateness of the age gap is the film’ssubject but not its focus; the intelligentscreenplay by the novelist Nick Hornbyand sensitive direction by Lone Scherfigare nuanced enough to acknowledge thethrill offered by such a relationship enroute to the inevitable heartbreaks.
Pride & Prejudice (Dec. 31)
Joe Wright (making his feature directorialdebut) rendered this 2005 adaptation ofJane Austen’s classic novel into somethingnew and noteworthy, eschewing thestarchiness of many a period drama tofocus on the timeless quality of its attrac-tions and frustrations. And he gets a bigboost its stars Keira Knightley andMatthew MacFayden.
WarGames (Dec. 31)
Video games were still a new sensation,and the notion of online interactionseemed like science fiction, when thistense thriller hit theaters in 1983. Now, inmany ways, it plays like a warning ofthings to come. Matthew Broderick(above, at his charismatically smarmybest) is a high school computer whiz whoinadvertently dials in the U.S. military’ssupercomputer and begins a nuclear warsimulation. JASON BAILEY
For more reviews, go to nytimes.com/watching.
Here to Help
NETFLIX TITLES TO STREAM BEFORE THEY LEAVE IN DECEMBER
MGM
The Mini Crossword
BY JOEL FAGLIANO
12/10/2020 EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ
1 2 3 4
5
6
7
8
ACROSS
1 Move like a dreidel
5 Scent of a Christmas candle
6 Grape with “noir” and “grigio”
varieties
7 Against
8 Give someone a hand
DOWN
1 Prickly part of a cactus
2 Companion of the Niña and the
Santa Maria
3 How latkes are cooked
4 Nothing but ___
6 Bottom of a paw
SOLUTION TO
PREVIOUS PUZZLEA I R
C R O S S
M O A N A
E N D O N
S W E
©Belperron,LLC.Allrightsreserved.
MODERN, BEFORE THE WORLD WAS
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A4 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Tracking an OutbreakN
A day after the rollout of a coronavirus vaccine began in Britain anda day before its possible approval in the United States, Canadaauthorized the drug on Wednesday. But Britain, which approved thesame vaccine last week, sounded a slight note of caution.
Drug regulators said that, for now, people with severe allergiesshould not take the vaccine, developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. TheBritish regulators are investigating allergic reactions in two healthcare workers who were given the first of two doses of the drug onTuesday. Both workers had histories of serious allergies and carriedepinephrine pens, the generic term for EpiPens, to counter symp-toms of a condition called anaphylaxis, like hives, swelling anddecreasing blood pressure.
Another vaccine showed promise: A Chinese vaccine was said tobe 86 percent effective. The announcement came from the UnitedArab Emirates, where trials were conducted. But the announcementwas met with silence from the vaccine’s manufacturer, Sinopharm.The Emirates’ Ministry of Health and Prevention said it had re-viewed an interim analysis by the manufacturer but did not indicatewhether it had conducted its own analysis of the data.
In the United States, the swell of cases continued. On Tuesday,23 states hit seven-day highs for new cases, and 10 recorded seven-day records for deaths. Case numbers have fallen in some Midwest-ern states, but those declines have been more than offset by uncon-trolled outbreaks in some of the country’s largest cities. The Miamiand Los Angeles areas have added thousands of cases each day forthe past week. And in Pennsylvania, which set new one-day highson five days this month, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that he wasamong the 451,000 Pennsylvanians who have contracted the virus.He said on Twitter that he had tested positive, “a reminder that noone is immune from Covid.”
Mr. Wolf, a Democrat, is at least the ninth governor to reportreceiving a positive test result. The first was Gov. Kevin Stitt ofOklahoma, a Republican, in mid-July.
Growing Defiance to Rules in the U.S.
Resistance to restrictions in the United States continues. SomeCalifornia towns have rebelled against restrictions on restaurantsby voting to form their own health departments. Among them areBeverly Hills, where Mayor Lester Friedman said the county had“lost touch” with Angelenos, and Hawaiian Gardens, a working-class Latino hamlet where a casino that is the community’s mainemployer and source of revenue was closed by a county order.
In New York City, most restaurant owners have abided by thestate’s ever-changing coronavirus regulations. But the owner andthe manager of a bar on Staten Island did not comply with the rules,staying open late in defiance of a 10 p.m. curfew. Nor did the bar,Mac’s Public House, close when it was shuttered by the state lastWednesday.
Tensions between the bar and officials escalated on Saturdaynight, when deputies showed up and saw that the bar was still oper-ating. The manager, Danny Presti, tried to flee in his Jeep and hit asheriff’s deputy, the authorities said. He was arrested and releasedon his own recognizance.
In Idaho, masks were the flash point. A regional health boardhad been expected to vote on a four-county mask mandate on Tues-day, but after about 12 minutes officials adjourned the meetingbecause of protests, not only outside the building where the sessionwas taking place but also at some officials’ homes. The districtdirector, Russell A. Duke, told board members that Mayor LaurenMcLean and the Boise Police Department had asked them to endthe meeting in the interest of public safety.
That was several minutes after one board member, Diana La-chiondo, a commissioner from Ada County, which includes Boise,left after saying a neighbor had texted her about demonstrators ather house. “My 12-year-old son is home by himself right now, andthere are protesters banging outside the door,” she said. She latertweeted that they were fine.
News outlets said hundreds of protesters gathered in the park-ing lot outside the Central District Health building, and the policesaid one person was arrested for refusing to leave the scene.
Gov. Brad Little of Idaho, a Republican, has repeatedly urgedIdahoans to wear masks but has left it to regional health boards tomake mask-wearing a requirement.
More Grim Records in Germany
After Germany reported its highest number of coronavirusdeaths in a single day — 590 — Chancellor Angela Merkel all butsaid that month-old partial restrictions had not been enough. Ms.Merkel has often been thwarted by squabbling among Germany’s 16state governments. Last month, they agreed to only limited restric-tions that were mocked as “lockdown light” because stores, schoolsand workplaces were allowed to remain open.
The case counts and death toll have not come down. As manyGermans died of the coronavirus in the first seven days of Decem-ber as did in traffic accidents in all of 2019, according to a report bythe German National Academy of Sciences, which has recom-mended a strict lockdown after Christmas. Germany’s seven-dayaverage for new cases climbed to 19,112 on Tuesday, a record thatwas nearly three and a half times the seven-day peak in April, whenthe first wave was cresting.
“What will people say, looking back at a once-in-a-century event,if we can’t find a solution” for the next few weeks, Ms. Merkel asked.“If we have too many contacts before Christmas and then later thisbecomes the last Christmas we celebrate with our grandparents,then we missed something.”
By JAMES BARRON
Coronavirus Update
Coronavirus Update wraps up the day’s developments with infor-mation from across the virus report.
Caution in Britain After Allergic Reactions
Tensions Escalate in U.S. Over Restrictions
Partial Limits Fail to Ease Toll in Germany
New cases
80,000
160,000
Days with a datareporting anomaly
7-dayaverage
New Coronavirus Cases Announced Daily in U.S.
As of Wednesday evening, more than 15,413,900 people across every
state, plus Washington D.C., and four U.S. territories, have tested
positive for the virus, according to a New York Times database.
March 1 Dec. 9
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Note: Data is as of Wednesday at 5 p.m. Eastern.
Sources: State and local health agencies; hospitals; C.D.C.
Average daily cases per 100,000 peoplein the past week
25 50 75 125
Hot Spots in the United States
THE NEW YORK TIMES
As of Wednesday evening, more than 15,413,900 people across every state, plus Washington, D.C., and four U.S. territories, have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a New York Times database. More than 288,600 people with the virus have died in the United States.
Nev.
Ga.Miss.
Conn.
N.C.
Iowa
N.D.
Kan.
Texas
R.I.
Mass.
Ark.
Utah
Mont.
S.C.
Mich.
Calif.
Wis.
N.M.
Fla.
Wyo.
N.Y.
Ind.
Minn.Ore.
Maine
Alaska
Tenn.
Pa.
Md.
Ariz.
Wash.
N.H.
Hawaii
Mo.
Del.
W.Va.
N.J.
Idaho
D.C.
Ohio
Ky.
Okla.
La.
Ala.
Vt.
Neb.
S.D.
Colo.
Va.
Puerto Rico
Sources: State and local health agencies. The map shows the share of population with a new reported case over the last week. Data for Rhode Island is shown atthe state level because county level data is infrequently reported. Data is as of Wednesday, at 5 p.m. Eastern. Numbers in some states may be skewed because of testing and reporting irregularities around Thanksgiving.
Ill.
Alice McGraw, 2 years old, waswalking with her parents in LakeTahoe this summer when anotherfamily appeared, heading in theirdirection. The little girl stopped.
“Uh-oh,” she said and pointed:“People.”
She has learned, her mothersaid, to keep the proper social dis-tance to avoid risk of infectionfrom the coronavirus. In this andother ways, she’s part of a genera-tion living in a particular new typeof bubble — one without otherchildren. They are the Toddlers ofCovid-19.
Gone for her and many peersare the play dates, music classes,birthday parties, the serendipityof the sandbox or the side-by-sideflyby on adjacent swing sets.Many families skipped day careenrollment in the fall, and othershave withdrawn amid the newsurge in coronavirus cases.
With months of winter isolationlooming, parents are growing in-creasingly worried about the de-velopmental effects of the ongoingsocial deprivation on their veryyoung children.
“People are trying to weightpros and cons of what’s worse:putting your child at risk for Covidor at risk for severe social hin-drance,” said Suzanne Gendel-man, whose daughter, Mila, is 13months old and pre-pandemic hadbeen a regular play-date buddy ofAlice McGraw.
“My daughter has seen more gi-raffes at the zoo more than she’sseen other kids,” Ms. Gendelmansaid.
It is too early for published re-search about the effects of thepandemic lockdowns on veryyoung children, but childhood de-velopment specialists say thatmost children will likely be OK be-cause their most important rela-tionships at this age are with par-ents.
Still, a growing number of stud-ies highlight the value of social in-teraction to brain development.Research shows that neural net-works influencing language de-velopment and broader cognitiveability get built through verbaland physical give-and-take —from the sharing of a ball to ex-changes of sounds and simplephrases.
These interactions build “struc-ture and connectivity in thebrain,” said Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek,director of the Infant LanguageLaboratory at Temple Universityand a senior fellow at the Brook-ings Institution. “They seem to bebrain feed.”
In infants and toddlers, theseessential interactions are knownas “serve-and-return,” and rely onseamless exchanges of gutturalsounds or simple words.
Dr. Hirsh-Pasek and others saythat technology presents both op-portunity and risk during the pan-demic. On one hand, it allows chil-dren to engage in virtual play byZoom or FaceTime with grandpar-ents, family friends or other chil-dren. But it can also distract par-ents who are constantly checking
their phones to the point that thedevice interrupts the immediacyand effectiveness of conversa-tional duet — a concept known as“technoference.”
John Hagen, professor emeri-tus of psychology at the Univer-sity of Michigan, said he would bemore concerned about the effectof lock-downs on young children,“if this were to go on years and notmonths.”
“I just think we’re not dealingwith any kinds of things causingpermanent or long-term difficul-ties,” he said.
Dr. Hirsh-Pasek characterizedthe current environment as a kindof “social hurricane” with two ma-jor risks: Infants and toddlersdon’t get to interact with one an-other and, at the same time, theypick up signals from their parentsthat other people might be a dan-ger.
“We’re not meant to be stoppedfrom seeing the other kids who arewalking down the street,” shesaid.
Just that kind of thing hap-pened to Casher O’Connor, 14months, whose family recentlymoved to Portland, Ore., from SanFrancisco. Several months beforethe move, the toddler was on awalk with his mother when he sawa little boy nearby.
“Casher walked up to the two-year-old, and the mom stiff-armedCash not to get any closer,” said El-liott O’Connor, Casher’s mother.
“I understand,” she added, “butit was still heartbreaking.”
Portland has proved a little lessprohibitive place for childhood in-teraction in part because there ismore space than in the denseneighborhoods of San Francisco,and so children can be in the samevicinity without the parents feel-ing they are at risk of infecting oneanother.
“It’s amazing to have him stareat another kid,” Ms. O’Connor
said.“Seeing your kid playing on a
playground with themselves isjust sad,” she added. “What is thisgoing to be doing to our kids?”
The rise of small neighborhoodpods or of two or three familiesjoining together in shared bubbleshas helped to offset some parents’worries. But new tough rules insome states, like California, havedisrupted those efforts becauseplaygrounds have been closed inthe latest Covid surge and house-holds have been warned againstsocializing outside their own fam-ilies.
Plus, the pods only workedwhen everyone agreed to obey thesame rules and so some familiessimply chose to go it alone.
That’s the case of Erinn andCraig Sheppard, parents of a 15-month-old, Rhys, who live inSanta Monica, Calif. They are par-ticularly careful because they livenear the little boy’s grandmother,who is in her 80s. Ms. Sheppardsaid Rhys has played with “zero”children since the pandemicstarted.
“We get to the park, we Cloroxthe swing and he gets in and hehas a great time and loves beingoutside and he points at other kidsand other parents like a toddlerwould,” she said. But they don’tengage.
One night, Rhys was being car-ried to bed when he started wav-ing. Ms. Sheppard realized that hewas looking at the wall calendarwhich has babies on it. It happens
regularly now. “He waves to thebabies on the wall calendar,” Ms.Sheppard said.
Experts in child developmentsaid it would be useful to start re-searching this generation of chil-dren to learn more about the ef-fects of relative isolation. There isa distant precedent: Researchwas published in 1974 that trackedchildren who lived through a dif-ferent world-shaking moment, theGreat Depression. The study of-fers reason for hope.
“To an unexpected degree, thestudy of the children of the GreatDepression followed a trajectoryof resilience into the middle yearsof life,” wrote Glen Elder, the au-thor of that research.
Brenda Volling, a psychologyprofessor at the University ofMichigan and an expert in socialand emotional development, saidone takeaway is that Depression-era children who fared best camefrom families who overcame theeconomic fallout more readily andwho, as a result, were less hostile,angry and depressed.
To that end, what infants, tod-dlers and other children growingup in the Covid era need most nowis stable, nurturing and loving in-teraction with their parents, Dr.Volling said.
“These children are not lackingin social interaction,” she said,noting that they are getting “themost important” interaction fromtheir parents.
A complication may involvehow the isolation felt by parentscauses them to be less connectedto their children.
“They are trying to managework and family in the same envi-ronment,” Dr. Volling said. Theproblems cascade, she added,when parents grow “hostile or de-pressed and can’t respond to theirkids, and get irritable and snap.”
“That’s always worse thanmissing a play date.”
A GENERATION IN QUARANTINE
For the Youngest, a Pandemic Without Playmates
Mila Gendelman, 13 months, had regular play dates with other children before the pandemic.CAYCE CLIFFORD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By MATT RICHTEL
Parents worry aboutisolation’s effects oninfants and toddlers.
N A5THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
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Tracking an Outbreak U.S. Fallout
LOS ANGELES — Until latelast month, outdoor dining — nomasks required — was the closestthing to pre-pandemic normal forthe 10 million residents of Los An-geles County. But amid a record-busting surge in hospitalizationsand cases of the coronavirus, thecounty’s health department re-cently said outdoor dining mustcome to a complete halt for thefirst time since May.
This time, angry at the orderand worried it would be the deathknell for many of the 30,000 eat-eries sprawled across the vastcounty’s patchwork of 88 inde-pendent jurisdictions, severalcash-strapped municipalitieshave pushed back and banded to-gether — with votes to form theirown health departments.
“It’s kind of like a mini seces-sion,” said Raphael J. Sonenshein,the executive director of the PatBrown Institute for Public Affairsat California State University, LosAngeles. “Their complaint is thecounty has a one-size-fits-all pre-scription.”
The discussions speak to thegrowing frustration over a coun-tywide order that many elected of-ficials said was inherently a hy-perlocal issue.
While largely symbolic becausethere is no process for local juris-dictions to easily create their ownhealth departments, city councilsacross the county have in recentdays passed resolutions to do ex-actly that — or to annex and join acity that already has its own.
West Covina’s City Council wasamong the first to take such avote. Lancaster, home to 158,000in the high desert, followed suitlast week, as did Beverly Hills.Now hard-hit Hawaiian Gardens,Commerce, Inglewood, West Hol-lywood and others are debatingsimilar moves.
In West Covina, a San GabrielValley hub of 105,000 residents,Mayor Tony Wu called the Los An-geles County Department of Pub-lic Health’s outdoor dining ban, athree-week order that began the
night before Thanksgiving, thespark that set off a state already inthe throes of an economic crisis.
“We’ve done everything theytold us to do and now telling us toshut down isn’t right,” Mr. Wusaid. “Look, I’m an immigrantmayor trying to do the right thingand that means a local policy for alocal issue.”
In Beverly Hills, which has seentourism dwindle and which facesa $27 million budget shortfall com-pared with last year, Mayor LesterFriedman said the county had“lost touch” with Angelenos.
And in Hawaiian Gardens, aworking-class Latino hamletforced to close a casino that is thecity’s main employer and revenuegenerator, the city manager, ErnieHernandez, said residents couldnot afford to eat or pay their bills.“I don’t know what the right an-swer is,” he said, “but shuttingdown again doesn’t seem to be it.”
Across the state, daily case re-ports have tripled in the pastmonth, with more than 25,000 newinfections reported on Tuesday.About 8,500 of them were in LosAngeles County, which now hasmore daily cases than at any pointin the pandemic, setting dailyrecords for nearly a week straight.On Tuesday, the county had about3,000 people hospitalized, nearly aquarter in intensive care units.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently is-sued a three-week lockdown or-der, which went into effect formuch of the state on Monday, thatalso banned outdoor dining andsuperseded the Los AngelesCounty restrictions.
The county is a freeway-con-nected sprawl, with the city of LosAngeles’s four million residentsan island within it. There are somany invisible borders for thedozens of municipalities within itslimits that motorists often do notrealize when they enter one townor leave another — confusion thatcould be exacerbated if there weremultiple ordinances and ordersacross the county.
Many cities in the county oper-ate their own law enforcement,fire and other government serv-
ices, though only Pasadena andLong Beach have separate healthdepartments — and the decision-making power that comes with it.(Pasadena offered outdoor dininguntil last week; Long Beach, cit-ing rising coronavirus cases, didnot.)
But local mayors lack authorityover public schools, transporta-tion and public health — controlthat largely rests with the coun-ty’s board of supervisors, whichupheld the health department’sdecision.
Last week, Judge James Chal-fant of Los Angeles County tempo-rarily agreed with the board of su-pervisors but ordered health offi-cials to produce evidence support-ing the ban. Then, in a decision onTuesday, Judge Chalfant sidedwith the restaurants, limiting theban to three weeks to prevent an“indefinite” closure order.
Although the state ban still su-persedes this ruling, health offi-cials now have about a week toprovide a risk-benefit analysis inorder to extend the closure. Epi-demiologists have said prolongedgatherings without masks, evenoutside, drive spread.
It was not too long ago whenCalifornia’s elected officials —among the first to impose wide-
ranging lockdowns — took pridein an approach that had appearedto stave off the coronavirus.
Then came a series of dininggaffes that undermined pleas toavoid crowds, including Mr. New-som and others failing to heedtheir own rules. In recent days,businesses and officials have seena disparity in the most recent din-ing ban, with outdoor film crew ca-tering spots remaining open, forexample, while restaurants a fewfeet away are without a singlediner.
Despite more than 1.3 million vi-rus cases and roughly 20,000deaths statewide since March, an-ger is bubbling, with recent pro-tests against the new restrictionsstaged outside the homes of thecounty’s health director, countysupervisors and Mayor EricGarcetti.
Many elected leaders said thatwhile they had not yet sorted outwhat it would take to create newhealth departments, they werenonetheless forging ahead, withmany city councils meeting thisweek to discuss a range of ideas,such as contracting for services inan à la carte approach.
Starting a department wouldnot be easy — or without great fi-nancial cost.
Health departments inspect,grade and enforce restaurantsafety, plus prepare and respondto health emergencies and out-breaks. Expensive to build fromscratch — especially during ahealth crisis — they are staffed byspecialists in short supply duringa pandemic.
Plus, cities would need approv-al from the state’s public healthdepartment. Erica Pan, the state’sacting public health officer, whocalled this moment of rising cases“a critical tipping point where in-action and division could lead toloss of life,” said there was cur-rently no process for approvingnew local health jurisdictions.
The spate of council decisions isnot the first push to decentralizethe county system. The city of LosAngeles proposed a health depart-ment in 2013 but shelved the ideaafter learning it would take up totwo years to build and cost at least$333 million annually to operate, aplan that former County Supervi-sor Zev Yaroslavsky called “crazy,stupid” and “dangerous to thepublic health.”
The financial and infrastruc-ture requirements were “impossi-ble for us to implement,” said Mi-guel Santana, the city’s formerchief administrative officer who is
now the chief executive of Fair-plex, a nonprofit space turned co-ronavirus testing center.
Los Angeles currently projectsa budget shortfall of $675 millionby June and is planning deep cuts.Mr. Garcetti has not spoken pub-licly about a new health depart-ment, and did not respond to re-quests for comment, but repre-sentatives said he continued tosupport the existing framework.
“If L.A. didn’t feel the need tohave its own department, with allits power, money and size, thatsays something,” said Mr. Sonen-shein, who has published threebooks on Los Angeles politics.“The dissatisfaction cities are ex-pressing should be taken seri-ously, but you don’t necessarilyneed to redo everything.”
Rather than start from scratch,Mayor James Butts of Inglewoodsaid, one option is regional alli-ances, like a collective South Bayhealth agency that is “focused ondining and retail.”
The South Bay Cities Council ofGovernments, a joint powers au-thority of 16 cities and communi-ties in unincorporated Los Ange-les and Los Angeles County, isweighing “annexing with a citythat already has a health depart-ment,” he said.
A West Hollywood councilman,John D’Amico, acknowledged thatcreating a health departmentwould be difficult but said electedleaders would keep pushing, hop-ing to move the county toward“sensible actions sooner to keepour community viable in 2021.”
While modifying blanket ordi-nances may have merits, the virusknows no borders. And with hos-pitals bracing for a post-Thanks-giving surge while also awaitingvaccine shipments, the wisestchoice may be to exercise pa-tience, some elected leaders said.
“Forming independent healthdepartments on the fly, how manyexpert health officials do youthink are out there to be hired?”asked Mayor Kevin McKeown ofSanta Monica, one of the few may-ors aligned with the county. “Howmany cities without money couldhire them?”
“There’s so much coronavirusthat being in a relatively openplace in the company of other peo-ple is inherently not safe,” he con-tinued. “We’ve had a tremendousresurgence in Southern Califor-nia. We haven’t seen the worst ofit. Not yet.”
‘A MINI SECESSION’
A closed restaurant patio in Los Angeles County, which has banned outdoor dining for three weeks.PHILIP CHEUNG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
California Towns Rebel Against Dining Limits
By ADAM POPESCU
governor’s order. Mr. Cano, aDemocrat, compared governingthrough the pandemic to drivinghis truck through the desert on anempty gas tank, with no cellphoneservice to call for help.
“It’s helpless, frustrating, closeto panic mode,” he said.
Driving the long miles betweenBig Bend’s sparsely populatedtowns, it is hard to fathom how avirus that thrives on human con-tact could flare in a place with somuch wide-open space. Hawksreign in the big blue skies. Cell-phone service is spotty. Christmasdecorations along the road are noton people’s homes, but on theirranch gates.
Yet somehow, new cases haveexploded in recent weeks.
In Brewster County, a sprawl-ing behemoth with 9,200 peoplespread across 6,000 square miles,more than half of the 700-plusknown cases have been identifiedin the last month. In neighboringPresidio County, with 6,700 peoplenear the border with Mexico,cases have quadrupled in the lasttwo months, from less than 100 tomore than 470. Both communitiesskew older, with people 65 and old-er making up about a quarter ofthe population.
“The numbers are goingstraight up at this point,” said Ma-lynda Richardson, the emergencymedical services director for thecity of Presidio, who coughed spo-radically as she herself recoveredfrom the icy chills and knockoutfatigue of Covid-19.
There are a number of reasonsfor the spike.
The area is so remote that localresidents have to travel to El Pasoor Odessa for doctor’s appoint-ments and to buy necessities atWalmart. With cases soaringacross West Texas, the virus mayhave traveled back with them. Of-ficials also cited everyday move-ment to and from Mexico, casesamong young people at Sul RossState University and a surge oftourists undeterred by the pan-demic.
Visitation was up 20 percent atBig Bend National Park in Octo-ber, park officials said, and onThanksgiving weekend so manycars clogged the park it caused atraffic jam. In the liberal artist out-post of Marfa, young people fromAustin and Dallas roam the town,sipping almond milk lattes andphotographing murals that ask
existential questions like, “Is aus-terity an illusion?” A recent art in-stallation caused a stir with a bla-tant message against tourismduring the pandemic: “Everyonehere hates you.”
But tourism, it turns out, is notthe biggest part of the problem.
The area’s limited contact trac-ing shows more localized spread— in bars, in multigenerationalhomes and through people who ig-nore positive test results and con-tinue to work and socialize as nor-mal.
In Alpine, the largest city, with apopulation of 5,900, residentswear masks with their cowboyhats to shop at Porter’s grocerystore, but take them off to eat in-doors at restaurants in town.There is far from universal agree-ment about whether masks arenecessary and effective. In a signof the dispute that has played outon and off social media, the countywas left without a local health au-thority when the doctor in the po-sition, a pediatrician working on avolunteer basis, quit this fall afterfacing pushback from residentswho opposed mask orders andother restrictions.
Brewster County, which in-cludes Alpine, has already in-structed bars to close and reducedindoor dining at restaurants from
75 percent capacity to 50 percent,as required by the governor’s or-der for counties with a high pro-portion of Covid-19 hospitaliza-tions. But enforcement is spotty,and the governor has barred localofficials from imposing rules thatare stricter than his own.
With resources scarce, localhealth clinics are a primary optionfor testing, but even then, theswabs have to be driven threehours to El Paso and flown for pro-cessing in Arlington, outside Dal-las. The National Guard also of-fers periodic testing, and in re-sponse to the growing crisis, newmobile testing vans were sched-uled to arrive this week.
For those who do get seriouslysick, the hospital, Big Bend Re-gional Medical Center in Alpine,has just 25 beds and a makeshiftCovid-19 ward where patientshave been sequestered at the endof the lone, L-shaped hallway.
Dr. John Ray, a family practi-tioner who works shifts at the hos-pital, said the hospital on one re-cent day got back-to-back callsabout incoming coronavirus pa-tients. One of them had to betransferred to a bigger hospital inOdessa to receive specializedcare.
Not long afterward, Dr. Raysaid, he saw the patient’s obituary
in the paper.“I don’t want to see Alpine like
the pictures you see in New York,just people dying in hallwayswaiting for a bed,” said Dr. Ray, 44,who grew up in the small EastTexas town of Troup, moved toWisconsin for his residency andreturned to Texas afterward, set-tling in the Big Bend region in 2013for the beauty and the people. Heand his wife, also a doctor, usually
treat a caseload of strep throat,urinary tract infections and preg-nancy visits. Now, he said, “it’sCovid, Covid, Covid.”
Across West Texas, higher-levelcare hospitals are also full. ElPaso, which was recently so over-run with infection that it broughtin mobile morgues, is still recover-ing from its own virus surge. InLubbock, as many as 50 percent ofbeds were recently filled withCovid-19 patients, and on a partic-ularly bad day last week, the city
reported that it had run out of hos-pital capacity altogether.
Dr. Ray fears there may come aday when more seriously ill pa-tients who would normally betransferred elsewhere will run outof options. “To put it bluntly,” hesaid, “if you can’t go somewhereelse, you are going to die here.”
A spokeswoman for the BigBend Regional Medical Centersaid that the hospital has hadenough room so far, and has addedventilators, oxygen tanks andnurses to prepare for a surge. Ofnine patients in the hospital onWednesday, four had Covid-19.
Still, many remain worried. Si-mone Rubi, 46, a graphic designerand musician who owns a coffeeshop in Marfa, about a 30-minutedrive from the hospital in Alpine,hung a poster outside her to-gowindow summing up the precari-ous situation in four words:“Small town, no hospital.”
“There will be no place for us togo if we get sick — that’s the bot-tom line,” she said, sitting on a pic-nic bench outside her shop on a re-cent Saturday morning.
“We’d have to drive to Dallas,”said her husband, Rob Gungor,who said he had asthma and hadresigned himself to making thenearly eight-hour drive to stay atan Airbnb close to a major hospital
if he contracted the virus, to benearby in case he took a turn forthe worse. Like most people inMarfa, which has accepted masksmore readily than some other BigBend towns, he wore a mask evenwhile outdoors.
“Maybe Phoenix,” he added,“because it’s only a nine-hourdrive.”
For those who live in even morerural parts of West Texas, navigat-ing the coronavirus spike hascome with consequences far be-yond the virus itself.
In the border community of Ter-lingua, there is just one full-serv-ice ambulance for 3,000 squaremiles. Paramedics have on a fewoccasions had to drive coronavi-rus patients three hours round-trip to the hospital in Alpine, leav-ing the region uncovered for otherserious emergencies.
“That has always been ourdraw — it’s an isolated, beautiful,unadulterated landscape,” saidSara Allen Colando, the countycommissioner in Terlingua. Butwith cases rising, the wildernessis also its own kind of peril.
“If they have to take someonewith Covid to God knows where,how long is it before that ambu-lance is back in service?” she said.“Who is going to be there to an-swer the call?”
‘SMALL TOWN, NO HOSPITAL’
As Virus Cases Soar, Rural West Texas Has Nowhere for the Sick to GoFrom Page A1
U.S. Route 67/90 connects the artist town of Marfa and Alpine, Texas. The Big Bend region has one hospital for 12,000 square miles and no heart or lung specialists.JOEL ANGEL JUAREZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Counties ranked in thetop 20 in the U.S. formost new infections.
Mitch Smith contributed reportingfrom Chicago.
N A7THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Tracking an Outbreak Treatment and Research
responding to the epidemic andunderstanding its impact.
Hospitalization figures col-lected by the Covid TrackingProject show that the number ofpeople hospitalized with the virusnationwide has doubled since thebeginning of November. But exist-ing state-level figures have ob-scured vast differences withinstates, making it difficult to recog-nize local hot spots.
The new data shows that someareas — like Amarillo, Texas, Cor-al Gables, Fla., and Troy, Mich. —are seeing rates of serious illnessfrom Covid-19 that approach thelevels seen in New York City dur-ing the worst weeks of the spring.
Political leaders in many statesare ramping up measures to try toslow the spread. Last week, Cali-fornia issued stay-at-home ordersfor regions where hospitals sur-passed 85 percent intensive careoccupancy. Gov. Michelle LujanGrisham of New Mexico, whereI.C.U.s are full across the state, isexpected to soon announce thathospitals can ration care based onwho is most likely to survive.
Doctors and researchers saidthe shortages are already causingserious damage.
At two hospitals in rural Geor-gia, officials have expanded thenumbers of critical care beds to atotal of 30, but on most days lately,all of them are full. Administratorsspend hours worrying about howbest to juggle the numbers so thatno patient is left without propercare.
“22 hours out of 24,” DeborahMatthews, the chief nursing offi-cer for the Tanner Health System,said when asked how much timeshe is spending worrying aboutcapacity issues. AlthoughCovid-19 patients are by no meansthe only ones being treated in thehospitals, the added numbersfrom the virus have stressed thesystem.
“The worry is what are you go-ing to do with the 31st I.C.U. pa-tient? What are you going to dowith the next patient who needs tobe on a ventilator?” she said. “Youhave contingency plans for all ofthat, but you are just constantlythinking about those things.”
Both hospitals, in Carrolltonand Villa Rica, have been operat-ing at more than 100 percent ca-pacity, according to the new fed-eral data set.
The hospitals serve relativelysmall communities where manyof the medical staff know the pa-tients, so they push themselves to
provide the care needed, said LoyHoward, the president of TannerHealth System. “There is not a lotof wiggle room,” he said, “I havebeen doing this for 35 years and Ihave not seen this kind of wearand tear on the staff.”
In North Dakota, which forweeks this fall had the worst rateof infection per capita in the coun-try, the number of unoccupiedI.C.U. beds across the whole stateat times dipped into the single dig-its in early November. In the smallcity of Minot, the hospital, TrinityHealth, devoted more than an en-tire floor of its six-floor hospital tocoronavirus patients.
Other North Dakota hospitalswould normally accept transfersto help ease the burden, but whenDr. Jeffrey Sather, chief of medicalstaff, called around for help, hefound that everywhere else wasalso full.
Patients kept coming, piling upin his emergency room. “There’sno place for them to go,” he said atthe time.
Survival rates from the diseasehave improved as doctors havelearned which treatments work.But hospital shortages could re-verse those gains, risking the pos-sibility of increasing mortalityrates once again as patients can-not receive the level of care they
need.Thomas Tsai, an assistant pro-
fessor of health policy at HarvardUniversity, said that when re-sources are critically constrained,health care workers already fac-ing burnout are forced to makeemotionally wrenching decisionsabout who receives care.
There is some evidence physi-
cians are already limiting care, Dr.Tsai said. For the last severalweeks, the rate at which Covid-19patients are going to hospitals hasstarted decreasing. “That sug-gests that there’s some rationingand stricter triage criteria aboutwho gets admitted as hospitals re-main full,” he said.
In California, where a shortage
of hospital beds triggered a lock-down in much of the state by Mon-day, hospital workers are bracingfor the next few months. Morethan 10,000 Covid-19 patients arenow hospitalized in the state,more than 70 percent above levelsof two weeks ago, and the effectsof the Thanksgiving holiday maynot have been fully felt yet.
At the University of CaliforniaSan Diego Medical Center, justnine intensive care beds were un-occupied on Monday. The mood inthe hospital was one of resigna-tion, said Dr. Chris Longhurst, as-sociate chief medical officer. Formonths, health workers havewatched much of the public ignoretheir advice to take precautionsand avoid the spread of the virus,he said.
“A lot of health care workershave been concerned about this,about the lack of compliance, andnow we’re seeing it play out, andyou just sort of feel resigned,” hesaid. “You’ve got to go to work ev-ery day and help the people whoneed hospital care, but we wishthat it had stopped upstream.”
So far, policymakers have reliedheavily on data on testing andcases to make policy decisions, in-cluding whether schools and busi-nesses should remain open. Butthe new, detailed data on hospitalsmay lead to a rapid shift in whatleaders consider as they make de-cisions, Ms. Blauer, of Johns Hop-kins, said.
“If you’re living in a place wherethere’s no I.C.U. bed for 100 miles,you have to be incredibly carefulabout the social interaction thatyou allow the community to take,”she said.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES
There is just one hospital for 12,000 square miles in the Big Bend region of Texas, where cases have spiked.
Hospitalization rates in parts of Western Kansas exceed those of New York City last spring.
Represents seven-day averages for the week ending Thursday, Dec. 3., by hospital service area. | Source: New York Times analysis of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data.
Covid-19 patients per 100,000 people
20 30 40 50 60 70 80+
NO DATA
EEE
Jonesboro, Ark.109
Sun City, Ariz.86
El Paso88
Amarillo,Texas 117
Saginaw,Mich. 117
Abington, Pa. 132
Burkesville, Ky. 128
Gadsden, Ala. 95
Sebring, Fla. 102
White Plains, N.Y.175
Where the Coronavirus Is Sending People to Hospitals
Beech Grove, Ind.97
Lake Forest, Ill.176
Sioux Falls, S.D.93
An entire floor of the hospital in Minot, N.D., was dedicated to coronavirus
patients last month.
Pa. Gov. Tom Wolf says hospitals could soon be overwhelmed.
“You just sort of feel resigned” watching the public ignore precautions, said a medical officer in San Diego, where space is running out.
THE FRONT LINES
I.C.U.COVID COVID
PATIENTS PATIENTS HOSPITAL I.C.U. PER 100K PER 100K OCCUPANCY OCCUPANCY
National average 30 5 59% 72%
White Plains, N.Y. 175 31 79 79
Troy, Mich. 135 15 79 87
Abington, Pa. 132 30 77 102
Fort Thomas, Ky. 121 31 146 82
Amarillo, Texas 117 42 78 94
Saginaw, Mich. 117 23 98 99
Oak Lawn, Ill. 112 23 71 78
Paterson, N.J. 110 17 71 50
Jonesboro, Ark. 109 28 78 94
Altoona, Pa. 103 19 94 94
Beech Grove, Ind. 97 27 81 86
Hackensack, N.J. 96 22 85 100
Gadsden, Ala. 95 30 77 89
Sioux Falls, S.D. 93 22 65 93
Lubbock, Texas 92 21 73 88
Toledo, Ohio 91 27 59 54
Note: High-population areas are those with 100,000 or more residents. Locations shown represent
hospital service areas, and the national averages are of service areas where data exist. Percentag-
es above 100 may occur when hospitals report patients beyond their normal limits.
Reaching Capacity
In High-Population Areas
Many Hospitals OverwhelmedAs Cases Spread Across U.S.
From Page A1
When Dr. Gbenga Ogedegbe be-gan to research coronavirus infec-tions among Black and Hispanicpatients, he thought he knew whathe would find. Infected Black andHispanic patients would be morelikely to be hospitalized, com-pared with white patients, andmore likely to die.
But that’s not how it turned out.Dr. Ogedegbe, the director of
the division of health and behav-ior at New York University’sGrossman School of Medicine,and his colleagues reviewed themedical records of 11,547 patientsin the N.Y.U. Langone Health sys-tem who were tested for coronavi-rus infection between March 1 andApril 8.
After accounting for variousdisparities, Dr. Ogedegbe foundthat infected Black and Hispanicpatients were no more likely thanwhite patients to be hospitalized.If hospitalized, Black patients hada slightly lower risk of dying.
“We were surprised,” Dr.Ogedegbe said.
The study was published in thejournal JAMA Network Open.Three other recent large studieshave come to similarly surprisingconclusions.
The new findings do not contra-dict an enormous body of researchshowing that Black and HispanicAmericans are more likely to be
affected by the pandemic, com-pared with white people. The co-ronavirus is more prevalent in mi-nority communities, and infec-tions, illnesses and deaths haveoccurred in these groups in dis-proportionate numbers.
But the new studies do suggestthat there is no innate vulnerabil-ity to the virus among Black andHispanic Americans, Dr.Ogedegbe and other experts said.Instead, these groups are more of-ten exposed because of social andenvironmental factors.
“We hear this all the time —‘Blacks are more susceptible,’” Dr.Ogedegbe said. “It is all about theexposure. It is all about wherepeople live. It has nothing to dowith genes.”
Among many other vulnerabili-ties, Black and Hispanic commu-nities and households tend to bemore crowded; many people workjobs requiring frequent contactwith others and rely on publictransportation. Access to healthcare is poorer than among whiteAmericans, and rates of underly-ing conditions are much higher.
“To me, these results make itclear that the disparities in mor-tality that we see are even moreappalling,” said Jon Zelner, an epi-demiologist at the University ofMichigan who led one study.
The toll on Black and HispanicAmericans “could easily have
been ameliorated in advance ofthe pandemic by a less threadbareand cruel approach to social wel-fare and health care in the U.S.,” headded. “Even failing that, so muchof this could have been avoided.”
For example, the federal gov-ernment could have protected citi-zens from risky work situationsby providing income subsidies al-lowing them to stay home, Dr. Zel-ner said. The government couldhave ensured protective equip-ment to workers in nursing homesand long-term care facilities.
Dr. Zelner and his colleagues
examined data on 49,701 coronavi-rus patients in Michigan fromMarch until June. In this popula-tion, the case fatality rate was thesame for Black and white pa-tients: 11 percent.
(The high rate reflects the factthat the incidence in Michiganearly in the epidemic was domi-nated by older people, Dr. Zelnersaid. And the data involve de-tected cases, rather than all infec-tions during this period, a timewhen there was less testing.)
A study of patients in VeteransAffairs hospitals, led by Dr. Chris-
topher Rentsch of the LondonSchool of Hygiene and TropicalMedicine and researchers at theV.A., analyzed the health recordsof more than five million patientsin more than 1,200 facilities.
Some 16,317 tested positive forthe coronavirus. Among them, Dr.Rentsch found, there was no dif-ference in mortality rates be-tween patients who were white,Black or Hispanic.
The investigators had expectedthat underlying health conditionswould lead to a higher fatality rateamong Black and Hispanic pa-tients, who are more likely to haveconditions like obesity and highblood pressure that raise the riskof severe Covid-19.
But in the analysis of the deathrate, those conditions “barelymade it move,” Dr. Rentsch said.Health disparities by race amongV.A. patients, though, tend to besmaller than in Americans overall, he cautioned.
A study in New Orleans, led byDr. Eboni Price-Haywood, who di-rects the Ochsner’s Center forOutcomes and Health ServicesResearch, included the 3,481 pa-tients who tested positive for thecoronavirus between March 1 andApril 11. Black and white patientshad the same case fatality rate,she and her colleagues found.
“It’s always perplexing whenpeople read the paper,” Dr. Price-
Haywood said. By the time some-one was sick enough to be hospi-talized, race became irrelevant.
“If you were fragile enough tobe admitted, you were fragileenough to die,” she said.
The four studies did confirmstark differences in the incidenceof coronavirus infection amongminority and white patients.
In Dr. Ogedegbe’s study, Blackand Hispanic patients were 60 to70 percent more likely than whiteones to be infected. In the re-search in Michigan, the incidenceof infection among Black peoplewas four times higher than thatamong white people.
“If you were to substitute thewhite incidence rates for Blackones, you would see an 83 percentreduction in mortality,” Dr. Zelnersaid.
In the V.A. study, nine of 1,000white veterans had a positive co-ronavirus test, compared with 16.4of 1,000 among Black patients. InNew Orleans, Black patients ac-counted for 76.9 percent of thosehospitalized with Covid-19, al-though they made up 31 percent ofthe health system’s population.
These differences are entirelyexplained by socioeconomic fac-tors, researchers said.
“The larger issue is the role ofsocial determinants of health,” Dr.Price-Haywood said. “Race is asocial construct, not biological.”
EXPOSURE MORE LIKELY
Social Inequities Explain Racial Gaps in Infection and Mortality, Studies Find
Dr. Gbenga Ogedegbe studied coronavirus infections amongBlack and Hispanic patients in the N.Y.U. Langone Health system.
GABRIELA BHASKAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By GINA KOLATA
A8 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Tracking an Outbreak Global Response
MAE SOT, Thailand — The bor-der between Thailand and Myan-mar is more than 1,500 miles long,much of it thickly forested. Myan-mar has suffered runaway trans-mission of the coronavirus. Thai-land, so far, has not.
But over the past couple ofweeks, at least 19 Covid-19 cases inThailand have been linked to mi-grant workers who slipped be-tween the two countries undetect-ed. The infections have spookedThai officials, who have managedone of the world’s most successfulcoronavirus containment strat-egies.
The health authorities in Thai-land are now racing to trace thecontacts of hundreds of peoplewho may have been exposed tothe virus. And the events havecast a spotlight on how regionslike Southeast Asia that dependon porous borders are fighting tokeep the virus out while allowingeconomic activity to continue.
From Mexican farm workers inCalifornia to Ethiopian construc-tion workers in the Persian Gulfand Zimbabwean domestic work-ers in South Africa, essential laboris often carried out by undocu-mented people who slip acrossborders for work. Yet severalcountries are now using the illicitflow of migrant labor to accusetheir neighbors of virus out-breaks.
In Southeast Asia alone, Myan-mar has blamed people fromBangladesh, and Thailand hasblamed Myanmar. Vietnam haspointed fingers at China. AndChina says its southwestern flankis suffering because of movementfrom Southeast Asia.
The winding frontier betweenMyanmar and Thailand — sepa-rating one country that has man-aged the virus from one that hasnot — is putting the crisis in starkrelief.
“The border is very long,” saidCol. Chatri Sanguantham, whosesoldiers patrol the mountainousnorthern Thai region, near thetown of Tachileik, Myanmar.“They will do anything, take anymeasure, to get what they want,including entering the country il-legally,” he said of migrant work-ers from Myanmar.
Compared with other countries,the total caseload in Thailand — ashade over 4,000 infections —seems absurdly low. But over thepast few days, Thailand said it hadfortified parts of its border, in-creased military patrols and un-coiled barbed wire at popular ille-gal crossing points to try and stopthe recent spread of infections.
The police have arrested thosesuspected of being people-smug-glers, who are paid as little as $15to help migrants cross the borderillegally.
Undocumented workers, whooften labor in crowded conditions,are of particular concern to the au-thorities because their uncertainlegal status also makes them lesslikely to admit when they are sick,increasing the odds that the viruscould spread undetected.
“Because these people came inillegally, they will lay low, work inhiding,” said SuthasineeKaewleklai, a coordinator for theMigrant Workers Rights Networkin Thailand. “If they get sick, theywill never go to the doctor or hos-pital to get themselves checked.”
The dangers of overlooking for-eign laborers, even those who areregistered with the government,was made clear in Singapore,where the virus spread fast incrowded dormitories for mi-grants. While meticulous contacttracing suppressed outbreaks in
other communities, the laborerswere not monitored as closely,making them more vulnerable,rights groups said.
In Malaysia, thousands of for-eign factory workers tested pos-itive for the coronavirus at TopGlove, the world’s largest dispos-able glove maker, which went intooverdrive to supply personal pro-tective equipment. Malaysian au-thorities are now pursuing legalaction against the company forkeeping its workers in crampedconditions in which Covid prolifer-ated.
And in Saudi Arabia, the virusspread unchecked in filthy mi-grant detention centers filled withworkers from Asia and Africa,who were often abused and de-prived of wages. When migrantswere eventually deported to theirhome countries, some took the co-ronavirus with them.
Vigilance against the virus hasbeen heightened in the Thai bor-der town of Mae Sot, which sits di-rectly across the Moei River fromMyawaddy, Myanmar. Soldierswearing camouflage and facemasks patrol the riverbank. Be-fore the pandemic, hundreds ofthousands of people used to crossthe river every year to work,study and play in Thailand, whereroughly five million migrants nor-mally find work, only about half ofthem legally.
At the narrowest point of theriver, children could toss a ball be-tween the two countries. In thedry season, migrants wade across
the Moei, and in the rainy seasonthey hop on skiffs.
Thailand began tightening theMae Sot border in the spring, sus-pending traffic over the Friend-ship Bridge to Myawaddy. Re-strictions eased a bit over thesummer, then tightened again inAugust when the number of casesin Myanmar grew quickly.
But for all the talk of a fortifiedfrontier, undetected cross-bordermovement continues, includingpeople who want to avoid Thai-
land’s mandatory two-week quar-antine. Thais still skip over toMyanmar, where casinos andclubs operate in a less-regulatedenvironment, for a few hours offun. Boats evade border posts toopenly transport goods.
Despite this movement, Thai-land has not reported sustainedlocal transmission since May.Hospitals are currently treatingabout 180 Covid cases, accordingto health officials, and almost all ofthem are among people who re-turned from abroad and testedpositive in state-mandated quar-antine.
Yet over the past few months,travelers from Thailand havetested positive after arriving inJapan, Malaysia and South Korea.At least 70 migrant workers whoreturned from Thailand testedpositive in Myawaddy, accordingto the Myanmar authorities.
In September, Ma Win WinMaw, who worked as a cleaner at aconstruction site in Mae Sot,sneaked back to Myanmar hiddenin the back of a truck carrying
food. She said she went straightfrom the truck to a car that tookher to her village, where she wasput in quarantine by local officials.
While in quarantine, Ms. WinWin Maw tested positive for thecoronavirus. The two drivers whotook her home tested negative, asdid residents of her village, lead-ing to suspicions that she con-tracted the virus in Thailand.
“I’m sure there are many pos-itive cases in Thailand that are un-detected,” said Dr. Brang Aung,the head of Hpa-An Hospital inMyanmar, not far from the Thaiborder. In September, his hospitaltreated four virus cases that hebelieves originated in Thailand.
The 17 people who crossed ille-gally from Myanmar to Thailandand tested positive in recent daysare all Thai and are connected to ahotel entertainment complex inTachileik. Almost all are women.They slipped across the border onmultiple days in late Novemberand dispersed to at least five loca-tions across Thailand. The healthauthorities have since closed
schools, used contact tracing anddisinfected airports.
As Thais, the women wouldhave had little fear going to hospi-tals where health care for citizensis subsidized and high quality. Butfor the many undocumented mi-grants in the country, medical clin-ics can be unaffordable and risky.Labor groups say that they knowof multiple cases of workers re-turning to Myanmar from Thai-land with the virus, leading tofears that it may be quietly circu-lating in Thai factories and con-struction sites, despite the low na-tional numbers.
Dr. Sopon Iamsirithaworn, di-rector of the communicable dis-eases division at the Thai Min-istry of Health, acknowledgedthat the country had “very low lo-cal transmission.”
At least two cases of local trans-mission in recent days have beenconnected to the women from thehotel in Myanmar.
In Mae Sot, Thais have startedto organize neighborhoodwatches and set up nighttimeroadblocks to prevent outsidersfrom coming in. But in a bordertown situated directly across theriver from a place in Myanmarwhere at least 1,200 people havehad Covid, keeping out disease isall but impossible.
In October, two truck driversferrying goods from Myanmar toThailand tested positive at a Thaihospital. They spread the virus totheir family members in Myan-mar and to Myanmar nationalsliving in Thailand.
By November, that cluster inThailand was successfully con-tained. But late last month, a pairof Thai women who had crossedover the border illegally fromMyanmar tested positive in MaeSot.
“This area depends on trade, onmigrants,” said Col. Krit Kityathi-wat, the deputy commander of the4th Infantry Regiment that pa-trols the Mae Sot area border. “Wedon’t want to be known as theplace where Covid is coming toThailand.”
MIGRANT CROSSINGS
Infections, and Blame, Spread Across Thailand-Myanmar BorderBy HANNAH BEECH
Vigilance against Covid-19 has been heightened in the Thai border town of Mae Sot, which sitsacross the Moei River from Myawaddy, Myanmar. Left, Thai soldiers patrolling along the river.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADAM DEAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Loading goods bound for Myanmar. The free flow of labor has long been vital to the economy.
Muktita Suhartono contributed re-porting from Mae Sot, Thailand,and Saw Nang from Yangon,Myanmar.
OTTAWA — Canada onWednesday become only the sec-ond Western country to approve acoronavirus vaccine, a week afterBritain did so and a day beforeU.S. regulators will meet to con-sider taking that step, opening thepossibility that Canadians willstart being inoculated next week.
The regulatory agency HealthCanada approved the same vac-cine, created by the Americancompany Pfizer and a Germanfirm, BioNTech, that was autho-rized in Britain and is up for a deci-sion in the United States. Canada’smove marks another milestone inthe global fight against a pan-demic that has killed more than 1.5million people, continues tospread rapidly and has driven theworld into a deep economic crisis.
Health Canada said that it hadcompleted a rigorous, independ-ent review of the data from clinicaltrials on the vaccine’s safety andeffectiveness, which involved tensof thousands of people — the same
kind of scrutiny applied by theU.S. Food and Drug Administra-tion. British regulators, in givingemergency approval, relied large-ly on Pfizer’s own analysis of thatdata, the standard approach inmuch of the world. Bahrain ap-proved the same vaccine on Fri-day.
“It’s a testament to the work ofregulators internationally,” saidDr. Supriya Sharma, the chiefmedical adviser at Health Cana-da, the regulator. “It’s an excep-tional day for Canada.”
The go-ahead means that Cana-dians could receive the vaccine —which requires two doses, weeksapart — before Americans do,though Pfizer is based in theUnited States. That is likely to ag-gravate President Trump, whohas demanded faster action by theF.D.A. and was angry that Britain,which began inoculating peopleon Tuesday, had acted before theUnited States.
The first shipments to Canada,which will total 249,000 doses by
the end of the month, will comefrom a plant in Belgium, officialssaid.
Other vaccines are close behindin the approval processes in Eu-rope and North America, and stillothers are in development. Vac-cines developed in Russia andChina are already in use — theUnited Arab Emirates gave fullapproval to a Chinese inoculationon Wednesday — though clinicaltrials on them are still underway.
Canada, which has a populationof 38 million, has agreed to buy upto 76 million doses from Pfizer,and 414 million doses of other po-tential vaccines from other com-panies, but the rollout will takemonths. Similarly, Britain has ar-ranged for far more doses than itwill need, in case some vaccinesare delayed or do not pan out.
The Trump administration hasonly ordered enough to inoculateabout 15 percent of the U.S. popu-lation, and in July passed up an of-fer from Pfizer to buy more in ad-vance.
Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the Ca-nadian military officer overseeingthe distribution of the vaccine toprovincial health care systems,said that Pfizer would start ship-ping it from a plant in Belgium onFriday. That could make it possi-ble, he said, for Canadians to be-gin receiving shots as early asnext Wednesday.
The vaccine must be kept at ex-tremely cold temperatures untilwithin a few days of use, makingtransportation and storage a chal-lenge. Once it reaches Canada, itcannot be used right away be-cause it must be thawed and pre-pared for injection.
Canada has 14 depots across thecountry with special freezers forthe vaccine. General Fortin said itwould initially be distributed to all10 provinces, which would then beresponsible for injecting people.Officials said the far northern ter-ritories, which are not equipped tohandle the logistical challengesthat go with the Pfizer-BioNTechshot, would have to wait for an-
other vaccine.It will be up to Canada’s provin-
cial governments to decide whowill be vaccinated first. Dr. How-ard Njoo, the country’s deputychief public health officer, said afederal panel has recommendedthat the first injections go to peo-ple over the age of 80, residentsand workers of long-term carehomes, health workers and Indig-enous communities.
François Legault, the premierof Quebec, said his province wouldfirst target long-term care homes,which have been the main sourceof Covid-related deaths in theprovince.
Dr. Sharma said that the vac-cine had been subjected to thesame degree of scrutiny as anyprevious drug or vaccine. But toaccelerate the process, HealthCanada reviewed data from clini-cal trials and manufacturing testsas the data was being generated,allowing for a “rolling review.” Inthe past, the department onlyopened reviews when all trials
and tests were complete.She said that the final data
needed for approval arrived lateTuesday evening and was re-viewed overnight, which allowedthe approval to go forward.
For now, Health Canada has ap-proved the vaccine only for peopleover the age of 16; it is waiting forfurther data from Pfizer before ap-proving it for children.
Canada’s review, Dr. Sharmasaid, supported Pfizer’s findingthat it was 95 percent effective.
When asked why her group wasable to approve the vaccine aheadof the F.D.A. in the United States,Dr. Sharma said, apparently jok-ingly, “we’re just better.”
She added, “We’re not in a racewith any other regulator, we’retrying to beat the virus.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeauurged Canadians to continue to re-spect public health rules. “It’s agood news day for Canadians butwe are not through this yet,” hesaid. “We have a tough winter togo through.”
RACE FOR A CURE
Canada Approves Covid Vaccine, Becoming 2nd in West to Reach MilestoneBy IAN AUSTEN
N A9THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
TO FUTURE FIRST WOMEN:Against all odds, women have continued to break ground that shouldn’t have needed
breaking, blazed trails that should have been well traveled, and shattered glass ceilings that
shouldn’t have existed in the first place.
As we close 2020, a year defined by “firsts”— some that have disrupted our way of life and
tested us — we celebrate the many firsts that have challenged the establishment,
inspired us, and propelled us forward towards a more equitable future, among them:
Our progress has been hard earned by fearless women past and present, who
are brave enough to be the first. They didn’t just open the door, they ripped the
door off its hinges so it couldn’t be closed again.
Today, as fellow firsts, we raise a glass to the women who came before us, the achievements
of women big and small this past year, and the milestones of progress to come.
Together with Jane Walker, we will enable opportunity for more future firsts for women in
2021 through a grant program with IFundWomen and continue to strive towards
constitutional equality. Because you can’t have a second, third or fourth without a first.
BE FIRST, KEEP WALKINGLearn more at ifundwomen.com/janewalker and support the coalition for constitutional
equality at ERACoalition.org.
Please Drink Responsibly.
Imported by Diageo, New York, New York.
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The�first�woman�was�named�CEO�of�a�major�U.S.�banking�institution
The�first�woman�lay�in�state�at�the�Capitol
The�first�woman�reached�Earth’s�highest�and�lowest�points
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baseball�team
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Vice�President-elect
SALT-N-PEPA
KATIE SOWERS BILLIE JEAN KING
KATIE COURIC
LUCY LIU
HALLE BERRY
ELAINE WELTEROTH
ELIZABETH BANKS
RITA MORENO
LILLY SINGH
A10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Tracking an Outbreak U.S. Response
WASHINGTON — Ben Carson,Chris Christie and Donald J.Trump are not the sturdiest candi-dates to conquer the coronavirus:older, in some cases overweight,male and not particularly fit. Yetall seem to have gotten throughCovid-19, and all have gotten anantibody treatment in such shortsupply that some hospitals andstates are doling it out by lottery.
Now Rudolph W. Giuliani, thelatest member of PresidentTrump’s inner circle to contractCovid-19, has acknowledged thathe received at least two of thesame drugs the president re-ceived. He even conceded that his“celebrity” status had given himaccess to care that others did nothave.
“If it wasn’t me, I wouldn’t havebeen put in a hospital frankly,” Mr.Giuliani, the president’s personallawyer, told WABC radio in NewYork. “Sometimes when you’re acelebrity, they’re worried if some-thing happens to you they’re go-ing to examine it more carefully,and do everything right.”
Mr. Giuliani’s candid admissiononce again exposes that Covid-19has become a disease of the havesand the have-nots. The treatmentgiven Mr. Trump’s allies is raisingalarms among medical ethicistsas state officials and health sys-tem administrators grapple withgut-wrenching decisions aboutwhich patients get antibodies in asystem that can only be describedas rationing.
“We should not have ChrisChristie and Ben Carson — and inthe case of Carson with interven-tion by the president — get ac-cess,” said Arthur Caplan, a medi-cal ethicist who works with drugcompanies on how to ration scarcemedicines, referring to the secre-tary of housing and urban devel-opment’s admission that the pres-ident “cleared” him for the ther-apy. “That is not the way to securepublic support for difficult ra-tioning systems.”
The treatments — a monoclonalantibody developed by Eli Lillyand a cocktail of two monoclonalantibodies developed by Regen-eron — won emergency use au-thorization, or an E.U.A., from theFood and Drug Administrationlast month for outpatients with“mild to moderate” disease whoare at high risk for progressing tosevere disease or for being hospi-talized.
With cases soaring, the pool ofpotential patients is vast.
“One of the challenges is theE.U.A. criteria really are so broad,it could be half of the people withCovid could qualify, but there isclearly not enough,” said Erin Fox,the senior pharmacy director forUniversity of Utah Health, whohas helped her state draft criteriato determine who is eligible for thedrugs. “Unfortunately, that leaveseach hospital or each state to de-velop their own rationing cri-teria.”
Even some top officials at theF.D.A. — both career employeesand political appointees — haveprivately expressed concern in re-cent months that people with con-nections to the White House ap-peared to be getting access to theantibody treatments, according tothree senior administration offi-cials.
Mr. Giuliani, 76, appeared un-
aware of the scarcity issues,telling interviewers that poli-ticians have taken masks andbusiness closures too far now thatCovid-19 is “a treatable disease.”
In fact, the antibody treatmentsare so scarce that officials in Utahhave developed a ranking systemto determine who is most likely tobenefit from the drugs, while Col-orado is using a lottery system. Dr.Matthew Wynia, director of theCenter of Bioethics and Human-ities at the University of Colorado,said that giving the powerful ac-cess was patently unfair.
“That’s one of the reasons whywe decided that we would allocatethis only through the state andonly through this random alloca-tion process,” he said, “so that noone could get a leg up by virtue oftheir special connections.”
And there are other complicat-ing factors keeping many peoplefrom getting the therapies as well.The infusions must be adminis-tered in outpatient settings, butinfusion centers, which also carefor immune-suppressed cancerpatients, are loath to treat peoplewho have an infectious disease.And many emergency rooms areso overrun that they do not havethe space.
In Utah, Dr. Fox said her hospi-tal had shipped much of the sup-ply of antibodies to rural hospi-tals, which had more room. Bothshe and Dr. Wynia in Colorado ex-pressed concern that the thera-pies might not be distributed equi-
tably across racial and ethniclines, with hard-hit minority com-munities not getting their fairshare.
The scarcity is such a problemthat the National Academies ofSciences, Engineering and Medi-cine is holding a session nextweek to help medical profession-als sort their way through ra-tioning questions.
“We’ve been trying to get theword out so that as patients mightget a positive test they could getinformation that they might qual-ify for treatment, but that onlyworks for people with a lot of re-sources,” Dr. Fox said.
Politicians are not the only oneswith resources getting access.
In an interview on Wednesday,one prominent businessman, whospoke on condition of anonymityto avoid harming his reputation,described his aggressive efforts totrack down the Regeneron treat-ment — including calling friendswho were hospital executives andhospital donors — after he testedpositive last week.
Eventually he was directed toan emergency room in his city,which was expecting him. He wasgiven an infusion of the drug onMonday. He is feeling much better,he said.
Both Mr. Trump and Mr.Christie, a longtime friend of hisand former New Jersey governor,got the antibodies before theywere approved by the F.D.A. Dr.Caplan, the medical ethicist, said
he had no problem with Mr.Trump, 74, getting the therapy —he is, after all, the president, “aspecial person unto him- or her-self.”
But Mr. Christie’s access ap-peared to be extraordinary. Mr.Christie, 58, was offered participa-tion in a Regeneron clinical trialbut turned it down, a person famil-iar with his treatment said, fear-ing he might receive a placebo. In-stead, he received the Eli Lillytreatment. He is overweight andhas asthma, and thus may havebeen a good candidate, Dr. Caplansaid, though he wondered if simi-larly situated patients would havegotten the drug.
Dr. Carson, 69, got the Regen-eron cocktail after it was ap-proved, then took to Facebook lastmonth to say he was “desperatelyill” with the coronavirus until thepresident intervened.
“President Trump was follow-ing my condition and cleared mefor the monoclonal antibody ther-apy that he had previously re-ceived, which I am convincedsaved my life,” he wrote, addingthat “we must prioritize gettingcomparable treatments and careto everyone as soon as possible.”
Mr. Giuliani’s treatment is lessclear. Calling into ABC Radio fromhis hospital bed on Tuesday, hesaid specifically that he had re-ceived two drugs — remdesivir,which has F.D.A. approval fortreatment of Covid-19, and dexa-methasone, a steroid.
But he also said he had receivedthe same treatment “cocktail” asthe president: “Exactly the same,his doctor sent me here; he talkedme into it,” Mr. Giuliani said of Mr.Trump’s physician, adding, “Theminute I took the cocktail yester-day, I felt 100 percent better. Itworks very quickly, wow.”
The therapies are being allocat-ed by the Department of Healthand Human Services to states andjurisdictions based, the depart-ment’s website says, on a “per-centage of the country’s totalnumber of confirmed Covid-19 pa-tients and the total number of con-firmed hospitalized patients dur-ing a seven-day reporting period.”
Then it is up to health careproviders to figure out what to dowith them. Dr. Peter L. Slavin, thepresident of Massachusetts Gen-eral Hospital, said in an interviewTuesday that access there wouldbe by lottery.
“The notion that we are going tobe able to treat a significant per-centage of the people who qualifyfor the drug with the drug — it’snot going to happen,” he said.
RATIONING
Trump AlliesGot MedicineUnavailableTo Others
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Rudolph W. Giuliani, above,Ben Carson, left, and ChrisChristie, below left, all receivedaccess to medications that arein short supply after contract-ing Covid-19, raising concernsamong medical ethicists.
ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES
ANNA MONEYMAKER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
POOL PHOTO BY CHRIS KLEPONIS
Noah Weiland and Katie Thomascontributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — Delegatesfrom the International Committeeof the Red Cross visiting Guantá-namo Bay, Cuba, for the first timeduring the coronavirus pandemicwere unable to meet some of pris-oners held there because restric-tions imposed by the U.S. militarymade it impossible for the twosides to converse, lawyers for theprisoners say.
The delegation from the RedCross, which seeks humane condi-tions for prisoners of war aroundthe world, left the base Tuesdayafter a three-week visit that beganwith two weeks of quarantine,which the military requires of allvisitors during the Covid-19 crisis.
The Red Cross canceled two vis-its earlier this year because of thepandemic, depriving the pris-oners of their only contact with anindependent outside organizationmonitoring the conditions inwhich they are held.
During the visits with detaineesthat began last week, the first bythe organization since March,prisoners and Red Cross dele-gates were kept six feet apart in ameeting room, separated by aplexiglass barrier. Prisoners anddelegates both wore a prison-is-sue hooded white biohazard jump-suits and N95 respirators.
Lawyers for several prisonersat the base’s classified compound,Camp 7, said one or two prisonersdid meet with a Red Cross dele-gate but found that health protec-tions imposed by the militarymade it impossible to hold a con-versation. Soon after, the rest ofthe prisoners had their appoint-ments canceled.
Elizabeth Gorman Shaw, aspokeswoman for the Interna-tional Red Cross, which considersits conversations with both theprisoners and the military confi-dential, declined to discuss theproblems that arose during themeetings, but said it “conductedits quarterly visit to GuantánamoBay to the best of its ability underCovid-related constraints.”
The organization has visited theprison at least four times a yearsince it opened in January 2002but canceled two quarterly visitsthis year because of the pandemic.
A prison spokesman at the U.S.Southern Command in Doral, Fla.,Maj. Gregory J. McElwain, saidthe decision to combine personalprotective equipment with “engi-neering controls, such as plexi-glass barriers” was driven byguidelines of the Centers for Dis-ease Control and Prevention.
The prison task force of 1,500troops “has a responsibility tomaintain the health and safety ofthe detainees and guards,” hesaid.
Neither the military nor the RedCross would disclose how many ofthe 40 wartime detainees hadscheduled appointments, and howmany were canceled.
Major McElwain said the mili-tary made efforts to accommo-date the Red Cross team.
In the spring, the military dis-closed that two people on the baseof 6,000 residents were infectedwith the virus, one of them as-signed to the prison staff, but thenimposed a blackout on such dis-closures. The base imposed aheightened state of health alert fora week in October while it senttests to the mainland that lawyersbriefed on the scare said cameback negative.
Brig. Gen. John G. Baker, a Ma-rine defense lawyer who met with
a detainee under similar condi-tions last month, said the distanceand barriers made his conversa-tion difficult and muffled. It washeld in a meeting room that typi-cally has both an air-conditionerand dehumidifier blowing. He wasforbidden to give or show docu-ments to the detainee.
General Baker said that once hedonned the prison’s required at-tire, which included surgicalbooties, only his eyes and fore-head could be seen, and the samewas true of the prisoner.
The detainees for the most parthave been kept in a bubble of sortssince the start of the pandemic,with just two lawyers reaching thebase and reduced contact with theguard force.
One prisoner wrote his lawyerin a letter this week that the RedCross “decided to cancel the re-maining appointments in protestagainst the exaggerated meas-ures.” The lawyer spoke on thecondition of anonymity and de-clined to name the prisoner with-out first seeking his permission,which would require several daysbecause of delayed communica-tions between lawyers and pris-oners through a secure mail sys-tem.
James G. Connell III, a deathpenalty defense lawyer, said his
client, Ammar al Baluchi, wasamong several former C.I.A. pris-oners who had an appointmentwith the Red Cross canceled. Hesaid the outcome of the meetingdid not bode well for Pentagon ef-forts to resume hearings earlynext year in the case of Mr. al Ba-luchi and four other men who areaccused of conspiring in the hi-jackings on Sept. 11, 2001, thatkilled nearly 3,000 people.
“Communicating through aplexiglass wall about complicatedissues is impossible,” he said. “Ifthe I.C.R.C. can’t speak to pris-oners through a plexiglass wall,how do they expect to have a courthearing through a wall?”
No proceedings have been heldin the case since February. Mili-tary contractors have installedplexiglass inside the cavernousnational security courtroom, in-cluding a barrier between lawyersand the prisoners, in anticipationof the hearings starting up againbefore the end of the pandemic.
The prospect of resuming pre-trial proceedings in the capitalSept. 11 case hit a new snag thisweek. Prosecutors filed a motionon Tuesday asking the Air Forcejudge assigned to the case to stepdown as unqualified because hehas not served two years as a mili-tary judge as required under therules for military commissions.
The prosecution opposed thechoice of Lt. Col. Matthew N. Mc-Call on the day he was assigned tothe case, Oct. 16, and have repeat-edly asked him to quit the case innotices and other court filings.Tuesday’s filing explicitly askedhim to either recuse himself orstop issuing rulings.
Colonel McCall, the sixth judgeto handle the death penalty casesince the defendants’ arraign-ment in 2012, has extended litiga-tion deadlines in the case in lightof the virus. In effect, that post-pones jury selection until afternext year’s anniversary of theSept. 11 attacks.
PANDEMIC RESTRICTIONS
Red Cross Faces BarriersIn Visit to Guantánamo
By CAROL ROSENBERG
Military precautionsmake it difficult tomeet with prisoners.
This article was produced in part-nership with the Pulitzer Center onCrisis Reporting.
WASHINGTON — Congres-sional leaders moved on Wednes-day to buy more time to strike anelusive deal on an economic reliefmeasure to address the ruinwrought by the pandemic, butwith time running short, it was un-clear whether a compromisewould pass.
The House overwhelmingly ap-proved a one-week stopgapspending bill that would punt aFriday deadline for funding thegovernment to Dec. 18, avertingthe immediate threat of a shut-down as negotiators continued tohaggle over both a broader spend-ing package and the pandemic aidbill.
The Senate was expected to ap-prove the extension, which passedthe House by a vote of 343 to 67.
But an agreement on providingbillions of dollars in relief to fam-ilies, businesses and hospitals re-mained out of reach.
“One way or another, we’ll get itdone,” Speaker Nancy Pelosivowed on Wednesday. Asked how
long it would take to reach a deal,she added, “I’m hoping soon.”
There was little indication thatshe had directly revived talks withthe Trump administration, whichon Tuesday presented a $916 bil-lion proposal that Ms. Pelosiswiftly dismissed as unaccept-able. It cut funding for unemploy-ment benefits and failed to reviveenhanced federal weekly unem-ployment payments that lapsedover the summer. Instead, theplan, offered by Steven Mnuchin,the Treasury secretary, wouldprovide another stimulus pay-ment of $600 per adult and $600per child.
“We obviously want to get peo-ple back to work,” Mr. Mnuchinsaid on Wednesday during a wide-ranging briefing. “By sending outchecks, we’re putting money intothe economy for people.
Ms. Pelosi and Senator ChuckSchumer, Democrat of New Yorkand the minority leader, have in-stead focused on a $908 billionoutline offered by a bipartisangroup of moderate lawmakers as astarting point for negotiation.
But that group is struggling tohammer out the details of theircompromise, primarily how tostructure liability protections forbusinesses and how much fundingto provide for state and local gov-ernments, issues which have longimpeded an agreement.
“We are still working togetheron this,” said Senator LisaMurkowski, Republican of Alaskaand one of the lawmakers in-volved in the bipartisan discus-sions. “The possibilities are thereto resolve this and to resolve thisin a way that makes sense andgains support.”
A six-page framework of themoderates’ plan, which was ob-tained by The New York Times,said the group had an “agreementin principle” for providing $160billion to state and local govern-ments and offering liability pro-tections to businesses and otherinstitutions open during the pan-demic “as the basis for good-faithnegotiations.” But it omitted anysubstantive details.
The lack of specifics under-scored the remaining hurdles for
the group, which has steadilybroadened in recent days, as itworks to complete its plan. Andsome senators acknowledged thatthe success of any final agreementrested with congressional leadersin both chambers who had yet tofully embrace their work.
“I think at the end of the daythat has to be largely negotiatedbetween the speaker and the ma-jority leader,” said Senator RoyBlunt, Republican of Missouri,who complimented the group onits progress so far. “If they have abroad base of consensus they canstart with, maybe that makes iteasier for them to make the finaldeterminations.”
The moderates’ outline wouldrevive the weekly federal unem-ployment benefit at $300 a weekfor 16 weeks, from the end of De-cember to April, and extend a se-ries of unemployment programsset to expire at the end of themonth. It would supply $10 billionfor child care providers, $25 billionin rental assistance, $82 billion foreducation providers, $6 billion forvaccine development and distri-
bution, and $7 billion for state, lo-cal and tribal governments to con-duct testing and tracing.
Their plan would repurposemoney Mr. Mnuchin clawed backfrom the Federal Reserve and left-over funds in the expired Pay-check Protection Program and al-low small businesses to receiveanother loan from the popularsmall-business program. It nota-bly does not include anotherround of stimulus checks, whichsome lawmakers — includingSenators Bernie Sanders, inde-pendent of Vermont, and JoshHawley, Republican of Missouri —have lobbied for in recent days.
And while Democratic leadershave called it a starting point fornegotiations, Senator Mitch Mc-Connell, Republican of Kentuckyand the majority leader, has notendorsed it. Instead, he suggestedon Tuesday that Democrats droptheir demand for funding for stateand local governments in ex-change for Republicans droppingtheir insistence on including a li-ability shield for businesses, anidea that Democrats immediately
rejected.Mr. McConnell slammed Demo-
cratic leaders on Wednesday forrejecting both the White House of-fer and his overture a day earlier,which was his first major conces-sion since efforts to reach agree-ment on another coronavirus re-lief deal began.
“At every turn, they have de-layed, deflected, moved the goalposts and made the huge numberof places where Congress agreesinto a hostage of the few places wedo not,” he said.
Those involved in drafting the$908 billion framework insistedthat there was a deal to be had.
In a lift to negotiators, the U.S.Chamber of Commerce, whichsupports liability protections, is-sued a statement applauding thegroup’s progress. Neil Bradley,the chamber’s executive vicepresident and chief policy officer,said, “While some difficult issuesremain, we are confident thatthere are common-sense compro-mises that can be found that willenjoy the support necessary to be-come law.”
WASHINGTON STALEMATE
Stimulus Deal No Closer, the House Approves a Stopgap Spending BillBy EMILY COCHRANE
N A11THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Tracking an Outbreak Global Response
Thousands of Britons receivedthe first clinically authorized, fullytested coronavirus vaccine onTuesday, with people reportingminimal side effects.
But two health workers with ahistory of serious allergies had al-lergic reactions after being giventhe vaccine, British drug regula-tors said on Wednesday. As theyinvestigate what precisely causedthe reactions, the regulatorswarned that people prone to se-vere allergic reactions should notreceive the Pfizer-BioNTech vac-cine for the time being.
Scientists said that for the vastmajority of people, the new adviceshould not cause any concernsabout receiving the coronavirusvaccine, and that it was difficult toprotect against certain rare reac-tions with any new vaccine.
Because of their severe al-lergies, the two health workerscarried adrenaline pens, the ge-neric term for an EpiPen. The Na-tional Health Service said thatboth workers were recoveringwell after being treated for symp-toms of anaphylactoid reactionsthat they developed shortly aftertheir shots.
Regulators said the reactionswere “associated with administra-tion” of the vaccine, but did not de-scribe the health workers’ symp-toms or what kind of treatmentthey received.
“We know from the very exten-sive clinical trials that this wasn’ta feature,” Dr. June Raine, thechief executive of Britain’s Medi-cines and Healthcare ProductsRegulatory Agency, said onWednesday.
As a precaution, British regula-tors said, “any person with a his-tory of a significant allergic reac-tion to a vaccine, medicine orfood,” like people who have ana-phylactoid reactions or carry anEpiPen, should not receive the Pfi-zer-BioNTech vaccine. They saidthat the vaccines should be deliv-ered only on sites with access toresuscitation measures.
After authorizing the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergencyuse last week, British regulatorssaid that people with a hypersen-sitivity to ingredients in the vac-cine should not be given the shot.But the regulators’ updated ad-vice on Wednesday expanded thatwarning to cover anyone with ahistory of significant allergic reac-tions.
The regulators are now investi-gating the two cases from Tues-day, a process that experts saidwould involve looking at whetherthe reactions stemmed from thevaccine itself or were incidental.The regulators said they would re-lease updated advice once theydo.
Allergic reactions are a veryrare response to some vaccines.Anaphylactic reactions, the most
serious of those responses, are es-timated to occur around once ev-ery 100,000 to 1,000,000 doses ofthe most commonly given vac-cines, according to the Institutefor Vaccine Safety at the JohnsHopkins Bloomberg School ofPublic Health.
A 2015 study supported by theCenters for Disease Control andPrevention in the United Statesturned up 33 confirmed cases ofvaccine-triggered anaphylaxisamong more than 25 million vac-cine doses, translating to a rate of1.3 cases of such reactions in ev-ery million doses of vaccine.
Pfizer’s vaccine trials, which in-cluded tens of thousands of par-ticipants, excluded people with ahistory of reacting badly to vac-cines, or having severe allergic re-actions to any ingredients in thecoronavirus vaccine.
Among those who participatedin the trials, a very small numberof people had allergic reactions. Adocument published by the Foodand Drug Administration in theUnited States on Tuesday saidthat 0.63 percent of participantswho received the vaccine re-ported potential allergic reac-tions, compared to 0.51 percent of
people who received a placebo.In Pfizer’s late-stage clinical
trial, a single one of the 18,801 par-ticipants who received the vac-cine had an anaphylactic reaction,according to safety data publishedby the F.D.A. on Tuesday. None inthe placebo group did.
Scientists said that there is avery small risk of allergic reac-tions to any vaccine, just as thereis to food and medicines. And ana-phylactic reactions to any newvaccine or medicine are particu-larly difficult to prevent ahead oftime.
“Anaphylaxis is almost always
very specific, with some knownoverlaps between exposures, butjust because I’m allergic topeanuts doesn’t mean I’m allergicto bee stings,” said Dr. Naor Bar-Zeev, a pediatric infectious dis-eases doctor and epidemiologistat Johns Hopkins BloombergSchool of Public Health. He added,“Rare events — and anaphylaxisis among the rarest of all — cannever be known from Phase 3 tri-als or before licensure.”
Dr. Bar-Zeev said the risk ofrare side effects from vaccines, es-pecially amid a pandemic, had tobe balanced against the risk of
contracting the disease itself. Buthe said that even in the best of cir-cumstances, very rare side effectsare only discovered well after clin-ical trials are conducted and newdrugs and vaccines are licensed.
In wealthier countries, he add-ed, regulators have well-estab-lished systems for identifying rareside effects, and those events willbecome evident more quickly inthe midst of mass vaccinations.
With any new medicine or vac-cine, he said, “Anaphylaxis will oc-cur, will be treatable, and iftreated, will be unlikely to causedeath. The risk is very, very smallindeed.”
Dr. Jesse Goodman, a professorof medicine and infectious dis-eases at Georgetown Universityand the former F.D.A. chief scien-tist, said that given the scant de-tails about the British cases, it wasdifficult to determine whetherthey were related to the vaccine.
But he said that clinical trialstypically enroll healthier peoplethan the general population, andthat safety issues can come up asthe vaccines are administered tothe general public.
“The people in clinical trials aredifferent, generally healthier, andthen things will occur by co-incidence that may not be relatedto the vaccine,” he said. “So then itbecomes really important to sortout quickly whether they are, andto maintain confidence.”
Unlike most new vaccines,which are gradually rolled outover years as people slowly visittheir doctors and get new shots,the new coronavirus vaccines willquickly be given to many morepeople than received it in clinicaltrials.
“They’re large, well-performedstudies, but they’re still of tens ofthousands of people,” he said ofthe clinical trials. “It does meanwe need those strong safety moni-toring systems.”
People with latex allergies canalso, on rare occasions, have se-vere allergic reactions to vaccinesheld in vials or syringes with la-tex.
The changing guidance fromBritish regulators testified to thecareful monitoring of vaccinesthat follows an emergency author-ization, like the one issued in Brit-ain last week for the Pfizer-BioN-Tech vaccine. The speed withwhich regulators warned peopleon Wednesday was a sign that themonitoring system was effective,scientists said, and reassurancethat people did not need to hesi-tate to get a coronavirus vaccine.
“For the general population,this does not mean that theywould need to be anxious aboutreceiving the vaccination,” saidStephen Evans, a professor ofpharmacoepidemiology at theLondon School of Hygiene andTropical Medicine. He added, re-ferring to a famous British love-it-or-hate-it yeast paste: “One has toremember that even things likeMarmite can cause unexpectedsevere allergic reactions.”
BRITAIN
Regulators Issue Warning After 2 Have Allergic Reaction to Inoculation
JONNY WEEKS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, VIA POOL/A.F.P., VIA GETTY IMAGES
By BENJAMIN MUELLER
Top, Margaret Keenan, 90, who was the first Briton to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, left the hospital on Wednesday. Thou-sands got the vaccines, above, with minimal side effects, but two reactions prompted a warning for people who have severe allergies.
ANDY STENNING/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, VIA POOL/A.F.P., VIA GETTY IMAGESANDREW MILLIGAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, VIA POOL/A.F.P., VIA GETTY IMAGES
Katie Thomas and Carl Zimmercontributed reporting.
The United Arab Emirates is-sued the first government approv-al of a Chinese coronavirus vac-cine on Wednesday, citing prelimi-nary data showing that it was 86percent effective, a move thatcould bring Chinese vaccines astep closer to widespread use.
The announcement by theEmirates’ Ministry of Health andPrevention was the first official in-dicator of a Chinese vaccine’s po-tential to help stop the pandemic.If results from elsewhere showsimilar findings, the Chinese vac-cines could offer a lifeline to devel-oping countries that cannot affordvaccines from the United Statesthat are likely to be more expen-sive and more difficult to trans-port.
But Chinese officials and Si-nopharm, the state-owned makerof the vaccine, were silent onWednesday on the Emirati disclo-sures. And scientists noted thatthe announcement was lacking indata and other critical details.
The news that a Chinese vac-cine is 86 percent effective — ex-ceeding the 50 percent thresholdset by many governments — is aboost to China’s biomedical ambi-tions. But it falls short of the per-formance reported by the Ameri-can drug makers Pfizer and Mod-erna, which said earlier that theirvaccines were more than 90 per-cent effective at protectingagainst the coronavirus.
The Emirates, which is among10 countries where Sinopharm istesting its two vaccines, said it hadreviewed an interim analysis of
data from late-stage clinical trialsby Sinopharm that also showedthe vaccine was 100 percent effec-tive in preventing moderate andsevere cases of the disease. Therewere no serious safety concerns, itsaid.
“The announcement is a signifi-cant vote of confidence by theU.A.E.’s health authorities in thesafety and efficacy of this vac-cine,” the ministry said in a re-lease carried by the state-runEmirates News Agency. The gov-ernment did not say whether ithad conducted an independentanalysis of the raw data.
The data from the Emiratesbodes well for Sinopharm’s vac-cines to obtain full regulatory ap-proval in China, which Sinopharmsought even before the comple-tion of final trials. The company isalso conducting trials in Bahrain,Jordan, Peru, Argentina and else-where.
“I think it could hit the marketin China very soon, and there willbe news within the next one to twoweeks,” said Tao Lina, a vaccineexpert in China and a former im-munologist at the Shanghai Cen-ter for Disease Control and Pre-vention.
The vaccine could also helpbring China closer to fulfilling apledge by China’s top leader, XiJinping, to make the vaccine a“global public good.”
But even as the announcementby the Emirates raised hopesabout the promise of Chinese vac-cines, it also pointed to a frustrat-ing lack of clarity that has doggedChina’s coronavirus vaccine de-velopment for months.
Sinopharm would not confirmor comment on the Emirates news
even hours after it came out. Aspokeswoman for the companyhung up the phone when reachedand did not respond to messagesand calls afterward.
The news release from the Emi-rati government provided fewother key details, such as the num-ber of Covid-19 cases that were an-alyzed or the ages of the volun-teers, making it unclear to scien-tists how Sinopharm came to itsconclusions.
“The devil is in the details,” saidBeate Kampmann, director of theVaccine Center at the LondonSchool of Hygiene and TropicalMedicine. “It’s very difficult tojudge this without seeing thenumber of cases. The main thingis, the trial results need to bemade public.”
Jin Dongyan, a virologist at theUniversity of Hong Kong, calledthe information in the Emirates’disclosure “mediocre,” saying
more transparency from the vac-cine maker was needed.
“If they make everything se-cretly, like a black box, that doesnot help,” Professor Jin said.“That would just create confusionand mistrust and could be coun-terproductive.”
The need for clarity on thesafety and efficacy of China’s vac-cines has taken on more urgencyafter Sinopharm revealed it hadalready vaccinated roughly a mil-lion people even before the com-pletion of clinical trials. The cam-paign has alarmed overseas sci-entists who say it exposes peopleto undue risks.
Chinese officials have repeat-edly assured the public that thecountry’s coronavirus vaccinesare safe, while providing few de-tails. Last month, Liu Jingzhen,the chairman of Sinopharm, saidno one among the people who hadreceived the company’s vaccines
had experienced any adverse re-actions. He said that “only a fewhad mild symptoms.”
In October, Zheng Zhongwei, asenior health official, said the gov-ernment had established a “fol-low-up program” to track the peo-ple who had been vaccinated,though he gave no details.
Sinovac Biotech, a Beijing-based private vaccine maker, hasalready begun exporting its vac-cines to countries like Indonesiaand Brazil. Sinopharm, which hasanother vaccine in late-stage test-ing, has said it is preparing to de-liver 500 million doses worldwide,according to the state-run news-paper Science and TechnologyDaily.
It is unclear whether the Emir-ates will start using the Chinesevaccine — which Sinopharm de-veloped with the Beijing Instituteof Biological Products — for massinoculations. The government
had already approved the vaccinefor emergency use in Septemberfor frontline workers at risk ofcontracting Covid-19.
Some other countries where Si-nopharm is conducting trials arecounting on Chinese vaccines tohelp protect their populations.Morocco says it is preparing tovaccinate 80 percent of its adults,relying initially on a Sinopharmvaccine, though it would wait forChina to approve the vaccine, ac-cording to Médias24, a Moroccannews website.
The Chinese vaccines are alsoappealing to developing countriesbecause they could be easier todistribute. Sinopharm has said itsvaccines need to be refrigeratedat temperatures of only 2 to 8 de-grees Celsius (or 35 to 46 degreesFahrenheit) and could remain sta-ble for up to three years. In con-trast, Pfizer and Moderna’s vac-cines, which are made with genet-ic materials that fall apart whenthey thaw, require industrialfreezers, making transportationand storage more challenging.
Sinopharm’s vaccines are bothmade from coronaviruses thathave been killed or weakened, atechnique that has been used fordecades in the influenza and poliovaccines, for example. By com-parison, Moderna’s and Pfizer’svaccines use a technology thathas never before been approvedfor widespread use.
Another advantage of the inac-tivated vaccines being developedby Sinopharm is that they tend tohave fewer adverse effects afterimmunization, according to Flo-rian Krammer, an immunologistat the Icahn School of Medicine atMount Sinai in New York. He saidmore clarity on the trials in theEmirates would be welcome, butexpressed confidence in the vac-cine’s initial results.
“It would be great to see some ofthat data,” Professor Krammersaid in an email. “But 86 percent isa respectable number — there isabsolutely nothing wrong withthat. I would take such a vaccine.”
CLINICAL TRIALS
Chinese Vaccine GetsApproval From U.A.E.
A Sinopharm vaccine production plant in Beijing. The company is running trials in 10 countries.ZHANG YUWEI/XINHUA, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
By SUI-LEE WEE
Aida Alami and Elsie Chen con-tributed reporting.
A12 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
N
PARIS — The French government, de-termined to combat an ideology it viewsas “the enemy of the Republic,” onWednesday unveiled draft legislation tocombat radical Islamism, calling themeasure “a law of freedom” essential topeaceful coexistence in French society.
The law, which has been assailed byTurkey and other Muslim countries, andcriticized as “heavy-handed” by the U.S.envoy on international religious free-dom, reflects President Emmanuel Ma-cron’s resolve to address a series of ter-ror attacks that have left more than 260people dead in France since 2015. Threesuch attacks in recent months, includingthe beheading of a history teacher, Sam-uel Paty, who had shown caricatures ofthe Prophet Muhammad to his class,have hardened positions around the leg-islation.
“This bill is not a text aimed against re-ligions or against the Muslim religion inparticular,” Prime Minister Jean Castexdeclared after the cabinet approved thedraft law. “It is the reverse — it is a law offreedom, it is a law of protection, it is alaw of emancipation against religiousfundamentalism.”
Earlier, Mr. Castex told the Frenchdaily Le Monde that “The enemy of theRepublic is an ideology that calls itselfradical Islamism, whose objective is todivide French people from one another.”
The legislation would curb online hatespeech of the kind that led to Mr. Paty’skilling; punish doctors who provide so-called “virginity certificates” for tradi-tional religious marriages; clamp downon home-schooling for children overthree years old; and rein in communityassociations by obliging them to signdeclarations of allegiance to the “valuesof the republic” at the same time as im-posing strict controls on their funding.
The words “Islamic” or “Islamist” donot appear in the legislation, but the gov-
ernment’s intent is clear: To get at theroot of the separate culture of extremistgroups holding the laws of Islam as supe-rior to the laws of the Republic.
To its opponents, the draft law risks de-feating itself. The danger of a conflationof Islam, the religion, and Islamism, a po-litical movement, is evident. The billcould sharpen the sense of alienation feltby some, but far from all, French Mus-lims, who make up about 8 percent of thepopulation. The ghettoization of Muslimimmigrants of mainly North African ori-gin in dismal projects on the outskirts ofbig cities is a longstanding social prob-lem that successive governments havepromised to address, with limited suc-cess.
The bill has gone through three namechanges, reflecting its sensitivity, start-ing life as an “anti-separatism” law andending up as a law “to reinforce Republi-can principles.” It will be presented to theNational Assembly, or lower house ofParliament, in January.
Its genesis lay in a speech Mr. Macronmade two months ago in which he vowedto defeat “Islamist separatism” and up-hold French secularism, with its strictview that religion is an affair of the indi-vidual that has no place in politics. Thespeech was denounced as a “provoca-tion” by President Recep Tayyip Erdo-gan of Turkey, a view rejected by manyFrench people, who have sufferedthrough successive attacks.
Ambassador Sam Brownback, the U.S.ambassador at large for international re-ligious freedom, said this week that hewas concerned by events in France. Re-ferring to the draft law, he said, “Whenyou get heavy-handed, the situation canget worse.”
France is unlikely to be much con-cerned by this view from a representa-tive of the outgoing Trump administra-tion. President Trump’s so-called “Mus-lim ban,” barring the entry of foreign na-tionals from seven Muslim-majoritycountries, was condemned widely inFrance and around the world.
Mr. Macron, facing an election 18months from now, has been tacking tothe political right, where, with the left intatters, the center of gravity in Frenchpolitics appears to lie. His tough line onIslamism and the introduction of a much-contested security bill form part of thisstrategic evolution.
In his October speech, Mr. Macronconceded that the French state had suf-fered from “its own form of separatism,”in failing to address the marginalizationof some Muslims in France. He vowed toright this wrong, but there has beenscant follow-up.
Mr. Castex, the prime minister, told re-porters that France would “build moresocial housing, better distributedthroughout the territory in order tobreak with the logic of ghettos.” Thatpromises to be a long process with anoutcome as uncertain as the attempt tolegislate away the seeds of extremist Is-lamism.
France Unveils Draft of Law Meant to Fight Radical Islam
By ROGER COHEN
Opposed not to religion,but rather to ‘religiousfundamentalism.’
HAVANA — In another era, the deten-tion of a young Cuban dissident mighthave gone completely unnoticed. Butwhen the rapper Denis Solís was ar-rested by the police, he did somethingthat has only recently become possibleon the island: He filmed the encounter onhis cellphone and streamed it live onFacebook.
The stream last month prompted hisfriends in an artist collective to go on ahunger strike, which the police broke upafter a week, arresting members of thegroup. But their detentions were alsocaught on cellphone videos and sharedwidely over social media, leading hun-dreds of artists and intellectuals to stagea demonstration outside the CultureMinistry the next day.
This swift mobilization of protesterswas a rare instance of Cubans openlyconfronting their government — and astark example of how having widespreadaccess to the internet through cellphonesis testing the power balance between thecommunist regime and its citizens.
“The videos had a huge impact on us,”said Tania Bruguera, one of the artists in-volved in the protests. “We saw that anyartist in Cuba who decides to speak up, orquestion what the government says, ormake art that asks uncomfortable ques-tions, could receive the same treatment.”
It isn’t clear yet whether this incipientprotest movement will gather the mo-mentum and discipline needed to funda-mentally transform a political systemthat has quashed decades of challenges— or will simply fade away. But the merefact that such a large protest happenedat all — and led to the creation of a formalmovement with a name and a Facebookpage — is in itself extraordinary in acountry where the opposition is barelyexistent.
And as protesters’ demands haveshifted from ending limits on artistic ex-pression to pushing for more fundamen-tal political freedoms, they have earnedthe attention of a growing swell of youngCubans not normally inclined toward ac-tivism.
“What is happening in Cuba is unprec-edented,” said José Miguel Vivanco, thedirector of the Americas program at Hu-man Rights Watch. “It’s an awakening.”
When President Trump came into of-fice, he quickly rolled back the Obamaadministration’s reopening of relationsbetween the two countries, which hecalled a “terrible and misguided deal.”
Yet one of the conditions baked intothat deal — that Cuba broaden internetaccess — has continued to play out on theisland, leading to greater pressure on thegovernment.
Cuba first made it possible to get inter-net on cellphones two years ago, and nowfour million people can get online thatway. A total of seven million Cubans —about two-thirds of the population —have some kind of access to the web, gov-ernment data shows.
The government has blocked severalcritical websites, including Radio Martí,an anti-Castro news outlet funded by theU.S. government. But it allows access tomajor U.S. newspapers and Facebook,WhatsApp, and YouTube.
The upshot: There is a growing armyof Cubans who can easily get online anduse social media to organize around com-mon causes.
Sometimes their campaigns are ac-ceptable to the government, as was thecase with the online animal rights advo-cates who got permission from authori-ties to hold a march against animal cru-elty. Others, like the gay rights activistswho were detained after using Facebookto organize a protest last year, were notas welcome.
The marches were small, but wereamong the first independently organizeddemonstrations on the island in decades.
“It is this awakening of civil society, fa-cilitated by the spread of the internet andsocial media, which is posing this chal-lenge to the government,” said WilliamLeoGrande, a Cuba specialist at Ameri-can University. “To what extent does apolitical system which prides itself oncontrol allow the kind of civil society ex-pression that we’ve seen growing?”
If not for Facebook, it might have beeneasy for the government to dismiss com-plaints from Mr. Solís, the detained rap-per, and his artist friends.
In a country hammered by U.S. sanc-tions, the politics of some in the grouphave raised eyebrows. Mr. Solís is a die-hard Trump supporter: In the video heposted of his arrest, he screamed: “Don-ald Trump 2020! That’s my president.”
Some members of his artists’ col-lective, known as the San Isidro Move-ment, have been seen with U.S. Embassyofficials, a link the government has usedto label them “mercenaries” intent on de-stabilizing Cuba.
Still, the clips of the police detainingMr. Solís — who was later sentenced toeight months in jail for insulting law en-forcement — and then cracking down onthe artists’ peaceful hunger strike, didnot sit well with many Cubans.
The night when the hunger strike wasshut down, a much broader coalition ofartists began messaging each other onWhatsApp and Facebook, and the nextmorning people started gathering infront of the Culture Ministry.
“We didn’t go there to defend thoseartists’ views,” said Ms. Bruguera, thevisual artist who has been protesting.
“We went there to defend the right of allartists to dissent.”
What started as anger over the arrestsmorphed into conversations among theartists about their frustration with limitsto free expression on the island. Theycommiserated over their fear of govern-ment censorship or outright repressionbecause of the art, theater or moviesthey produce.
“I want to do free art, without state se-curity parked on my corner,” said LuisManuel Otero Alcántara, a performanceartist who led the hunger strike lastmonth.
By nightfall, hundreds had gatheredfor the spontaneous protest against thegovernment — something not seen inCuba since the nation plunged into eco-nomic crisis after the fall of the SovietUnion in the 1990s. Troubadours, artists,playwrights, rappers and reggaetonerasplayed music, read poetry and sang the
national anthem. When the ministry al-lowed a group of demonstrators into thebuilding to negotiate, those gathered out-side clapped every 10 minutes or so to ex-press support.
Artists have a particular cachet inCuba, a deeply patriotic nation that haslong prided itself, including under com-munism, on the prowess of its cultural in-stitutions.
And the government may have foundit harder to outright reject this particulargroup of protesters, which includedsome of the nation’s most prominent art-ists. Jorge Perugorría, one of the most fa-mous Cuban actors, and FernandoPérez, a celebrated film director, bothshowed up that night.
“I will always go where I feel my pres-ence can help,” Mr. Pérez said, adding he
believed the protests “come from a greatlove of Cuba.”
The crowd also drew younger stars,like Yunior García, 38, who has workedfor institutions linked to the state all hislife, writing plays, short films and teleno-velas for Cuban television.
“The fact that I’ve been permitted tocreate doesn’t mean I can stand by whileothers are censored,” he said.
But communication between the pro-testers and the ministry broke down af-ter their initial meeting in late Novem-ber. Protesters are now at an impassewith the government, and many now saythey are being intimidated by the state’ssecurity apparatus.
Several artists who were present saypolice vehicles are parked outside theirhomes, a tactic that some described as aform of house arrest. Ms. Bruguera hasbeen detained twice by the police whenshe ventured outside, and said officerssuggested she and others could becharged with “sedition and civil disobe-dience.”
In a report released this week, HumanRights Watch documented 34 instancesin which the Cuban government has pun-ished dissidents, including some in-volved with the artists’ movement, by ac-cusing them of violating restrictions in-tended to prevent the spread of the co-ronavirus. Nine were accused of notwearing a face mask properly.
Even holed up in their homes, howev-er, many of the artists have continued topublicize what they say is harassment bythe government, in videos and posts onFacebook.
And the government has not stoppedthe flow of messages on WhatsAppgroup chats, which the protesters say iskeeping the broader movement alive.
“The spark that we lit with the protest,that energy hasn’t left us,” said Luz Esco-bar, a journalist who attended the dem-onstration. “We feel that there were hun-dreds of people connected to it, and thatwas just on the streets.”
“On social media,” she added, “thereare thousands.”
Artists outside the Cuban Culture Ministry on Nov. 27, protesting the arrests of dissidents, which were captured on videos circulated on social media.ISMAEL FRANCISCO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
‘An Awakening’: Cubans’ Access to the Internet Fosters Dissent
Connecting to the internet from cellphones in Havana in June 2019, six months after Cuba first made that connectionpossible. Because of President Barack Obama’s opening to the island, two-thirds of Cubans can connect to the internet.
YAMIL LAGE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
Swiftly mobilizingthrough social media.
This article is by Ed Augustin, NatalieKitroeff and Frances Robles.
A rapper and Trumpsupporter streamed hisarrest live on Facebook.
N A13THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
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DECEMBER 10, 2020
H.E. Muhammadu Buhari
President of The Federal Republic of Nigeria
Aso Villa, Abuja
Nigeria
Nigerian Ambassador to the United States,
Sylvanus Adiewere Nsofor
G20 Nigerian Ambassadors
President Cyril Ramaphosa of the Republic
of South Africa, Chairperson African Union
President Nana Akufo-Addo of the Republic
of Ghana, Chair Economic Community of
West African States �ECOWAS�
Cc.
ON THIS INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY,
AS SIGNATORIES OF THIS PUBLIC LETTER,
WE EXPRESS OUR DISMAY AND OUTRAGE AT
YOUR ADMINISTRATION’S VIOLENT RESPONSE
TO THE PEACEFUL #ENDSARS PROTESTS
TAKING PLACE ACROSS NIGERIA IN OCTOBER.
SIGNED
In the midst of a global pandemic, your people sought
to bring peace and justice to their land, and they made
Africa and its diaspora proud in doing so. Their actions
reflect the dignity of the Ancestors and stand as a noble
beacon of courage for future generations. For the first time
in recent memory, the world witnessed Nigerians from all
walks of life, ethnicities, religions, gender identities, sexual
orientations and socioeconomic classes, come together
to make known the collective needs of the people. Yet
their peaceful requests were met with state-sanctioned
violence and suppression, as your administration meted out
unwarranted force against its own unarmed citizens. This
blatant disregard for life was made most evident when the
army shot and killed protesters on October 20, 2020 at the
Lekki Toll Gate. We will never forget this date. We mourn
the victims of the attack and grieve with their families.
As people who have supported the Black Lives Matter
movement in the United States and throughout the diaspora,
we cannot be silent when similar atrocities take place in
African countries. We demand respect for the Nigerian
people, especially as they engage in their constitutional
right to protest grave injustices. As President of the world’s
most populous Black republic, you assume a leadership
role on the global stage. Nigeria matters. We expect nothing
short of care for your people and concern for the reputation
of your country. As Nigeria is a major powerhouse for the
continent of Africa you must know, President Buhari, that
your response has exponential implications for the continent
and the African diaspora.
Therefore, we are calling for you to take the following
actions immediately:
• Release all jailed protesters, activists and
journalists. This must include the reinstatement of
their passports, bank accounts and all confiscated
government IDs
• Hold all military, security, and intelligence officers or
personnel found responsible for the killings at Lekki
Toll Gate on October 20, 2020, and around Nigeria
throughout the protests, accountable. Whether for
providing the order for brutality or engaging in the
actual shooting, all must be held to account.
• Permit a transparent investigation by independent
human rights monitors into the actions that led to
the killings at Lekki Toll Gate, and publish all findings
in nationally and internationally accredited media
broadcasts.
Samuel Adegoke
Riz Ahmed
Jackie Aina
Gbenga Akinnagbe
Nnamdi Asomugha
Alexandra Baldeh Loras
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
Harry Belafonte
Douglas Belchior
Farida Bemba Nabourema
Rep.-Elect Jamaal Bowman
Sharon Chuter
Kimberlé Crenshaw
Jamil Dakwar
Alphonso David
Angela Davis
Rosario Dawson
Sabrina Dhowre Elba
Rokhaya Diallo
Reni Eddo-Lodge
Cynthia Erivo
Sybrina Fulton
Danny Glover
Nana Gyamfi
Lennox Hinds
Afua Hirsch
Jidenna
Mariame Kaba
Ibram X. Kendi
Alicia Keys
• Lift the ban on peaceful demonstrations all
throughout Nigeria to allow Nigerians exercise their
constitutional right to protest.
President Buhari, you must follow the lead of your people.
We urge you to heed the call not only for the rights
enshrined in the United Nations International Declaration of
Human Rights, but also those rights enshrined in the very
constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As the Head
of State you are principally responsible for the protection
of the constitutional rights of every Nigerian citizen. It is
paramount that you uphold the International Bill of Rights,
and adhere to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’
Rights, as well as the Protocol of Democracy of Good
Governance of the ECOWAS, an institution headquartered
in Nigeria.
Nigerians deserve better.
Africa deserves better.
The world deserves better.
We remain united in our calls
for justice until all Black lives
matter throughout the world.
DEAR PRESIDENT BUHARI,NIGERIANS DESERVE BETTER
Angélique Kidjo
Rev. Dr. Bernice King
Naomi Klein
Nelson Makamo
Dep. Erica Malunguinho
Jaha Mapenzi Dukureh
Matt McGorry
Aja Monet
Marc Morial
Ibtihaj Muhammad
Kumi Naidoo
Ijeoma Oluo
Rep. Ilhan Omar
Yvonne Orji
Mark Ruffalo
Angela Rye
Kendrick Sampson
Laolu Senbanjo
Salil Shetty
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Hank Willis Thomas
Greta Thunberg
Redi Tlhabi
Opal Tometi
Assa Traoré
V (fka Eve Ensler)
Vince Warren
Kerry Washington
Jesse Williams
Emira Woods
A14 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
N A15THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
YWZZQQSF
A16 N INTERNATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
The mysterious July explosion that de-stroyed a centrifuge assembly hall atIran’s main nuclear fuel enrichment fa-cility in Natanz was deemed by the Irani-an authorities to be enemy sabotage, andprovoked a defiant response: Thewrecked building would be rebuilt in “theheart of the mountains,” the head ofIran’s Atomic Energy Organization said.
Progress on that pledge, which couldshield the facility from an aerial assaultor other threats, has been unclear to out-side observers. But new satellite im-agery is now shedding light on the Irani-an plans.
The Visual Investigations team of TheNew York Times has tracked construc-tion at the site using the new imagery.For the first time, new tunnel entrancesfor underground construction are visibleunder a ridge in the mountain foothillssouth of the Natanz facility, about 140miles south of Tehran.
The Times worked with Jeffrey Lewis,an arms control expert at the Middle-bury Institute of International Studies atMonterey in California, to interpret thenew image.
“The new facility is likely to be a farmore secure location for centrifuge as-sembly — it is located far from a road andthe ridge offers significant overburdenthat would protect the facility from air at-tack,” Mr. Lewis stated in written com-ments.
The July explosion was not the only re-cent incident that appeared to have ex-posed major gaps in Iran’s security of itsnuclear program, which the country in-sists is limited to peaceful purposes. Inlate November, a brazen daylight attackkilled Iran’s top nuclear scientist,Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.
Iran has blamed Israel and the UnitedStates for the Natanz explosion and Mr.Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, which wereboth considered serious setbacks toIran’s nuclear program.
Mr. Lewis described the clues that un-derground construction was underwayat the site in Natanz.
“There are what appear to be two tun-nel entrances on either side of a largeridge, with a pile of spoil from excavationnearby. The space between the two en-trances is large enough to accommodatea facility about the same size as the cen-trifuge assembly building that was de-stroyed this summer and that Iran indi-cated it was rebuilding in the moun-tains.”
Looking at satellite images taken overseveral months allows for trackingchanges. Even something as simple andinconspicuous as a pile of dirt is a clue.
“The major clue is the pile of spoil fromthe excavation that was not present inJuly,” Mr. Lewis said. “Iran also regradeda pair of roads on each side of the ridgeleading to what appear to be tunnel en-trances.”
Allison Puccioni, an imagery analystaffiliated with the Center for Interna-tional Security and Cooperation at Stan-ford University, pointed out other telltalesigns of excavations near the debris pile.In comments provided to the Times, Ms
Puccioni said that between the debrispile and excavation site, the imageryshowed “trails of excavated earth,lighter in color than the existing hard-packed road.”
A flurry of activity in Natanz capturedby satellites in recent months includesthe building of new roads and additionalexcavations, which started after the ex-plosion. Researchers from AllSourceAnalysis and the Institute for Scienceand International Security have previ-ously identified the area and said that ad-ditional tunnels are being constructed,suggesting work on an even larger un-derground complex is underway.
The destroyed building was built in2012 and had been used to assemble cen-trifuges, the machines that enrich ura-nium needed for peaceful purposes —and when enriched to higher levels, forbombs. The 2015 nuclear agreement be-tween Iran and world powers halted highlevel enrichment, but Iran startedamassing enriched uranium again afterPresident Trump left the accord twoyears ago.
After the July explosion, the Interna-tional Atomic Energy Agency, whichmonitors Iran’s compliance with the ac-cord, confirmed that there had been nonuclear materials at that specific build-ing.
The ability to see via satellite whatIran has done since the Natanz explosionpartly reflects the quantum leap in suchvisual technology in the past two dec-ades.
In 2002, analysts revealed the con-struction of the then secret Natanz en-richment facility using commercial high-resolution satellite imagery. Such sharpimagery had only become available in2000. Back then, the analysis requiredfinding Natanz on Persian maps in theLibrary of Congress, faxing an orderform and waiting for weeks to receivesatellite imagery on a CD-ROM. Eigh-teen years later, even the smallestchanges at a site like Natanz can bequickly tracked by analysts and journal-ists on their laptops.
These monitoring capabilities can cre-ate their own challenges. Frequently col-lected images do not show completedconstruction, but work in progress. Ini-tial interpretation of the recent changesin Natanz from October focused on a for-mer firing range south of the main facili-ty as the possible location for the new un-derground centrifuge assembly hall.However, these changes turned out to bea construction support facility used forroad work and tunnel excavations.
In response to Mr. Fakhrizadeh’s as-sassination, Iran enacted a law last weekto immediately ramp up uranium enrich-ment and bar international inspectors byFebruary if U.S. sanctions are not lifted.The law also calls for the installment ofadvanced centrifuges at its nuclear facil-ities, including in Natanz.
The United States may have beenaware in advance of the recent attacks onIran’s nuclear infrastructure and person-nel. How Iran responds to the newest at-tack could pose an early challenge to theincoming Biden administration, whichhas said it wants to rejoin the nuclear ac-cord repudiated by Mr. Trump.
TUNNEL ENTRANCE
EXCAVATION DEBRIS
CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT ANDMATERIALS
APPROX. SIZE OF BUILDING DESTROYED IN JULY EXPLOSION
Dec. 1
TUNNEL ENTRANCE
Dec. 1:After
Nov. 5:Before
EXCAVATION DEBRIS
The Natanz nuclear facility. In July,an explosion destroyed a centrifugeassembly hall, circled, at the com-plex. Iranian authorities deemed theblast a result of enemy sabotage.
The New York Timesanalyzed the imageswith Jeffrey Lewis at theMiddlebury Institute ofInternational Studies atMonterey and identifiedthe location of a likelynew underground facili-ty south of the Natanznuclear site. Expertspointed to a growing pileof excavation debris, farleft, as one of the keyclues to new under-ground construction atthe site.
Road work and earth-moving vehicles in October outside what would appear to be a future tunnel entrance.
By CHRISTOPH KOETTLand ARIELLE RAY
The New York Times Visual Investiga-tions team combines traditional report-ing with digital sleuthing and the analysisof visual evidence to deconstruct impor-tant news events. As part of this work, itregularly uses satellite images from com-mercial providers and scientific organiza-tions.
Iran Is MovingKey Facility At Nuclear SiteUnderground
VISUAL INVESTIGATIONS
Satellite images confirm a nation’svow to rebuild out of enemy viewafter a mysterious explosion in July.
MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES/THE NEW YORK TIMES
PLANET LABS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
PLANET LABS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES
N A17INTERNATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
The world as a whole is danger-ously behind schedule in slowingcatastrophic climate change, andits richest people will have tomake big changes in their every-day lives in order to shift course, amajor United Nations reportwarned Wednesday.
But nearly five years after alandmark international climateagreement in Paris, there aresigns of a sea change, includingfrom some of the biggest pollutersin the world.
The “undercurrent” of theglobal economy has shifted, saidChristiana Figueres, a formerUnited Nations diplomat who ledthe negotiations that yielded theParis Agreement in 2015. “We aremoving faster than we ever were,”she told reporters on Wednesday.
Most of the world’s biggestemitters of planet-warming gases,including China, have promised todraw down their emissions to net-zero by midcentury, meaning thatthey would eliminate as much ofthe greenhouse gases as theyemit. If those promises are kept (abig if) the world will come veryclose to the Paris Agreement’sgoal of limiting temperature riseto the levels required to avert theworst climate disasters.
Much more of the world’s elec-tricity, which used to come almostentirely from burning toxic fossilfuels like coal, is now coming fromrenewable sources, with the priceof solar power having fallen farfaster than expected. Lawmakers— including in big car marketslike China, Britain and California— have announced an end to the
sale of gas-powered cars in thenext 10 to 15 years, spurring car-makers to roll out more electricvehicles. Some of the world’s big-gest investors are beginning tomove their money out of fossil fuelindustries, while the InternationalMonetary Fund, hardly known forits environmental activism, saidthis year that green measureswould help the global economy re-cover.
All is not well, though. Far fromit. The assessment publishedWednesday by the United NationsEnvironment Program, the 11thannual Emissions Gap Report,found that greenhouse gas emis-sions continued to grow between2010 and 2019, by an average of 1.4percent a year. The rise in 2019was far sharper, in part because ofemissions generated by wildfires,which are themselves exacerbat-ed by a warming climate.
Emissions are expected to dropby about 7 percent this year be-cause of the economic slowdowncaused by the coronavirus pan-demic, the report found. But thatwould have what its authorscalled a “negligible” impact on theoverall warming trend. The aver-age global temperature has in-creased already by 1 degree Cel-sius since preindustrial times andis on course to rise by more than 3degrees Celsius by the end of thecentury, according to the latestcalculations. While those num-bers appear small, the increase inglobal averages is linked torecord-breaking heat waves, wid-ening wildfires and storms thatbring devastatingly heavy rain-fall.
The goal of the Paris accord is tolimit average global temperaturerise to well below 2 degrees Cel-sius, in order to have a good shotat averting the worst effects of cli-mate change, like food insecurityand the inundation of coastal cit-ies. The pledges announced bycountries so far are not enough toreach that goal, the United Na-tions report found.
What matters now is whethercountries will sufficiently upgradetheir climate targets and detailwhat they will do in the next 10years, which are crucial, accord-ing to climate scientists.
China has said that it will startreducing emissions in the nextdecade and then rapidly reduce itsemissions to net-zero before 2060;it is expected to submit its revised
national targets under the ParisAgreement soon.
The United Nations is pressingcountries to announce more ambi-tious climate targets by Saturday,when it convenes an online meet-ing of world leaders to mark theParis Agreement’s fifth anniver-sary. The pact can’t force anycountry to do anything about itsown pollution trajectory. Rather, itleverages diplomatic peer pres-sure, with each country settingvoluntary targets of its own to re-duce the growth of emissions.
Britain, a center of the Industri-al Revolution and the host of thenext international climate talks inlate 2021, has set out new climatetargets, promising to cut emis-sions by 68 percent by 2030, com-pared with 1990 levels.
European Union leaders havesaid they are optimistic aboutreaching an agreement at theirmeeting Thursday on a revisedgoal to reduce the continent’s totalemissions by 55 percent in thenext 10 years, compared with 1990levels.
Japan and Korea, both largeemitters, have announced net-zero targets, too, in recent weeks.
All eyes are now on history’slargest emitter, the United States.President-elect Joseph R. BidenJr. has said he intends to rejoin theParis Agreement as soon as hetakes office and bring emissionsdown to net-zero by midcentury,though it remains to be seen howambitious his new emissions re-ductions target will be.
How effectively the UnitedStates and China can pivot theireconomies away from fossil fuelsis crucial to stemming globalwarming, shaping global marketsfor clean technologies and nudg-ing other major emitters — like In-dia, Indonesia, Russia, and Brazil— to do their part.
Inger Andersen, the head of theUnited Nations Environment Pro-gram, which published the annualEmissions Gap Report, urgedworld leaders to invest their post-Covid recovery funds, saying that“a green pandemic recovery cantake a huge slice out of green-house gas emissions and helpslow climate change.”
The report recommends,among other things, reducing,though not eliminating, fossil fuelsubsidies, stopping the construc-tion of new coal plants and restor-ing degraded forests.
Andrew Steer, the president ofthe World Resources Institute, aresearch and advocacy group, de-scribed the trillions of dollars go-ing into post-pandemic economicrecovery as “the biggest opportu-nity in history.”
“If we invest that in yesterday’seconomy,” he told reporters on acall Wednesday, “we are basicallycommitting a mortal sin for ourgrandchildren, quite frankly.”
But as the latest United Nationsreport makes clear, we are not all
the same, nor do we all need to dothe same thing to protect futuregenerations.
The richest 1 percent of theglobal population produces morethan twice the greenhouse gasemissions than the combinedshare of the poorest 50 percent ofthe global population. The pollut-ing rich, the report concludes, willhave to reduce their emissionsfootprint by a factor of 30 to avertthe worst damages of a warmingplanet. That can be done, the re-port adds, by reducing food waste,making buildings more energy-ef-ficient and taking public transitrather than cars, and trains ratherthan planes, for short distances.
“The wealthy bear greatest re-sponsibility,” the report said.
Earth Is Sailing Into Climate Chaos, Report Says, but Its Course Could ShiftBy SOMINI SENGUPTA
A wind and solar power station in Dongtai, China. China has setambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
ALEX PLAVEVSKI/EPA, VIA SHUTTERSTOCK
The U.N. finds reasonfor hope and areas ofgreat concern.
For two years, the Canadianmen have been held in separateprisons in northern China, largelycut off from the rest of the world.They have been accused of espio-nage, without evidence, andforced to go months without visitsfrom diplomats. They have waitedas their cases have meanderedthrough China’s opaque legal sys-tem, despite calls around theworld for their release.
The men — Michael Kovrig, aformer diplomat, and MichaelSpavor, an entrepreneur — wereonce relatively low-profile expa-triates working in Asia. They havenow become symbols of the conse-quences of Beijing’s increasinglyaggressive foreign policy, theirfates seemingly intertwined withthe future of China’s tumultuousrelationships with Canada and theUnited States.
China has made clear that it re-mains angered by Canada’s deci-sion in December 2018 to detainMeng Wanzhou, a prominent Chi-nese technology executive, at therequest of American prosecutors.The detentions of Mr. Kovrig andMr. Spavor shortly thereafter —two years ago on Thursday —were widely perceived as retribu-tion.
The fates of all three are beingwatched as President-elect Jo-seph R. Biden Jr. prepares to enterthe White House next month. InCanada, some experts and offi-cials are hopeful that U.S.-Chinarelations might improve under theBiden administration, perhapssmoothing the way for the releaseof Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor. Oth-ers are less optimistic that theworld’s two largest economies caneasily resolve their disputes, theMeng case being just one of many.
The United States has accusedMs. Meng, the daughter of thefounder of the Chinese technologygiant Huawei, of sweeping fraudcharges and sought her extradi-tion. But while Mr. Kovrig and Mr.Spavor continue to be held inharsh conditions, she has beengranted bail in a seven-bedroom
mansion in Vancouver.Mr. Kovrig, who worked for a
nonprofit organization, has beenconfined to a small jail cell in Bei-jing and was subjected to re-peated interrogations early in hisdetention. During his incarcera-tion, his diet has, at times, been re-stricted to rice and boiled vegeta-bles, he told his family.
The Chinese authorities havekept Mr. Kovrig so isolated that hewas not aware of the details of thecoronavirus pandemic until Octo-ber, his wife, Vina Nadjibulla said,when Canadian diplomats in-formed him during a virtual visit.
“He is remarkably resilient, buthis situation is difficult to endure,”Ms. Nadjibulla said in an inter-view. “We worry about the toll thisis having on his mental health.”
Mr. Spavor, a businessman whopromoted cultural trips to NorthKorea, is being held in the Chinesecity of Dandong, near the NorthKorean border. Less is knownabout his condition; his relativeshave declined to speak with thenews media.
“It’s been a nightmare for thosewho know him and love him,” saidJacco Zwetsloot, a friend of Mr.Spavor who lives in South Korea.
Canada’s ambassador to China,Dominic Barton, on Tuesday told aspecial parliamentary committeeon Canada-China relations that herecently spoke with the two im-prisoned Canadians by video andconfirmed their health and well-being.
The harsh treatment of Mr.Kovrig and Mr. Spavor reflects thestrongman foreign policy of Chi-na’s top leader, Xi Jinping. TheChinese government has steadilyescalated the crisis, accusing Mr.Kovrig and Mr. Spavor of endan-gering state security and indict-ing them in June on espionagecharges. The two men now facethe possibility of a trial in Chinesecourts, which are controlled bythe ruling Communist Party.
Mr. Xi has sought to project anew era of strength for China andto demonstrate that he will notbow to the demands of Westernnations. He is locked in a tit-for-tatbattle with the Trump administra-tion, which in recent months has
imposed restrictions on Chinesetechnology companies, includingHuawei, and penalized top Chi-nese officials for human rightsabuses, among other measures.
By continuing to hold the twoCanadians, Mr. Xi is “casting asidepolitesse in favor of a frontal as-sault on any country and personthat dares to confront China,” saidDiana Fu, associate professor ofpolitical science at the Universityof Toronto.
In Canada, where the deten-tions of the “Two Michaels” havebeen front-page news for months,the crisis has stoked widespreadanger and underscored the coun-try’s impotence in the face of a ris-ing superpower. Relations be-tween Canada and China have fur-ther eroded this year because ofBeijing’s early efforts to concealthe coronavirus outbreak and itscontinuing crackdown on pro-de-mocracy forces in Hong Kong, aformer British colony.
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s primeminister, has repeatedly criticizedChina’s handling of the case anddemanded the release of Mr.
Kovrig and Mr. Spavor.“We’re going to continue to
work as hard as we possibly can tobring these two Michaels home,”Mr. Trudeau said this month.
Some former Canadian parlia-mentarians and diplomats as wellas legal experts have argued thatCanada’s justice minister shouldintervene to free Ms. Meng, say-ing that could clear the way for therelease of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spa-vor. But Mr. Trudeau has rejectedsuch a move, saying it would un-dermine the independence of Ca-nadian courts and encourageChina or other countries to arbi-trarily arrest Canadians.
For friends and relatives of Mr.Kovrig and Mr. Spavor, the uncer-tainty has been trying. They havein recent days organized a cam-paign asking people to mailChristmas cards for the two mento Chinese embassies around theworld, hoping to continue to putpressure on Beijing.
Ms. Nadjibulla, the wife of Mr.Kovrig, said he was passing thetime by exercising in his cell andreading letters from family. He
has also found solace in books likeNelson Mandela’s autobiography,“Long Walk to Freedom.”
While Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spa-vor have been afforded minimalcontact with the outside world,Ms. Meng has encountered fewsuch restrictions. She has beenfree to take private paintinglessons and go shopping, and be-fore the pandemic she was able toattend concerts by Chinese sing-ers, though she wears a GPStracker.
David Mulroney, a former Ca-nadian ambassador to China, saidBeijing was not acting in goodfaith.
“Every step in the legal processagainst Ms. Meng is mirrored by afake Chinese process duringwhich China is retaliating,” Mr.Mulroney said. “Meng is a prin-cess in their system — and theyare saying: ‘How dare Canadahold her? And we will take a fewpawns as ransom for her.’”
China has denied that the Cana-dians were detained arbitrarily.
Hua Chunying, a spokeswomanfor the Chinese foreign ministry,
said this month that Canadian offi-cials were “distorting the facts” bysuggesting that the two men wereinnocent. She called on Canada torelease Ms. Meng, saying the Ca-nadian government was acting asan “accomplice” to U.S. efforts tosuppress the rise of Chinese tech-nology companies.
The Communist Party has a his-tory of holding foreigners on spu-rious charges as a way to extractconcessions from companies andgovernments overseas. And whileofficials have denied that Chinatakes part in “hostage diplomacy,”some analysts have hinted thatthe fates of Mr. Kovrig and Mr.Spavor might be linked to that ofMs. Meng.
Wu Xinbo, a professor at FudanUniversity in Shanghai, said hebelieved the charges against Mr.Kovrig and Mr. Spavor were legiti-mate. But he said the Chinese gov-ernment might be more lenient ifCanada moved to release Ms.Meng.
“If Canada handles it well, thenthe rest might be more flexible,”Mr. Wu said.
At a 2019 Vancouver court appearance by the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, protesters urged China to free two Canadians.LINDSEY WASSON/REUTERS
Two Years of Uncertainty Under Detention by China For Canada’s ‘2 Michaels’
Albee Zhang contributed research.
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZand DAN BILEFSKY
A Japanese councilor who ac-cused a mayor of sexual assaulthas been voted out of office by res-idents after colleagues arguedthat she had damaged the town’sreputation.
Shoko Arai, the only female as-sembly member in the town ofKusatsu, which is northwest of To-kyo, was ousted after the mayorand other assembly members,having tried and failed to removeher once already, orchestrated arecall election on Sunday.
The case highlights the difficul-ties faced by women who comeforward with allegations of sexualassault in Japan, where suchepisodes are underreported andrarely discussed openly.
“This is a very, very typical Jap-anese reaction against female vic-tim-survivors,” said Hiroko Goto,an expert in law and gender at
Chiba University.Last November, Ms. Arai ac-
cused Kusatsu’s mayor, NobutadaKuroiwa, of forcing her into sexualrelations in 2015. Mr. Kuroiwa hasdenied the accusation and filed adefamation complaint against her.
The following month, three-quarters of the town’s councilorsvoted to expel Ms. Arai from theassembly, a decision that wasoverturned by the government ofGunma Prefecture, which in-cludes Kusatsu.
Mr. Kuroiwa and other assem-bly members then gatheredenough signatures from residentsto request a recall election. Theyargued that Ms. Arai lacked evi-dence for her claim and that newscoverage of the case had damagedthe reputation of Kusatsu, a townof about 6,200 people whose econ-omy relies on tourists visiting itshot springs.
Residents voted in favor of re-calling Ms. Arai, 2,542 to 208.
“I think that the referendum re-sult doesn’t reflect the will of citi-zens,” Ms. Arai said via email onWednesday, adding that she be-lieved it had been swayed by themayor and his supporters.
In a statement on Sunday afterthe results of the vote were an-nounced, she said she wantedKusatsu to be a place where resi-dents did not need to fear the au-thorities, but “with Mr. Kuroiwaand the current assembly, we can’tachieve that.”
She added in the statement thata petition she had started againstthe recall election had gatheredover 12,000 signatures, and thatshe planned to continue her politi-cal activities.
Mr. Kuroiwa said the vote hadprotected the “dignity of thetown,” according to The AsahiShimbun, a national newspaper.
Professor Goto said that thelack of coverage of gender-based
violence in the Japanese news me-dia, as well as pervasive culturalattitudes that women should besubmissive, makes it easy to mo-bilize public sentiment againstwomen who speak out.
Although these attitudes arecommon across Japan, she added,they are stronger in small townslike Kusatsu, where male poli-ticians “still believe that the wom-en should follow orders.”
Last year, in a landmark ruling,a Tokyo court sided with ShioriIto, a journalist who had accusedthe prominent television journal-ist Noriyuki Yamaguchi of rape,and ordered Mr. Yamaguchi to payMs. Ito about $30,000 in damages.
Professor Goto said, however,that such rulings remain the ex-ceptions in a justice system inwhich sexual assault cases rarelygo to court.
Ms. Arai’s case also highlightsthe need for more female poli-
ticians, she said, adding that shebelieved the outcome might havebeen different if there had beenmore assemblywomen in Kusatsuwho were able to amplify Ms.Arai’s voice.
Jiro Yamaguchi, a political sci-
ence professor at Hosei Univer-sity in Tokyo, said on Twitter thatassembly leaders in Kusatsu hadessentially used the recall to elim-inate an elected opponent.
“It’s just an autocracy by themajority,” he said.
Town Punishes Official Who Accused Mayor of Sex Assault
A Tokyo rally against sexual harassment. An accusation in thetown of Kusastsi led to a backlash against the accuser.
ISSEI KATO/REUTERS
By YAN ZHUANGand HISAKO UENO
英文杂志QQ群: 1074370165
A18 N INTERNATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
The Iranian authorities havedetained a number of people ac-cused of involvement in the assas-sination of the country’s top nucle-ar scientist last month nearTehran, a parliamentary advisertold an Iranian state-run broad-caster on Wednesday.
The adviser, Hossein Amir Ab-dollahian, did not say how manypeople had been arrested in con-nection with the death of the sci-entist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, andrevealed nothing about their iden-tities, according to the broadcast-er, Al Alam.
“Those involved in this assassi-
nation, some of whom have beenidentified by the security serv-ices, and even arrested, cannotflee from justice,” said Mr. Abdol-lahian, a former deputy foreignminister who now serves as anaide to the president of Parlia-ment, according to a transcript ofthe interview. He added that theauthorities would “respond tothem firmly and make them re-gret their actions.”
Iran’s judiciary and security
forces have not said arrests weremade related to Mr. Fakhrizadeh’sassassination. Rear Adm. Ali Fa-davi, deputy commander in chiefof the Islamic RevolutionaryGuards Corps, said on Tuesdaythat there had been someprogress in the investigation butdid not mention arrests.
American and Israeli officialssay Mr. Fakhrizadeh was consid-ered the driving force behind whatthey have described as Iran’s se-cretive nuclear weapons pro-gram. The brazen assassinationshocked Tehran, which has re-peatedly said its nuclear ambi-tions are peaceful.
The scientist was ambushed ona country road, though conflictingaccounts of how the assassinationwas carried out have exposed the
tensions between competing fac-tions of the Iranian government,as each tried to shift blame.
Shortly after the killing, at leastthree officials said that Israel wasbehind the attack, and since then,Israeli officials have all but pub-licly acknowledged responsibility.
It remained unclear how muchthe United States might haveknown about the operation in ad-vance, but the two allies have longshared intelligence regardingIran, specifically around its nucle-ar program.
Mr. Abdollahian said that theIranian authorities believed theIsraelis had help coordinating thekilling of Mr. Fakhrizadeh, adding“there is no doubt” that there wasalso American involvement.
Iran Claims Arrests in Killing of Its Top Nuclear ScientistBy MEGAN SPECIA
Farnaz Fassihi contributed report-ing.
An official says theconspirators ‘cannotflee from justice.’
in a recent interview. “He’s goingto have to make a decision — is hegoing to be the faithful NATO ally,or is he going to go it alone in theregion?”
Congress is poised this week toapprove economic sanctionsagainst Turkey for buying Rus-sian missile defense systemsearly in Mr. Trump’s term, poten-tially exposing NATO militarytechnology to Moscow. Mr. Trumpstalled the sanctions last year, af-ter the defense systems were de-livered to Turkey.
For the first time, and after An-kara tested the systems this fall,White House officials have in-formed Turkish diplomats that theTrump administration will not op-pose the congressional sanctions,according to two people involvedin the discussions.
Instead, they said, the sanc-tions are meant in part to warnEgypt, India, Saudi Arabia andother nations that have signaledinterest in purchasing Russianmilitary equipment.
At a meeting of foreign min-isters from NATO nations lastweek, Secretary of State MikePompeo criticized Turkey on sev-eral fronts, according to a personbriefed on his comments. Hisstatements — against Turkey’sdefense purchases, its explorationof natural gas in disputed watersin the eastern Mediterranean Seaand its support of foreign forces inexternal conflicts such as Libya —showed that Mr. Pompeo had wea-ried of trying to temper rising ten-sions among European allies andAmerican lawmakers.
“We are concerned about some
of the Turkish behavior,” Kay Bai-ley Hutchison, the U.S. ambassa-dor to NATO, told reporters aheadof the foreign ministers’ meetingin Brussels. “The idea that youcould put a Russian-made missiledefense system in the middle ofour alliance is out of bounds.”
The European Union is weigh-ing its own sanctions against Tur-key as retaliation for separate dis-putes with Greece, Cyprus andGermany in a decision that couldcome as soon as Thursday, ac-cording to a European diplomat inWashington.
Taken together, Turkey is feel-ing increasingly isolated, accord-ing to a senior official in its gov-ernment.
Last month’s basing of a U.S.Navy expeditionary ship at SoudaBay, off the Greek coast, signaledthat Turkey was no longer the key
U.S. ally in the eastern Mediterra-nean, the senior official said.
The Abraham accords brokeredthis fall by the Trump administra-tion — fostering normalized rela-tionships among Israel and threeArab states, Bahrain, Sudan andthe United Arab Emirates — har-nessed Middle Eastern countriesthat are hostile to the MuslimBrotherhood. The Islamist move-ment is supported by Mr. Erdo-gan.
The senior Turkish official alsodescribed feeling snubbed by Mr.Pompeo’s visits this fall to rivals inCyprus and Greece, and then histour of Istanbul with his wife inNovember instead of going to An-kara to meet with governmentleaders.
The expected sanctions aresure to hammer Turkey’s already
strained economy and may forceMr. Erdogan to pull back frommost of his military missionsabroad. (One exception would bein neighboring Syria, where Tur-key is battling Islamic State mili-tants and American-backed Kurd-ish fighters; Mr. Erdogan consid-ers both of the groups to be terror-ists and is unlikely to retreat.)
Experts warn that this couldpush Turkey into Russia’s arms ifMr. Biden is not careful.
“Relations with Turkey will be amajor, urgent question for the Bi-den administration,” said James F.Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassadorto Turkey and Iraq who retiredlast month as the State Depart-ment’s special envoy for Syria pol-icy and the coalition to defeat theIslamic State.
“Given the country’s size, loca-
tion, economic and military power,and the pro-Western sentimentsof the population — if not its presi-dent — does it make sense to side-line Turkey or push it into the Rus-sian camp?” Mr. Jeffrey said.
He noted that Turkey and Rus-sia have been on opposite sides incontinuing conflicts in Syria, Lib-ya and Nagorno-Karabakh. Tur-key also remains a critical NATOally in Iraq and Afghanistan, andopposes Iran’s regional advances.
The senior Turkish official de-scribed Mr. Erdogan’s interests asultimately having more in com-mon with the West than with Rus-sia. But, he said, how the Biden ad-ministration approaches the dis-pute over the missile defense sys-tems will be a first test.
It is far from certain a compro-mise can be struck. But the Turk-ish official said Mr. Biden’s advis-ers have indicated in low-level dis-cussions that they were open toconsidering compromises as theyare proposed, including conven-ing a NATO working group to lookat whether Russia could indeedpenetrate Western military sys-tems through the missile defensesystems.
A spokesman for Mr. Biden’stransition team declined to com-ment.
The senior Turkish official alsosaid that Mr. Biden’s advisershave made clear they will engagewith Turkey through traditionaland technical diplomatic channels— and not rely on the kind of spon-taneous and direct lines of com-munication that marked the rela-tionship between Mr. Trump andMr. Erdogan.
That was welcome news to theTurks, the senior official said.
WASHINGTON — No longerrestrained by President Trump’saffection for Turkey’s authoritar-ian leader, U.S. officials and Con-gress are using the waning days ofhis presidency to prepare sanc-tions and strike a strident toneagainst the strategic but unreli-able ally.
Turkey, a member of the NorthAtlantic Treaty Organization, hasvexed the administration almostsince its start. That has been asmuch Mr. Trump’s doing — and hisadmiration for its president, Re-cep Tayyip Erdogan — as that ofactions by the government in An-kara, which has abused humanrights, imprisoned Americans andjournalists, and muscled into con-frontations from Syria to Libya tothe Caucasus to the eastern Medi-terranean Sea.
The redirection of U.S. policywill also require President-electJoseph R. Biden Jr. to carefullybring Turkey back into the West’sembrace and keep from pushing itcloser to Russia.
“For years, President Trumphas personally shielded Erdoganand Turkey,” said Senator ChrisVan Hollen, Democrat of Mary-land. He said the incoming Bidenadministration “will be an impor-tant check on Erdogan’s efforts toexpand his influence at our ex-pense, in a way that underminesour interests.”
“It’s a little bit of a crossroadsfor Erdogan,” Mr. Van Hollen said
Julian E. Barnes contributed re-porting.
With Biden in Wings, U.S. Ready to Adjust Its Posture on Turkey
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Trump at the White House last fall. “Foryears, President Trump has personally shielded Erdogan and Turkey,” a Democratic senator said.
T. J. KIRKPATRICK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
A NATO ally that haspurchased Russiandefense systems.
By LARA JAKES
LONDON — Britain and the Eu-ropean Union on Wednesdayfailed to break the deadlock in crit-ical negotiations about a post-Brexit trade deal and, with widedivisions remaining betweenthem, set a new deadline for Sun-day to reach a decision on the fu-ture of the talks.
A meeting over dinner betweenPrime Minister Boris Johnson ofBritain and Ursula von der Leyen,the president of the EuropeanCommission, the bloc’s executivebody, ended without significantprogress.
Wednesday’s three-hour meet-ing had been set up with the goalof ending months of deadlock intrade negotiations, talks that re-mained stalled just three weeksbefore Britain completes the finalstage of Brexit, by leaving the Eu-ropean Union’s economic area atthe month’s end.
But in a statement Ms. von derLeyen said that despite “a livelyand interesting discussion,” thetwo sides’ positions “remain farapart.”
“We agreed that the teamsshould immediately reconvene totry to resolve these essential is-sues,” she added.
The announcement of a newSunday deadline still keeps alivehopes for a final push to strike theelusive trade agreement thatmany analysts had expected toemerge, theatrically, not long be-fore the Dec. 31 deadline. Discus-sions will now continue this weekon a final deal that could deter-mine the shape of Britain’s rela-tions with continental Europe fordecades to come.
But the lack of progress onWednesday night is another set-back to a negotiation that hasbeen stuck for months.
Economic logic suggests thatthe British prime minister badlyneeds a deal. But having cam-paigned for Brexit on the basis ofreclaiming national sovereignty,Mr. Johnson faces a tough task inreaching any agreement accept-able to both the bloc and Brexit
supporters back home.On Thursday, European Union
leaders are set to gather in Brus-sels with other important issueson their agenda, like the next sev-en-year budget, the coronavirusrecovery fund, the rule of law andpossible sanctions on Turkey. Eu-ropean leaders were not planningto discuss Brexit, though Ms. vonder Leyen is expected to briefthem on her talks with Mr. John-son.
Had the Brexit trade discus-sions collapsed on Wednesday, thepolitical focus on both sides wouldhave shifted to how to cope withthe failure to strike a deal and howto limit disruption in Januarywhen an abrupt switch in theterms of commerce could leaveports blocked and trucksstranded.
But the German chancellor, An-gela Merkel, remained upbeat onWednesday about the trade nego-tiations, saying “there is still thechance of an agreement.” Shestressed, though, that the Euro-pean Union would not accept anydeal “if there are conditions fromthe British side that we can’t ac-
cept” or that threaten the singlemarket.
Given the complexities andacute political sensitivitiesaround any deal, neither sideahead of the meeting had beenraising expectations that a break-through would be reached overWednesday’s dinner of pumpkinsoup and — appropriately for ne-gotiators divided over fishingrights — scallops and turbot.
The Irish foreign minister, Si-mon Coveney, has expressed hisbelief that there will be some“thin” deal, a bare minimumagreement, but that the last hur-dles are always the most difficult.“I think the negotiating teams andsenior politicians will find a way ofgetting a deal,” he said, “but at themoment we’re in a difficult placeas we try to close it out.”
But even Mr. Coveney, who is agood barometer of European sen-timent, is becoming more gloomy.He said Monday night, after ameeting of bloc foreign ministers,that the mood was shifting towardpreparations for going forwardwithout a deal. There is “a greatdeal of frustration on the E.U. side,
not just within the E.U. negotiat-ing team” but “also across mem-ber states,” Mr. Coveney said.
One outstanding issue was re-solved on Tuesday when Londondropped a threat to break its with-drawal treaty — and to breach in-ternational law — over how itwould implement rules on the flowof goods between Britain andNorthern Ireland.
Yet, the three main issues thathave prevented them from strik-ing a trade deal have remaineddifficult to resolve: fishing rights,the rules on state subsidies and“level playing field” provisions toensure fair competition betweenBritish and European companies,and the mechanisms to enforcethem.
While access to fishing stocks isan extremely contentious politicalissue for Britain, France and othercoastal European nations, theother two issues are probablyharder to resolve because theytouch on the hypersensitive prin-ciples of sovereignty.
The biggest gap is over theterms of fair trade, because offi-cials in Brussels fear that, as a
large economy on Europe’sdoorstep, Britain could adoptlower labor or environmentalstandards, flood the Europeanmarket and undercut continentalcompanies.
On this point, Mr. Johnson facesa dilemma. Negotiators in Brus-sels want the right to impose tar-iffs on imports should Britain di-verge from Europe’s standards.Given that Britain says it does not,in general, intend to adopt lowerstandards, it might never have toconfront such a situation. But ifBritain fails to strike a trade deal,it would definitely face tariffs.
Rather than a dry and technicaltrade issue, Mr. Johnson sees thisas a European attempt to tie Brit-ain to the bloc’s future rule book,trampling the nationalsovereignty that was at the heartof his vision for Brexit.
Mr. Johnson told lawmakers onWednesday that a good deal wasstill possible. But he added that ifBritain failed to follow future Eu-ropean rules, Brussels wanted the“automatic right to punish us andto retaliate,” adding that noBritish prime minister should ac-cept such terms.
Hard-liners within his ownparty have amplified that argu-ment, appealing to him not to com-promise in the discussions withMs. von der Leyen.
“The reality is that this is allabout sovereignty,” Iain DuncanSmith, a former leader of the Con-servative Party and a Brexit en-thusiast, wrote in The Daily Tele-graph. “From the beginning, it hasbeen clear, whilst the U.K. wants atrade deal, E.U. wants to controlus. Either the U.K. is sovereign orit is not.”
Yet the price of exercising com-plete sovereignty could be veryhigh. Failure to strike a trade dealcould well be exploited by pro-in-dependence campaigners in Scot-land, where a majority of votersopposed Brexit in a 2016 referen-dum. It would also wipe an addi-tional 2 percent off British eco-nomic output while driving up in-flation, unemployment and publicborrowing, official forecasts saidlast month.
While European nations wouldsuffer, too, none — with the possi-ble exception of Ireland — would
be hit as hard as Britain. SeniorFrench officials, like the Europeminister, Clément Beaune, havesaid that France is ready to vetoan unsatisfactory deal, and Dutchofficials have suggested that theEuropean Union’s chief negotia-tor, Michel Barnier, is coming veryclose in his negotiations to cross-ing “the red lines” of his mandatein terms of the allowable conces-sions to reach a deal.
Ms. Merkel stressed the needfor Britain to adhere closely to thebloc’s rules on labor, the envi-ronment and fair competition, aswell as for mechanisms to policeany agreement.
“We must have a level playingfield not just for today, but wemust have one for tomorrow orthe day after, and to do this wemust have agreements on howone can react if the other changestheir legal situation,” Ms. Merkel
said. “Otherwise there will be un-fair competitive conditions thatwe cannot ask of our companies.”
The Europeans are adamantthat the mandate will not changeand that Mr. Barnier has their con-fidence. While European nationsmay have differing priorities,their leaders say that they will notbreak the solidarity shown so far,and that their formal role will besimply to endorse any deal Mr.Barnier can reach — or acknowl-edge that the talks have failed.
Though Thursday’s meetingwas seen as an opportunity forEuropean Union leaders to ap-prove a Brexit trade deal, someanalysts believe that an accordcould still be agreed and ratified inthe last days of the month.
How this gets resolved — towhat degree Britain must keep torules set in Brussels and how tosettle any disputes that arise — re-mains at the heart of the continu-ing disagreements. But sellingany deal that emerges is anothermatter entirely.
Stephen Castle reported from Lon-don, and Steven Erlanger fromBrussels.
Britain and Europe Still ‘Far Apart’ After Failing to Break Brexit Deadlock
Fishing rights are among the top sources of contention in efforts to reach a trade deal. Rules onstate subsidies and how to ensure fair competition also divide Britain and the European Union.
ANDREW TESTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By STEPHEN CASTLEand STEVEN ERLANGER
A changed deadlinekeeps alive hope for abreakthrough.
N A19INTERNATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
of refugees from Ethiopia in more thantwo decades. And their accounts contra-dict the repeated claims from Mr. Abiythat no civilians are being hurt.
The Tigrayans describe being caughtbetween indiscriminate military shellingand a campaign of killing, rape and loot-ing by government-allied ethnic militias.Several told me that they saw dozens ofbodies along the route as they fled theirshops, homes and farms and took thelong road to the border with Sudan, in sti-fling heat.
As the fighting in Tigray continues, itis degenerating into a guerrilla war thatcould unravel both Ethiopia’s nationalfabric and the stability of the entire Hornof Africa region. That includes Eritrea,which is allied with Ethiopia against theTigray and has been shelled by the rebelforces; and Sudan, which has heavily de-ployed its army along its restive borderwith Ethiopia even as it has allowed refu-gees to cross.
The Tigray make up about 6 percent ofEthiopia’s 110 million people, and theywere the arbiters of power and money inthe country from 1991, when they helpeddismantle a military dictatorship, until2018, when antigovernment protests cat-apulted Mr. Abiy to power.
Mr. Abiy, who won the Nobel PeacePrize last year for ending the border con-
flict with neighboring Eritrea, hadsought to emphasize national unity anddiversity in a multiethnic Ethiopia, evenas he began methodically excludingTigrayan figures from public life and con-demning their abuses while they were inpower. Now, the conflict stands at starkodds with the legacy he was seeking, andwith the stability of the entire country.
If Mr. Abiy’s aim was to unite an in-creasingly divided country, then “thisconflict has made that harder to achieve,and so increased the likelihood of seriousongoing political instability,” saidWilliam Davison, a senior Ethiopia ana-lyst with the International Crisis Groupwho was recently expelled from thecountry.
Adding to the deadly mix are the in-volvement of rival ethnic militia groups.One of them is the Fano, a militia fromthe Amhara ethnic group. Along withAmhara regional government securityforces, Fano took part in the interventionin Tigray, Mr. Davison said.
While Fano is a term loosely used to re-fer to young Amhara militias or pro-testers, Mr. Davison added that it is also“the name given to youthful Amharavigilante groups that become more ac-tive during times when there is per-ceived to be insecurity that is not beingmanaged by the authorities.”
Tigrayan refugees in Sudan said thatFano fighters attacked and maimedthem, ransacked their properties and ex-torted them as they sought to flee. Manyof the Tigrayans, including Mr. Ashenafi,said that they were afraid of going backand that the experience had left themsleepless and scarred.
After Mr. Ashenafi awoke and saw thebodies around him, he trudged through anearby forest to reach the home of his
friend, Haftamu Berhanu, who took himin. Photos taken by Mr. Haftamu andseen by The New York Times showed Mr.Ashenafi lying on his back, white skinpeeled away around his neck from thenoose.
For days afterward, Mr. Ashenaficould not talk or swallow anything andcommunicated with his friend throughpointing or writing things down.
“It was heartbreaking,” Mr. Haftamusaid of the days caring for his friend.
“I didn’t expect in our life that our gov-ernment would kill us,” Mr. Ashenafisaid. “I am frightened so much. I am notsleeping at night.”
Many of the refugees who made it toSudan have been resettled to the UmRakuba camp about 43 miles away fromthe border. But many are also stayingaround a refugee transit point in Ham-dayet, hoping to return home or reunitewith their families once it is safe.
In this dusty outpost, the refugees con-vene every morning at the Tekeze River,a natural border between Ethiopia andSudan, to shower, collect water and cleanwhatever clothes they brought withthem. On a recent afternoon, as childrendived into the flowing river and Ethi-opian music played from a nearby phone,the refugees recounted scenes of horrorthat they had witnessed.
Many told me that they had come fromHumera, an agricultural town of about30,000 people near the Sudanese and Er-itrean borders. Thousands suddenly fledthe town with whatever they could carrywhen shelling began around midnightfrom what the refugees said was the di-rection of Eritrea.
Some gathered first at nearbychurches, but after hearing that otherchurches had been shelled, they startedthe hourslong journey on foot to Sudan.They said that militia fighters began
streaming in.“The Amhara militia cut people’s
heads,” said a Humera resident namedMeles, who wanted to be identified byonly his first name out of fear of retribu-tion. Meles, who owned a small cafe, saidthat the Fano’s reputation precededthem and that just as he feared, he en-countered many dead bodies along theway to Sudan. As he spoke to me, a crowdgathered near him on the banks of theriver, many nodding and verbally affirm-ing his account as he told it.
At least 139 children are among thosewho arrived in Sudan unaccompanied,many of them now at risk of abuse anddiscrimination, according to the organi-zation Save the Children.
With the Tigray region sandwiched be-tween the Amhara region and Eritrea,which is aligned with the Ethiopian na-tional government, Meles said he wasglad that refugees like him had another
outlet for escape.“Thank God there’s Sudan for us to
turn to,” he said.“I had to speak my fluent Amharic to
survive,” said Filimon Shishay, a 21-year-old Tigrayan who said he encounteredthe Fano and had to part with the $5 hehad with him. “They hate us,” he said.
There has long been enmity betweenthe Tigray and the Amhara. WhenTigrayan rebels seized power in 1991,Amharas claimed that the Tigray Peo-ple’s Liberation Front, which governedthe region, occupied land that histori-cally belonged to them.
“The widespread assumption isT.P.L.F. wanted to annex these areas inorder to have a border with Sudan and totap into the fertile land for economic de-velopment,” Hone Mandefro, an Ethi-opian analyst and a doctoral candidate insociology and anthropology at ConcordiaUniversity in Canada, said in an email.
Mr. Davison of the International CrisisGroup said that with Amhara securityand militia forces active in Tigray in re-cent weeks, and with some Amhara ad-ministrators put in place there, “it ap-pears to be a de facto Amhara occupationof territory they claim the T.P.L.F. an-nexed.”
The move is likely to lead to violentTigrayan reprisals, he said, as may havealready occurred in the town of MaiKadra, where human rights groups havesaid forces loyal to the liberation frontmassacred as many as 600 people, mostof them Amhara.
Many refugees in Hamdayet blamedpoliticians, and particularly Mr. Abiy, forpitting civilians against one another.“The Amhara and the Tigray are one,”Negese Berhe Hailu, a 25-year-old engi-neer, said.
Hadas Hagos, 67, fled her home inHumera — which is part of the largerWest Tigray area the Amharas claim —and worried she wouldn’t be able to goback or see the family members she leftbehind. Other refugees who arrived af-terward informed her that her home waslooted.
“We fought for freedom and democra-cy,” said Ms. Hadas, breaking into tearsas she recounted how she and her familyfought against the Marxist regime in the1980s, and how she lost her brother to thewar. “We don’t deserve this kind of life.”
Sharing a shelter in Hamdayet, Sudan, the first stop for arriving refugees after crossing the border from Ethiopia. “I didn’t expect in our life that our government would kill us,” said one refugee.
‘Finish Him!’ Refugees Fleeing Ethiopia Describe Ethnic Slaughter
Refugees stay in makeshift tents, or simply on the ground, until buses transport them to camps in other areas. Right, Ashenafi Hailu, who was attacked by Fanomilitia members. After they learned that he was ethnic Tigray, they robbed him, tied a noose around his neck and dragged him until he passed out.
The refugees use a river on the border of Ethiopia and Sudan to bathe, collect water and clean clothes. Nearly 50,000Ethiopians have fled to Sudan so far. Refugees’ accounts contradict the Ethiopian leader’s claims of no civilian casualties.
From Page A1
A complex conflictthreatens to destabilizethe Horn of Africa.
Photographs byTYLER HICKS/The New York Times
A20 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
N
Last week, allies of President Trumpaccused Republican leaders in Pennsyl-vania of being “cowards” and “liars” andof letting America down.
Mr. Trump himself called top Republi-cans in the General Assembly in his cru-sade to twist the arms of officials in sev-eral states and reverse an election helost. The Pennsylvania lawmakers toldthe president they had no power to con-vene a special session to address hisgrievances.
But they also rewarded his efforts: OnFriday, the State House speaker and ma-jority leader joined hard-right colleagues— whom they had earlier resisted — andcalled on Congress to reject Joseph R. Bi-den Jr.’s 81,000-vote victory in Pennsyl-vania.
The extraordinary intervention by thepresident, and the willingness of sometop party leaders to abet his effort to sub-vert an election, demonstrates how Mr.Trump’s sway over elected Republicansis likely to endure after he leaves officeand how his false claims of a “rigged”2020 vote may inflame the party base foryears to come.
Courts across the country have sum-marily thrown out Mr. Trump’s claims ofa stolen election. But 64 Republicans inthe General Assembly signed a letter lastweek urging Pennsylvania’s congres-sional delegation to reject the state’sElectoral College votes for Mr. Biden.
Kim Ward, the Republican majorityleader of the Pennsylvania Senate, saidthe president had called her to declarethere was fraud in the voting. But shesaid she had not been shown the letter toCongress, which was pulled togetherhastily, before its release.
Asked if she would have signed it, sheindicated that the Republican base ex-pected party leaders to back up Mr.Trump’s claims — or to face its wrath.
“If I would say to you, ‘I don’t want todo it,’” she said about signing the letter,“I’d get my house bombed tonight.”
Pennsylvania is the third state inwhich Mr. Trump is known to havereached out to top elected Republicans totry to reverse the will of voters. He earli-er summoned Michigan legislative lead-ers to the White House, and over theweekend he pressed Gov. Brian Kemp ofGeorgia to call upon that state’s legisla-ture to reverse the election.
Neither the Michigan leaders nor Mr.Kemp tried to change the outcomes intheir states, but they did take steps thatwould be pleasing to Mr. Trump. In Mich-igan, House and Senate Oversight com-mittees controlled by Republicans heldhearings last week to look at absenteevote counting, and Mr. Kemp said hewould favor an audit of signatures onvotes in Georgia.
A major issue facing Republicans ev-erywhere, including those in Pennsylva-nia — where open seats for governor andthe U.S. Senate are on the ballot in 2022— is whether the party will put forwardTrump-aligned candidates in futureraces. The president lost Pennsylvania,but Republicans made down-ballot gainsin two statewide races and picked upseats in the legislature.
“Those who are continuing to beat onthis drum that the election was riggedare trying to appease Trump’s base andget their support early on,” said StateRepresentative Ryan Bizzarro, a mem-ber of the Democratic leadership.
Mr. Bizzarro said it would be a gift toDemocrats if the Republican nomineesfor governor or Senate who emerge fromprimaries are remembered for echoingMr. Trump’s baseless claims of mass
fraud from mail-in ballots and his bitter-end resistance to conceding a loss.
“Forget all the Democrats who votedby mail — look at all the Republicans whovoted by mail,” he said. “Are you sayingtheir voice isn’t as important as thefringe who are blind to facts and theways our Constitution clearly lays outelections?”
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Courtbecame the latest of dozens of tribunalsto throw out a case brought by Trump al-lies, in this instance a Pennsylvania con-gressman and a losing congressionalcandidate. They had sought to invalidatethe state’s 2.6 million mail-in votes, 77percent of which were cast for Mr. Biden.
Republicans argued that a 2019 statelaw authorizing no-excuse mail votingwas unconstitutional, although it passedthe Republican-led legislature and wassigned by Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat.
Earlier, the Pennsylvania SupremeCourt ruled against the same plaintiffs,one of whom was Sean Parnell, a formerArmy Ranger and a favorite of Mr.Trump’s who occasionally appears onFox News. He lost his race for Congressto Representative Conor Lamb but hasbeen mentioned as a potential statewidecandidate in 2022.
A Republican strategist in Pennsylva-
nia, Charlie Gerow, expressed doubtsthat the trench fighting by party mem-bers over the legitimacy of the electionwould cast a stigma over Republicans inthe midterm elections. “There will be somany candidates for statewide officethat what happens in December 2020will have very little bearing, in my judg-ment, on what happens in 2022,” he said.
Nearly every state has certified the re-
sults of its election, and Mr. Biden has se-cured the 270 electoral votes needed tobecome the next president when theElectoral College meets on Monday.
Nonetheless, the more than 60 Repub-licans in the Pennsylvania legislature —about half of the party’s total caucus —urged Congress to take one last stand forMr. Trump and object to the state’s Bidenelectors.
For a challenge to an electoral slate to
proceed requires the endorsement of onemember of the House and one senatorwhen Congress meets in joint session onJan. 6 to accept the electoral votes. Bothchambers would then meet separately todebate and vote on the objection. TheDemocratic-led House would almost cer-tainly reject any challenge.
“I’d bet my last dollar that vote willfail,” said Representative MattCartwright, a Democratic member of theHouse delegation from Pennsylvania.“But what will be really interesting is tosee which of the Republican membershave the courage to ignore that requestfrom Pennsylvania’s General Assembly.”
It is also unclear whether any senatorwill endorse the challenge. Pennsylva-nia’s top elected Republican, Senator PatToomey, said through his office that hewould not support one. In an interviewon Tuesday with The Philadelphia In-quirer, Mr. Toomey, one of only about twodozen Republicans in Congress whohave openly acknowledged Mr. Biden’svictory, said it was “completely unac-ceptable” for Mr. Trump to pressure statelawmakers to reverse election results.
In January 2017, an effort by a handfulof Democrats in the House to challengeMr. Trump’s electoral votes went down todefeat when no senator would join them.
(Mr. Biden, presiding over the Senate asvice president, declared, “It is over.”)
The last time an electoral challenge inCongress resulted in an actual debatewas in 2005, when Ohio’s slate of votesfor President George W. Bush was chal-lenged, though that challenge was un-successful after the House and Senatemet to vote.
Mr. Toomey’s decision not to seek athird term in 2022 has accelerated thejockeying in both parties to succeed him.The profiles of several of the Republicansthought to be contemplating campaignsfor the Senate or for governor have risenas they have acted as champions of Mr.Trump’s most outlandish assertions of ahijacked election.
State Senator Doug Mastriano orga-nized a hearing in a hotel in Gettysburglast month, at which the president’s per-sonal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani airedfalse charges about the election, includ-ing an assertion that mail-in ballots inPhiladelphia were “not inspected at allby any Republican.” The claims were de-bunked in real time on Twitter by a Re-publican member of the Philadelphiaelections board.
Few people at the Gettysburg hearingwore masks, and Mr. Giuliani later testedpositive for the coronavirus. Invited tothe White House, Mr. Mastriano, a re-tired Army colonel said to be mulling arace for governor, reportedly learnedthere that he, too, was infected with thevirus.
Last week, Republican leaders in thelegislature at first pushed back on alliesof the president who were pressuring thelawmakers to intervene and demandingthat they name an alternate delegationto the Electoral College to vote for Mr.Trump.
In a joint memo, the Republican lead-ers said they had no authority to ignorethe certified election results and appointtheir own electors.
Trump allies denounced the leaders.Mr. Giuliani claimed in a tweet that theyhad “let down America,” and he called on“all of us Republicans to let them knowwhat we think of them.”
A Giuliani ally, the former New YorkCity police commissioner Bernard Kerik,called the Pennsylvania leadershipteam’s actions “profiles in cowardice”and labeled the leaders “liars” and“traitors.” He was retweeted by JennaEllis, a member of Mr. Trump’s legalteam.
Soon after, the two top Republicans inthe Pennsylvania House — Bryan Cutler,the speaker, and Kerry Benninghoff, themajority leader — joined backbenchersin calling for Congress to block the Bidenelectors. Their letter justifying the chal-lenge included claims of election vio-lations that have been repeatedly re-jected by state and federal courts. Mr.Trump twice called Mr. Cutler in recentdays.
Through a spokesman, Mr. Cutler de-clined a request for an interview. Thespokesman, Michael Straub, said thepresident “did not directly pressure Cut-ler to overturn the results or seat rivalelectors.” The House speaker told thepresident that the General Assemblywas not in session and only the governorcould call it back.
Mr. Cutler, 45, was chosen as speakerin June. To keep his job, he faces an elec-tion in the full House in January. He is un-der pressure to hold his caucus together,including its far-right members. He didnot initiate the letter to Congress, ac-cording to his spokesman.
“That letter had been planned sepa-rately by rank-and-file members, andCutler signed it,” Mr. Straub said.
Trump Twists Arms in State Capitols, and Lawmakers Feel the Burn
DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES
President Trump called top Republicans in the Pennsylvania General Assembly to try to persuade them to reverse hisloss in the state. Bryan Cutler, left, the State House speaker, signed a letter calling for Congress to block Biden electors,a challenge that Senator Pat Toomey, far right, the state’s top congressional Republican, said he would not support.
DAN GLEITER/THE PATRIOT-NEWS, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS ANNA MONEYMAKER/THE NEW YORK TIMES
An effort to reverse defeatmay inflame the G.O.P.base for years to come.
By TRIP GABRIEL
When Donald J. Trump’s childhoodhome in Queens was on the market fouryears ago, Mr. Trump, then a candidatefor president, publicly mused about buy-ing it himself.
Now, he might not have to: The home’slatest owner is launching a crowdfund-ing campaign with the goal of giving thefive-bedroom Tudor in Jamaica Estatesto the president as a gift — once the $3million price tag is met.
The unusual real estate maneuverseeks to capitalize on the devotion ofsome of Mr. Trump’s supporters, in thehopes that the same commitment thathas driven them to attend his large ral-lies in the middle of a pandemic will alsoinduce them to open their wallets. Thesellers hope donations might also be fu-eled by an impulse to mollify Mr. Trumpwith a personalized parting gift as hispresidential term nears its end.
The fund-raiser could also solve an-other problem that has plagued thehome’s owner in recent years: an inabili-ty to find a buyer.
The house was put up for auction lastfall, but failed to meet the reserve price,said Misha Haghani, the principal of Par-amount Realty USA, which has repre-sented the property in three past auc-tions. This most recent attempt asks con-tributors to purchase the house as a giftto the president via GoFundMe, the char-itable fund-raising platform, “as a tokenof appreciation,” Mr. Haghani said.
“Love Trump?” the fund-raiser, whichkicked off Tuesday, reads. “Thank Presi-dent Trump by contributing to this cam-paign to buy his childhood home in hishonor!”
The White House did not respond to arequest for comment on Tuesday.
Even before the latest attempt to un-load the property, the brick-and-stuccohome was swept up by a series of specu-lative buyers cashing in on Mr. Trump’spolitical ascendancy.
Just before his 2017 inauguration itwas sold for about $1.4 million — about 78percent higher than when it sold in 2008for only $782,500. That buyer swiftlyflipped it to the most recent owner for$2.14 million at auction, more than dou-ble its value based on comparable homesin the area.
Mr. Trump already owns scores ofproperties, of course, and after years oftoxic exchanges with political leadersfrom his hometown, he recently changedhis official residency to Florida. The sell-er’s hope is not necessarily for Mr.Trump to end up once again in 85-15Wareham Place, where he lived until hewas 4 years old, but to donate it to a char-ity of his choosing, or perhaps install apresidential library. Mr. Trump’s father,Fred C. Trump, a real estate developer,built the home in 1940.
“Technically, he could accept the homeand say, ‘Great, I just got another prop-erty to add to my empire,’ but he’s not go-ing to do that,” Mr. Haghani said. “I be-lieve if the president were to accept the
property, he would do something with itin honor of his presidency. It’s either thator he’ll just donate it to some charity.”
Mr. Trump’s childhood house is not theonly presidential home base for sale inthe city: The three-bedroom, two-bath-room apartment on West 114th Street inManhattan where former PresidentBarack Obama lived while he studied atColumbia University was listed for salelast month. The asking price is$1,450,000. (It is not intended as a gift,though presumably a future buyer cando what they like with the apartment.)
Just who currently owns the home, Mr.Haghani refused to say; the owner’sidentity remains obscured behind a lim-ited liability corporation called TrumpBirth House.
But the 2017 transaction in whichTrump Birth House purchased the prop-
erty was overseen by a lawyer who spe-cializes in representing overseas Chi-nese buyers in real estate transactions.When the pale yellow house was listedfor sale that year, it had been thronged byvisitors who spoke Chinese and pulled upin droves to take pictures, neighbors saidat the time; Mr. Trump’s image as a suc-cessful businessman has drawn himstrong admiration in China.
Shortly after that 2017 sale, a personwith knowledge of the deal but who wasnot authorized to speak about its detailsconfirmed that the person who pur-chased the president’s childhood homewas a woman from China, but would notdisclose her name.
For a time, while Trump Birth Househas owned it, the home was offered as an$815-a-night Airbnb rental. A cardboardcutout of Mr. Trump greeted visitors, and
guests could sleep in a bedroom with aplaque that noted it was where “Presi-dent Donald J. Trump was likely con-ceived.”
But in the past several years the homehas stood largely empty. Some of the onlyvisitors appeared to be utility workersturning off the power for unpaid bills. InNovember 2019, it was offered again atauction by Paramount, with anotherstunt — the chance for observers to winmoney by guessing the correct sale price— but it did not sell.
This time around there are othersweeteners: The seller has agreed to do-nate half of anything raised over the $3million asking price to charity. And if thegoal is not met, information on the Go-FundMe page says all money raised willbe donated to charity. But the seller hasnot revealed which nonprofit might ben-efit, or how long the fund-raiser wouldstay active.
Mr. Trump is deeply unpopular in NewYork City, where 72 percent of the cityvoted for his opponent, Joseph R. Biden,in the presidential election, and whereprotests have been held outside TrumpTower in Midtown Manhattan through-out his presidency. Mr. Haghani said hewas not worried how that might affectthe sale. “There are plenty of people wholove him, including 70-plus million whovoted for him,” he said.
Mr. Haghani has his own motivations,he added, which are not political: “I don’twant to have to sell this again.”
Want to Thank the President?Help Buy His Childhood Home
By SARAH MASLIN NIR
The owner of President Trump’sformer home is starting a crowd-funding campaign with the goal ofgiving the house in Jamaica Estates,Queens, to Mr. Trump as a gift.
SAM HODGSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
N A21NATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
WASHINGTON — BrandonBernard, then 18, joined a haphaz-ard robbery plot in June 1999 thatresulted in two grisly murders, ajury found in his federal trial.
Several of his accomplices, whowere between 15 and 17 and con-sidered juveniles under the law,were ineligible for the federaldeath penalty and received prisonsentences for their roles. But an-other participant in the kidnap-ping and murder case, who was 19at the time, was executed in Sep-tember, and on Thursday the Jus-tice Department plans to executeMr. Bernard, now 40.
The disparate sentences for theteenagers in the case, determinedin part by age differences ofmonths or a few years, have putnew focus on the distinction be-tween adults and juveniles when itcomes to sentencing and whatcritics of the death penalty see asits arbitrary application.
The execution of the man whoshot the victims, ChristopherVialva, was one of eight since theTrump administration ended anearly two-decade moratoriumand resumed carrying out the fed-eral death penalty in July. Mr.Bernard’s defense team startedan online campaign to commutehis sentence, and supporters havesent tens of thousands of letters toPresident Trump, advocating hisclemency, his lawyer said.
Among his supporters is KimKardashian West, who has beeninstrumental in raising clemencyissues with Mr. Trump and hastried to rally public support for Mr.Bernard on Twitter. SenatorsRichard J. Durbin, Democrat of Il-linois, and Cory Booker, Democratof New Jersey, also called for Mr.Trump to commute Mr. Bernard’ssentence.
The Federal Death Penalty Act,the 1994 legislation that expandedthe crimes eligible for the federaldeath penalty, stipulated that noone under the age of 18 at the timeof the offense may be sentenced todeath.
The Supreme Court ruled in2005 that the execution of thoseunder 18 at the time of theircrimes constituted a “cruel andunusual” punishment prohibitedby the Eighth Amendment. Andseveral years later, the courtfound that a mandatory life sen-tence without the possibility ofparole was also unconstitutionalfor those under the age of 18 at thetime of their crimes.
“The essence of law is to imposediscrete categories on life’s con-
tinuum,” said Robert Blecker, aprofessor emeritus at New YorkLaw School.
There may be no meaningfuldifference between someone whois nearly 18 and someone who is18, Mr. Blecker said, but one maybe eligible for the death penaltyand one may not. “If you can’t tol-erate that,” he said, “you can’t tol-erate law.”
The designation of 18 as the agethreshold that largely definesadulthood in the United States hasbecome the subject of scrutiny.Research has found that those intheir late teens and early 20s lackcomplete brain maturity. In thelandmark Supreme Court casethat ruled juvenile death penaltycases were unconstitutional, themajority — acknowledging the po-tential arbitrariness of an 18-year-old lower limit — maintained that“a line must be drawn.”
Since Mr. Bernard’s sentencing20 years ago, states have begun toreconsider who they define as ju-veniles, said Lael Chester, the di-rector of the Emerging Adult Jus-
tice Project at Columbia Universi-ty’s Justice Lab. Vermont, for one,has moved to include both 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds in itsjuvenile jurisdiction by July 2022,except those charged with seriousviolent felonies.
Rob Owen, a lawyer for Mr.Bernard, argued that his client’sbrain was not yet fully developedat the time of the murders. Headded that Mr. Bernard’s case wasalso marred by bias against youngBlack people, who he said were of-ten treated as if they were older.
“Brandon in a sense was sen-tenced under a legal regime thatdid not give due consideration tohis youthfulness,” he said.
The crimes for which Mr.Bernard was convicted grew outof a plan to abduct and rob a victimusing an A.T.M. card, according tocourt documents.
The group split up before Mr.Vialva and two of his accomplicescarjacked the victims, Todd andStacie Bagley, youth ministerswho were visiting Texas fromIowa. Mr. Bernard and Terry
Brown, then 17, did not participatein the carjacking. At points duringthat day they went to a laundro-mat and placed applications atWinn-Dixie because their parents
wanted them to find jobs, the Jus-tice Department said in a court fil-ing.
Mr. Vialva, portrayed in courtproceedings as the ringmaster, in-sisted that the group needed to killthe Bagleys. Four members of thegroup, including Mr. Bernard,then got together and drove thevictims to a remote location on theFort Hood military reservation.Mr. Bernard and Mr. Brownpoured lighter fluid on the car. Mr.Vialva shot the victims with Mr.
Bernard’s handgun, killing Mr.Bagley and leaving Ms. Bagleyunconscious. Mr. Bernard set fireto the car.
During the group’s attemptedescape in another car, they slid offthe road into a muddy ditch.There, the four were arrested. Be-cause the murders took place on amilitary reservation, it wasdeemed a federal crime.
Mr. Bernard was convicted ofmurder, among other offenses,and sentenced to death.
“I’m sure this Brandon guy wasnot acting like a child when hecommitted the murders,” said Mi-chael Rushford, the president ofthe Criminal Justice Legal Foun-dation, a legal organization thatsupports crime victims and thedeath penalty.
Mr. Vialva and Mr. Bernardwere tried together. Like Mr.Brown, two of the other defend-ants, Christopher Lewis and TonySparks, were too young to face thedeath penalty.
Mr. Brown and Mr. Lewis, whowas 15 during the crime, pleaded
guilty and testified for the pros-ecution. Mr. Sparks, who was 16 atthe time of the crime, also pleadedguilty. Mr. Brown and Mr. Lewishave since been released fromfederal prison, and Mr. Sparks isprojected for release in 2030, ac-cording to a Bureau of Prisonsdatabase. He was originally sen-tenced to life without the possibil-ity of parole.
Courts have been unreceptiveto Mr. Bernard’s recent pleas for adelay to his execution. In whatcould be Mr. Bernard’s final days,his lawyers claimed that the gov-ernment had suppressed an ex-pert opinion showing that Mr.Bernard held the lowest level ofstatus within the gang with whichthe government claimed he andthe other defendants were affiliat-ed.
The suppressed opinion, hislawyers argued, would have al-tered the jury’s calculation of hisrelative culpability. In September,the Fifth Circuit declined to offerMr. Bernard any sort of reprievein a case related to the claim. Hislawyers brought a similar case ina federal court in Indiana, which ajudge denied on Wednesday.
Among those opposing Mr.Bernard’s execution is one of thejurors in the case, Gary McClung,a 56-year-old handyman who livesin Centerville, Tenn. In an inter-view, he said he had some misgiv-ings about the jury’s recommen-dation of the death sentence butdecided not to put up a concertedfight against what appeared to bethe consensus.
Angela Moore, who repre-sented the government during theappeals of Mr. Bernard’s and Mr.Vialva’s cases, has since becomean opponent of the death penalty.As a young lawyer at the time, thecase felt like “a feather in my cap,”she said, and though she had somemisgivings about the case, she didnot believe airing those concernswould have made a difference.
She later became a public de-fender. One morning in Septem-ber, after years of not thinkingmuch about the case, she wasstunned to hear news of Mr. Vial-va’s execution on NPR. Now, sheis advocating on behalf of Mr.Bernard’s clemency and againstwhat she called the “blood lust” inthe United States.
“What the U.S. Supreme Courthas said is juvenile males, espe-cially who were involved inheinous cases, their brains are notfully developed,” she said. “Thejury heard none of that.”
He Was 18 and Is Set to Be Executed. They Weren’t and Got Jail Time.
Protests in September before a man convicted of murder was put to death. Another man in the case is set to be executed Thursday.AUSTEN LEAKE/THE TRIBUNE-STAR, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
By HAILEY FUCHS
Activists beseech thepresident to commutea death sentence.
WASHINGTON — The Su-preme Court heard arguments onWednesday in a dispute betweenshareholders of Fannie Mae andFreddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage finance gi-ants, and the Treasury Depart-ment over $124 billion in pay-ments the two lenders were re-quired to make to the govern-ment.
The shareholders said the lawcreating the Federal Housing Fi-nance Agency, which put the twolenders into conservatorship in2008, violated the Constitution be-cause it insulated the agency’s di-rector from presidentialoversight. A decision by the courtin June concerning the director ofthe Consumer Financial Protec-tion Bureau suggested that it mayagree that the structure of thehousing agency violated the sepa-ration of powers.
But several justices seemedwary of the sweep of a second as-pect of the shareholders’ argu-ments, which said the lack of pres-idential supervision of the hous-ing agency’s director meant that a2012 agreement between theagency and the Treasury Depart-ment must be undone, requiringthe repayment of vast sums.
The two sides agreed that thelaw creating the housing agencywas unconstitutional because itbarred the president from firingits director without cause. Be-cause there was no dispute be-tween the parties as to that, thecourt appointed Aaron L. Nielson,a law professor at Brigham YoungUniversity, to defend the law.
Mr. Nielsen said the new case,Collins v. Mnuchin, No. 19-422, dif-fered from the one in June con-cerning the consumer bureau.The shareholders in the new case
challenged a 2012 agreement be-tween the housing agency and theTreasury Department, he said.But that agreement had beenmade by an acting director of theagency, who was subject to re-moval at will in any event, makingacademic the question of the sta-tus of the agency’s director.
The laws creating the two agen-cies were also different, Mr. Niel-son said. Before the court’s deci-sion in June in the case on the con-sumer bureau, its director could
be fired only for “inefficiency, ne-glect of duty or malfeasance,” ademanding standard. By contrast,the director of the housing agencymay be fired only for cause, whichMr. Nielson said “provides theweakest protection in removal lawand can easily be read to allow re-moval based on policy disagree-ment with the president.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor saidshe saw “vast differences” be-tween the agencies. The housingagency’s “most notable power,and the reason we are here today,is that they can put certain gov-ernment-affiliated companies un-der conservatorship.”
“This is not a wide-reachingpower that affects many entities,”she said. “It’s one company at atime, essentially, unlike in theC.F.P.B.”
But Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.said that the housing agencywields great power. “The way in
which the agency carries out itsresponsibility as conservator hasa profound effect on the housingmarket and, therefore, a profoundeffect on ordinary people,” he said.
Mr. Nielson said the logic of theparties’ position would under-mine much of the federal govern-ment.
“The Social Security Adminis-tration, the Office of Special Coun-sel, the Federal Reserve, the CivilService, will all be subject to con-stitutional attack,” he said, “andthat’s just the beginning.”
Justice Elena Kagan elaboratedon that point in an exchange withDavid H. Thompson, a lawyer forthe shareholders. The Social Secu-rity Administration, she said, “hasbeen led by a single commissionersince 1994 and, ever since then, it’srendered 650,000 decisions everyyear, so that’s about 17 million de-cisions.”
“Are we really going to void allof those decisions?” she asked.
Mr. Thompson replied that theagency’s actions, unless subject tothe statute of limitations, “shouldbe void.”
He said the actions of the hous-ing agency had crossed a line.“The companies have been na-tionalized,” he said.
Chief Justice John G. RobertsJr. questioned the assertion. Gov-ernment aid during the housingcrisis “was a lifeline thrown toyour clients,” he said, adding thathe had done some recent financialresearch.
“I checked this morning,” thechief justice said, “and FannieMae was trading at $2.69 andFreddie Mac at $2.56 and yourshares are not worthless.”
Hashim M. Mooppan, a lawyerfor the federal government, saidthe housing agency, acting as aconservator, had been entitled torestructure their financial obliga-tions. “That is what conservatorsdo day in and day out,” he said.
Mr. Mooppan added that theparties to the 2012 agreement —the acting director and the Treas-ury secretary — could both befired by the president for any rea-son or no reason.
“Courts cannot set aside amultibillion dollar contract on theground that it was unconstitution-ally insulated from presidentialsupervision even though both ofthe officials who signed it were re-movable at will by the president,”he said.
But Mr. Thompson, the lawyerfor the shareholders, said the lawcreating the housing agency, withits tenure protections for theagency’s director, “reduces thepresident to the cajoler in chief.”
Justices Weigh President’s Oversight Power
Fannie Mae is one of two mortgage finance giants that were putinto conservatorship under the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERS
By ADAM LIPTAK
At the heart of a case:the structure of ahousing agency.
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A22 N NATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
FRONT PAGEAn article on Tuesday about thesale of Bob Dylan’s song catalogto Universal misstated the num-ber of songs that he owned thecopyrights to but did not write. Itwas not only “The Weight,” asrecorded by the Band, but severalother tracks associated with thatgroup as well.
BUSINESSAn article on Wednesday aboutAT&T’s influence on the decisionby Warner Bros. to release its2021 movies on HBO Max mis-stated the percentage ofcustomers who are worth $100million to AT&T. Every 0.01 per-cent of customers who stay gluedto AT&T are worth about $100
million to the company, not every1 percent of customers.
SCIENCE TIMESAn article on Tuesday about waysto help count and conserve nativebees misstated a taxonomist’saffiliation. Zach Portman is withthe University of Minnesota, notMinnesota State University.
OBITUARIESAn obituary on Sunday aboutIrina Antonova, the longtimedirector of the Pushkin StateMuseum of Fine Arts in Moscow,misstated the day of her death. Itwas Monday, Nov. 30 — not Tues-day, Dec. 1.
An obituary on Monday about theactor David L. Lander, whoplayed Squiggy on the sitcom“Laverne & Shirley,” misstatedthe number of seasons the showwas on the air. It was eight, notseven.
Errors are corrected during the pressrun whenever possible, so some errorsnoted here may not have appeared inall editions.
Corrections
Next year was supposed to bewhen New York City would revo-lutionize how voters choose theirmayor — not merely selecting onecandidate, but picking as many asfive and ranking them in order ofpreference.
New York’s take-no-prisonerspolitical landscape was to be re-made: Candidates would perhapsbe more collegial and would beobliged to reach out to voters be-yond their bases in the hope thatother candidates’ supporterswould list them as a second orthird choice. Runoff elections, of-ten expensive and with limitedturnout, would be eliminated.
But just as the city is poised toput the ranked-choice voting sys-tem in place, opposition is mount-ing. Black elected officials haveraised objections, arguing that ab-sent substantial voter education,the system will effectively disen-franchise voters of color.
On Tuesday night, six New YorkCity Council members filed suit inState Supreme Court in Manhat-tan seeking to stop the city fromstarting the new voting system.One leading Black mayoral candi-date — Eric Adams, the Brooklynborough president, who once sup-ported the system — now says it’sbeing rushed.
“From my discussions withNew Yorkers in lower-incomecommunities of color, I am con-cerned that not enough educationhas been done about rank-choicevoting to ensure a smooth transi-tion to that method so soon,” Mr.Adams said in a statement.
Raymond J. McGuire, a Blackbusiness executive who is run-ning for mayor, also questionedwhether voters had receivedenough education about ranked-choice voting and said that with-out that education, he was “con-cerned” that the system would“disenfranchise Black and brownvoters.”
Seventy-four percent of NewYork City voters approvedranked-choice voting in 2019. Un-der the new system, if a candidatewins a majority of first-choice
votes, that candidate wins out-right. If no candidate wins a ma-jority, the last-place winner iseliminated. The second-choicevotes of those who had favored thelast-place candidate would becounted instead. The process con-tinues until there is a winner.
But with the mayoral primaryless than seven months away,some campaigns are worried thatthe system could hurt Black can-didates. They argue that a tradi-tional approach would increasethe chances of a runoff, where aBlack candidate might performbetter in a contest with only twonames on the ballot.
Critics also question whetherthe city’s problem-prone Board of
Elections can roll out such a com-plicated system during a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Two of the six Council memberswho brought the lawsuit, Adri-enne E. Adams and I. DaneekMiller, lead the Council’s Black,Latino and Asian Caucus. Theother four — Laurie A. Cumbo,Robert E. Cornegy Jr., Farah N.Louis and Alicka Ampry-Samuel— represent districts in Brooklyn,which is Mr. Adams’s home base.
The suit was filed by a law firmwhere Frank V. Carone, the coun-sel to the Brooklyn DemocraticParty, is an executive partner.
“They say all throughout thecountry that ranked-choice votingis working well for communities ofcolor,” Ms. Cumbo, who has en-dorsed Mr. Adams for mayor, saidduring a Council hearing on Mon-day. “Well, New York City is a to-tally different city.”
The lawsuit was filed againstthe city, its Board of Elections andits Campaign Finance Board, con-tending that the city and the twoboards had violated the law byfailing to adequately explain the
software that will be used to tabu-late the votes and by failing to con-duct a sufficient public educationcampaign to familiarize voterswith the new system.
The suit seeks to prohibit thecity from starting the new systemin a February special election, arace that was poised to be a trialrun for the June Democratic may-oral primary, which would use thesame system and is likely to deter-mine the city’s next mayor.
“The board does not commenton pending litigation,” said ValerieVazquez, a spokeswoman for theelections board. “However, as wehave previously stated, we will beready to implement ranked-choice voting just as we success-fully implemented a new votingsystem in 2010 and launched earlyvoting in 2019.”
Amy Loprest, executive direc-tor of the New York City Cam-paign Finance Board, said that theboard has been working on its ed-ucational efforts all year, and a for-mal public awareness campaignwill begin soon.
Since November 2016, ranked-choice voting has been used inMaine for all its state and federalprimary elections as well as allgeneral congressional electionsand the general election for presi-dent starting this year. It has alsobeen used in five Democraticpresidential caucuses and prima-ries this year and in at least 18 mu-nicipalities around the country,according to FairVote, a nonparti-san election reform group that is aleading proponent of ranked-choice voting.
Some mayoral candidates seemto be factoring the new voting sys-tem into their campaign strat-egies, including Shaun Donovan,the former Obama administrationcabinet member who formally an-nounced his run on Tuesday. An“electability” slide show circu-lated on his behalf argued that“Shaun’s broad appeal makes hima natural second and third choicefor voters, even when they are al-ready committed to another can-didate.”
Carlos Menchaca, a councilmanfrom Brooklyn who is running formayor, said he had already had
discussions with at least one othercandidate about running together— urging voters to choose a teamof two candidates as their two topchoices.
“Ranked-choice voting allowsfor partnership on the campaigntrail,” he said.
Maya Wiley, another Black can-didate, supports ranked-choicevoting and said runoffs in the pri-or system diluted the votes of peo-ple of color and working-classNew Yorkers.
“I look forward to continuingmy campaign to reach New York-ers in every corner of the city withour vision for a reimagined citythat is more fair and just for every-one,” Ms. Wiley said in a state-ment.
Good-government groups saythat the new system enhances de-mocracy.
“The truth of the matter is thatranked-choice voting puts powerinto the hands of the voter,” saidSusan Lerner, the executive direc-tor of Common Cause New York.“And to the extent that there areparty officials who are used tohaving undue influence over whothe winner might be, I can seewhere they would be frightenedby ranked-choice voting.”
But critics of the system arguethat without adequate public edu-cation, the system confuses votersand thus disenfranchises them.They also contend that the votingsystem targets a party systemheavily populated by leaders ofcolor.
Kirsten John Foy, president ofthe activism group Arc of Justice,said he was exploring a separatelawsuit with Hazel N. Dukes, thepresident of the New York Statechapter of the N.A.A.C.P., arguingthat Black and other minority vot-
ers would be disenfranchised byranked-choice voting.
“Some progressive white folksgot together in a room andthought this would be good, butit’s not good for our community,”Ms. Dukes said. “The voters didvote, so we can’t overturn that, butwe want a stay because there’sbeen no education about this inour community.”
Mr. Foy also questioned the mo-tives of those leading the effort toenact ranked-choice voting.
“The primary argument forranked-choice voting is that it ex-pands access to elected office forBlack and brown officials, but wedon’t have that problem,” said Mr.Foy, who listed a string of posi-tions from state attorney generalto borough presidents that areheld by Black and Latino electedofficials. “This is a solution insearch of a problem.”
But Bertha Lewis, president ofthe Black Institute, said that therewas “plenty of time for voters tolearn to rank their vote.”
“Let me say it plainly: Blackvoters are not stupid,” she said intestimony submitted to the Coun-cil hearing on Monday. “It is in-sulting to say that they will not beable to understand.”
Black New York Officials Push to DelayCity’s Switch to Ranked-Choice Voting
This article is by Dana Rubin-stein, Jeffery C. Mays and Emma G.Fitzsimmons.
Polls in Brooklyn last summer.Nearly three-quarters of NewYork City voters approved aranked-choice system in 2019.
AMR ALFIKY/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Fears that a rushedrollout for June coulddisenfranchise voters.
When Mayor Bill de Blasio re-opened elementary schools thisweek, many New York City par-ents who had been keeping theirchildren home were offered a lastchance to send them back intoclassrooms this school year.
Scott M. Stringer, the city comp-troller, struggled with the deci-sion, both as a leading mayoralcandidate and a parent of two ele-mentary students. He lost hismother to the coronavirus inApril.
He and his wife were nervousabout their children’s safety, butthey had seen mixed results withremote learning: Their oldest,Max, who is 9, was having a par-ticularly difficult time learning onan iPad.
So they decided to send Maxback to school while keeping theiryounger son at home. On Monday,Mr. Stringer and his wife accom-panied Max on a No. 1 subwaytrain and sent him off to school forthe first time since March.
“After months of debating andthinking and trying to arrive atthe right thing, it really was goodto see he was happy,” Mr. Stringersaid after dropping him off.
If Mr. Stringer wins the race formayor next year, his experienceas a public school parent during
the pandemic is likely to informhow he guides the school systemout of a crisis that could set back ageneration of students. The Dem-ocratic primary on June 22 is ex-pected to focus on who is the bestperson to bring the city back, andall the candidates have criticizedMr. de Blasio’s handling of reopen-ing schools.
Mr. de Blasio has been ap-plauded for pushing to reopen thenation’s largest school districtwhen so many cities have not. Buthe has also angered parents whofeel whiplash from the mayor’sshifting strategy, which has re-sulted in two delays to the start ofthe school year and then a shut-down based on a metric that manyfound arbitrary.
Mr. de Blasio, who takes pride inthe fact that his two children at-tended public schools, oversees asystem that has roughly 1.1 millionstudents who have endured a yearof educational challenges rangingfrom difficult to appalling. Aboutthree-quarters of students areconsidered poor and more than100,000 are homeless.
Many families of color have cho-sen to keep their students home.Even though there are many moreBlack students than white stu-dents in the system over all,nearly 12,000 more white childrenhave returned to public schoolbuildings than Black children.
Mr. Stringer, a Democrat who
has moved to the left as progres-sives capture momentum in hisparty, is the best-known mayoralcandidate whose children attendpublic schools. He said he wasmost worried about poor families.
“We’re privileged parents, andwe struggled,” he said. “I just can-not imagine parents with very lit-tle resources who are going tohave to really worry about theirchildren falling further behind.”
Other candidates have seen thechallenges up close: Raymond J.McGuire, a business executive,has a son in second grade at a pri-vate school who has been doing amix of in-person and remotelearning; Maya Wiley, a formercounsel for Mr. de Blasio, has adaughter in a private high schooland is learning from home; ZachIscol, a nonprofit leader and for-mer Marine, has four young chil-dren, two of whom are attending aprivate school in person and onewho is learning online.
Ms. Wiley criticized the mayorfor closing schools in November,and for failing to properly plan forthe reopening.
“The last-second decisions andpoor communications haverobbed parents and teachers ofany peace of mind in a traumatictime and undermined principals’ability to plan,” Ms. Wiley said.
Mr. McGuire said he agreedwith Mr. de Blasio’s decision to re-open schools for the youngest stu-
dents this week, but said the may-or failed to offer a “consistentgame plan” for parents.
“Kids are safer inside a schoolbuilding than outside of it,” hesaid. “There are so many thingsabout in-person learning that yousimply can’t replicate in remotesessions.”
Several candidates have olderchildren, including Eric Adams,the Brooklyn borough president;Shaun Donovan, a housing secre-tary under former PresidentBarack Obama; Kathryn Garcia,the city’s former sanitation com-missioner; and Dianne Morales, aformer nonprofit executive.
Ms. Garcia, who left Mr. de Bla-sio’s administration in September,said she told officials at the Educa-tion Department over the summerthat they should prioritize bring-ing the youngest students andthose with special needs back fivedays a week, instead of the initialplan Mr. de Blasio settled on,known as blended learning, wherestudents were in classrooms a fewdays a week.
“The hybrid and Zoom killsfamilies and particularly women,”Ms. Garcia said.
Other candidates have interest-ing ideas for improving schools.Ms. Morales, who worked at theEducation Department underMayor Michael R. Bloomberg,said virtual learning was an op-portunity to “desegregate class-
rooms, integrating students fromthe Upper East Side with studentsfrom Brownsville, the SouthBronx and Jamaica.”
Mr. Iscol, who helped managethe temporary hospital at JavitsConvention Center in the spring,said the mayor should havethought of creative solutions likeconverting commercial officespace into temporary classrooms.He is worried about students’mental health.
“We’re going to have to re-es-tablish routines, rebuild relation-ships between students, teachersand parents, and ensure kids havehelp developing the resilience toget back to learning,” he said.
Before the pandemic, much ofMr. de Blasio’s legacy was en-twined with his creation of univer-sal prekindergarten early in hisfirst term, and his subsequent ex-pansion of the program to include3-year-olds.
Those achievements may beslightly tempered by his handlingof the schools reopening this year,which fell short of the quick andcoordinated effort the mayorpulled off with prekindergarten.
Mr. Stringer has called on themayor to offer low-income fam-ilies subsidies, known as an “in-ternet passport,” to pay for homeinternet. Mr. de Blasio, he said,has not been clear with parentsabout what to expect.
“What we wanted was cer-
tainty,” he said. “We wanted toknow the rules of the road, andthey seemed to be changing at ev-ery red light.”
Mr. Stringer, 60, and his wife, El-yse Buxbaum, who live in the Fi-nancial District in Lower Manhat-tan, took Max to Public School 33Chelsea Prep in Manhattan onMonday. Max wore a mask on thesubway while leafing through abook about Eleanor Roosevelt.
His brother, Miles, 7, adjusted toonline learning. It was harder forMax. He would turn his camera offor get frustrated when his teacherdid not see him raising his hand,said Ms. Buxbaum, executive vicepresident at the Museum of Jew-ish Heritage.
“He’s a smart kid — he alwaysdid really well in school,” she said.“Suddenly, he wasn’t being in-spired by school the way he usedto be.”
Mr. Stringer said the death ofhis mother, Arlene Stringer-Cuevas, a former city council-woman who was 86, has affectedhis approach to dealing with thevirus.
On Monday, Ms. Buxbaum wasstill overcoming jitters aboutsending Max back and packed dis-infectant wipes and hand sani-tizer in his bag.
“I whispered to him, please usethem all the time,” she said. “Be-fore you eat. Before you do any-thing.”
Jeffery C. Mays and Dana Rubin-stein contributed reporting.
Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, and his wife, Elyse Buxbaum, decided to resume in-person classes for their 9-year-old son, Max. He returned to school Monday for the first time since March.PHOTOGRAPHS BY KHOLOOD EID FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
As Schools Response Steers Mayoral Race, Candidates Navigate BothBy EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS
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N A23NATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Transition in Washington An Inquiry and a Decision
in their divorce.The next year, the I.R.S. issued
a lien against the pair, who wereby then divorced, for $112,805 inunpaid taxes from 2015. Thosetaxes appear to have been paid offby March of this year, when thelien was released.
Separately, the city governmentof Washington, D.C., where Mr. Bi-den had lived, issued liens againsthim in July totaling nearly$454,000 for unpaid taxes from2017 and 2018. Those liens were re-leased less than one week later,according to tax records.
Mr. Biden has long been an in-tense target of Mr. Trump and hisallies over the range of businessventures he pursued around theworld during his father’s time asvice president and beyond.
He was paid $50,000 a month ormore to serve on the board ofBurisma, a Ukrainian energycompany owned by an oligarchwho was widely seen as corrupt,advised a wealthy Romanian busi-ness executive facing corruptioncharges and invested in a privateequity fund linked to the Chinesegovernment.
Mr. Trump’s impeachment cen-tered on allegations that heabused his powers over Americanforeign policy in part to damagethe Biden campaign by pressur-ing the government of Ukraine toannounce an investigation intoHunter Biden’s dealings there.The Republican-led Senate ac-quitted the president in February.
Mr. Biden and partners — in-cluding his uncle James Biden, thepresident-elect’s brother — werealso involved in negotiationsabout a joint venture with a Chi-nese energy and finance companycalled CEFC China Energy in 2017,documents provided by a jiltedformer business partner show.
While the deal appears to havefizzled, an investigation by Re-publican-controlled Senate com-mittees found that a subsidiary ofCEFC transferred $100,000 in Au-gust 2017 to a law firm controlledby Hunter Biden. The transactionwas flagged as suspicious, accord-ing to the report produced by theRepublican investigation, whichcited an unspecified “confidentialdocument.” A Senate aide said itwas a U.S. government record butwould not describe it further.
The Republican report, whichwas released weeks before Elec-tion Day in an apparent effort todamage the Biden campaign,found no evidence of improper in-fluence or wrongdoing by the for-mer vice president.
Efforts by Mr. Trump and hissupporters to damage Mr. Biden’spresidential campaign took onnew urgency in October after TheNew York Post published reportsbased on files from a laptop thatappeared to have belonged toHunter Biden. The Post, which ob-tained materials from Mr. Trump’spersonal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuli-ani, reported that the laptop hadbeen seized by the F.B.I.
“We’ve got to get the attorneygeneral to act,” Mr. Trump said inan interview on “Fox & Friends”after the Post article was pub-lished. “He’s got to act fast. He’sgot to appoint somebody. This ismajor corruption.”
A Republican congressman,Representative Ken Buck of Col-orado, called on the Justice De-partment to appoint a specialcounsel. “This needs to be investi-gated free from political interfer-ence,” he said on Twitter. “No mat-ter who is in the White House.”
The Biden team has rejectedsome of the claims made in thePost articles, but has not disputedthe authenticity of the files uponwhich they were based.
A computer repair shop ownerin Wilmington, Del., named JohnPaul Mac Isaac has said HunterBiden left a damaged Apple com-puter at his store in April 2019 andasked him to recover any data. Mr.Isaac said that Mr. Biden filled outa work order and identified him-self as Hunter Biden, and that hewent to his shop twice but neverreturned to retrieve the computeror an external hard drive.
As part of the F.B.I.’s closelyheld money laundering investiga-tion into Mr. Biden, agents work-ing with federal prosecutors inDelaware authorized a federalgrand jury subpoena and obtainedthe laptop and an external harddrive. People familiar with the ex-amination said that the F.B.I. ex-amined the laptop but that its con-tents did not advance the moneylaundering investigation.
Before giving it to the F.B.I., Mr.Isaac said in an interview in Octo-ber, he copied the contents of theexternal hard drive, which werelater provided to Mr. Giuliani, whoclaimed the laptop showed evi-dence of corruption by Mr. Biden.
Mr. Trump and his allies openlypressed the Justice Departmentto disclose negative informationabout Mr. Biden ahead of the elec-tion, but investigators did notmake overt moves that wouldhave exposed the investigationbefore the ballots were cast.
WASHINGTON — The JusticeDepartment is investigating thetax affairs of President-elect Jo-seph R. Biden Jr.’s son Hunter, hedisclosed in a statement onWednesday.
The investigation was being ledby the U.S. attorney’s office in Del-aware. It was opened in late 2018and has included inquiries into po-tential criminal violations of taxand money laundering laws, ac-cording to people familiar with theinquiry. The money laundering as-pect of the case failed to gain trac-tion after F.B.I. agents were un-able to gather enough evidencefor a prosecution, the people said.
“I learned yesterday for thefirst time that the U.S. attorney’soffice in Delaware advised my le-gal counsel, also yesterday, thatthey are investigating my tax af-fairs,” Hunter Biden said in astatement. “I take this mattervery seriously, but I am confidentthat a professional and objectivereview of these matters will dem-onstrate that I handled my affairslegally and appropriately, includ-ing with the benefit of professionaltax advisers.”
The inquiry was focused onHunter Biden and some of his as-sociates, not the president-elect orother family members, two peoplefamiliar with it said.
The disclosure of the federal in-vestigation seems certain to ex-acerbate the politically tense rela-tionship between the departingTrump White House and the in-
coming Biden administration. Thetiming means it is possible thatone of the last decisions of theTrump Justice Department couldbe about a potential case againstthe son of the incoming president,if investigators uncover enoughevidence to go forward.
It also means that Mr. Biden willmost likely come into office as theJustice Department is actively in-vestigating his son, a case his po-litical opponents are certain toseize on to try to damage the earlydays of his presidency.
The investigation could alsocomplicate Mr. Biden’s efforts toinstill public confidence that thedepartment can operate inde-pendent of the personal interestsof the president after it becamedeeply politicized under Presi-dent Trump. Last week, Mr. Bidensaid that establishing separationbetween the department and theWhite House was a top priority.
“I’m not going to be telling themwhat they have to do and don’thave to do. I’m not going to be say-ing go prosecute A, B or C,” Mr. Bi-den told CNN. “It’s not my JusticeDepartment. It’s the people’s Jus-tice Department.”
Spokeswomen for the JusticeDepartment and the U.S. attor-ney’s office in Delaware declinedto comment on the inquiry. HunterBiden’s lawyer did not respond tomessages seeking comment.
The tax issues came to the at-tention of F.B.I. agents after theyopened the money laundering in-vestigation into Hunter Biden’s fi-nancial affairs in late 2018, underthe attorney general at the time,Jeff Sessions, according to severalpeople familiar with the inquiry.
What prompted the F.B.I. inqui-ry remains unclear. Former lawenforcement officials said thatthough the money laundering as-pect of the inquiry appears to havedied out, investigators with the In-ternal Revenue Service continuedto examine Mr. Biden’s taxes.
By early 2017, Mr. Biden and hisfirst wife, Kathleen, who werethen estranged, owed $313,970 intaxes, and had “maxed-out credit-card debt” and “double mortgageson both real properties they own,”according to a filing she submitted
Hunter Biden DisclosesHe Is Focus of Tax InquiryBy the Justice Department
This article is by Adam Goldman,Katie Benner and Kenneth P. Vogel.
Kitty Bennett contributed re-search.
Hunter Biden said he learnedTuesday of an investigation.
ELIZABETH WEINBERG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Complications in atense relationship fortwo administrations.
He added that he had not yet de-cided how he would vote when thequestion is put to the House.
The Democratic chairman ofthe House Armed Services Com-mittee, Representative AdamSmith, said in a statement onTuesday that he was confidentGeneral Austin would “make anexcellent secretary of defense.”But he said that he was “con-cerned” about his recent militaryservice and that General Austinmust meet with members of Con-gress to demonstrate his commit-ment to civilian control of the Pen-tagon.
General Austin sought to allaysuch concerns on Wednesday,
saying: “I come to this new role asa civilian leader — with militaryexperience, to be sure — but alsowith a deep appreciation and rev-erence for the prevailing wisdomof civilian control of our military.”
General Austin’s intendednomination won ringing endorse-ments on Wednesday from twoleading national security figureswho served in both Republicanand Democratic administrations.
In a statement, Robert M.Gates, a former defense secretaryunder Presidents George W. Bushand Barack Obama, called Gen-eral Austin “a person of unshak-able integrity, independent ofthought and conscience, and asteady hand.” And Colin L. Powell,the first Black chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff and first Blacksecretary of state, said in a state-ment on his Facebook page thathe had been a mentor to GeneralAustin, and urged Congress to ap-prove a waiver allowing the gen-eral to serve.
Mr. Powell said General Austin“has demonstrated his warfight-ing skills and his bureaucratic,diplomatic and political acumen.”
waivers,” said Representative RoKhanna, a California Democrat onthe House Armed Services Com-mittee. “But I do not see how wecan grant it for Mattis and thenturn around a few years later anddeny it for one of the most quali-fied African-American leaders toever serve our nation.”
But many Democrats still havequalms.
“As Democrats, we just spentfour years watching these kinds ofrules be violated,” said Represent-ative Tom Malinowski, Democratof New Jersey and a former StateDepartment official. “It reallydoes feel as if a waiver would turnthe exception into a rule.”
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., onWednesday praised Lloyd J.Austin III, his choice for secretaryof defense, as “a leader of extraor-dinary courage, character, experi-ence and accomplishment,” andasked Congress to grant the ex-emption the retired four-starArmy general needs from a lawthat bars officers recently on ac-tive duty from serving in the topPentagon post.
“He’s loved by the men andwomen of the armed forces,feared by our adversaries, knownand respected by our allies,” Mr.Biden said at an event in Wilming-ton, Del. “And he shares mydeeply held belief in the values ofAmerica’s alliances.”
Mr. Biden said that placing thePentagon under the leadership ofa general who oversaw Americanmilitary operations in Iraq and thebroader Middle East would keepthe United States from war, notmake it more likely.
“We need his firsthand knowl-edge of the immeasurable cost ofwar, and the burden it places onour service members and theirfamilies, to help bring to an endthe forever wars and ensure thatthe use of force is the last tool inour toolbox,” Mr. Biden said. “Notthe first.”
Towering over his lectern, at 6feet 4 inches, General Austin alsostressed in his remarks that hewould work closely with Ameri-can diplomats and partners.“America is strongest when itworks with its allies,” he said.
He said he and Mr. Biden had“gotten to know each other undersome intense and high-pressuresituations” and pledged to giveMr. Biden “the same direct andunvarnished counsel” that he hadduring the Obama administration,when he oversaw the U.S. troopwithdrawal from Iraq and then themilitary campaign against the Is-lamic State.
Mr. Biden recalled a meeting atthe American ambassador’s resi-dence in Iraq that General Austinhad attended when the buildingcame under rocket attack by in-surgents.
“Of course, General Austin, itwas just another day at the office.He just sat there and kept right ongoing,” Mr. Biden said. “He’s coolunder fire, inspiring the same inall those around him.”
One of those people, Mr. Bidensaid, was his son Beau Biden, whoserved as a military lawyer onGeneral Austin’s staff in Iraq.
General Austin called theyounger Mr. Biden, who died in2015, “a very special person, and atrue patriot, and a good friend toall who knew him,” adding that thetwo men stayed in touch afterBeau Biden returned home.
If confirmed, General Austinwould become the first Black de-fense secretary, a historic break-through he acknowledged in re-marks that recalled Black servicemembers from the Buffalo Sol-diers of the Civil War to theTuskegee Airmen of World War IIto the Montford Point Marines, asthe first Black men to serve in theMarines were known after thecamp in North Carolina wherethey were trained. “Many peoplehave paved the way for me,” hesaid.
Mr. Biden said General Austinwas the right leader at a timewhen more than 40 percent ofAmerica’s active-duty forces arepeople of color. “It’s long past timethe department’s leadership re-flects that diversity,” he said.
To be confirmed, however, Gen-eral Austin will need to win a con-gressional exemption from a 1947law requiring that military veter-ans be retired from active duty forat least seven years before lead-ing the Defense Department. Gen-eral Austin retired from the Armyin April 2016.
Civilian control of the militaryhas been a priority since the coun-try’s founding, and GeneralAustin’s selection drew some im-mediate opposition in Congress.
But a vote by both chamberscan waive the requirement, as hashappened twice before — most re-cently in 2017, after PresidentTrump nominated the recently re-tired Marine general Jim Mattisas defense secretary.
“There’s a good reason for thislaw that I fully understand and re-spect. I would not be asking forthis exception if I did not believethat this moment in our historydidn’t call for it,” Mr. Biden said.“Just as they did for Jim Mattis, Iask the Congress to grant awaiver.”
Mr. Biden’s team has alreadybegun making its case to lawmak-ers, where Democratic leadershave expressed strong support forthe nomination, and believe Gen-eral Austin’s prospects are good.
Some lawmakers have ac-knowledged that it was hard tojustify opposing a waiver for Gen-eral Austin after Congress ap-proved one for Mr. Mattis.
“I am principally opposed to
Seeking Waiver, Biden Praises His Defense Pick
President-elect Joseph R. Bi-den Jr. on Wednesday intro-duced his nominee for secre-tary of defense, Lloyd J. AustinIII, left, a retired general.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HILARY SWIFT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By MICHAEL CROWLEYand ERIC SCHMITT
Luke Broadwater, Emily Cochraneand Nicholas Fandos contributedreporting.
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A24 N NATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Transition in Washington Department of Defense
again. They summoned the manwho had made it happen, theirboss, Adm. Mike Mullen, Presi-dent Barack Obama’s chairman ofthe Joint Chiefs of Staff, into aroom for a photo.
“What is this about?” AdmiralMullen asked when he walked in.
“History,” General McDew re-plied.
Now General Austin is poised tomake history again. His ascensionto the top Pentagon job would be aremarkable punctuation to a ca-reer whose breadth showcasesthe scope of what the military cando on diversity when senior lead-ers act. But the singularity of Gen-eral Austin and his Black col-leagues’ moment in power alsodemonstrates the entrenched sys-tem that has defaulted to whitemen at the top when 43 percent ofthe 1.3 million men and women onactive duty in the United Statesare people of color.
The photo of Admiral Mullenwith his senior Black directorsand vice directors stands in con-trast with another photo, taken ayear ago, of President Trump sur-rounded by a sea of white faces —his senior Defense Department ci-vilian and military leaders. To-day’s Joint Staff directors and vicedirectors are similar: All but oneof those jobs are filled by whitemen. The exception is Vice Adm.Lisa Franchetti, a white woman,who is the director for strategy,plans and policy — a reflection ofthe inroads that the current chair-man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,Gen. Mark A. Milley, has made byappointing women to jobs theyhave never had before.
But as the country has focusedon racial disparities and protestsafter the police killing this year ofGeorge Floyd, Defense Depart-ment officials have acknowledgedthat they have failed to promoteBlack men, who were fully inte-grated to serve in the military af-ter World War II. They have of-fered a host of reasons, from alower number of Black men in thecombat jobs that lead to the topranks to a tendency by corporateAmerica to raid the best talent, toexplain why so few senior leadersare people of color.
In a series of interviews overthe past two months, GeneralAustin, Admiral Mullen and theBlack men who ran the Joint Staff10 years ago — most of whomwent on to even higher levels ofcommand — said the reasons giv-en by the Defense Department’stop ranks are excuses.
“It’s a simple issue of leader-ship,” Admiral Mullen said in a re-cent interview. “If you want to getit done, you can get it done.”
At first glance, Admiral Mullenmight be an unexpected choice tobe the senior officer who wouldwork to break racial barriers atthe Pentagon. The son of a Holly-wood press agent, he grew up in1950s Los Angeles, where his highschool senior class of 130 had onlyone Black student.
But the world opened up for himwhen he got to the Naval Acad-emy in Annapolis in 1964: Onething the American military doesis throw together young men andwomen of all different races, atleast at first.
Midshipman Mullen was class-mates with Midshipman CharlesBolden, who would go on to be-
come the first African-Americanto lead NASA. The two teenagershad gotten to the Naval Academyvia vastly different paths: Mid-shipman Mullen through a bas-ketball scholarship, and Midship-man Bolden only when he wrote apersonal letter to President Lyn-don B. Johnson after being turneddown for the Annapolis appoint-ment by South Carolina’s congres-sional delegation, which includeda segregationist, Senator StromThurmond.
Admiral Mullen’s racial anten-nae went up slowly as he pro-gressed through the ranks of theNavy. He could not help but noticethat the higher up he went, thewhiter the Navy got, until soonthere were no people of coloraround him. “I would look up occa-sionally, and it was an all-whiteworld,” he said.
By the time President GeorgeW. Bush appointed him first tolead the Navy in 2005 and then in2007 to be chairman of the JointChiefs, Admiral Mullen fearedthat the Navy, and the military asa whole, was not keeping up withthe country for which it fought. “Ifelt that the more unrepresenta-tive we were as an institution, thefarther we would drift from theAmerican people and the more ir-
relevant we would become,” hesaid.
Enter General Austin.General Austin, a graduate of
the United States Military Acad-emy at West Point, was raised inThomasville, Ga., the same townthat produced Henry O. Flipper,who was born a slave and in 1877became the first African-Ameri-can graduate of West Point andthe first Black noncommissionedofficer to lead Buffalo Soldiers ofthe 10th Cavalry.
General Austin had helped leadthe Army’s 3rd Infantry Division’sduring the American-led invasionin 2003, commanded a light in-fantry division in Afghanistan af-ter that, and was back in Iraq as aground commander in 2008 whenAdmiral Mullen arrived for a tour.Mr. Bush’s surge had started toquell the worst of the sectarian vi-olence that had plagued the coun-try, but American troops were stilldying and the country was on theverge of a humanitarian crisis.
American command staff mem-bers in Baghdad knew that Gen-eral Austin loathed talking to thenews media or doing on-demandperformances for visiting digni-taries. But over dinner with Admi-ral Mullen at one of Saddam Hus-sein’s old palaces, he opened a
map of Iraq and walked the JointChiefs chairman over what theAmerican military was doing onevery piece of contested ground inthe country.
“I was just blown away,” Admi-ral Mullen recalled. “I hadn’t runinto anybody who had the com-prehensive understanding of theground war that he had.”
General Austin said in an inter-view that during the dinner hewas just focusing “on the X’s andO’s,” but remembers AdmiralMullen telling him “it was the bestpicture of the fight that he had got-ten in some time.” Back in Wash-ington, Admiral Mullen calledGen. George W. Casey, the Armychief of staff who was responsiblefor compiling names for promo-tions to Joint Staff’s top jobs.
“Is Austin on your list?” Admi-ral Mullen asked him.
“He said no,” Admiral Mullenrecalled. “I said, ‘Put him on it.’”
By 2009, General Austin was atthe Pentagon as director of theJoint Staff, the first Black man tohold the job. Admiral Mullen alsoappointed another Black officer,Admiral Grooms, a baby-faceNavy submariner whom the ad-miral had been mentoring foryears with public strolls aroundthe Pentagon to make sure otherpeople took note, to be GeneralAustin’s vice director. Upon his ar-rival, Admiral Mullen told Gen-eral Austin to make the rest ofJoint Staff directors and vice di-rectors more diverse, too.
But when General Austin wentto the Army, Air Force, Marinesand Navy asking for recommen-dations for high-quality candi-dates, he ran into a brick wall. Ev-ery list he got from the services,he said, was filled solely withwhite men. He returned to hisboss a few weeks later saying he
could find no minority candidates.The reaction, General Austin
recalled, “was one of the worstbutt-chewings I ever got fromMullen. He said: ‘They’re outthere. Go back and find them.’”
General Austin went back to theservices and told them not tobring him any more lists of onlywhite men. He had learned a les-son: In the American military, ifhe did not specifically ask that mi-nority candidates be included onthe lists for various posts, hewould not get any.
“We did a second look, and casta wider net,” General Austin re-
called, “and found there were folksout there who were supremelyqualified.”
The result was General Via,who would rise to become thecommander of the U.S. ArmyMatériel Command; GeneralSpencer, who would become thevice chief of staff of the Air Force;General McDew, who eventuallybecame the commander of UnitedStates Transportation Command;and Brig. Gen. Michael T. Harri-son, who became the commanderof U.S. Army forces in Japan.
With the exception of GeneralHarrison, who retired after he wasdisciplined for mishandling a sex-ual assault case in Japan, all themen rose to become four-star gen-erals and admirals.
On Sept. 1, 2010, at a ceremonyat Al-Faw Palace in Baghdad at-
tended by Vice President JosephR. Biden Jr., General Austin be-came commanding general of U.S.and coalition forces in Iraq. It wasthe start of what has become acrucial relationship with Mr. Bi-den, now the president-elect.
Mr. Biden was already predis-posed to like the general; his sonBeau sat next to General Austin,who is Catholic, during Mass inIraq when Beau Biden was serv-ing there. General Austin and theelder Mr. Biden would go on tospend hours together in WhiteHouse Situation Room meetingsdiscussing Iraq and the Obamaadministration’s withdrawal of150,000 troops from the region, de-veloping a level of personal com-fort with each other.
Mr. Biden, in an op-ed in The At-lantic on Tuesday, called GeneralAustin’s management of the Iraqwithdrawal “the largest logisticaloperation undertaken by theArmy in six decades” and com-pared it to what will be required tohelp distribute coronavirus vac-cines throughout the UnitedStates, a job the next defense sec-retary will find in his portfolio. “Iknow this man,” Mr. Biden said onWednesday, formally introducinghis nominee for defense secretary.
When General Austin was ap-pointed by President BarackObama to be head of United StatesCentral Command — the coun-try’s premier military command,which fights the nation’s wars inthe Middle East — he had risenhigher in the military than anyother Black man except Colin L.Powell, who had been chairman ofthe Joint Chiefs. Now GeneralAustin is poised to rise evenhigher.
The Joint Staff director job thatAdmiral Mullen gave GeneralAustin set him up for all that cameafter. “You’re involved in the plan-ning of sophisticated issues, inter-acting with the secretary of de-fense routinely,” General Austinsaid. “People who might not haveknown Lloyd Austin began toknow him.”
But even if confirmed by theSenate as the Pentagon chief,General Austin may find himselfrunning into the usual hurdlespromoting people of color. One ofGeneral Austin’s Black contempo-raries on the Joint Staff, GeneralSpencer, recalled in an interviewwhat happened when he oncetried to fill an executive assistantjob — a promising one that wouldensure upward mobility.
“They kept sending me lists ofall white candidates,” GeneralSpencer recalled. When he askedfor a more diverse roster, he said,“the officer tells me, ‘Well, sir, itwould look bad if you picked aBlack E.A. because you’re Black.’”
Whether views like that hand-cuff General Austin if he becomesdefense secretary is an open ques-tion. During an interview beforeMr. Biden asked him to take thetop Pentagon job, General Austinwas adamant that senior leadershave to take responsibility for di-versifying the senior ranks.
“People tend to choose the peo-ple to be around them that they’recomfortable with, and unless theleadership values diversity, thisjust doesn’t happen on its own,”General Austin said. “It kind ofmakes you believe that havinggoals and objectives is a nicething, but having requirementsmight be better.”
Biden’s Defense Nominee Overcame the Pentagon’s Barriers to DiversityFrom Page A1
Rising through theranks as they grewincreasingly white.
Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, above, greeting the last U.S. convoy toleave Iraq in 2011. Left, Gen. Austin, third from right, in 2010with Adm. Mike Mullen, center, chairman of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff, and Black officers then in the military’s most senior ranks.
POOL PHOTO BY LUCAS JACKSON
VIA GEN. DARREN MCDEW
WASHINGTON — Michèle A.Flournoy, an experienced militarypolicymaker and mentor to scoresof women in national security,may now be remembered as thefirst female secretary of defensewho wasn’t. Three times.
For months Ms. Flournoy —who repeatedly sat at the center ofheated disputes as the under sec-retary for policy at the Pentagonduring the Obama administration— was widely believed aroundWashington to be a front-runnerfor President-elect Joseph R. Bi-den Jr.’s pick for the top job.
On Monday, however, aides toMr. Biden revealed that he insteadwill nominate retired Gen. Lloyd J.Austin III, a former commander ofthe American military effort inIraq, to lead the Pentagon, deflat-ing a narrative of inevitability thatmany around her sought to buildeven before Mr. Biden won. If con-firmed, General Austin would bethe first Black defense secretaryin the nation’s history.
The decision enraged many ofthe women Ms. Flournoy elevatedfrom the trenches of the male-dominated world of national secu-rity, who were hoping to see an-other woman in a prominent cab-inet post. (Mr. Biden has selectedthe first female vice president androughly equal numbers of menand women for cabinet-level jobsso far, but many of the most seniorroles, including secretaries of
state, defense and homeland secu-rity, have gone to men.)
The job of defense secretarywill need both public relations andpractical retooling after four tur-bulent years under PresidentTrump, and as the number ofwomen in the military continuesto grow, many had hoped Ms.Flournoy, who was considered forthe role twice before, would be theone to do it.
“Flournoy is just beloved,” saidRosa Brooks, a law professor atGeorgetown University Law Cen-ter who was one of Ms. Flournoy’ssubordinates at the Pentagon andplayed a role in the aggressivepublic lobbying in her favor.
“The first Black secretary of de-fense is also something to cele-brate,” she added, “but Flournoyoccupies a special place in thepantheon of defense experts.”
On Tuesday, Ms. Flournoy con-gratulated General Austin, callinghim “a colleague and friend.”
“I know he will bring his im-pressive skills to bear to lead allthose who volunteer to defend ourcountry, military and civilian, atthis critical moment in our na-tion’s history,” she said in a state-ment. “I look forward to helpinghim and the president-elect suc-ceed in any way that I can.”
Several people involved in orclose to Mr. Biden’s transitionteam now say that the notion ofMs. Flournoy as the front-runnerwas mostly a product of an im-
pressive lobbying campaign byher supporters — many but by nomeans all women — in publicstatements, published opinionpieces and tweets in recent weeks.
Ms. Flournoy’s résumé hadseemed potentially right for themoment. She served in the Penta-gon first under President Bill Clin-ton, and from 2009 to 2012 she wasthe under secretary of defense forpolicy in the Obama administra-tion — the highest-ranking role fora woman in the Pentagon at thetime. She removed her name fromcontention for the top job in 2014,when Mr. Obama initially was con-sidering her to succeed DefenseSecretary Chuck Hagel.
She instead became a senior ad-viser at the Boston ConsultingGroup, then went on to co-foundWestExec Advisors, a consultingfirm. Her second shot at the jobwas scuttled when Hillary Clinton— who was widely expected toname her — lost the presidentialelection in 2016.
Ms. Flournoy was known forseamlessly moving between thecivilian and active-duty sides ofthe Pentagon, bridging the oftenimpenetrable gap between thosein uniform and those in suits — askill that some fear may be lostwith a retired general in the role.She did so, her fans said, by trans-lating the political imperatives ofcivilians to the active-duty mili-tary world and carefully helpingthe civilian side understand the
military’s practical needs and lim-itations in seeing through the pol-icy goals of elected officials.
“She is enormously talented,and the last thing I think about isthat she is a woman,” said Adm.Mike Mullen, the chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff at the time ofthe Afghanistan surge, which shehelped advocate to the ObamaWhite House. “From my perspec-tive that is a great thing.”
Yet among women who toil inthe national security trenches, anarea where men — and what Ms.Flournoy often refers to as their“mini-mes” who succeed them —have historically dominated, Ms.Flournoy is widely regarded as anessential mentor.
“An entire generation of na-tional security women used her astheir role model in how to navi-gate a male-dominated job,” saidRepresentative Elissa Slotkin,Democrat of Michigan, who alsoworked for Ms. Flournoy. “Thelesson she provided for women is
that you have to always be thebest prepared in the room. I lit-erally learned that from her, and Inow pass that down to the youngwomen who work for me.”
Celeste Wallander, the presi-dent of the U.S.-Russia Founda-tion, is among scores of womenwho consider Ms. Flournoy cen-tral to their successful careers.Ms. Wallander recalled a time in1989 when the two were both aca-demics at Harvard, where Ms.Wallander, very junior, was usu-ally left off the invitation list fordinners and other events with ma-jor players in her field. Ms.Flournoy quietly had her added tothe lists. “I got to meet people be-cause I was at the table now,” Ms.Wallander said.
Ms. Flournoy was also popularfor her decision, after studyingbusiness literature on the work-place, to give exhausted Pentagonpersonnel “planned time off,” witheach covering for one another asthey took scheduled breaks to
care for children, visit parents,train for a marathon, schedule ap-pointments or whatever theywished.
But even her supporters ac-knowledge that Ms. Flournoy’sWestExec consulting role, and herposition as an adviser to the in-vestment fund Pine Island CapitalPartners, put her in the crosshairs of many liberal critics, some-thing her business partner inthose roles, Antony J. Blinken,seemed to escape when Mr. Bidenannounced him as the nominee forsecretary of state.
Another possible source of ten-sion was that Mr. Biden differedgreatly with many in the ObamaWhite House over the surge in Af-ghanistan.
In 2009, Ms. Flournoy, in herrole as under secretary for policyto Robert M. Gates, the Pentagonchief at the time, met with Gen.Stanley A. McChrystal at an air-field near Mons, Belgium, to hearthe general make his case for alarge troop increase in the region— something Mr. Biden, then thevice president, deeply and openlyopposed.
The political conflict over thatwar, and statements criticizingMr. Biden attributed to GeneralMcChrystal’s aides, would latercost General McChrystal his jobas commander in Afghanistan.
Mr. Biden is said to have soughta defense secretary with whom hehas a personal and natural alli-ance.
A Name Often Floated, but Not Chosen,In Discussions on Leading the Pentagon
Many women in national secu-rity policy had hoped MichèleA. Flournoy would be chosenas defense secretary.
BILL CLARK/CQ ROLL CALL, VIA GETTY IMAGES
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
K N A25NATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Transition in Washington Policy and Personalities
WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. hasworked with the former aide hewants to be secretary of statesince their time at the Senate For-eign Relations Committee in the1990s. His nominee for agriculturesecretary endorsed his first presi-dential bid more than 30 yearsago. And he knows his choice forPentagon chief from the retiredgeneral’s time in Iraq, where Mr.Biden’s son Beau, a military law-yer, also served on the general’sstaff.
For all the talk that Mr. Biden isabiding by a complicated formulaof ethnicity, gender and experi-ence as he builds his administra-tion — and he is — perhaps themost important criteria for land-ing a cabinet post or a top WhiteHouse job appears to be having alongstanding relationship withthe president-elect himself.
His chief of staff, Ron Klain,goes back with him to the days ofAnita Hill and Clarence Thomaswhen Mr. Biden was the chairman
of the Senate Judiciary Commit-tee and Mr. Klain was on his staff.John Kerry, his climate envoy, isan old Senate buddy. Even VicePresident-elect Kamala Harris,who is not a longtime confidanteand ran an aggressive campaignagainst Mr. Biden, had a close re-lationship with Beau Biden beforehe died — a personal credentialthat is like gold with the manabout to move into the Oval Office.
In accepting Mr. Biden’s nomi-nation to be the first Black man torun the Defense Department,Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III onWednesday called Beau a “greatAmerican” and recalled the timehe spent with him in Iraq, andtheir conversations after he re-turned home, before his deathfrom a brain tumor in 2015.
“As you, too, can attest, MadamVice President-elect, Beau was avery special person and a true pa-triot, and a good friend to all whoknew him,” General Austin said.
It is a sharp contrast to Presi-dent Trump, who assembled adysfunctional collection of cabinetmembers he barely knew and af-ter an initial honeymoon spenttheir time constantly at risk of be-ing fired. With nearly half of Mr.Biden’s cabinet and many keyWhite House jobs announced, hisadministration looks more like aclose-knit family.
But there are risks in Mr. Bi-den’s approach, which departssharply from Abraham Lincoln’sfamous desire for a “team of ri-vals” in his cabinet who couldchallenge one another — and thepresident. And while every presi-dent brings in a coterie of long-
time advisers, few have had thelongevity of Mr. Biden’s nearlyfive decades in Washington, andprized so much the relationshipshe developed along the way.
Relying on advisers and cabinetofficials steeped in old Washing-ton — and Mr. Biden’s own world-view — lends an air of insularity tohis still-forming presidency at atime when many Americans areexpecting fresh ideas to confront aworld that is very different fromthe one that the president-electand his friends got to know whenthey were younger.
Even some allies in the Demo-cratic Party say they worry thatMr. Biden’s reliance on the samepeople threatens to undermine hisability to find solutions to thecountry’s problems that go be-yond the usual ones embraced bythe establishment in Washington.
Representative-elect MondaireJones of New York, 33, who willserve as the freshman representa-tive to the House Democraticleadership, praised Mr. Biden’schoices so far as “highly compe-tent” but added that “competencyalone is insufficient for purposesof building back better.”
“One risk of Joe Biden nominat-ing or otherwise appointing onlypeople with whom he has close re-lationships is he may miss the mo-ment,” he said.
Faiz Shakir, who served as Sen-ator Bernie Sanders’s campaignmanager and negotiated with theBiden team over the summer aspart of a unity task force, said thebiggest bias he has seen from theBiden transition team has been infavor of “credentialing” — both interms of Washington experience,often with the president-elect, andeducation.
He said he worried the teamwas leaning “so much on techno-cratic competence based on cre-dentialing that it misses the op-portunity to introduce fresh bloodand new thinking more closely as-sociated with the struggles of theworking class.”
And Representative AdrianoEspaillat, Democrat of New York,urged Mr. Biden to embrace “a lit-tle bit more competitiveness in-side” a team that so far appearsmostly like-minded. Tackling thebig problems in American in thewake of the pandemic “is going torequire a lively debate,” Mr. Es-paillat said. “It doesn’t have to bea room full of people you like.”
But Mr. Biden has not been shyabout describing what is impor-tant to him as he builds his team.
“I’ve seen him in action,” Mr. Bi-den said of Antony J. Blinken, hisincoming secretary of state and alongtime adviser.
“I’ve worked with her for over adecade,” Mr. Biden said of his newdirector of national intelligence,Avril D. Haines.
“One of my closest friends,” Mr.Biden hailed Mr. Kerry when heannounced the former secretaryof state’s new climate role.
And in an article published inThe Atlantic on Tuesday, the presi-dent-elect explained one of thekey reasons he chose GeneralAustin.
“I’ve spent countless hours
with him, in the field and in theWhite House Situation Room,” Mr.Biden wrote. “I’ve sought his ad-vice, seen his command, and ad-mired his calm and his character.”
Those who know Mr. Biden sayhe is confident of his own ability asa judge of character and hasleaned on some of the same teamof counselors for decades. Hislongtime Senate chief of staff andbrief successor in the Senate, TedKaufman, is helping lead the tran-sition. Among his top incomingWhite House advisers, his coun-selor, Steve Ricchetti, and senioradviser, Mike Donilon, are long-time loyalists.
Other aides are reprising rolesthey held in Mr. Biden’s vice-presi-dential office — only now at theWhite House itself. Jake Sullivan,the national security adviser, heldthat post for Mr. Biden, and JaredBernstein, who was an economicadviser, is now a member of theCouncil of Economic Advisers.
“He’s got this wonderful team— not of rivals but of talented peo-ple that he’s either worked with orobserved over the years,” said Jo-seph Riley, the former mayor ofCharleston, S.C., and a man Mr. Bi-den once called “America’s may-or.”
“He has amassed a collection oftalented people who he haswatched, listened to, leaned onover the years, and he is a quickstudy,” Mr. Riley said.
Not every appointee is a Bidenintimate. This week, Mr. Bidenrolled out his health care team andbadly bungled the name of his in-coming secretary of health andhuman services — Xavier Becerra— before correcting himself.
Turning to people close to himto run with long experience ingovernment may be an advantageduring confirmation battles in thedeeply divided Senate. Many ofhis picks — like Tom Vilsack, whoserved for eight years as secre-
tary of agriculture under Presi-dent Barack Obama and has beennominated for the same job again— are well known to Republicans.
“I think he did an outstandingjob for eight years and he’ll do anoutstanding job for no more thanfour years,” Senator Charles E.Grassley, Republican of Iowa andthe chairman of the Senate Fi-nance Committee, told reporterswhen asked about Mr. Biden’s de-cision to nominate Mr. Vilsack.
But a bigger test for Mr. Bidenwill be his decision on who shouldbe attorney general and run theJustice Department at a timewhen racial tensions have roiledthe country.
On Tuesday, a group of activistsmet with Mr. Biden to press himon nominating a Black personwho will focus on civil rights andsocial justice issues. But with anAfrican-American now ready tolead the Defense Department —ensuring that the State, Treasury,Justice and Defense Departmentswill not all be led by white people— a number of prominent Demo-crats believe the president-electmay turn to Senator Doug Jonesof Alabama, who is white.
Mr. Jones would most likelyprove easy to confirm in a closelydivided Senate given his warm re-lationships with senators in bothparties, including Alabama’s sen-ior senator, Richard C. Shelby, aRepublican.
But Mr. Jones has somethingelse working in his favor: a longhistory with Mr. Biden.
As a young law student in Birm-ingham, Ala., Mr. Jones waswowed by a visit from a freshmansenator from Delaware and intro-duced himself to Mr. Biden. Theygrew closer when Mr. Jonesmoved to Washington to work onthe Senate Judiciary Committee.And in 1987, Mr. Jones served asAlabama co-chair on Mr. Biden’sfirst campaign for president.
Biden’s Close-Knit CabinetLacks Rivalries, Critics Say
By MICHAEL D. SHEARand SHANE GOLDMACHER
Jonathan Martin and Emily Coch-rane contributed reporting.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry, above, climate envoy forPresident-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., and Ron Klain, below right,Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, both go back to his years in the Senate.
ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESSA leader who prizesthe relationships he’sbuilt along the way.
lution rules while limiting its au-thority to put in place tight pollu-tion controls in the future.
Trump administration officialslauded the rule as though it wouldhave a lasting impact. AndrewWheeler, the E.P.A. administrator,introduced it at a virtual eventhosted by the Heritage Founda-tion, a conservative research or-ganization, which billed Mr.Wheeler’s speech as a “major pol-
icy announcement.”Mr. Wheeler said the rule was
designed primarily to increasetransparency. “Our goal with thisrule is to help the public better un-derstand the why of rule-makingin addition to the what.”
But he also said that it had beenexplicitly designed to prevent fu-ture administrations from releas-ing rules like an Obama adminis-tration regulation on toxic mer-
cury pollution, which the industryofficials said was far too costly forthe benefits and which the E.P.A.rolled back this spring.
The new rule would change howthe E.P.A. is required to report itscalculations of the economic costsand benefits of new clean air andclimate change rules. Agencyeconomists will be required to cal-culate the value of benefits to pub-lic health that directly stem from a
new environmental regulation,and separately the value of ancil-lary benefits, or “co-benefits.”
That requirement, experts said,appears to be designed to giveregulated industries a new ave-nue to sue a future E.P.A. over airpollution rules, by centering liti-gation on the costs and benefits ofthe ancillary category.
“The requirements of the ruleare not nefarious — but the ques-tion is, how do you use the infor-mation?” said Roy Gamse, a for-mer director of economic analysisat the E.P.A.
“The rule provides a hook foropponents of regulations to throwsand in the gears via litigation,” hesaid. “It is totally unnecessary, it isnot required by the Clean Air Act,and it has no obvious purpose butto block future clean air regula-tions.”
Industry groups applauded therule.
“Strengthening the consistencyand transparency of rule-makingsis a significant step forward forClean Air Act provisions and iscritical for continuing improve-ments in U.S. air quality,” saidFrank Macchiarola, a vice presi-dent of the American PetroleumInstitute, which lobbies for oilcompanies. “This policy will helpprotect public health and the envi-ronment cost-effectively as wecontinue to reduce emissions andinvest in innovative technologieswhile delivering affordable, reli-able energy.”
Mr. Wheeler formally proposedthe rule change in June, following
years of complaints by fossil fuelcompanies, which say the eco-nomic formulas used by the fed-eral government to justify pollu-tion controls have unfairlyharmed them. During the Obamaadministration, the E.P.A. drafteda rule to limit toxic mercury pollu-tion from power plants, estimat-ing that it would cost the electricutility industry $9.6 billion a year.But an initial analysis found thatreducing mercury would save just$6 million annually in healthcosts.
To justify that imbalance, theObama administration found anadditional $80 billion in health “co-benefits” from the incidental re-duction of soot and nitrogen oxidethat would occur as side effects ofcontrolling mercury.
In May, the Trump administra-tion completed a rollback of thatmercury rule, discounting suchco-benefits.
Experts said that it would quitelikely take about six months forthe Biden administration to rollback the new cost-benefit rule, soit would no longer be in place bythe time the Biden administrationreinstated other Obama-era rules.
“It’s like breaking all the calcu-lators on the way out the door,”said Jack Lienke, the director ofregulatory policy at the New YorkUniversity School of Law’s Insti-tute for Policy Integrity. “The peo-ple coming in can buy new calcu-lators. It’s just a hurdle and takessome time. It’s just another an-noyance for the incoming admin-istration to deal with. ”
WASHINGTON — The Trumpadministration on Wednesdaycompleted a rule that could weak-en federal authority to issue cleanair and climate change rules bychanging the way the costs of pol-lution to human health and safetyare tallied — and the way benefitsof controlling that pollution aretabulated.
The new rule is the latest in aflurry of final Trump administra-tion policies from the Envi-ronmental Protection Agency, asagency political appointees seekto wrap up four years of rollingback or weakening more than 100environmental rules and policies.
But the cost-benefit rule, whichchanges the way the E.P.A. is re-quired to report economic analy-ses of Clean Air Act regulations, isnot expected to survive the incom-ing Biden administration, whichcould quickly reverse it.
“A Biden administration couldjust come in and propose a differ-ent rule,” said Steven J. Milloy,who serves as an informal envi-ronmental policy adviser to mem-bers of the Trump administrationand is author of the book “ScarePollution: Why and How to Fix theE.P.A.” “Ultimately these finalTrump rules won’t really matter,other than that they’ll have somepolitical rhetorical value for peo-ple like me.”
If Mr. Trump had won the presi-dential election, the rule couldhave had a significant effect on thefederal government’s legal au-thority to weaken existing air pol-
Last-Minute Trump Rule Aims to Handcuff Biden on Clean Air Policies
A steel mill in Gary, Ind. A new rule changes how costs and benefits of air regulations are tallied.PURCELL PICTURES/ALAMY
By CORAL DAVENPORT
The speaker of Arizona’s Houseof Representatives did what hethought was right after RudolphW. Giuliani rolled throughPhoenix for maskless meetingswith Republican legislators andthen tested positive for the co-ronavirus: He shut the chamberdown for a week in a bid to preventthe spread of Covid-19.
But that move is now addingfuel to the open conflict within Ari-zona’s Republican Party, posi-tioning Trump loyalists intent onoverturning the state’s election re-sults against relatively moderatefigures like Rusty Bowers, theHouse speaker, and Gov. DougDucey, both of whom have made itclear the results will stand.
The party this week publiclyurged people to fight to the deathto overturn the election in whichPresident-elect Joseph R. BidenJr. defeated President Trump byfewer than 11,000 votes, about 0.3percentage points. That entreatycame after 28 current and incom-ing Republican lawmakers calledfor the decertification of the elec-tion as requested by Mr. Giuliani,the personal and campaign law-yer for Mr. Trump.
The quarreling, which has pow-erful state Republicans openly in-sulting one another, is bringing at-tention to the challenges the partyfaces as Arizona shifts from a Re-publican bastion to a battlegroundstate.
“There’s been a civil war boilingin the Republican Party for a cou-ple of years,” said Marcus Del-l’Artino, a Republican strategist inPhoenix. “Now we’re seeing thepublic part of it.”
Kelli Ward, the chair of the Ari-zona Republican Party, told Mr.Ducey on Twitter last week to#STHU — the hashtag for “shutthe hell up” — after he defendedthe state’s election process. At anews conference, Mr. Ducey re-sponded, “I think what I wouldsay is the feeling’s mutual to her,and practice what you preach.”
Separately, RepresentativeAndy Biggs, a Trump loyalist, sin-gled out Mr. Ducey for a public re-buke over the coronavirus, theo-rizing that the governor “intendsto coerce vaccinations.”
Mr. Ducey’s chief of staff, DanielScarpinato, then entered the fray,tweeting to Mr. Biggs: “We al-ways knew you were nuts, butyou’ve now officially confirmed itfor the whole world to see. Con-gratulations. Enjoy your time as apermanent resident of Crazy-town.”
The infighting flared after Mr.Giuliani visited Phoenix last weekas part of his traveling legal battlecontending, without providing ev-idence, that the election wasmarked by widespread fraud. Mr.Giuliani spent about 11 hours withseveral Republican lawmakers ina hotel ballroom, and also metwith at least eight during a visit tothe Arizona Capitol.
Neither Mr. Ducey’s office norZachery Henry, a spokesman forthe Arizona Republican Party, re-sponded to requests for commenton the public discord. After theparty asked its followers on Twit-ter if they were prepared to die forthe cause of overturning the elec-tion, Mr. Ducey asserted that the
Republican Party was “the partyof the Constitution and the rule oflaw.”
“We prioritize public safety, law& order, and we respect the lawenforcement officers who keep ussafe,” Mr. Ducey said on Twitter.“We don’t burn stuff down. Webuild things up.”
Still, Mr. Giuliani’s baselessclaims have resonated with whatappears to be a sizable chunk ofthe state’s Republican Party,which has periodically dealt withfactional squabbling.
In the 1980s, Gov. EvanMecham, a hard-liner known forcanceling a paid holiday honoringthe Rev. Dr. Martin Luther KingJr., was impeached and removedfrom office two years after beingelected. More recently, divisionsemerged between followers of Mr.Trump and supporters of John S.McCain, the Arizona senator whobefore his death was among thefew powerful Republicans to pushback against the president.
Mr. Ducey, who sailed to re-elec-tion in 2018 while hewing to a cen-trist image, had gone all-in for Mr.Trump on the campaign trail thisyear. But then he defied the presi-dent at a televised news confer-ence last week, going so far as si-lencing a call from Mr. Trumpwhile he was signing the paperscertifying Arizona’s election re-sults.
To the frustration of Mr.Trump’s strident supporters in thestate, including some who havebeen protesting the election re-sults for weeks, Mr. Bowers, theHouse speaker, also made it clearhe would resist calls to overturnthe certified results.
“As a conservative Republican,I don’t like the results of the presi-dential election,” Mr. Bowers saidin a statement. “I voted for Presi-dent Trump and worked hard tore-elect him. But I cannot and willnot entertain a suggestion that weviolate current law to change theoutcome of a certified election.”
When Mr. Bowers then closedthe chamber for a week after Mr.Giuliani’s positive coronavirustest, Ms. Ward, the chair of the Ar-izona Republican Party, took himto task on Twitter, saying, “This isa 100% unnecessary, cowardlymove.”
Some warn that the increas-ingly caustic feuding is obscuringan election in which Republicansactually fared better than manyhad expected. While Mr. Bidennarrowly won the state and Dem-ocrats picked up a second Senateseat, Republicans held control ofboth houses in the Legislature andwon most state offices up forgrabs.
Looking ahead at ambitions toscale back Democratic gains,Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Re-publican strategist in Phoenix,said the bickering reflected the as-cent of a “more activist conserva-tive portion of the party” personi-fied by Ms. Ward, who had beenunable to build relationships withthe larger business community inArizona and execute fund-raisingwithout relying on Mr. Trump.
“The party is no longer the rela-tionship-building apparatus thatit has been for many years underprevious governors here in Ari-zona,” Mr. Coughlin said. “It is avestige of Trump’s authority.”
Arizona G.O.P. ‘Civil War’Laid Bare by Trump’s Loss
By SIMON ROMERO
A26 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
N
The Food and Drug Administration is ex-pected to grant emergency use author-izations to the first two coronavirus vac-cines in the next several days. The sheer speed withwhich doctors and scientists were able to reach thisstage is a major achievement, and the early resultsfor both vaccines are undeniably impressive. Newvaccines normally take years to develop, and scientists ini-tially worried.
But when all is said and done, making the vaccinemight turn out to have been the easy part.
Earlier this year, before President-elect Joe Bidentapped her to head the Centers for Disease Control and Pre-vention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky ran a computer simulationto game out how a coronavirus vaccine might affect the con-tinuing pandemic. Early reports that at least two vaccineswere 95 percent effective at preventing illness were fuelinghope that inoculation would bring the crisis to a speedy con-clusion, and Dr. Walensky’s team wanted to see how realisticthat hope might be.
Not very, it turns out. Dr. Walensky’s study found thatthe most important factor in a given vaccine’s success is notnecessarily how well that vaccine works. It’s everythingelse: how quickly and strategically the vaccine is distribut-ed across the country, how well received it is and whetherpeople continue to abide by other edicts, like mask wearingand physical distancing. “We find that factors related to im-plementation will contribute more to the success of vaccina-tion programs than a vaccine’s efficacy as determined inclinical trials,” Dr. Walensky and her co-authors wrote.
That’s especially bad news for the United States, whichhas invested billions of dollars into vaccine development,but very little into actually getting people vaccinated.
In the coming weeks and months, health institutionsacross the country — hospitals, clinics, nursing homes,pharmacies, health departments — will face the unprece-dented challenge of administering several entirely novelvaccines, some with stringent and complicated storage re-quirements, in the middle of a raging pandemic, to a wearypopulace that tends to be public-health averse in the best oftimes. Many of these institutions are running on fumes afteryears of deep budget cuts and months of unrelenting crisis,and most of them have nowhere near the resources that ex-perts say are needed to meet the coming challenges.
The Association of State and Territorial Health Officialshas said that its members need at least $8.4 billion to de-velop and run successful coronavirus vaccination programs.So far, the federal government has allocated less than $400million.
According the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation,which analyzed the vaccine distribution plans for 47 states,most have not completed plans to expand their vaccine de-livery systems — a monumental task that will include iden-tifying and vetting hundreds, or potentially thousands, ofnew vaccine providers per state. Nearly half don’t have datamanagement programs comprehensive or reliable enoughto keep track of who gets inoculated when (crucial informa-tion, especially given that all the vaccines on offer so far in-volve two doses). Less than half say they are prepared toidentify and tally the number of people in their state whowill be eligible for the very first shots, and few — betweenhalf and one-third — have plans to combat vaccine misinfor-mation or reach racial minorities and other vulnerable pop-ulations.
Each of these shortcomings has been exacerbated by alack of clarity from federal officials about a range of critical
issues. For example, many health sys-tems say they are not even sure whichvaccines they will receive, let alone howmany doses. Without that information,
it’s difficult to say whether the plans they have draftedon paper will actually work.
So far, health officials have done little to acknowl-edge the challenges that lie ahead. Moncef Slaoui, the
head of Operation Warp Speed, has said that 100 millionAmericans could be immunized against the coronavirus inthe next 100 days: 20 million in December, 30 million in Jan-uary and 50 million February. That timeline may indeed bepossible, but it seems unlikely. Some hospitals are not evenplanning to administer their first doses until mid-January.The second doses can’t be administered until three or fourweeks after that, and full immunization will take about aweek from there.
Congress could take a crucial step toward correctingthese deficits by increasing the funding for state and localvaccination programs across the country. There’s alreadybroad bipartisan support for doing so, but the provisions arebeing held hostage along with the rest of the federal budget.Lawmakers should extract those provisions and pass themas a separate bill immediately.
In the meantime, health officials at every level shouldexplain clearly and repeatedly why some groups might bevaccinated before others: Some people are much morelikely to die from the virus or much more likely to pass it onto others, and vaccinating them first ensures that as many
people as possible are protected fromthe limited vaccine supplies. They canreinforce this important message bysetting steep penalties for people whotry to cut in line — for example, by brib-ing doctors or by forging their frontlinecredentials.
Health officials should make clearthat it will be crucial to wear face masksand practice physical distancing for a
good while still. They should also be clear about the differ-ence between real and imagined risks. While some of thevaccines have been linked to side effects like high fever andnausea, none of them can give a person Covid-19. While theyappear to be safe for adults of any race or ethnicity, theyhave not yet been tested in children, pregnant women ornursing mothers. It’s still unclear how long protection willlast, and doctors don’t yet know if the vaccines will preventpeople from contracting the coronavirus, or just keep themfrom developing the deadly disease that the virus causes,Covid-19. They are working to answer these questions now.
If health officials want to maintain public trust andmaximize vaccine uptake in the meantime, they’ll have to betransparent about what’s known and what isn’t, and clearabout how that changes as new data emerges. It will be diffi-cult for state and local health departments to develop tar-geted messaging campaigns without sufficient resources,but health officials at every level can still strive for transpar-ency in their public remarks.
The federal government has invested billions of taxpay-er dollars in vaccines to fight the coronavirus pandemic.Some of that investment has already been squandered. Byfailing to check the spread of the virus these many months,America’s leaders have ensured that no vaccine — not evena 95 percent effective one — will quickly contain it. But iflawmakers, officials and the waiting public do what’sneeded now, they might still turn things around and makethe most of the significant opportunities that remain.
We Have Vaccines.Now, the Hard Part.
EDITORIAL
How well theywill workdepends onmany factors,including quickdistribution and wideacceptance.
ILLUSTRATION BY NICHOLAS KONRAD/THE NEW YORK TIMES;PHOTOGRAPH BY GETTY IMAGES
TO THE EDITOR:
Re “It’s Time to Scare PeopleAbout Covid” (Op-Ed,nytimes.com, Dec. 7):
I agree with Dr. Elisabeth Rosen-thal, who favors more coverageshowing the suffering of Covidpatients in order to reach thosewho cannot appreciate the severityof the disease.
I think we’re way past the pointof not showing what doctors andnurses have to deal with every day.There needs to be an appreciationthat while most can shrug off amild case, there are children whocan suffer great distress, athletesin top health who have severesymptoms and recovering patientswho have long-lasting effects.Every news station should showbrief firsthand accounts.
KATHRYN KLEEKAMP SANDWICH, MASS.
TO THE EDITOR:
As a psychological scientist, I wasshocked to read this article. Al-though “scare” campaigns (a k afear appeals) have always beenappealing to many politicians anddecision makers, 60 years of psy-chological research have shownthat this form of communication isnot effective. Even worse, it canhave many unwanted side effects.
Even though it seems intuitivelycompelling that scare campaignslead to changes in attitude and
behavior, scientific research showsconvincingly that this is not thecase. Rather, it is important thatpeople feel that the recommendedmeasures (such as wearingmasks) are effective, and that theyare confident that they can stick tothese measures even in difficultsituations.
In fact, when people are highlyscared about a health threat andbelieve that the measures advocat-ed by the government are noteffective, they will react defen-sively. Threatening informationmotivates people to deny a risk orto seek their salvation in conspir-acy thinking.
The current Covid-19 situationrequires urgent and careful action,and effective strategies must befound to curb the pandemic. Scar-ing people, however, should not beone of them.
SIMONE DOHLE COLOGNE, GERMANY
The writer is an assistant professor inthe Social Cognition Center Cologne ofthe University of Cologne.
TO THE EDITOR:
Thank you, Dr. Rosenthal. Manypeople are still not grasping theseriousness of this pandemic. Callit denial, or what have you, butpeople are not grasping their ownrole in helping to minimize thespread. People seem to resistpreventive precautions as assaultson their rights.
Yes, we should be scared. Yes,wearing a mask for eight hourstakes some getting used to. But Isuspect that trying to breathethrough Covid-infected lungs is awhole lot worse.
MARGE CONNER-LEVIN CHERRY HILL, N.J.
Why Can’t Some Take Covid Seriously?
LETTERS
current and former military person-nel to security, policy and strategypositions much more frequentlythan was done previously. As weknow, the current president tookpleasure in surrounding himselfwith “my generals.”
Res ipsa loquitur — the thingspeaks for itself.
HOWARD J. RADZYNER, NEW YORK
TO THE EDITOR:
Re “Biden to Choose Retired Gen-eral to Lead Defense” (front page,Dec. 8): It was depressing to seeGen. Lloyd Austin denigrated asbeing “less known for his politicalinstincts,” having “stumbled” in hiscongressional testimony by admit-ting that the Defense Departmentwasted $500 million in a failedattempt to raise an army of Syrianfighters.
So we’re supposed to insteadwant another cabinet memberadept at sidestepping difficult ques-tions and providing the type ofnon-answer that has become thenorm in our political discourse?Here’s hoping for more appointeeswho suffer from the politically naïvedesire to answer questions honestly.
MARTIN COHEN, BROOKLYN
TO THE EDITOR:
“Austin Is the Wrong Choice,” byJim Golby (Op-Ed, Dec. 9), is espe-cially important as a defense of thesupremacy of the United States’civilian leadership in matters relat-ing to the military.
As he correctly states, GeorgeMarshall and James Mattis werenot particularly effective in theirperformance as defense secretary,at least in part because of the shorttime since their uniformed service.Further, generals are not necessar-ily the best big picture strategicminds (e.g., George McClellan,George Patton and Curtis LeMay).There is no guarantee that formerofficers are especially wise oreffective or honest, nor can — orshould — democracy depend onthem to be the “adults in the room.”
This administration has elevated
A Former General as Biden’s Defense Secretary
TO THE EDITOR:
Re “Warner Bros. Will Stream NewMovies” (Business, Dec. 4):
Warner Brothers has just an-nounced that it will soon stream allof its new releases at the sametime as they arrive in theaters.Obviously, this is a Covid-relateddecision, but one has to wonderwhether it doesn’t portend the endof the moviegoing experience thathas been a part of American life formore than a century.
Now, first-run movies will beavailable to anyone, anywhere,even in the most remote locations,as long as an internet connection isavailable. Yes, being in a theaterwith other patrons and seeingmovies on a large screen has itsappeal. But I won’t miss the highcost of tickets, popcorn and a Coke.
And I especially won’t miss thechatter of other patrons who be-have as if they have never lefttheir own living rooms. Plus, whenwas the last time you could pausea movie at the multiplex to take abreak? Just asking.
HENRY VON KOHORN PRINCETON, N.J.
A Night at the Movies
Dear readers: As 2020comes to a close, let’s try tofind something positive abouta dismal year. Without dis-cussing politics, name onegood thing about 2020.
Submissions should be nomore than 200 words. Thedeadline is Monday, Dec. 14,at 10 a.m., Eastern time.
[email protected] include your name,
city, state and contact infor-mation, and put “year-end” inthe subject line.
One Good Thing About 2020
TO THE EDITOR:
Re “Stark Contrast in Messagingas Biden and Trump Assess Pan-demic” (news article, Dec. 9):
On Tuesday Joe Biden and Presi-dent Trump addressed the corona-virus issue, clearly showing theirdifferent approaches. Mr. Bidensaw the problem in realistic terms,offering useful advice and heartfeltempathy. This was responsibleleadership.
Mr. Trump, on the other hand,indulged in an orgy of self-congrat-ulation, devoid of any recognition ofthe pain and suffering afflictingmillions of Americans, and falselyclaiming for the umpteenth timethat the worst is over. This was afailure of leadership, consistentwith his months of denial of theextent of the Covid problem andrefusal to recommend the measuresnecessary to control the outbreak.
Listening to these two men, Ifound it easy to understand why thenation’s voters chose Mr. Biden.
HARVEY M. BERMAN WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.
Voters Chose Empathy
TO THE EDITOR:
Re “Lamenting the Lost Opportu-nities of a Year Without Travel”(news article, Dec. 7):
Such a good assessment of whatthose of us in the “older” categoryare going through.
My husband and I canceled fourtrips in 2020, not to mention theconferences I planned to attend.After years of working to get to theplace where we could enjoy travel,we see our late years slipping away.
Yes, we have a beautiful homeand a lovely backyard and live in atemperate climate where we cantake long walks. So we’re not angry.But we are wistful.
TERRY SHAMES, BERKELEY, CALIF.
The Trips Not Taken
N A27OP-EDTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
NEW York State’s comptroller,Thomas DiNapoli, announcedon Wednesday that the statewould begin divesting its $226
billion employee pension fund from gasand oil companies if they can’t come upwith a legitimate business plan withinfour years that is aligned with the goalsof the Paris climate accord. Those invest-ments have historically added up toroughly $12 billion.
The entire portfolio will be decarbon-ized over the next two decades. “Achiev-ing net-zero carbon emissions by 2040will put the fund in a strong position forthe future mapped out in the ParisAgreement,” he said in a statement.
It’s a huge win, obviously, for the activ-ists who have fought for eight years toget Albany to divest from fossil fuel com-panies and for the global divestmentcampaign. Endowments and portfoliosworth more than than $14 trillion havejoined the fight.
This new move is the largest by a pen-sion fund in the United States, edging theNew York City pension funds underComptroller Scott Stringer, who an-nounced in 2018 that the fund would seekto divest $5 billion in fossil fuel invest-ments from its nearly $200 billion pen-sion fund over five years.
But it also represents something else:capitulations that taken together sug-gest that the once-dominant fossil fuel in-dustry has reached a low in financial and
political power.The first capitulation, by investors, is
to the understanding that most of Big Oilsimply won’t be a serious partner forchange. Mr. DiNapoli had long been anadvocate of engagement with the fossilfuel companies, arguing that if big share-holders expressed their concerns, thosecompanies would change course. This, ofcourse, should be how the world works:He was correctly warning the companiesthat their strategy endangered not onlythe planet but also their businesses, andthey should have listened.
But time and again, they let him down.In December 2017, for instance, afterprodding from Mr. DiNapoli, Exxon Mo-bil agreed to “analyze how worldwide ef-forts to adopt the Paris Agreement goalsfor reducing global warming might im-pact its business,” he said in a statementat the time. That could have been a turn-ing point. But two months later Exxonpublished the absurd results of that anal-ysis: The Paris Agreement would haveno effect on its business, and it couldpump all its reserves of oil and gas. (As ithappens, leaked documents have sincemade it clear that Exxon was planning tosignificantly increase its emissions byramping up production.)
Divestment remains a “last resort,”Mr. DiNapoli said in his statement. Buthe made clear that it was “an investmenttool we can apply to companies that con-sistently put our investment’s long-termvalue at risk.”
The oil industry has long wanted tocast itself as a responsible partner for
progress on climate change, as opposedto “unrealistic” divestment activists. TheIndependent Petroleum Association ofAmerica even set up an anti-divestmentwebsite to pressure decision makers likeMr. DiNapoli not to pull the money theyoversee out of fossil fuel companies.
Mr. DiNapoli deserves credit forstanding up to the industry’s still-consid-erable power, even if it comes late in thegame. And he is now positioned to joinMr. Stringer as one of the strongestvoices for climate action in the financial
sector. He can speak with the unques-tioned credibility of someone who triedto work collaboratively.
It’s an argument that other investorsare ready to hear, not just because of theclimate threat, but also because the fossilfuel industry has been the worst-per-forming sector of the American economyfor many years now.
Its problems are twofold: It faces asprawling resistance movement, rootedin the undeniable fact that its productsare wrecking the planet’s climate sys-tem. And in wind and sun, it faces formi-dable technological competitors who canprovide the same service, just cleanerand cheaper.
These realities will destroy the coal,gas and oil barons; the only question is,how fast. Big Oil’s strategy at this point isdelay, but that course gets harder andharder, especially as the Trump adminis-tration exits and with it the shield of pro-tection the industry has enjoyed.
There are signs that this second capit-ulation — the surrender of the oil compa-nies to the reality of their situation — hasbegun.
One of the so-called supermajors, BPPLC, announced this summer that itwould cut its oil and gas production by 40percent over the decade and signifi-cantly increase its investments in renew-able energy. Divestment campaignerscan be excused for casting a jaundicedeye on the news — BP announced in 2000that it was going “Beyond Petroleum,” acrusade it soon abandoned. But this timeat least they have the rhetoric right:
“This coming decade,” the company’sC.E.O. said in a statement, “is critical forthe world in the fight against climatechange, and to drive the necessarychange in global energy systems will re-quire action from everyone.”
Even Exxon has been humbled to thepoint where a kind of silent capitulationseems to be starting. As recently as 2013it was the biggest company on the plan-et; by this autumn it wasn’t even the big-gest energy company, having beenbriefly surpassed in market capitaliza-tion by NextEra Energy, a Florida-basedrenewables provider.
Last week Exxon made clear its newstatus, disclosing it would slash its explo-ration and capital expenditure budgetfrom a planned $30 billion to $35 billionnext year to barely half that and write offup to $20 billion in natural gas assets thatit now acknowledges it will never pump.
This fall from grace for oil and gascompanies can’t come fast enough — itrecalls the collapsing fortunes of the coalindustry over the past decade, a slidethat Mr. DiNapoli helped to exacerbateby divesting the New York State pensionfund from coal this past summer.
Not only does the decline of Big Oilmean less carbon in the long run; it alsomeans less political influence in the shortrun and hence less power to slow downthe steps necessary for a transition tocarbon-free energy.
Big Oil’s influence on the RepublicanParty remains large, but President-electJoe Biden doesn’t face the same hulkingbeast his predecessors have had to workaround. If Mr. DiNapoli can stand up tothese forces, it augurs well for what thenew administration may accomplish.
Last month set the global mark for thehottest November ever recorded, and itseems increasingly certain that despite agrowing La Niña cooling in the Pacific,2020 will tie or break the record for thehottest year. The planet is heating rap-idly, but — as the news from Albanymakes clear — so is the movement to dosomething about it. 0
New York State Sends Big Oil a Blunt Message
BRANDON THIBODEAUX FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
BILL McKIBBEN, a founder of the climateadvocacy group 350.org, teaches envi-ronmental studies at Middlebury Collegeand is the author of “Falter: Has theHuman Game Begun to Play Itself Out?”
A threat to divest fromfossil fuels is a victoryfor the climate.
Bill McKibben
ALONG time ago — 100 years, give
or take — a farmer dropped hispocket watch in a field in Mis-souri.
Many years after that, a boy was tillingthe field with a horse-drawn plow. Hesaw something shiny in the dirt andstopped to pick it up. “Hey,” he said to hisfather. “What’s this?”
•I’m driving my Jeep on a bridge across
the Kennebec River on a December lateafternoon, headed toward a clock-repairstore in South China, Maine. I left mygrandmother’s mantel clock at the shopnearly two months ago.
Back then, the trees were orange andred. The ditches were filled with yardsigns: Biden, Trump, Gideon, Collins,Golden. Now the trees are bare, and theyard signs are almost gone. A few largeTrump signs and flags remain, though,as if to send the message: This is still notover. This will never be over.
Back on March 13, I’d arrived home af-ter Barnard College (where I teach in thespring) went remote. Four other mem-bers of the family landed at our housethen, too, to hole up for the duration. Itwas a hard time. Eventually one of ourfamily members wound up in the psychward of our hospital, suffering from anxi-ety and despair.
Two days after I arrived home, mygrandmother’s old clock stopped dead.Nothing could get it going again.
•The boy who found the watch in the
field kept it for 70 years. It was 14-karatgold and had a cover released by acrown. But it never ran, having been ru-ined by its time lying in the field.
That boy’s name was Ralph. Finally, asan old man, he brought the watch to aclock shop in Gresham, Ore. Errol andMichelle Stewart, who ran the shop, saidit would be hard to fix. But they’d give it ago.
•A garage band called the Outsiders is
playing on the oldies station as I drive. “Ican’t wait forever,” they sing. “Timewon’t let me wait that long.”
As I head toward the clock shop, I am
thinking about the things we have lostthis year: over a quarter of a million deadin this country, lives upended and de-stroyed. And the small things too: thecloseness of friends, a pint in a pub, astranger’s handshake.
I think about some of the peoplewho’ve died. John Prine, our nationaltreasure. Who sang, “When I get to heav-en, I’m going to shake God’s hand. Andthank him for more blessings than oneman can stand.”
And Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of thejustices who ruled five years ago that mymarriage was legal. And who joined themajority just this summer in ruling that Icannot be fired from my job simply be-
cause of who I am.On Nov. 20, the Transgender Day of
Remembrance, we lost Jan Morris, thegreat Welsh travel writer and memoirist,at the age of 94. Her 1974 book “Conun-drum” was the first time I ever readabout a trans person like me. When Iread that book as a teenager, for the firsttime I thought, I could be a person in theworld if I was as brave as Jan Morris. ButI did not think I was.
•The Stewarts now live in a Maine
farmhouse not too far from China Lake,with a big barn as well as a small out-building where the clocks get fixed. In-side the clock shed it is bright and warm,and there are tools and drills and a half-dozen clocks in various stages of repair.And there on the workbench is mygrandmother’s Ansonia clock, all fixedand shined up. “It’s a beautiful old thing,”Michelle says. “It just needed a littlelove.” Her husband, Errol, comes in and
for a while we stand around in our masks,talking about all the ways humans meas-ure the passage of time.
The old clock chimes. I remember thatsound from my grandmother’s apart-ment, back when I went to visit her afterschool. She used to make me frozenpizza. Later, after a certain number ofmartinis, she’d always ask, “Have I evertold you the story of the night your fatherwas conceived?”
Yes, I’d tell her. You’ve told me. Many,many, many times.
The Ansonia clock tolled softly besideher. My grandmother lit up a cigarette.Then, with a happy smile, she’d tell methe story again.
•This is my last column of 2020, the
year time froze. Now, like George Baileyin “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I’m ready tolive again. Get me back, Clarence. Getme back.
But the world is not quite ready to un-freeze. This — as those Trump signs keepreminding me — is still not over.
My daughter was home for Thanks-giving. On the night before she left, we allfell to singing songs. The last tune mychild sang that night was “The PartingGlass.” “So fill to me the parting glass,and drink a health what’ere befalls; I’llgently rise and softly call. Good nightand joy be with you all.”
There were a few tears. I still remem-ber the day she was born, in 1994. Howlong ago that feels. Just like it happenedyesterday.
•It was Errol who told me the story of
the boy who found the watch in the field.He and Michelle worked on that pocketwatch for a long time.
Then one day, they placed the watch inhis hand. It was ticking. Ralph had neverheard it tick before.
He was in his 80s now. He pressed thecrown, and the watch opened. It hadbeen broken, but now it was restored.
The old man began to leap around theworkshop. “Look at it run!” he cried. Thesecond hand swept around the dial.“Look at it run! Oh, look at it run!” 0
Time Won’t Let Me Wait That Long
KATE DEHLER
Jennifer Finney Boylan
JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN, a contributingopinion writer, is a professor of Englishat Barnard College. Her most recent bookis “Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs.”
A visit to a clock-repairshop offered a lessonabout life in 2020.
WE ALL NEED uplift this terrible year, sohere’s inspiring news about some youngheroes and the good they’ve achieved on awrenching topic.
Young men and women who had beenexploited by Pornhub as children sharedtheir stories, their documentation andtheir mortification in hopes that this mightprevent other children from being abused.And now, guardedly, there’s hope thatthey’ve brought about change.
Pornhub on Tuesday announced hugemoves that could — if thoroughly put intoeffect — significantly curb future exploita-tion. I don’t trust Pornhub a bit, so officialswill need to monitor this sector in a waythey haven’t before.
And perhaps that will happen. Four sen-ators, Josh Hawley, Maggie Hassan, JoniErnst and Thom Tillis, on Wednesday in-troduced bipartisan legislation to make iteasier for rape victims to sue porn compa-nies that profit from videos of their as-saults. Another senator, Jeff Merkley, isseparately drafting bipartisan legislationto regulate such companies more rig-orously, and Prime Minister JustinTrudeau of Canada (which is home toPornhub) said Tuesday that his govern-ment was developing new regulations forthese platforms as well.
Visa and Mastercard are reviewingtheir ties with Pornhub; there are calls forprosecutions; activist groups like Traf-fickinghub are demanding action; andlawyers are circling with civil suits.
All this may explain why Pornhub onTuesday announced steps that mirroredsuggestions I made in a long investigativecolumn over the weekend that quoted theyoung people who so bravely told theirstories. 1.) It will let videos be uploadedonly by people who have verified theiridentities. 2.) It will improve moderation.3.) It will no longer allow video downloads,which allow illegal material to proliferate.
We should all be skeptical. Fake I.D.’sabound, and in September a man wascharged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl in videos that he posted onhis verified Pornhub account. And even ifthere is no download button, it is still pos-sible to download using other methods.
That said, this is a big deal, and it hap-pened only because young people spokeup and forced difficult conversations thatgovernment leaders had dodged.
One woman I wrote about, Serena K.Fleites, 19, felt her life spiral out of controlafter naked videos of her were posted on
Pornhub when she was 14; after two sui-cide attempts, she was homeless and liv-ing in a car in Bakersfield, Calif., withthree dogs, dreaming of becoming a vettech but having no idea how to get there.
I’m thrilled to report that Fleites hasbeen deluged with offers of housing, jobs,education and counseling. She and herdogs have moved into a hotel with helpfrom a GoFundMe backed by readers. Onebenefactor volunteered to pay for her edu-cation to become a vet tech. When I textedher that offer, she texted back: “Omgthat’s sooo awesome! I can’t wait to goback to school! I am ecstatic to hear this. . . . I really really want to go to school tobecome a vet tech. It’s just hard going toschool while living in a car with 3 dogs.”
While it’s wonderful to see readers re-spond so warmly to an individual story, wealso need structural changes to help oth-ers and to prevent the exploitation fromhappening in the first place. That meanslooking at Pornhub’s rivals that have beenless scrutinized, particularly XVideos andXNXX. All three are on lists of the 10 mostvisited websites worldwide, each of themattracting more visitors than Netflix.
A search for “less than 18” on XVideos,the most visited porn site in the world, re-turns thousands of videos plus these sug-gestions for additional searches: “train-ing bra,” “really young,” “she s not adult,”“pre teens” and “11yo.” And a search for“middle school” leads to a suggestion thatone also try “elementary school.”
Folks, this is disgusting.Most of the results probably don’t in-
volve children, but too many do, and thesite is luring pedophiles who can then up-load their own videos. This is Jeffrey Ep-stein on an industrial scale.
The issue isn’t pornography but rape. Itis not prudishness to feel revulsion atglobal companies that monetize sexual as-saults on children; it’s compassion.
We can also do much more to supportchildren to make them less vulnerable toexploitation. That means fixing the dys-functional foster care system and tacklingour terrible levels of child poverty.
I don’t pretend that there are simplefixes. But some combination of civil liabil-ity, criminal prosecution, government reg-ulation, sanctions by credit card compa-nies and banks, and international cooper-ation to prevent companies from movingto less regulated countries, can inducebetter behavior. We may never eliminatechild sexual abuse material online, but wecan reduce the number of girls and boyswho at 14 have their lives shattered by awealthy corporation monetizing theirmost mortifying moment. 0
Thanks to readers for donating $4.8 mil-lion so far to my annual “gifts with mean-ing” initiative. The three nonprofits I rec-ommend support girls’ education in sub-Saharan Africa, cataract surgery to repairblindness in Asia and Africa, and help forlow-income students in the United Statesso they can complete high school and en-ter college. More information atKristofImpact.org.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF
An UpliftingUpdate, on aTerrible Topic
Young heroes lead infighting porn companiesthat monetize child abuse.
A28 N NATIONALTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Terry McAuliffe, the formergovernor of Virginia, on Wednes-day entered the contest for his oldjob, simultaneously offering him-self as both a trusted steward dur-ing an economic and public healthcrisis and someone prepared tofight against “the old way of doingthings.”
“I am running for governoragain to think big and to be boldand to take the Commonwealth ofVirginia to the next level and to liftup all Virginians,” Mr. McAuliffesaid in a brief speech outside apublic school in Richmond, thestate capital.
Mr. McAuliffe, 63, formally be-gan his campaign surrounded byfour senior elected officials, all ofwhom are Black. The setup was anod both to the relationships henurtured during his governorshipfrom 2014 to 2018 and the complexnature of the state’s 2021 primary,in which three Black candidateshave already announced theircandidacies for the Democraticnomination.
Mr. McAuliffe’s 2021 campaignhas for months been an open se-cret in Virginia — at a March cam-paign rally, Joseph R. Biden Jr.called him “the once and futuregovernor” — and Mr. McAuliffe’sallies have made the case that hiscoalition would look a lot like Mr.Biden’s, with core support fromBlack voters and suburbaniteswho sent Mr. Biden to the WhiteHouse.
“We need him to lift the Blackcommunity from the cripplingpandemic, because he knows thatit has hit the Black communities,Black communities and browncommunities harder than anyoneelse,” L. Louise Lucas, the VirginiaState Senate president, said whileintroducing Mr. McAuliffe onWednesday. “We need his experi-ence and tested leadership, testedleadership, tested leadership.”
Virginia’s contest for governorwill serve as a first test of the post-Trump Democratic coalition. Forfour years, culminating with the2020 Democratic presidential pri-mary, the party’s voters pri-oritized electability, choosing
more moderate candidates whofaced liberal firebrands in nearlyall competitive races.
Mr. McAuliffe is the fourthDemocrat to enter the 2021 racefor governor, joining three Blackcandidates who have been cam-paigning for months: JenniferMcClellan, a state senator; Jenni-fer Carroll Foy, who on Tuesdayresigned her seat in the House ofDelegates to campaign for gover-
nor full time; and Lt. Gov. JustinFairfax.
But unlike in the presidentialcontest, in which Mr. Biden soldhis electability against PresidentTrump, whichever Democratemerges from Virginia’s June pri-mary will be a heavy favoriteagainst the Republican chal-lenger.
Virginia has become increas-ingly Democratic since 2009, thelast time Republicans won a state-wide office. The party won control
of the state legislature in 2019, andMr. Biden carried the state by 10percentage points last month.
The Republican field alreadyappears fractured, with AmandaChase, a Republican state senatorwho models herself after Mr.Trump, announcing last weekendthat she would run as an inde-pendent candidate rather thanseek the Republican Party’s nomi-nation at a state convention nextyear. Kirk Cox, a former speakerof the House of Delegates, is seek-ing the Republican nominationand Pete Snyder, a wealthy mar-keting executive, may also join theG.O.P. primary race soon.
At the same time some Virginialiberals have pronounced them-selves eager to elect Ms. McClel-lan or Ms. Carroll Foy, either ofwhom would be the nation’s firstBlack woman governor. Virginiahas never elected a woman gover-nor and has not elected a womanto statewide office since 1989.
Ms. Carroll Foy, at 39 the young-est candidate in the field, was notshy about attacking Mr. McAuliffeas a creature of the past.
“Career politicians like TerryMcAuliffe are interested in main-taining the status quo,” she said ina statement Tuesday night.“While I respect Terry McAuliffe’sservice, he doesn’t understand the
problems Virginians face. A for-mer political party boss and multi-millionaire, Terry McAuliffe issimply out of touch with everydayVirginians.”
Ms. McClellan, while not attack-ing Mr. McAuliffe directly, citedher own “life experience” as evi-dence she would be the best gov-ernor in the field in a statement re-leased Wednesday.
Mr. McAuliffe on Wedmesdaypledged to implement Virginia’slargest investment in public edu-cation and vowed he’d appeal toBlack voters in the Democraticprimary in June.
He also leaned heavily on hispast tenure as governor, citingfights with Republicans who at thetime controlled Virginia’s GeneralAssembly. In the same breath, Mr.McAuliffe promoted his record asgovernor and called for a new ap-proach to running the state gov-ernment.
“The old Richmond approachjust doesn’t work anymore,” hesaid. “Folks, it is time for a newVirginia way. I know that old wayof thinking because I foughtagainst it constantly as governor,time and time again.”
Mr. McAuliffe is a longtime fix-ture in Democratic politics, bothnationally and in Virginia. He isclose enough to former PresidentBill Clinton that the two menspeak daily, and he claims to makemore than 100 phone calls everyday. A former chairman of theDemocratic National Committee,Mr. McAuliffe has run for Virginiagovernor twice, losing a bitter2009 primary before winning in2013. He also weighed a 2020 pres-idential campaign but bowed outin April 2019 once it became clearthat Mr. Biden would seek theDemocratic Party’s nomination.
Virginia’s current governor,Ralph Northam, a Democrat, isforbidden by state law from seek-ing a second consecutive term.Mr. McAuliffe is vying to be thesecond Virginia governor sincethe Civil War to be elected twice,following Mills Godwin Jr., whowas elected as a Democrat in 1965and as a Republican in 1973.
McAuliffe Faces All-Black Primary in VirginiaBy REID J. EPSTEIN
Terry McAuliffe, the former governor of Virginia, announcedWednesday in Richmond that he was running for his old office.
BOB BROWN/RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
A former governor’snew bid in a changedpolitical landscape.
peatedly that the tech giants havetoo much power and influence,and allies of President-elect Jo-seph R. Biden Jr. make similarcomplaints. The federal caseagainst Facebook is widely ex-pected to continue under Mr. Bi-den’s administration.
The investigations already ledto a lawsuit against Google,brought by the Justice Depart-ment two months ago, that accus-es the search giant of illegally pro-tecting a monopoly. Prosecutorsin that case, though, stopped shortof demanding that Google breakoff any parts of its business. Atleast one more suit againstGoogle, by both Republican andDemocratic officials, is expectedby the end of the year. In Europe,regulators are proposing tougherlaws against the industry andhave issued billions of dollars inpenalties for the violation of com-petition laws.
Facebook, the prosecutors saidWednesday, should break off In-stagram and WhatsApp, and theysaid new restrictions should applyto the company on future deals.Those are some of the most severepenalties regulators can demand.Facebook said it planned to vig-orously defend itself against theaccusations.
“For nearly a decade, Facebookhas used its dominance and mo-nopoly power to crush smaller ri-vals and snuff out competition, allat the expense of everyday users,”said Attorney General LetitiaJames of New York, a Democratwho led the multistate investiga-tion into the company in parallelwith the federal agency, which isoverseen by a Republican.
The lawsuits against Facebookwill set off a long legal battle. Thecompany has long denied any ille-gal anticompetitive behavior andhas a deep well of money to put to-ward its defense. Few major an-titrust cases have centered onmergers approved years earlier.The F.T.C. did not block Face-book’s deals for Instagram andWhatsApp during the Obama ad-ministration.
If the prosecutors succeed, thecases could remake the company,which has experienced only unfet-tered growth. Mark Zuckerberg,Facebook’s chief executive, hasdescribed a breakup of the com-pany as an “existential” threat.The company’s stock fell 2 per-cent, to $277.70 a share, after thelawsuits were announced.
The case is also being widely
watched as a gauge for futuremergers within the technology in-dustry, which have continued toboom during the pandemic. Lastmonth, Facebook said it was buy-ing Kustomer, a customer rela-tionship management start-up,for close to $1 billion.
Facebook said the regulatorshad ignored important history.
“The most important fact in thiscase, which the commission doesnot mention in its 53-page com-plaint, is that it cleared these ac-quisitions years ago,” JenniferNewstead, Facebook’s generalcounsel, said in a statement. “Thegovernment now wants a do-over,sending a chilling warning toAmerican business that no sale isever final.”
The company has also argued inthe past that the market for socialmedia remained competitive. Ex-ecutives have pointed to the sky-rocketing growth of TikTok, theChinese short-video sharing app,and new growth in Parler, a socialmedia firm popular among con-servatives, as evidence that Face-book doesn’t have a lock on socialnetworking.
The suit against Facebookshows how important the com-pany has become for how Ameri-cans connect to one another. Itsnamesake product swelled to hun-dreds of millions of users in just afew short years. But by 2011, thelandscape began to change as mo-bile phones came equipped withcapable cameras, and postingphotos to social networks grew in-creasingly popular.
That led to the rise of a competi-tive threat to Facebook: Insta-gram. The photo-sharing site,founded in 2010, saw early explo-sive growth as a company thatwas native to the smartphone,perfectly timed for mass adoptionas waves of consumers gravitatedaway from desktop devices andtoward the mobile computers intheir pockets.
The F.T.C. said it found that Mr.Zuckerberg “recognized Insta-gram as a vibrant and innovative
personal social network and anexistential threat to Facebook’smonopoly power.”
But instead of continuing tocompete with its own photo-shar-ing project, Facebook chose to buyits rival. The company repeatedthe practice with WhatsApp,which was a viable competitor toits own messaging system.
The agency also claims thatFacebook maintained its domi-nance by threatening to cut offthird-party software developersfrom plugging into the social net-work if they made competingproducts.
“Our aim,” said Ian Conner, whooversees antitrust enforcement atthe agency, “is to roll back Face-book’s anticompetitive conductand restore competition so that in-novation and free competition canthrive.”
The lawsuits set off a chorus ofbipartisan support on Capitol Hill.
“Facebook has crushed compe-tition by breaking the law,” Repre-sentative Ken Buck, a Republicanof Colorado and member of theHouse judiciary committee, wrotein a tweet. “Big Tech’s reckoninghas just begun.”
Representative David Cicilline,a Rhode Island Democrat who ledan investigation into the big techcompanies, said, “Facebook hasbroken the law. It must be brokenup.”
He added: “This marks a majorstep in our ongoing work to bringthe tech industry’s monopoly mo-ment to an end.”
Federal regulators began look-ing into Amazon, Apple, Facebookand Google in June 2019, in asweeping effort to find anticom-petitive practices among the techplatforms. States started to inves-tigate not long after.
Cases around Google and Face-book, two companies with cleardominance in their markets ofsearch, social media and onlineadvertising, took shape fasterthan the other companies. Googlehad been the subject of a searchantitrust investigation that closed
at the F.T.C. in 2013 without a law-suit but created a trove of informa-tion. Facebook’s case quickly co-alesced around its prior mergers,which regulators were able to in-vestigate because of its past in-vestigations into those acquisi-tions, some people close to the in-vestigations said.
The F.T.C. was split on its deci-sion to pursue the lawsuit, with itschairman, Joseph Simons, a Re-publican appointed by Mr. Trump,and the two Democratic commis-sioners joined in their vote. Thetwo remaining Republican com-missioners voted against the law-suit.
Several Facebook rivals, includ-ing Snap, came forward to presentevidence of what they said wasanticompetitive behavior. Mr.Zuckerberg was interviewed forthe federal investigation, andprosecutors collected many of hiscommunications to Facebook em-ployees, investors and the leadersof the rivals he bought and tried tobuy.
In a hearing before the Housejudiciary committee last July, Mr.Zuckerberg was confronted withemails from around the time of theacquisition of Instagram andWhatsApp that showed the Face-book’s founder saw the companiesas competition and potentially athreat. Mr. Zuckerberg said theacquisitions have not reducedcompetition and that the emailswere taken out of context.
The agency and states said thepurchases ended up giving Face-book data on users that fed into itsbusiness of behavioral advertis-ing, buttressing its monopoly.
“Facebook has coupled its ac-quisition strategy with exclusion-ary tactics that snuffed out com-petitive threats,” the states said intheir suit, “and sent the messageto technology firms that, in thewords of one participant, if youstepped into Facebook’s turf or re-sisted pressure to sell, Zucker-berg would go into ‘destroy mode,’subjecting your business to the‘wrath of Mark.’”
States JoinU.S. in SuitsTo Break UpFacebook
From Page A1
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, testifying before a House antitrust panel in July.POOL PHOTO BY GRAEME JENNINGS, VIA REUTERS
Cecilia Kang reported from Wash-ington, and Mike Isaac from SanFrancisco.
DALLAS — Long before ElonMusk, the Tesla magnate and bil-lionaire Californian, announcedthat he was moving to Texas, Ma-rie Bailey, a California transplantnow living north of Dallas, fas-tened a customized license plateonto her very own Tesla, with amessage that has become herethos.
“Move2TX,” it reads in block let-ters, underneath an emblem of theone-starred Texas flag.
The news by Mr. Musk, who an-nounced his move on Tuesday, in asnub to California and its strongregulatory environment, addedfuel to the longstanding rivalrybetween the nation’s two mostpopulous states.
California, with its steep hous-ing costs, raging wildfires andstrict business regulations, hasbeen losing residents to otherstates, with Texas as the mostpopular exodus destination. Ofmore than 653,000 people who leftCalifornia last year, about 82,000went to Texas, more than anyother state, according to censusfigures.
Or, as The Stanford Reviewwrote in a nod to the native TexanGeorge Strait, “All of California’sExes Are Moving to Texas.”
California and Texas — two eco-nomic powerhouses, one led byDemocrats and the other by Re-publicans, with respective popula-tions of 40 million and 29 million —are in many ways natural frene-mies. It is a rivalry made up of In-N-Out versus Whataburger, ofDisneyland versus the State Fairof Texas, of tacos versus, well,other tacos.
But as is the case in many No. 1versus No. 2 matchups, the ani-mosity has often been one-sided,with Texas, the wily underdog,playing the role of provocateur.
For years, Texas leaders havetried to woo companies and resi-dents from the Golden State withpromises of lower taxes, fewerregulations and eye-poppinglycheap housing — at least com-pared with California. In 2013,Rick Perry, then Texas’ governor,visited California and ran radioads urging businesses to “flee” thecoast. His successor, Gov. GregAbbott, has eagerly picked up themantle.
And there is evidence that thestrategy is working.
In 2018, Apple, which has itsheadquarters in Cupertino, Calif.,announced it would build a $1 bil-lion campus in Austin. The finan-cial services company CharlesSchwab announced a move fromSan Francisco to the Dallas-FortWorth suburbs last year. Most re-cently, Hewlett Packard Enter-prise, a spinoff of Hewlett-Packard, which has been creditedwith starting Silicon Valley, saidthis month it would move its head-quarters from San Jose, Calif., toSpring, Texas, near Houston.
“I only miss Disneyland and myfamily,” said Ms. Bailey, 41, who re-located in 2017 from the Los Ange-les area to Prosper, a fast-growingsuburb of Dallas, and now runs areal estate business focused ex-clusively on bringing Californiansto Texas.
During the pandemic, she said,she had only seen the trend accel-erate. She said that she had built a5,000-square-foot house near acrystal lagoon for about the sell-ing price of her outdated, 1,500-square-foot home in California,and that she felt more accepted forher conservative political views.
Since last year, her mother-in-law, brother-in-law and sisterhave relocated to Texas. And Ms.Bailey said she had seen a flood ofinterest from small-business own-ers and truck drivers who she sug-gested were being driven awayfrom California because of its lawsand coronavirus restrictions onbusinesses.
“Yeah, we have nice weather,yeah there are beautiful beaches,”said Ms. Bailey, who is originallyfrom Orange County, Calif., but feltshe could not afford a relaxingquality of life in her home state.“You feel like you’re never goingto get ahead.”
One particular draw to Texas isthat it has no state income tax,though homeowners often payhigher property taxes. The realdifference tends to show up incosts of living.
Mr. Musk, the bombastic headof Tesla and SpaceX, does notshare the financial worries thathave driven many out of Califor-nia. In many ways, his move issymbolic.
Recently, he had clashed withpublic health officials in Californiaover measures put in place to slowthe spread of the coronavirus,which included shutting downproduction at Tesla’s factory inFremont, a city in the San Fran-cisco Bay Area. He called restric-tions to stop the spread of the vi-rus “fascist” and predicted incor-rectly in March that there wouldbe almost no new cases in thecountry by the end of April.
Texas, by contrast, has imposedlimited restrictions on businessesduring the pandemic, even as new
infections soar.Mr. Musk said on Tuesday that
he had moved to be near a newfactory Tesla is building outsideAustin. SpaceX also has a launchsite near South Padre Island onthe Gulf of Mexico.
Speaking at a conferencehosted by The Wall Street Journalon Tuesday, he said California hadbecome less accommodating tosuccessful entrepreneurs andstart-ups, comparing the state to asports team that takes winning forgranted. “They do tend to get a lit-tle complacent, a little entitled,and then they don’t win the cham-pionship anymore,” he said.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texasgreeted the news with the enthu-siasm of a state that revels in turn-ing non-natives into converts whoshare a familiar saying: “I wasn’tborn in Texas, but I got here asfast as I could.”
“Welcome to Texas!” Mr. Cruz,a Republican, tweeted at Mr.Musk, adding, “Texas loves jobs &we’re very glad to have you as aTexan.”
California leaders, on the otherhand, have treated Mr. Musk’svows to leave mostly with indiffer-ence. Confident in their state’snatural beauty and status as thevanguard for culture and technol-ogy, Californians have largelyshrugged even as the state’s popu-lation growth has dipped in recentyears to the slowest it has been inmore than a century, as a result ofdecreasing immigration and agrowing exodus to other states.
“You will know that Californiahas truly crossed a line whenhome prices start falling,” saidChristopher Thornberg, foundingpartner of Beacon Economics, aconsulting firm in Los Angeles. Asit is, he said, “there is more de-mand to live in California than tonot live in California.”
Even Mr. Musk, he surmised,will quite likely spend significanttime in California, taking advan-tage of all the pleasures the Gold-en State has to offer the extremelywealthy.
Mr. Thornberg said he believedthat California had made policymistakes in responding to the pan-
demic that might negatively affectthe state’s business climate. But,he added, remote workers whohave the option to leave “are sureas hell not moving to Texas.”
Critics say the growth in Texashas been propelled by the use ofmillions of dollars in tax breaksand incentives, an opaque, poorlyregulated practice that has comeunder increasing scrutiny in thewake of the huge, public search bySeattle-based Amazon for a placeto build a second headquarters.(Cities in the Dallas area com-peted fiercely, offering billions inincentives, while some in Los An-geles were actually relieved whenthe city was out of the running.)
The political climate, while adraw for some conservatives, hasalso proved tricky.
Texas lawmakers and businessleaders have clashed over sociallyconservative measures, such as afailed “bathroom bill” that wouldhave required transgender peopleto use the bathrooms that corre-spond with the sex on their birthcertificate in public buildings andschools.
While the state’s Republicanlieutenant governor, Dan Patrick,pushed for the bill with the sup-port of the governor, businessleaders fought back, saying thestate needed to cater to younger,more progressive college-edu-cated workers — not turn them offwith divisive policies — to keepthe economy churning.
Still, anti-California feelingsamong Texans have beendrowned out by the fierce compet-itiveness and sheer growth seenin the Lone Star State.
“The state is very gung-ho, al-ways trying to attract business,”said Nathan Jensen, a professor ofgovernment at the University ofTexas at Austin. “They take Cali-fornia companies as symbolicwins.”
Now, the question has becomewhether Mr. Musk’s loud — if sym-bolic — rebuke of the Golden Stateis finally striking a nerve, as manyCalifornians find themselvesworking remotely from apart-ments, burdened by sky-highrents and unable to dine out at thecornucopia of restaurants its cit-ies are known for.
“California is a beautiful state,don’t get me wrong,” said RobertAllen, the president of the TexasEconomic Development Corpora-tion, who grew up in Dallas andlives in Austin. But he sees farmore value in his home state, froma diverse set of growing cities tothe Central time zone, which letscompanies more easily communi-cate with both coasts.
“I got you beat on barbecue, Igot you beat on year-roundweather,” he said. “At the end ofthe day, Texas really presents afull package.”
Musk, Leaving California, Stokes Rivalry With Texas
A snub by the Teslabillionaire and agreeting from Cruz.
By SARAH MERVOSHand JILL COWAN
Sarah Mervosh reported from Dal-las, and Jill Cowan from Los Ange-les.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020 B1
N
TECH ECONOMY MEDIA FINANCE
3 VIRUS FALLOUT
Coronavirus apps can alertpeople exposed to the virusand help slow transmission,but only if people sign up.
6 TECHNOLOGY
Amazon’s new fitness gadgetis not what we need ordeserve in a pandemic, BrianX. Chen writes in Tech Fix.
9 SPORTS
An arbitrator reduced thesuspension of Maggie Haney,a gymnastics coach accusedof emotional abuse.
At Upscale Restaurants,Trying to Keep Doors Open
Jeff Danaher has struggled to find a secure job as a cook in Chicago during the pandemic. At Split-Rail, above, he has been guaranteed four shifts a week through the end of the year.
SEBASTIAN HIDALGO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
On the day in September when hewas hired as a cook at Fulton Mar-ket Kitchen — a restaurant in Chi-cago featuring shrimp and gritsand miso-glazed halibut — JeffDanaher asked the chef about hisplans for the winter.
“He was like, ‘I’m open fourdays a week, and I’m trying to goto seven,’” recalled Mr. Danaher,
who had been out of work formonths. “It was a huge relief.”
But five weeks later, indoor din-ing in the city came to a halt. Mr.Danaher, who made nearly$50,000 per year before the pan-demic and had his pick of posi-tions in recent years, was sud-denly jobless again.
“After about the second or third
By NOAM SCHEIBER
CONTINUED ON PAGE B5
A sous-chef’s search for job securityshows how cooks, managers and
servers at high-end establishmentshave been hit hard by the pandemic.
SAN FRANCISCO — Wall Streetloves a pandemic winner.
Shares of DoorDash soared intheir first day of trading onWednesday, capping a year of out-size growth for the country’s larg-est food delivery company. Door-Dash stock rose 86 percent aboveits initial public offering price of$102 to close the day at $189.51.
That valued the company at $72billion, including employee-owned shares — more than themarket capitalization of Domino’sPizza and Chipotle Mexican Grill
combined. DoorDash raised $3.4billion, making it the one of thelargest I.P.O.s of the year.
Investors piled into the stockdespite DoorDash’s deep lossesand the intensely competitivemarket in which it operates. In theweek before it went public, Door-Dash raised its proposed pricerange 16 percent to $92.5 pershare at the midpoint before pric-ing even higher. The pandemichas been a boon to the company,as people turned to delivery serv-ices while stuck in their homes.
Tony Xu, the chief executive ofDoorDash, said the company
DoorDashSoars 86%Over I.P.O.
By ERIN GRIFFITH
CONTINUED ON PAGE B5
An investor bonanzafor a beneficiary ofthe pandemic.
New York State’s pension fund,one of the world’s largest andmost influential investors, willdrop many of its fossil fuel stocksin the next five years and sell itsshares in other companies thatcontribute to global warming by2040, the state comptroller said onWednesday.
With $226 billion in assets, NewYork’s fund wields clout withother retirement funds and its de-cision to divest from fossil fuelscould accelerate a broader shift inglobal markets away from oil andgas companies, energy expertsand climate activists said.
The announcement camemonths after the fund moved tosell its stock in 22 coal companies.New York City, San Francisco,Washington and several smallercities have also adopted fossil-fueldivestment programs, but NewYork State’s commitment to aneven more sweeping plan is moresignificant, especially given thestate’s centrality to the global fi-nancial markets.
The state comptroller, ThomasP. DiNapoli, had long resisted asell-off, saying that his primaryconcern was safeguarding thetaxpayer-guaranteed retirementsavings of 1.1 million state and mu-nicipal workers who rely on thepension fund.
But on Wednesday, Mr. Di-Napoli signaled that his main rea-son for adopting the new plan nowwas his duty to protect the fundand to set it up for long-term eco-
Pension FundOf New YorkDivests of Oil
By ANNE BARNARD
CONTINUED ON PAGE B6
WASHINGTON — In his third flooroffice in the Treasury Depart-ment, Steven Mnuchin, the Treas-ury secretary, keeps for posteritya stack of documents that hesigned in March authorizing theFederal Reserve’s emergencylending programs as the pan-demic roiled financial markets.
The programs — which funnelmoney to corporations, midsizebusinesses and municipalities —were announced in a frenzied fewdays, with Congress ultimatelyproviding $454 billion to theTreasury to help absorb anylosses. The central bank’s willing-ness to intervene soothed invest-
ors and helped prevent the healthand economic crises from meltingdown the financial system. Stabil-izing the markets in the middle ofthe crisis with little cost to the fed-eral government has been a pointof pride for Mr. Mnuchin.
But in one of his final acts asPresident Trump’s Treasury sec-retary, Mr. Mnuchin moved lastmonth to pull the plug on five ofthe programs and claw back thebulk of the money invested inthem, saying he was followingcongressional intent and the lawforced his hand — which severaloutside lawyers dispute.
The decision, which was notsupported by the Fed, has en-snared Mr. Mnuchin in contro-
versy. Democrats accuse him ofbeing an economic saboteur in-tent on undercutting the incomingBiden administration by limitingits ability to use the programsamid continuing economic weak-ness.
Mr. Mnuchin insists the oppo-site, saying he was honoring con-gressional intent in ending theprograms, and was trying to helpthe economy. He is pushing Con-gress to repurpose the funds he isclawing back for another stimuluspackage that would help house-holds and businesses more di-rectly.
“I spent the last four monthstrying to work with Congress to
Legacy on the Line, Mnuchin Gambles by Ending Fed Aid
Steven Mnuchin moved last month to end emergency lending programs.
AL DRAGO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By ALAN RAPPEPORTand JEANNA SMIALEK
CONTINUED ON PAGE B4
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K8P0V4L
B2 N BUSINESSTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
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%Energy
Industrials
Materials
Financials
Utilities
Health care
Consumer staples
Consumer discretionary
Real estate
Communication services
Information technology
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1. Vanguard 500 Index Admiral(VFIAX) +19.2% +14.6% $347.4
2. Fidelity 500 Index(FXAIX) +19.3 +14.7 274.1
3. Vanguard Total Stock Mkt Idx Adm(VTSAX) +21.4 +14.8 264.6
4. Vanguard Institutional Index Instl Pl(VIIIX) +19.3 +14.7 138.2
5. American Funds Growth Fund of Amer A(AGTHX) +37.0 +17.6 119.3
6. Fidelity Contrafund(FCNTX) +32.9 +17.3 111.4
7. Dodge & Cox Stock(DODGX) +10.7 +12.1 68.9
8. American Funds Invmt Co of Amer A(AIVSX) +16.7 +12.5 66.3
9. American Funds Washington Mutual A(AWSHX) +9.6 +12.1 62.4
10. Vanguard PRIMECAP Adm(VPMAX) +19.1 +15.8 61.3
1. American Airl (AAL) $17.16 –2.7% 137.9
2. General Electr (GE) 11.39 +3.9 125.9
3. Apple Inc (AAPL) 121.78 –2.1 114.6
4. Pfizer Inc (PFE) 41.85 –1.7 85.7
5. AT&T Inc (T) 31.46 +2.1 70.7
6. Carnival Corp (CCL) 22.69 –3.7 66.8
7. Ford Motor Co (F) 9.45 +2.2 60.7
8. Bank of Ameri (BAC) 28.80 –0.4 54.9
9. Advanced Micr (AMD) 89.83 –3.3 52.0
10. Marathon Oil (MRO) 7.15 +1.1 50.2
1. Qorvo Inc (QRVO) $160.38 –5.6%
2. Skyworks Sol (SWKS) 148.29 –4.8
3. Fortinet Inc (FTNT) 125.34 –4.8
4. DexCom Inc (DXCM) 333.39 –4.2
5. Paycom Softw (PAYC) 421.66 –4.2
6. State Street (STT) 72.76 –4.1
7. Teradyne Inc (TER) 114.02 –3.9
8. KLA Corp (KLAC) 256.49 –3.9
9. Carnival Corp (CCL) 22.69 –3.7
10. Netflix Inc (NFLX) 493.60 –3.7
1. Nielsen Hold (NLSN) $19.12 +9.1%
2. Lowe’s Compan (LOW) 160.13 +5.9
3. Eli Lilly and (LLY) 158.00 +5.8
4. General Electr (GE) 11.39 +3.9
5. Ralph Lauren C (RL) 100.83 +3.8
6. Autozone Inc (AZO) 1136.67 +3.7
7. Masco Corp (MAS) 54.05 +3.7
8. Advance Auto (AAP) 157.95 +3.4
9. Hartford Fina (HIG) 47.57 +3.0
10. Weyerhaeuser C (WY) 31.71 +3.0
+15%
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0%
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Oct. Nov.
3672.82 12338.95 30068.810.8% 1.9% 0.4%
Shanghai –1.1%
Tokyo +1.3%Frankfurt +0.5%
London +0.1%
Toronto –0.5%
New York –0.8%
$1 = 104.23
$1.2084 Unemployment Rate
New-home sales
Consumer confidence
Industrial production
Large capitalization stock funds
S&P 500 Nasdaq Composite Index Dow Jones industrials
Most activeWorst performersBest performers
Sector performance
Bonds
Yield curve
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Crude oil
Corn
Savings rate
yen
10-year Treas.
YESTERDAY
1-YEAR AGO
2-year Treas.
Fed Funds
Currencies Consumer rates Commodities Economy
How stock markets fared yesterday in Asia … … in Europe … and in the Americas.
CLOSE
S&P 500 SECTORS
CLOSE CLOSE 1 YR 5 YRS
TOTAL RETURNTOTAL
ASSETSIN BIL.CHANGE CHANGE CHANGE IN MIL.
VOLUME
POWERED BY
What Happened in Stock Markets Yesterday
What Is Happening in Other Markets and the Economy
Major stock market indexes
6 p.m. E.T. 8 10 12 a.m. 2 4 6 a.m. 8 10 12 p.m. 2 4 6 p.m.
Maturity
1-year CDs
30-year fixed mortgages
S&P 500 COMPANIES S&P 500 COMPANIES S&P 500 COMPANIES
Source: Morningstar
1 euro =
The Digest
Stock indexes pulled back fromtheir recent record highs onWednesday, as virus cases surgedand coronavirus vaccines movedcloser to distribution.
The S&P 500 index fell 0.8 per-cent, as losses in technology com-
panies outweighed gains in indus-trial, energy and materials stocks.The benchmark index is still up 1.4percent for the month after climb-ing to record highs four times inthe past two weeks.
Markets have been mostlypushing higher in recent weeks onhopes that one or more coronvirusvaccines will begin to be distribut-ed in coming weeks and begin toease the economy out of the pan-demic’s grip.
A vaccine from Pfizer and Ger-man partner BioNTech, which isalready in use in the U.K., is ontrack for a positive review and po-tential approval in the U.S. withinthe next week. The Food and DrugAdministration will also considera vaccine developed by Modernalater this month.
But there could be more eco-nomic damage in store over thenext few months and investorsare still closely watching Wash-ington for any developments onanother shot of stimulus for peo-ple, businesses and state govern-ments. Congress is still dividedover the size and scope of any newpackage and the Trump adminis-tration has added to the plans witha new $916 billion proposal.
“You haven’t seen a deal out ofCongress, so to the extent thatmarkets have been rallying on an-other round of hope about stimu-lus, not getting that lets a little bitof air out of the market,” saidWillie Delwiche, investment strat-egist at Baird.
The S&P 500 dropped 29.43points to 3,672.82. The Dow Jonesindustrial average lost 105.07points, or 0.4 percent, to 30,068.81.The tech-heavy Nasdaq compos-ite fell 243.82 points, or 1.9 per-cent, to 12,338.95.
The Russell 200 index of smallcompany stocks gave up 15.63points, or 0.8 percent, to 1,902.15.Small company stocks have beenoutgaining the broader market
this month and the Russell 2000 isholding onto a 4.5 percent gain.
Technology stocks fell anddragged much of the market withthem. Health care and communi-cations stocks also slipped. Micro-soft shed 1.9 percent while PfizerInc. fell 1.7 percent.
About 56 percent of the compa-nies in the S&P 500 fell, led byQorvo, which declined 5.6 percent.But Lowe’s, the home improve-ment company, rose $8.89 to$160.13 on news of a $15 billionstock buyback program. Andshares of Encompass HealthCorp. also jumped, up $4.75 to$85.95, after the company said itmight sell its home health and
hospice business.Treasury yields gained ground
in a sign of optimism for the econ-omy. The yield on the 10-yearTreasury rose to 0.95 percent from0.92 percent late Tuesday.
Investors still have an appetitefor I.P.O.’s as the meal deliveryservice DoorDash soared 85.8percent in its market debut. Thecompany has been one of the ben-eficiaries of the stay-at-homeeconomy as more people shop andorder food from their homes.
The market has generally beenmaking gains as investors weighthe continued economic damagebeing inflicted by the virusagainst anticipation for a return tonormalcy as vaccines start tomove closer to approval and widerdistribution. The recent surge incoronavirus cases and tighter re-strictions on businesses over thelast few weeks has again raisedthe importance of a vaccine forbeaten down businesses.
Looking ahead, the economywill likely still have a long way torecovery in 2021, said Barry Ban-nister, head of institutional equitystrategy at Stifel.
“What we’ve said is the sky isnot falling, but there are somedark clouds and indexes are show-ing signs of fatigue,” he said.
European markets endedmixed. In France, the CAC 40 wasdown 0.3 percent. The DAX rose0.5 percent in Germany and theFTSE 100 in London rose 0.1 per-cent. Asian markets mostly rose.
Tech Stocks Can’t Save the MarketsBy The Associated Press
The S& P 500 IndexPosition of the S& P 500 index at 1-minute intervals on Wednesday.
Source: Reuters THE NEW YORK TIMES
3,660
3,720
3,680
3,700
10 a.m. Noon 2 p.m. 4 p.m.
Previous close3,702.25
Source: TreasuryDepartment THE NEW YORK TIMES
0.5
2.0%
1.0
1.5
’19 ’20
0.951%
10-Year Treasury Notes
High yield in monthly refunding auction.
STOCKS & BONDS
10-YEAR TREASURY YIELD
0.95%+0.03 points
CRUDE OIL (U.S.)
$45.52–$0.08
S&P 500 INDEX
–0.79%3,672.82
DOW JONES INDUSTRIALS
–0.35%30,068.81
NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX
–1.94%12,338.95
GOLD (N.Y.)
$1,834.60–$36.20
TECHNOLOGY
Google Chief ApologizesFor A.I. Researcher’s Exit
Sundar Pichai, chief executive ofGoogle’s parent company Alpha-bet, apologized for the departureof a prominent artificial intelli-gence researcher, whose exit hasroiled the company’s work forceand raised questions about itsstated commitment to diversityand the responsible developmentof A.I. technology.
In an email to employees onWednesday, Mr. Pichai, however,stopped short of saying that thecompany was wrong in how it has-tened the resignation of TimnitGebru, who was a co-leader ofGoogle’s Ethical A.I. team and oneof its best-known Black femaleemployees.
Dr. Gebru said last week thatthe company fired her after shesent an email that criticized thecompany’s lack of progress in hir-ing women and minorities as wellas biases built into its artificial in-telligence technology. She saidthat she had demanded an expla-
nation for why the company hadtold her to retract a paper that pin-pointed flaws in a new breed oflanguage technology, including asystem built by Google that un-derpins the company’s search en-gine.
She said that short of a trans-parent explanation or further dis-cussion that she would resign af-ter an appropriate amount of time.The company immediately ac-cepted her statement as a resigna-tion.
Colleagues have rallied to Dr.Gebru’s defense, saying thatGoogle did not treat her fairly andthat this incident was an exampleof how Black employees are oftenmistreated at the company.
On Twitter, Dr. Gebru said Mr.Pichai’s email was not a true apol-ogy. “I see this as ‘I’m sorry forhow it played out but I’m not sorryfor what we did to her yet.’”
The parting with Dr. Gebru isespecially fraught for Google, be-cause it involves two thorny sub-jects: a lack of diversity in its workforce and concerns about the risksof artificial intelligence technol-ogy. DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI
ENTERTAINMENT
Twitch Cracks DownOn Hate and Harassment
Twitch, the livestreaming plat-form popular among video gameplayers, unveiled new guidelineson Wednesday aimed at crackingdown on hateful conduct and sex-ual harassment on its site.
The site, owned by Amazon,said it had broadened its defini-tion of sexual harassment and cre-ated a new category for them. Un-der the new guidelines, Twitchwill ban lewd or repeated com-ments about anyone’s physical ap-pearance and expressly prohibitthe sending of unsolicited links tonudity.
The company also said it wouldprohibit streamers from display-ing the Confederate battle flag andtake stricter action against thosewho target someone’s immigra-tion status. Violators could re-ceive warnings, temporary sus-pensions or permanent bans.
Twitch said the changes, whichtake effect in January, were itsmost significant policy updates in
almost three years. They followeda nearly yearlong review that in-cluded consultations with stream-ers and academics who study cy-berbullying, diversity and inclu-sion, the company said.
“We need to ensure that anyonewho shows up on Twitch feels safeand confident that they can broad-cast without harassment,” SaraClemens, Twitch’s chief operatingofficer, said in an interview.
For years, Twitch has beendogged by claims that viewerscould easily harass streamerswith sexually explicit commentsand threatening messages.KELLEN BROWNING
MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS
N B3BUSINESSTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
VIRUS FALLOUT | ENTERTAINMENT
Last spring, Apple and Googlelaunched an ambitious effort toharness technology in the fightagainst Covid-19, building a pow-erful smartphone tool that wouldalert people of possible exposureto the coronavirus.
The software could play an im-portant role in helping curb out-breaks, new data shows, but as thepandemic’s winter wave engulfsthe United States, the technologyremains largely unused. It isavailable only in about a third ofstates, stymied by privacy con-cerns, a lack of public awarenessand interest, poor access to fasttesting and a patchwork system ofgovernment health authorities.
“It turns out that it is very, verychallenging to get people to use aCovid app,” said James Larus, acomputer scientist and dean of theSchool of Computer and Commu-nication Sciences at the Swiss uni-versity EPFL, who has worked onthe effort with Apple, Google andpublic health officials. “We wentinto it thinking that of course peo-ple would want to use this, and wehave been very surprised.”
Engineers at the companiesbuilt a system that respected peo-ple’s privacy, reasoning that with-out such safeguards, no one wouldsign on. The technology, called“exposure notifications,” doesn’ttrack users’ locations, instead re-lying on Bluetooth to detect whichphones have been within severalfeet of one another for more than afew minutes. When a user re-ceives a positive test result, the lo-cal health system provides a codeby email, text message or phonecall to enter into the app. That willalert anyone who was in proxim-ity while the person was infec-tious.
After some states balked at theeffort required to make an app, thetech companies this fall tried tomake the process easier, allowingstates to roll out the technologywithout creating a stand-alone ap-plication.
This week California is launch-ing its version of the tool, calledExposure Notifications Express,joining four other states and theDistrict of Columbia in using thesimplified program. It is an impor-tant test for the country’s mostpopulous state, as Gov. GavinNewsom orders parts of it to shutdown amid surging cases. Be-cause of its size and prominence,the tech giants’ home state couldprovide momentum for the tech-nology, but it remains to be seenhow many people will sign up andwhether California has enoughfast testing capacity for the tool tobe helpful.
Areas using Express have anadvantage in marketing becauseApple and Google send pushalerts to people’s phones when itbecomes available in their state.The District of Columbia has seenthe highest participation rate:more than 60 percent of its popu-lation. About 20 percent of resi-dents in Colorado, Connecticutand Maryland — which are all us-ing Express — have joined; Wash-ington State has had about 13 per-cent participation since introduc-ing the tool earlier this month.
In most of the other 12 states us-ing exposure notifications, ratesare in the single digits.
Early on, epidemiologists at Ox-ford suggested in a paper that if 60percent of people in an area used adigital contact-tracing app, thepandemic could be brought undercontrol without a lockdown. Laterepidemiological models indicatedthat apps could help reduce viralspread even if just 15 percent of apopulation used them.
In Switzerland, about 22 per-cent of the population is using thetechnology. In a study of contacttracing in Zurich, researchers cal-culated that for every 100 peoplewho tested positive, the app cor-rectly notified 24 contacts whohad caught the virus — a successrate similar to what is seen in hu-man contact tracing.
Public officials have cited theimportance of contact tracing inbattling the pandemic, but U.S.health workers have had troublekeeping up with high infectionrates and persuading people to co-operate.
A pilot program at the Univer-sity of Arizona provided what maybe the first example of an appslowing the viral spread in theUnited States. During an outbreakthere this fall, it sent alerts for asmany as 12 percent of transmis-sions, researchers estimated.
“We believe that the outbreakon campus had a flatter curve be-cause of the app,” said JoannaMasel, a mathematical biologyprofessor who has helped super-vise the rollout of the program,called Covid Watch.
Anna Giudici, a junior at the uni-versity, said the alert she receivedin mid-September led her to stayaway from other people, eventhough her only symptom was amild headache.
“If I hadn’t gotten a notification,I wouldn’t have thought anythingof it,” she said, adding that she hadnot been alerted by a traditionalcontact tracer. She got a rapid test
and went into isolation when itcame back positive. To her knowl-edge, she did not infect anyoneelse; even her roommates testednegative.
Several other students and staffmembers said they appreciatedhaving the app, even as they ac-knowledged that it didn’t workperfectly, especially at first. In anearly version, iOS users receivednotifications of “possible expo-sures” when they were unlikely tohave been infected but had brieflybeen in range of someone with thevirus — messaging that somefound jarring and confusing.
In at least some cases, the early
app appeared to notify usersabout someone who was nearby— but on the other side of a wall.Nathalie Riddell, a senior, said shehad received several alerts of “sig-nificant exposure” when herroommate had the virus and wasisolating in another part of theirapartment.
But the project worked in partbecause it targeted a specific pop-ulation that included many youngpeople who were tech-savvy andtrusted the app provided by theiruniversity. The school also hadeasily accessible rapid tests, Dr.Masel said. The lack of a fast test-ing system off campus meant thepilot study could not be extendedto the entire state earlier this fall,she added.
“The app doesn’t stand on itsown,” she said. “It requires avail-able rapid testing to work.”
As with much of the U.S. corona-virus strategy, decisions about theimplementation of exposure-noti-fication apps have been left to thestates. North Dakota and Virginiaembraced the technology quickly,
for instance, but officials else-where said they had concernsabout efficacy and privacy. Somepreferred to focus resources onhuman contact tracing.
“We had evaluated the risk ofbeing early adopters of untestedtechnology and felt like that wouldbe more problematic than benefi-cial,” said Sarah Tuneberg, senioradviser to Colorado’s governor forCovid-19 testing containment andtechnology. But by this fall, shesaid, state health officials decidedthat “waiting any longer puts pub-lic safety in jeopardy.”
The state introduced the tech-nology in October, using ExposureNotifications Express. Under thatoption, Colorado didn’t have tocreate its own app; Google hadmade one for Android users, andiPhone owners could turn on tech-nology built into the operatingsystem. Ms. Tuneberg said thepush notifications from the com-panies helped the state reach its20 percent adoption rate.
In states that have their ownapps, without the benefit of pushnotifications, the numbers are farlower: about 5 percent in NewYork, less than 3 percent in Ala-bama and about 1 percent in Wyo-ming. Virginia has had the mostsuccess, at nearly 10 percent, hav-ing devoted about $1.5 million topublic awareness campaigns.
Jeff Stover, the executive advis-er to the state’s health commis-sioner, said that public health de-partments have for months beenencouraging testing and mask-wearing, and that marketing co-ronavirus exposure apps is alsoessential. Virginia has “done agood job of continually increasingthe proportion of the populationwho is buying into this,” he said.“We have had to market to differ-ent segments of society that mighthave different reasons not to trustthe government.”
A pilot study in California sug-gested that traditional advertis-ing might not be the most effectiveway to get people to use the tech-
nology. “Far and away the most ef-fective messaging was a text toyour phone,” said Dr. ChristopherLonghurst, chief information offi-cer at the University of CaliforniaSan Diego Health. The best textmessage, he said, told people thatthe app could help them protecttheir family and friends.
From the beginning, one of themain concerns among the publichas been privacy. After years ofsurveillance scandals, people arereasonably skeptical of technol-ogy companies and the govern-ment, said Elissa Redmiles, acomputer scientist who has stud-ied attitudes toward Covid apps.
“They have this sense that ev-eryone is taking their data con-stantly, and they don’t want togive up any more data,” she said,or they worry about authoritari-anism and think, “I don’t want tobe surveilled by the government.”
The focus on privacy has led tosomething of a Catch-22. Dr. Red-miles’s research shows that peo-ple want assurances not only ofprivacy but also of the technolo-gy’s effectiveness before agreeingto use the apps in large numbers.But privacy protections make itharder to collect the very data thatcan show how well the apps work.
“If you can’t see whether it’s ef-fective, it’s not very compelling,”said Marc Zissman, a computersecurity researcher at M.I.T.’s Lin-coln Laboratory. The Centers forDisease Control and Preventiontapped Dr. Zissman’s lab this fallto help figure out how effective theexposure-notification system is.
The C.D.C. hopes the new re-search will answer some keyquestions: “How many more con-tacts can be notified of their expo-sure via these apps than tradi-tional contact tracing alone? How
much faster are individuals noti-fied? And is the added speed andcomprehensiveness worth the in-vestment of states’ resources?” aspokeswoman for the agencysaid.
But even with assurances of pri-vacy and evidence that the appscan work, many Americans stillshow little interest in using thetechnology.
One study indicated that lessthan half the population sup-ported using exposure-notifica-tion apps, even with privacy-pro-tecting features.
In another survey, conductedby Dr. Redmiles, nearly a quarterof people said they would neverinstall such a tool, even if it werecompletely private and 100 per-cent effective. More than halfwould agree to use an app only if itreduced viral spread by 50 per-cent.
Those who may need the notifi-cations most, because they are en-gaging in risky behavior, may beless likely to download the apps,said Dr. Masel, the Arizona biolo-gist.
On the university campus,fewer than half of people whotested positive for the virus wereusing the app. And of the userswho tested positive, only abouthalf shared their codes throughthe app to alert others. Drop-offshave also occurred in the Swissstudy and in other states.
“People load the app to know ifthey were around someone elsewho tested positive, but don’twant to notify others if they arepositive,” either because they areconcerned about their privacy orbecause they have a “selfishmind-set,” said Tim Brookins, oneof the developers of the app usedin North Dakota.
Coronavirus Apps Are Promising. They’re Also a Tough Sell.By JENNIFER VALENTINO-
DeVRIES
“We went into it thinking that of course people would want to use this, and we have been very surprised,” said
James Larus, right, a computer scientist. The University of Arizona is using an app, above, to notify users about
their exposure. Anna Giudici, a junior, above right, said she appreciated an alert that spurred her to get a test.
KATHRYN GAMBLE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
KATHRYN GAMBLE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
RETO ALBERTALLI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Stymied by privacyfears and apatchwork system.
LOS ANGELES — A significant ex-pansion of the “Star Wars” uni-verse. Tom Hanks as Geppetto in alive-action “Pinocchio,” and YaraShahidi as Tinker Bell in a live-ac-tion “Peter Pan & Wendy.”Footage from new Marvelprojects. A star-studded prequelto “The Lion King.”
On Thursday, as part of a four-hour investor presentation fo-cused on streaming, the Walt Dis-ney Company will discuss a DeathStar-size trove of coming content— all of the above and more, saidthree people with knowledge ofthe matter, who spoke on the con-dition of anonymity to discuss pri-vate planning.
Some big-budget Disney mov-ies will continue to have exclusiveruns in theaters. (The “Lion King”project, directed by Barry Jenkinsand focused on Mufasa’s backstory, is a good bet.) Others willdebut online. (That is where“Pinocchio” is headed.) All will ul-timately serve one goal, which isstrengthening Disney+, the com-pany’s flagship streaming service.
At a time when streaming is be-coming cuttingly competitive —and some of Disney’s traditionalbusinesses are struggling — Dis-ney hopes to use the virtual eventto dazzle Wall Street: Here is a 97-year-old company making a jumpto direct-to-consumer hyper-space.
Last month, Bob Chapek, Dis-ney’s chief executive, announcedthat Disney+ had reached 74 mil-lion subscribers worldwide afteronly 11 months in operation. (Net-flix took seven years to reach thatthreshold, and now has 195 millioncustomers worldwide.) Disney+
has since rolled out in Latin Amer-ica and grown rapidly in India, an-alysts say, leading some to esti-mate that Disney may reveal thatthe service is within reach of 100million subscribers.
Disney is also expected to givegrowth updates on its otherstreaming platforms, includingESPN+, Hulu and a new generalentertainment offering, Star,which will debut overseas in thecoming months.
“The question everyone hasnow is where to from here?” Mi-chael Nathanson, a founder of the
MoffettNathanson media re-search firm, said in a phone inter-view. “We expect to see a lot morespending on content to turn Dis-ney+ into more of an always-onservice, which will increase pric-ing power.”
Subscriptions to Disney+ cost$7 a month. The least expensiveNetflix plan is $9 a month, andHBO Max, a fledgling WarnerMe-dia service, costs $15.
Disney declined to comment forthis article.
Investors have been lickingtheir lips in anticipation of whatDisney will unveil, including fore-casts of subscriber growth. Dis-ney shares have climbed 32 per-cent since the investor day wasannounced in August, comparedwith an 11 percent rise in theStandard & Poor’s 500-stock in-dex.
Disney was trading at about
$155 on Wednesday, near an all-time high, even though several ofits theme park resorts (which areenormous cash generators) re-main closed because of the pan-demic. The company has laid off30,000 workers.
Hollywood is keenly interestedin the investor presentation be-cause Disney executives havesaid they will discuss an evolvingapproach to movie distribution.The coronavirus has forced Dis-ney and other studios to pushback the releases of more than adozen major films and rerouteothers to streaming services. InSeptember, Disney debuted “Mu-lan” on Disney+ as part of a “pre-mium access” experiment, charg-ing subscribers $30 for indefiniteaccess. “Soul,” the latest Pixarfilm, will arrive on Disney+ onChristmas Day for no additionalcost.
Citing the pandemic, Warner-Media last week shifted 17 comingWarner Bros. movies to a hybridrelease model — simultaneous ar-rival on HBO Max and in theaters— even though some of the films(“Dune,” “The Matrix 4”) are notscheduled to come out until thefourth quarter, long after vaccinesare expected to be deployed. Thesurprise move prompted swiftand severe blowback from Warn-erMedia talent, who felt betrayedby the sudden switch. They alsostand to receive considerablylower paydays.
John Stankey, the chief execu-tive of AT&T, which owns WarnerMedia, referred to the furor as “alot of noise” while speaking at aconference on Tuesday and pre-dicted that WarnerMedia’s strat-egy would prove to be a “win-win-win.”
In contrast, Mr. Chapek andRobert A. Iger, Disney’s executivechairman, will not go with a one-size-fits-all approach for movie re-leases in 2021, the people withknowledge of the company’s plansaid.
Some titles on Disney’s theatri-cal slate will move to Disney+ atno extra cost. Expect “Peter Pan &Wendy,” like “Soul” and “Pinoc-chio,” to debut in this manner.
Other movies will take the “Mu-lan” route and arrive on Disney+as premium offerings. “We’ve gotsomething here in terms of thepremier access strategy,” Mr.Chapek told analysts on a recentconference call. “There’s going tobe a role for it strategically withour portfolio of offerings.”
And some of Disney’s biggestmovies will continue to receive ex-clusive runs in theaters before ar-riving on the company’s stream-ing services. For instance, con-trary to widespread speculation,“Black Widow,” a much-anticipat-ed Marvel spectacle, will remainon Disney’s theatrical release cal-endar for May 7, the peoplebriefed on the presentation said.
Movies are helpful in attractingsubscribers, but television showskeep streaming customers payingmonth after month. To that end,Disney has an abundance of se-ries on the way for its services.They include “Turner and Hooch,”an adaptation of the 1989 filmabout a detective and his oversizemutt; “Willow,” an adaptation ofthe 1988 big-screen fantasy; andeight Marvel shows based oncharacters like Loki and She-Hulk.
Streaming is not yet profitablefor Disney — far from it. Losses inthe direct-to-consumer division
totaled $2.8 billion in the compa-ny’s 2020 fiscal year. Streaming-related losses are expected topeak in 2022, as rollout costs de-cline and content expenses nor-malize, with analysts expectingDisney+ profitability by 2024.
Disney has indicated that someof the money for its new contentblitz will come from programmingbudgets at its traditional televi-sion networks. The companyowns the Disney Channel, Na-
tional Geographic, FX, Freeformand ABC, among others.
“We will be heavily tilting thescale from linear networks over toour direct-to-consumer business,”Mr. Chapek said on the recent con-ference call.
Analysts pushed for additionaldetails. “Just hold on until Dec. 10,”Christine McCarthy, Disney’schief financial officer, said on thecall. “Hopefully we can answer allyour questions then.”
Disney to Turbocharge Its Streaming Offerings
“The Mandalorian” has been a hit for Disney+ and the company is planning
more “Star Wars” content for the streaming service. “Soul,” the latest Pixar
film, below, will arrive on Disney+ on Christmas Day for no additional cost.
DISNEY+, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
By BROOKS BARNES
Jockeying for moreshare in an acutelycompetitive market.
DISNEY/PIXAR
B4 N BUSINESSTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
ECONOMY | INTERNATIONAL
get additional legislation passed,”Mr. Mnuchin said last week in aheated exchange during a HouseFinancial Services hearing.“These programs were not beingused, and I’ve worked every dayto try to get Congress to pass morelegislation.”
He is expected to face additionalcriticism on Thursday for endingthe programs when he testifies be-fore the Congressional OversightCommission about his manage-ment of stimulus funds.
The fate of the more than $400billion pot of Fed-related money isnow at the center of stimulus talks,as Mr. Mnuchin urges lawmakersto repurpose it to pay for small-business loans and other forms ofassistance. Redirecting the Fedfunding is likely to add to thedeficit. But the maneuver mightoffer Republicans the veneer offiscal responsibility they need toget on board with a package.
Still, reaching agreement is farfrom guaranteed, with Republi-cans, Democrats and the Trumpadministration still at odds overproviding liability protections forbusinesses, money for states andcities and how much funding to al-locate for direct payments and un-employment insurance. On Tues-day, Mr. Mnuchin offered Demo-crats a $916 billion package thatSpeaker Nancy Pelosi rejected as“unacceptable,” leaving the pro-posal in limbo.
Whether Mr. Mnuchin’s movehelps usher in more congressionalsupport will have a significant ef-fect on the Biden administration’sability to address an economic cri-sis that shows no signs of waningin the near term, with millions stillout of work and businesses strug-gling as the virus surges.
His decision is not without risk.Many of the Fed’s lending pro-grams are meant to work as back-stops — they support markets byexisting as a last-resort optionthat keeps private money flowing.They have been lightly used, insome cases because markets havecalmed since they were an-nounced and in others becausethey come with high interest ratesand paperwork.
Ending them means that mar-kets, businesses and governmentswill lack the security blanket theyprovided going forward. If thingsgo well, it will not matter much,but if they go badly, it creates avulnerability.
Mr. Mnuchin made two distinctchoices when it came to the Fedprograms. He decided not to ex-tend them past Dec. 31, which thelaw allowed but did not necessi-tate, according to outside lawyers,including Hal S. Scott at HarvardLaw School.
His second decision — to clawback any unused money — is notrequired by the law, Mr. Scott said.In fact, the legislation states thatsuch funds automatically roll backin 2026.
By taking it back now, Mr.Mnuchin could limit the nextTreasury secretary’s options.
If the Treasury’s investments inthe Fed facilities were to remainoutstanding into 2021, the nextsecretary could interpret the lawdifferently, reopen the programsand, with the Fed, revise theirlending terms to make them moreattractive to would-be borrowers.
Some Democratic strategistshad been considering just that,eyeing the programs as a way toget money to state and local gov-ernments if congressional helpwas hard to pass by lowering bor-rowing costs in the Fed programthat lends to municipal govern-ments.
The programs could still be re-started next year — but at a small-er scale. Mr. Mnuchin’s successorcould offer the Fed perhaps $50billion from an older pot of Treas-ury money. With less funding toback them up, the programswould most likely need to take onless risk, which could hamstringefforts to make the programsmore generous.
Mr. Mnuchin said last week thathe had told Janet L. Yellen, Mr. Bi-den’s Treasury secretary nomi-nee, that his actions were not po-litically motivated and that he wasfollowing the law. Recounting theconversation, which took place aspart of the transition process, Mr.Mnuchin said that Ms. Yellen didnot offer her own interpretation.
But his position that the pro-grams must sunset at year-end
became public only after Mr. Bi-den won the 2020 election, makingthe move appear political. As re-cently as early November, seniorofficials in the Treasury Depart-ment were mulling whether to ex-tend the programs, and gave noindication that they believed Con-gress had planned for the effortsto stop in December while hash-ing out a deal in March.
On Nov. 19, Mr. Mnuchinabruptly declared that he had be-lieved all along that the programscould not continue past year-endusing the appropriated moneyand asked the Fed to give back un-used investments. The Fed, whichagreed to return the money, saidin a statement that it would “pre-fer that the full suite” of programs“continue to serve their importantrole as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable econ-omy.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, Demo-crat of New York, who wrote thelaw in his office with Mr. Mnuchin,takes the view that it was abso-lutely not the intent of Congressfor the facilities to end in Decem-ber, his spokesman said. Theywere intended to exist through thecrisis, which is clearly not over, headded.
Mr. Mnuchin’s critics contendthat he caved to the wishes of Sen-ate Republicans while acting vin-dictively to leave the Biden ad-ministration with a weaker ar-senal to fight the crisis.
“I think it’s part spitefulness,it’s part policy and it’s part brass-
knuckle politics,” said Neil M.Barofsky, the former special in-spector general for the TroubledAsset Relief Program.
Senator Sherrod Brown, Demo-crat of Ohio, has accused Mr.Mnuchin of trying to “sabotagethe economy.” In an interview onMonday, Mr. Brown said Ms.Yellen and the Fed chair JeromeH. Powell should reopen some ofthe five shuttered Fed programs,often called 13-3 facilities for thelegal provision that enables them.
“I want us to move forward withthe 13-3 facilities next year whenYellen and Powell are in charge,”Mr. Brown said, adding “I thinkYellen wants to.” He declined tosay whether he and Ms. Yellenhad discussed reopening the pro-grams.
Others suggest that Mr.Mnuchin was making a politicalgamble to try to help the economysince some Republicans would bemore comfortable with a newspending package if part of thefunding came from “repurposed”Fed money.
But such a move would largelybe superficial. The original fund-ing was meant to back up loansthat would be repaid, so it was notexpected to add to the deficit. If itis redirected toward spendingprograms, it would result in abudgetary cost. Still, “there mightbe a political or a moral argumentthat one can make to a lawmaker”that using money that had alreadybeen earmarked — even though itwas counted as having no cost —
is somehow better, said ErnieTedeschi at Evercore ISI.
That idea does seem to be gain-ing traction: The clawed-backfunds are being counted toward a$908 billion compromise packagein the Senate, with lawmakers em-phasizing that between the Fedmoney and other repurposed ap-propriations, it will cost just $348billion in “new spending.”
If no plan passes, lawyers andstrategists say that Ms. Yellen, ifconfirmed, could try to retrievethe funding by challenging Mr.Mnuchin’s reading of the law. Butdoing so would come at a politicalcost.
“This will set the tone for hertime as Treasury — I don’t thinkshe’s going to want to poke SenateRepublicans in the eye by doingsomething that they don’t want,”said Jeremy Kress, a former Fedregulator now at the University ofMichigan.
Those lawmakers have carriedthe day so far. Current and formerTreasury officials acknowledgethat the law is ambiguous but sayMr. Mnuchin felt an obligation tohonor commitments that he madeto Senate Republicans.
“The statute was unclear andthe secretary interpreted the stat-ute the way he felt was best,” saidChristopher E. Campbell, assist-ant secretary of the Treasury forfinancial institutions from 2017-18.“I’ve never seen him to be anoverly political person and I don’tascribe any negative or nefariousactions to the timing.”
Legacy on the Line, Mnuchin Gambles by Ending Fed AidFROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
Steven Mnuchin said he told Janet L. Yellen, President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Treasury secretary nominee, that his actions weren’t politically motivated.
KRISTON JAE BETHEL FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
LONDON — With just 23 days untilBritain’s exit from the EuropeanUnion truly begins, the countrygot a taste of the havoc that tradedisruption could bring. Hondashut down production on Wednes-day at its biggest plant in Europe,where more than 3,000 people as-semble Civics, showcasing the se-verity of the congestion and de-lays that have gripped Britain’sports.
The 370-acre Honda factory inSwindon, about 80 miles west ofLondon, operates a “just in time”manufacturing supply chain, withgoods arriving and going straightonto the production line to avoidlarge and costly storage facilities.
Production was halted for a day“due to transport-related parts de-lays,” the Japanese automakersaid Wednesday. “The situation iscurrently being monitored with aview to restart production as soonas possible.”
Shipping problems have beenbuilding for weeks and have beenparticularly acute at Felixstowe,Britain’s largest deep-sea port, onEngland’s east coast. It handlesabout 40 percent of the country’scontainer trade, involving goodsmostly coming from Asia.
Shipments of personal protec-tive equipment have been clog-ging up the port, causing delayscompounded by efforts by retail-ers and manufacturers to importmore goods for the Christmasshopping rush. Other businessesare bringing in items before theend of the Brexit transition periodon Dec. 31, when customs checkswith the European Union are ex-pected to cause even more delays.Bad weather in Southampton, alarge port in the south, is also cre-ating backups.
“It really is a perfect storm,”said Peter Ward, the head of theU.K. Warehousing Association.He said storage facilities werealso running at full capacity.
The delays have led to reportsof price increases, and ships beingdiverted to Rotterdam in theNetherlands or other British portssuch as Liverpool.
The pandemic has caused prob-lems for shipping ports around theworld. When China shut down atthe start of the year to combat thespread of coronavirus, globaltrade slowed down. By the timeChinese manufacturing restarted,Europe was in lockdown. Ship-ping containers of goods arrivedwith nowhere to go. There werealso fewer sailings, so empty con-tainers weren’t getting back toChina.
“That is still working itself out,”said Alex Veitch, the general man-ager of public policy at LogisticsU.K., a trade group.
Aggravating the problem inBritain has been a large shipmentof medical masks, gowns, glovesand other equipment ordered for
the National Health Service and,temporarily, left at Felixstowe instorage. At the end of November,the port operator said it was work-ing with the government to clearthe mountain of shipping contain-ers, some of which were moved toformer airfields. The port had alsohired staff and expanded its open-ing hours to unblock the con-gestion.
Felixstowe had drawn com-plaints before the pandemic. It isone of the least efficient containerports in the world, according todata from IHS Markit. It hasstruggled to deal with growing in-ternational trade and larger shipscarrying more containers. It takestwice as long to move a containeron or off a ship in Felixstowe as itdoes in some of China’s busiestports, IHS Markit data shows.
Because Felixstowe and otherdeep-sea ports mostly handle
trade from Asia, these delays are-n’t the same as what is expected tocome in the new year, when Brit-ain breaks away from its largesttrading partner.
From Jan. 1, Britain’s trading re-lationship to the European Unionwill change and customs checksand, possibly, tariffs will be intro-duced. While a trade deal is stillbeing negotiated, border pro-cesses will change regardless. Forthe first time, hundreds of thou-sands of businesses will need tocomplete customs checks andother new trading requirements.
The government has beenwarning businesses to prepare,but trade groups say some compa-nies have been too busy dealing
with the fallout from the pan-demic. Mr. Ward said importersand exporters were less prepared,though warehouses and transportoperators have done what theycan.
The crunch point is likely to beon the south coast, in Dover orFolkestone, the busiest places forthe transport of goods betweenBritain and the European Union,either on trucks carried across theEnglish Channel on ferries or ontrains through the channel tunnel.
“The roll-on, roll-off at the Euro-tunnel movement of goods isunique to the U.K., Ireland andNorthern Europe,” Mr. Veitchsaid. It’s a huge business, he said,that’s built on the ability of some-one to drive goods to and fromBritain from mainland Europe “asif you were driving to the nexttown.”
But a report by Britain’s Na-tional Audit Office last monthfound that the country was stillunprepared for the changes. Brit-ain’s tax agency would need toprocess 270 million customs dec-larations beginning next year —nearly five times current levels —but still must develop software todo so. Last month, the Bank ofEngland said it believed exportersrepresenting about 70 percent ofgoods sent to the bloc were pre-pared for the customs and docu-mentation checks. In the first
quarter of 2021, fewer exports anddisruption to supply chains willcut economic growth by 1 percent-age point, the central bank pro-jected.
“There will be delays in Janu-ary for sure,” Mr. Veitch said.“There’s too much to do and notenough time to do it.”
The British government said itwould wait six months before im-posing some customs checks onincoming shipments; but on theFrench side, they will begin rightaway. Last month, French borderpolice tested post-Brexit immi-gration procedures by checkingdocuments of trucks crossingfrom Britain into France. It led to afive-mile traffic jam in Kent, insouthern England, up to the en-trance of the Eurotunnel.
Honda is already looking be-yond British ports. It announcedthis year that it would close itsSwindon plant, where it has builtvehicles for three decades, nextJuly. The automaker blamedglobal changes in the demand forcars and the need to manufacturemore electric vehicles. But in 2017,Honda delivered a warning aboutBrexit’s affect on its supplychains, telling a parliamentarycommittee that just 15 minutes ofdelays to trucks clearing customsat Dover would be compoundedinto nearly 1 million pounds in ad-ditional costs a year.
Felixstowe, in Suffolk, England, is one of the least efficient container ports.
Observers expect a “perfect storm” of shipping problems in the months ahead.
PETER CZIBORRA/REUTERS
British Ports Are Getting Jammed, And That’s Before Brexit Kicks In
By ESHE NELSON
Customs checks withthe E.U. are expectedto cause more delays.
WASHINGTON — President-electJoseph R. Biden Jr. is expected toselect Katherine Tai, the chieftrade lawyer for the House Waysand Means Committee, as theUnited States trade representa-tive, a key post that will bear re-sponsibility for enforcing Ameri-ca’s trade rules and negotiatingnew trading terms with China andother countries, according to peo-ple familiar with the plans.
Ms. Tai has garnered strongsupport from colleagues in Con-gress, who credit her with helpingto wrangle an unruly collection ofpoliticians and interest groups innegotiations to pass the revisedNorth American Free TradeAgreement. From 2007 to 2014,Ms. Tai worked for the Office of theUnited States Trade Representa-tive, where she successfully pros-ecuted several cases on Chinesetrade practices at the World TradeOrganization.
If confirmed, Ms. Tai, who isAsian-American, would be thefirst woman of color to serve as theU.S. trade representative, a cab-inet-level official who carries therank of ambassador.
Ms. Tai’s selection was earlierreported by Politico and The WallStreet Journal.
Although Mr. Biden has said hedoes not intend to begin negotiat-ing new free-trade agreementsuntil he has made “major invest-ments here at home and in ourworkers,” his trade representativewill still have plenty to do. Thosetasks are likely to include ensur-ing that American trade rules areadequately enforced and that theypromote rather than impede otherparts of Mr. Biden’s agenda, in-cluding fighting climate changeand encouraging domestic invest-ment, for example through aug-menting Buy American programs.
Congressional Democrats havefought for Ms. Tai to be appointedin part because they believe shewould play a vital role in makingsure that the terms of the UnitedStates-Mexico-Canada Agree-ment, which replaced NAFTA thisyear, are enforced. That includesbringing new trade cases againstMexican factories that violate la-bor rules, and ensuring that Mex-ico will follow through with ambi-tious reforms to its labor system.
As chief counsel for the Waysand Means Committee, Ms. Taiplayed a key role in crafting theDemocratic demands for finalchanges to U.S.M.C.A., which wasnegotiated by the Trump adminis-tration. In that capacity, she bal-anced the competing demands oflabor unions, environmentalgroups, corporate lobbyists andthe administration, and helped tohammer out a deal that passedboth houses of Congress by a widemargin.
In a November letter to Mr. Bi-den, 10 female House Democratswrote that Ms. Tai’s central role inthat negotiation “makes heruniquely qualified to lead imple-mentation and enforcement ef-forts” as the next trade represent-ative.
“Ms. Tai knows every tool avail-able to hold Mexico and Canadaaccountable,” the lawmakerswrote.
Though sometimes a lower-pro-file position, the post of trade rep-resentative has taken on greaterimportance under PresidentTrump, who has used the office toimpose substantial tariffs againstforeign countries and negotiate aseries of trade deals, both smalland large.
Mr. Biden’s top trade negotiatorwill be responsible for dealingwith much of that legacy, includ-ing helping to decide whether tocontinue levying tariffs on Chi-nese goods, and whether to con-tinue granting certain companiesexclusions from those tariffs.Many of those exclusions are setto expire on Dec. 31, and it remainsunclear whether Mr. Trump plansto extend them.
The new trade representativewill also be responsible for reshap-ing the office to fit Democratic pri-orities, like increasing protectionsfor workers, mitigating climatechange and raising standards forconsumer protections. Mr. Biden’spick will also be responsible for re-building trading relations thathave been strained by Mr. Trump’saggressive approach.
Supporters say Ms. Tai is alsouniquely positioned to addresseconomic challenges from China,regarded as America’s biggestcompetitor in the trade sphere.
In addition to litigating tradedisputes against China at theWorld Trade Organization over is-sues including subsidies and ex-port restraints, Ms. Tai worked onChina-related issues in the House,including strategies to reshoreAmerican supply chains and legis-lation to bar imports made withforced labor from Uighurs andother minorities in China.
Biden Is SaidTo Pick TaiFor Trade
By ANA SWANSON
Thomas Kaplan and Emily Cochranecontributed reporting.
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VIRUS FALLOUT | COMPANIES
week into Covid,” he said, “I gotscared for my job security in a waythat I never had before in 10 yearsof cooking.”
In sheer economic terms, fewworkers have stood more directlyin the path of the pandemic thanthe roughly 10 million people em-ployed by restaurants at the startof the year. The industry shedclose to half those jobs in Marchand April, and was still down al-most 1.5 million as of October.
The winter will likely bring an-other round of pain: In recentweeks, reservations havedropped substantially in cold-weather states like Illinois, NewYork and Pennsylvania, accordingto data from OpenTable.
The crisis has forced many ofthe industry’s working poor tochoose between financial ruin andharrowing work conditions. Butmore so than many other profes-sions, the pandemic has also dev-astated the industry’s middleclass: the thousands of cooks,chefs and servers who can makebetween $35,000 and $85,000 peryear in food hubs like Chicago.
In good times, new restaurantsopen weekly, and workers withsought-after skills or high-end ex-perience often enjoy plenty of joboptions. But a wave of closureshas hit pricier restaurants harderthan fast food and other down-market establishments, whichhave an easier time shifting totakeout, and those workers havebecome increasingly desperate.
For Mr. Danaher, 29, the troublestarted in early March, when heleft his job as a sous-chef at ahigher-end casual restaurant inChicago over concerns about druguse and harassment among thewait staff.
He was optimistic about hisprospects: During tours at nearly20 restaurants, he had picked up avariety of in-demand skills, suchas bread making, pickling andcharcuterie (preparing meatitems like sausages and pâté). Hecould butcher a freshly killed pig.
This time around, he quicklylined up interviews, but the jobsseemed to fizzle as the pandemicapproached. On a Thursday inmid-March, Mr. Danaher staged— restaurant-speak for an unpaidtryout — at a restaurant calledGood Fortune.
“It was supposed to be super-busy, but they had 10 covers on thebooks,” Mr. Danaher said, alludingto the sparse crowd.
Chris Tiba, Good Fortune’ssous-chef, said the position wouldhave been Mr. Danaher’s if not forthe looming industry apocalypse.“He did such a phenomenal job,”Mr. Tiba said. “He was super-fo-cused, hungry for his craft.” (GoodFortune has gone out of business,and Mr. Tiba is collecting unem-ployment.)
The state suspended on-sitedining four days after his tryout.Mr. Danaher tried to file for unem-ployment, but the website wasoverloaded and the phone lines
were jammed.His girlfriend, Alessandra
Llanes-Diaz, also an out-of-workcook at the time, moved in so theycould quarantine together. Theydrew down their bank accountsbuying ingredients for meatsauce, which they planned tofreeze, and stews.
“It was what we call staffmeals,” Ms. Llanes-Diaz said. “Abunch of veggies and things in apot.”
By mid-April, Mr. Danaher wasinquiring at pizza joints and evena Dunkin’ Donuts, but got no tak-ers. He checked grocery and retailstores. Toward the end of April, hebriefly took a contractor gig mak-
ing syrups for a company that soldcocktail kits, but the work dieddown in a few weeks.
Around the same time, the in-dustry was staggering back to life.In Chicago, the Michelin-starredElske, known for its moderatelypriced tasting menu, began open-ing three days a week to offertakeout.
“Our first meal was Swedishmeatballs, mashed potatoes andcucumber salad,” said DavidPosey, the chef who co-owns Elskewith his wife. “We thought we’d gothrough that in a week. It wasenough for one day.”
In Nashville, Tony Galzin, theco-owner and chef at Nicky’s,
revved up his coal-fired oven andsold housemade pizzas and freshpasta to go. In Washington, CorkWine Bar, an early fixture in thecity’s booming 14th Street corri-dor, did a brisk business in Sederboxes.
Later, as dining restrictionseased and government aid flowed,many restaurants found theycould come close to breaking evenwhile paying workers fairly. In-stead of resuming traditional ta-ble-side service, Mr. Galzin askedcustomers to order from a counter.Several former waiters took onother jobs, and Mr. Galzin distrib-uted tips evenly to all staff mem-bers, who earned between $16 and
$20 per hour, more than many hadpre-pandemic.
Elske limited its menu andserved customers on a patio aswell as inside near the windows.Alison Miller, the restaurant’s for-mer assistant general managerwho became a server this sum-mer, said she took home at least$1,000 most weeks.
Still, the restaurants could re-hire only a small fraction of theirworkers. Nicky’s eventuallybrought back just over half of the34 people it once employed; Elskebrought back about half of its 16.
Diane Gross, a co-owner of Cork,had to lay off nearly two-thirds ofher pre-pandemic team of 30.
Over all, full-service restau-rants accounted for more thanthree times as many job losses aslimited-service restaurants likefast food, according to the LaborDepartment.
Data compiled by ZipRecruitershow that job postings at high-endrestaurants like Morton’s andRuth’s Chris dropped nearly 45percent from March to May, ver-sus only about 20 percent for thelikes of McDonald’s and BurgerKing.
By July, the enhanced unem-ployment benefits, which Mr.Danaher started receiving only inMay, were about to expire, and hisfinances were looking grim. Hecame down with Covid the nextmonth, though his symptomswere mild.
Once he recovered, he occasion-ally made money cooking for pri-vate dinner parties, but it was atbest a down payment on his rent.He needed a full-time position, butfelt his experience was pricinghim out of the market.
“The guy next to me,” Mr. Dana-
her said of one tryout, “he wasgreen — he was wearing, like, Ni-kes and jeans.” (Pros generallyconsider nonslip shoes a must.)
In late September, Mr. Danaherfinally landed the job at FultonMarket Kitchen. “It was a goodchef; they make all their saucesand pasta in-house,” he said. Hestarted at $16 per hour. But withinfection rates soaring, Illinoisended indoor dining in Chicagobefore the end of October.
The restaurant closed and can-celed a series of Andy Warhol-themed dinners it had planned forHalloween weekend. “I under-stand why we have to shut down,”said Relu Stan, Fulton MarketKitchen’s co-owner. “What I don’tget is why it’s always such shortnotice.”
Mr. Stan laid off his staff ratherthan pivot to takeout, as he hadinitially done in the spring.“There’s no money in takeout anddelivery,” he said. “Not for us. Ourfood doesn’t travel that well.”
Other restaurateurs, like Mr.Posey at Elske, were making simi-lar calculations, pushing still moreemployees out of work. Accordingto ZipRecruiter, job postings atmany high-end restaurants fell inNovember.
Not long after, however, Mr.Danaher caught a break: Arestaurant called Split-Rail askedif he could pick up two shifts perweek. “He’s a BRILLIANT cook,one of the most employable peopleI’ve ever met,” the restaurant’schef-owner, Zoe Schor, who hadworked with Mr. Danaher yearsearlier, wrote in a text.
Concerned about safety, Ms.Schor had kept Split-Rail strictlytakeout and delivery during thepandemic. Winter even seemed tobring a bit of hope: Her restaurantspecializes in comfort food likefried chicken and matzo ball soup— the kind of food that sells well incold weather.
Mr. Danaher, who just movedinto a new apartment, has nowbeen guaranteed four shifts perweek through the end of the year.Beyond that, who can really say?
“I’m incredibly grateful,” hesaid. “It is enough, but it’s justenough.”
At Upscale Restaurants, Trying to Keep the Doors Open
Jeff Danaher made nearly $50,000 a year before the pandemic and has picked up a variety of in-demand skills.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SEBASTIAN HIDALGO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Fulton Market Kitchen in Chicago was forced to close in October.
‘I got scared for myjob security in a waythat I never hadbefore in 10 years ofcooking.’Jeff Danaher, sous-chef.
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
would try not to “chase the score-board” and the stock market hypeas a public company. “I recognizethe significance of the milestoneand the moment, but it is one dayon this multidecade journey,” hesaid.
DoorDash’s listing heralds abanner week of public offeringsfor technology start-ups. Airbnbpriced its offering on Wednesdayat $68 a share, according to peoplewith knowledge of the matter. Thehome rental company had raisedits offering price range once, inthe face of high demand, and couldbe valued at $47 billion, far aboveits $18 billion valuation in the pri-vate market this year. It will begintrading on Thursday.
The e-commerce start-up Wish,the video gaming companyRoblox and the real estate start-up OpenDoor also plan to list theirshares before the end of the year.The events are set to deliver wind-falls to the companies’ founders,employees and investors in whatis expected to be the busiest yearfor I.P.O.s since 1999. More than200 companies valued at morethan $50 million have gone publicso far this year, according to Ren-aissance Capital, which tracksI.P.O.s.
Many of these companies losemoney. Even so, investors havelargely given them warm wel-comes as they go public. Privateinvestors valued Snowflake, adata warehousing company, at $12billion before it went public in Sep-tember. Since then, its valuationhas soared to $107 billion.
“It’s been 20-plus years sincewe’ve seen this many I.P.O.s,” saidDavid Hsu, a professor of man-agement at the University ofPennsylvania. But he added a cau-tionary note about the enthusi-asm. “At some point, we do have tolook at some fundamentals,” he
said.DoorDash’s debut also shows
the extreme economic disparitiescreated by the pandemic. Restau-rants, struggling to survive gov-ernment-mandated closures,have increasingly relied on deliv-ery apps like DoorDash to stay inbusiness.
The apps, which dispatch ar-mies of gig workers to pick up anddeliver orders, charge fees thatsome restaurant owners have saidare onerous. In many cases, take-out orders have not made up forthe lost revenue of indoor dining.Chains including Ruby Tuesday,California Pizza Kitchen and theparent company of Chuck E.Cheese have gone bankrupt thisyear.
But DoorDash has thrived. Inthe first nine months of the year,its revenue more than tripled fromthe same period last year, to $1.92billion. Orders surged to 543 mil-lion through September, com-pared with 181 million a year earli-er.
Ahead of its I.P.O., DoorDashannounced a $200 million pledgeto various programs to helprestaurants and delivery drivers.It invited a number of restaurantowners and delivery drivers tovirtually attend the stock marketopening bell ringing and featuredthem in outdoor marketing cam-paigns around New York and SanFrancisco.
Despite its rapid growth, Door-Dash is burning cash. It lost $149million in the first nine months ofthe year and warned investorsthat the pandemic-spurredgrowth was likely to slow down.
Mr. Xu said the company wouldcontinue to spend money to grow“commensurate with the opportu-nity.”
Mr. Hsu said DoorDash’s “as-tonishing” valuation made him
think investors had overempha-sized the effects of the pandemic.
“When you get to this marketcap level, there are questionsabout where do you go fromhere?” he said.
DoorDash recently won a long-fought battle over its use of con-tract workers. Last month, Cali-fornians passed Proposition 22, aballot measure that exempts Do-orDash, Uber, Lyft and othersfrom a state law that would haverequired them to treat their driv-ers as employees. The companiesare expected to push for similarrules in other states.
DoorDash has grown, in part,by focusing on suburban markets
and partnerships with large chainrestaurants. Founded in 2013 byMr. Xu, Stanley Tang, Andy Fangand Evan Moore, it survived aruthlessly competitive market forlonger than many of its competi-tors. This year, two players, Grub-hub and Postmates, were ac-quired by larger rivals.
Through the deal-making, Do-orDash has remained independ-ent. It counts one million driversand 18 million customers in theUnited States, Canada and Aus-tralia.
The company has experi-mented with different businessmodels, including a subscriptionservice, DashPass, which costs
$9.99 a month for unlimited deliv-eries. DashPass has five millionsubscribers.
DoorDash began operatingcommissary buildings whererestaurants can rent space andprepare food specifically for deliv-eries. It has struck partnershipswith grocers, pet food companiesand drugstores. The companyeven invested in Burma Bites, alocal restaurateur.
The succession of tech I.P.O.sprovides long-awaited returns toventure capital investors. Many ofthe companies going public are adecade old. Plentiful venturefunding has allowed “unicorn”start-ups, worth $1 billion or more,
to put off going public, and with itthe pressure to turn a profit, for aslong as possible.
Sequoia Capital, which hasbacked Airbnb, DoorDash,Snowflake and several other siz-able start-ups going public thisyear, is expected to reap a bonan-za. So is Founders Fund, a venturefirm that is a large shareholder inAirbnb and Wish. And the Japa-nese conglomerate SoftBank,which was bruised by bad bets onthe office rental company We-Work and others, could be re-deemed by its investments in Do-orDash and OpenDoor.
DoorDash Stock Price SoarsAfter Initial Public Offering
Matt Phillips contributed reporting.
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
The New York Stock Exchange president, Stacey Cunningham, rang the opening bell as DoorDash celebrated its initial public offering on Wednesday.
NYSE
B6 N BUSINESSTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
TECHNOLOGY | POLICY
Many of us are in the same boat thesedays. With the coronavirus killing morepeople by the day, we are increasinglystress-eating and drinking more alcohol.At the same time, with gyms shut down,we are sitting around more and glued toscreens.
So you may be wondering what I’mwondering: How is the pandemic affect-ing my body? Because we can’t easilyleave the house to see doctors for none-mergencies, we are largely left to figurethis out on our own.
Enter the Halo, a new fitness-trackingbracelet from Amazon with a noveltwist: It claims that by using a smart-phone app to scan images of your body,it can tell you how much body fat youhave much more precisely than pasttechnologies. The bracelet also has amicrophone to listen to your tone ofvoice and tell you how your moodsounds to other people. (The masochistinside me said, “Sign me up!”)
The Halo is Amazon’s foray into so-called wearable computers that keep aneye on our health, following in the foot-steps of Apple and Fitbit. Amazon isselling the Halo for $65 on an invitation-only basis, meaning you have to get on awaiting list to buy it. I volunteered to bea guinea pig and received mine in Octo-ber.
When the Halo arrived, I installed theapp, removed my T-shirt and proppedup my phone camera. Here’s what hap-pened next: The Halo said I was fatterthan I thought — with 25 percent bodyfat, which the app said was “too high.”
I was skeptical. I’m a relatively slimperson who has put on two pounds sincelast year. I usually cook healthy mealsand do light exercises outdoors. Myclothes still fit.
I felt body-shamed and confused bythe Halo. So I sent my Halo data andbody scans to Dr. Lawrence Cheskin, aprofessor of nutrition and food studies atGeorge Mason University and founderof the Johns Hopkins Weight Manage-ment Center.
After reviewing my results, Dr. Che-skin jotted down my height and weightto calculate my body mass index, whichis a metric used to estimate obesity. Aman my age (36) with my body massindex, he said, is highly unlikely to have25 percent body fat.
“Unless you were a couch potato andate a very poor diet, I have my doubtsabout the Halo’s diagnosis,” he said.
Dr. Cheskin encouraged me to gathermore data by measuring my body fatwith other devices, and to do the samewith at least one other person. So I didand found that the Halo’s body fat read-ings consistently skewed higher thanother tools for myself and my test sub-ject.
I concluded that the Halo’s body anal-ysis was questionable. More important,it felt like a negative experience thatfailed to motivate me to get fit. I’ve hadmuch more uplifting experiences withother products like the Apple Watch andFitbit bands, as laid out below.
Measuring body fat
Body fat measurement can be compli-cated because the traditional methodsavailable to consumers are not alwaysaccurate.
Smart bathroom scales that measure
body fat use bioelectrical impedanceanalysis, which sends a small currentthrough your bare feet. Skin calipers, amore dated method, are essentiallyrulers that pinch down on skin folds tomeasure thickness.
These techniques are not perfectlyreliable. If people step on smart scalesat different times of day or with differ-ent levels of hydration, their results mayvary. Calipers can measure skin foldsincorrectly if you pinch in the wrongareas.
Amazon said the Halo’s technologywas much more precise. To scan yourbody, you use the smartphone’s front-facing camera to take photos of your
body from the front, sides and rear.Then Amazon stitches the images to-gether into a 3-D model to analyze yourbody composition and calculate thepercentage of fat.
I decided to record consistent body fatmeasurements for myself and a friendusing the Halo, a Fitbit bathroom scaleand a highly rated skin caliper. In No-vember and December, I took early-
morning measurements with the Haloand bathroom scale; my wife pinchedmy skin folds in four areas with thecaliper. I measured my test subject’sbody fat once with each device.
Our results were remarkably similarfor two men with very different bodycompositions:
■ The Amazon product estimated thatmy friend, a 6-foot-3 man weighing 198pounds, had 24 percent body fat, theFitbit scale read 19 percent, and theskin-fold measurements added up to 20percent.
■ For myself — 5-foot-6 and about 140pounds — the Halo said in Novemberthat I had 25 percent body fat, the Fitbitscale said 19 percent, and the skin-foldmeasurements added up to 20 percent.In December, the Halo said I had 26percent body fat (alas, I had moreThanksgiving leftovers than usual), theFitbit scale said 20 percent, and theskin-fold measurements added up to 21percent.
Dr. Cheskin speculated that the Halomight have an overestimating bias in itsalgorithm because underestimatingbody fat for an obese person would bemore problematic.
Dr. Maulik Majmudar, Amazon’s medi-cal officer, who worked on the Halo, saidpeople should expect the device’s resultsto be different because the method wasmore accurate than body fat scales andcalipers.
Amazon developed its body-measur-ing algorithm from a sample set of tensof thousands of images of people’s bod-ies from across a wide range of demo-graphics, he said. Amazon then didinternal tests measuring people’s bodyfat using the Halo scanner, smart bath-room scales and DEXA, a technique thatuses X-rays to scan for bone density,which studies have found to be a reliablemeasure for body fat. It found that the
Halo method was twice as accurate asbathroom scales.
Still, Dr. Cheskin was unconvinced byAmazon’s accuracy claims. He said avalid study would involve a clinical trialmeasuring body fat of many humansubjects with each method — the Halo,DEXA, bioelectrical impedance scalesand calipers — and comparing the re-sults side by side.
Accurate or not, the most disappoint-ing part of Amazon’s body fat analysiswas that it lacked important context.Even though the app asked for my eth-nicity, age and sex, it said my 25 percentbody fat level was too high and welloutside the “Healthy” zone (roughly 12to 18 percent). It also said healthy re-sults were associated with longer lifeand lower risks of heart disease.
Dr. Cheskin offered a more nuancedanalysis. Body fat levels may have dif-ferent health implications depending onyour age, ethnicity, sex, cholesterollevels and family history. Waist circum-ference matters, too, because severeabdominal fat can be associated withhealth problems.
For an Asian man my age with a34-inch waistline, whose family has nothad a history of diabetes or heart prob-lems, and whose blood tests recentlyshowed normal cholesterol levels, evena 25 percent body fat reading wouldprobably not be alarming, he said.
That context, combined with my bodymass index along with the meas-urements taken with a body fat scaleand caliper, led Dr. Cheskin to doubtHalo’s analysis.
He worried about the technology’spotential consequences.
“Does it potentially create eatingdisorders?” he said. “You’re taking abunch of people with normal weight andB.M.I. and telling them they’re too fatty.What are they going to do with that?Some of them are going to be more
compulsive and start doing things thatare going to be inappropriate.”
The bottom line
This experiment raised another ques-tion: What in the world was Amazonthinking releasing a product like thisnow? It has been impossible for us tomove around as much as we used to thisyear. If anything, we should accept thatour bodies will be imperfect during thistime.
Dr. Majmudar said he felt the oppo-site. As a clinician, he said, he wouldencourage patients to mitigate thehealth risks of gaining weight and beingmore sedentary in the pandemic. Thegoal of the Halo was to drive behavioralchange with education and awareness,he said.
“The desire or intention was never tobody-shame people,” he added.
In my experience, there are betterfitness-tracking products that offer morepositive motivation.
The Apple Watch, for one, lets you setgoals for how much you want to move orexercise each day, and those goals aresymbolized by colorful rings that areshown on the watch face. Once a ring iscompleted, you have met your goal.Fitbit devices send notifications to yourphone, egging you on when you arenearing your step goal. Neither devicecomes anywhere close to giving youbody dysmorphia.
Another of Halo’s unique features isTone, which uses the bracelet’s micro-phone to periodically listen in on yourconversations to tell you what yourmood sounds like. I turned the featureoff after two days because it felt like acreepy invasion of privacy. But I left iton long enough to complain to my wifeabout what a bad idea it was.
After analyzing the conversation, theHalo app said I sounded irritated anddisgusted. That, at least, was accurate.
A Fitness Gadget We Don’t Deserve or NeedThe Halo from Amazon tends to body-shame. In a pandemic.
Brian X. ChenTECH FIX
GLENN HARVEY
The Amazon Halo claims to assessyour mood and your body fat.
AMAZON
nomic success in a world that ismoving away from fossil fuels.
“New York State’s pension fundis at the leading edge of investorsaddressing climate risk, becauseinvesting for the low-carbon fu-ture is essential to protect thefund’s long-term value,” he said ina statement.
Mr. DiNapoli said the fundwould drop stocks that do notmeet new standards requiringthem to show “future ability toprovide investment returns inlight of the global consensus on cli-mate change.”
With the plan, New York State’sfund has taken a prominent role ina movement that is growingaround the world, with pensionfunds in the United Kingdom, Ire-land and Sweden adopting divest-ment plans. António Guterres, theUnited Nations secretary general,has urged governments, founda-tions and universities to followsuit.
Mr. DiNapoli, who is the fund’ssole trustee, joins other investorsin concluding that energy compa-nies that do not reshape them-selves to part with oil and gas arepoor long-term bets. A growingnumber of shareholders also seekto use their financial clout to ad-dress the threat of climate change.
The plan is the result of anagreement among Mr. DiNapoliand state lawmakers who, spurredby an eight-year campaign by cli-mate activists, had been poised topass legislation requiring him tosell fossil-fuel stocks. The legisla-tors pushed him to act more ur-gently. He persuaded them that abroader, more nuanced approachwould accomplish more.
Instead of requiring the dump-ing of specific stocks, the plan
forces energy companies to dras-tically change their businesses orface divestment. In a longer-termbut much more sweeping step, italso requires all companies in thefund’s portfolio to stop spewingplanet-warming gases.
New York’s decision is a set-back for oil and gas companiesand industry groups. A recentslide in the value of their stocks —ExxonMobil wrote down $20 bil-lion in assets last month — has un-dermined their main argumentagainst divestment: that fundmanagers’ first responsibility toretirees and other investors is tomaximize profits. The companiesalso argue that being an activeshareholder is the best way tocurb pollution.
But Mr. DiNapoli, who also longadvocated for engagement overdivestment, said a turning pointfor him came with what he calledExxonMobil’s “disappointing,frustrating” rebuffs in recentyears to the New York State fund,California’s teachers’ pensionfund and other shareholders thathave pushed for a more envi-ronmentally sustainable businessplan.
“Clearly this will put pressureon companies to be much moretransparent about how they’lltransition away from fossil fuelsand reduce emissions,” said AliceC. Hill, a senior fellow at the Coun-cil on Foreign Relations who stud-ies climate risks.
Pension funds, Ms. Hill added,are conservative investors thathave been reluctant to make deci-sions that could be seen as politi-cal, “so for a major investor to saywe’re getting out of this businesssends a very strong market signalthat climate change is a financialrisk.”
Other major investors, includ-ing BlackRock, the world’s largestasset management firm are alsopressing firms to reduce their car-bon footprints and be transparentabout how and whether they planto manage the risks of climatechange.
BlackRock and others, in turn,are under growing pressure fromclients and climate protesters toapply such scrutiny. Many fundmanagers, like Mr. DiNapoli, havealso called for new federal securi-ties rules to require companies todisclose the risks that climatechange poses to their businessmodels.
With the new plan, New York’sfund, the New York State CommonRetirement Fund, is committing tosell its investments in any oil, gas,oil-services and pipeline compa-nies that do not have clear plans toabandon the fossil fuel business.Few companies have disclosedsuch plans.
“There will be additional divest-
ments,” Mr. DiNapoli said in an in-terview on Wednesday, addingthat he was also signaling to com-panies that the fund could stay in-vested “if you’re willing to em-brace the change that’s requiredand state that clearly.”
Last year, the fund owned about$12 billion in fossil fuel-relatedcompanies, including producers,service companies and utilities,according to climate activists’analysis of published data. Thefund currently owns $2.6 billionworth of stock in large fossil-fuelproducers like ExxonMobil, a nar-rower category.
Skeptics warn that fossil fuelcompanies could foil the plan bypersuading the fund that they arechanging when they are not.
But State Senator Liz Krueger,a Manhattan Democrat who was alead sponsor of the divestmentbill, noted that the plan includedhiring experts to vet such claims.She added that she would not havewithdrawn the bill if she believed
the fund’s managers could “befooled.”
The heart of the plan, Mr. Di-Napoli said, is a measure that goesfar beyond fossil fuels: an econo-mywide effort to push all compa-nies the fund invests in — utilities,manufacturing, transportationand more — to reduce the amountof planet-warming greenhousegases they and their suppliersemit. The fund is committed toselling its stakes in the firms ifthey do not eliminate such emis-sions by 2040.
The plan could free up billions ofdollars for potential investment inrenewable energy and carbon-neutral industries; Mr. DiNapolisaid it could help the fund meet itsgoal of increasing its investmentsin “climate solutions” from $11 bil-lion to $20 billion.
Richard Brooks, a senior strat-egist with the climate advocacygroup 350.org, welcomed the plan.
“People now understand thatit’s pension funds and universitiesand asset managers who are allenabling this industry, propping itup and allowing it to continue topollute in communities, cause cli-mate change and lobby againstmeaningful climate action,” saidMr. Brooks, whose group was oneof 40 climate advocacy and retireeorganizations that waged theeight-year campaign to persuadeNew York institutions to shifttheir investments.
He added, “It’s part of a largermovement, increasingly includingsome banks and insurance com-panies, to reshape the financial in-dustry in the U.S.”
According to DivestInvest, agroup that tracks and promotesthe divestment movement, 1,246institutions and nearly 60,000 in-dividuals have committed to shed-
ding their investments in fossil fu-els. The total combined value oftheir portfolios is $14.1 trillion;their fossil fuel assets are only aportion of that sum since mostlarge institutions invest across arange of sectors.
The movement to dump fossilfuel stocks began as an effort tomake an ethical statement and tocast polluters as pariahs, muchlike the push to divest from apart-heid-era South Africa.
The Paris climate agreement,which set targets for reducinggreenhouse-gas emissions, alsoincreased pressure on the indus-try. Under President Trump, theUnited States is no longer part ofthe global climate accord. Presi-dent-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. haspledged to rejoin.
Since 2012, when HurricaneSandy killed more than 100 peo-ple, flooded parts of Manhattan,including Wall Street, the finan-cial center, and caused tens of bil-lions of dollars in damage, cli-mate-related issues have gainedimportance in finance and politics,especially in New York.
Committing to the divestmentplan in the depths of the Covid eco-nomic crisis, analysts say, reflectsa confidence among some fundmanagers that unloading theirfossil fuel holdings is their fiducia-ry duty, a responsibility to act inthe best interests of shareholdersand investors.
The fossil-fuel divestmentmovement has also grown onAmerican college campuses,where it began in the early 2010s.It accelerated after huge climateprotests in New York and aroundthe world in 2019 and this year asextreme weather wreaked havoc.
New York’s $226 Billion Pension Fund Is Getting Rid of Fossil Fuel Stocks
John Schwartz contributed reporting.
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGE
Thomas P. DiNapoli, the New York State pension fund’s sole trustee, said
fossil fuel divestment was “essential to protect the fund’s long-term value.”
RICHARD DREW/ASSOCIATED PRESS
SCORES ANALYSIS COMMENTARY THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020 B7
N
They are some of the mosthallowed names in baseballhistory, 10 of the most dominantoffensive forces of the fully inte-grated major leagues, inner-
circle Hall of Famerswho slugged theirway through an erabetter known forpitching:
Henry Aaron,Willie McCovey,
Frank Robinson, Willie Stargell,Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays,Harmon Killebrew, Carl Yas-trzemski, Billy Williams, ReggieJackson.
From 1964 through 1974, thosewere 10 of the top 11 hitters in themajor leagues in on-base plusslugging percentage, with aminimum of 1,000 games. Theunlisted name is Dick Allen. Heranked second in O.P.S. for thatera at .940, just one percentagepoint behind Aaron.
Allen died on Monday, at 78years old, in his hometown,Wampum, Pa. With better healthand no coronavirus pandemic, hemight have instead spent the dayat baseball’s winter meetings,reveling in his status as a newlyelected member of the Hall ofFame. The Golden Days commit-tee would have considered hiscandidacy on Sunday, but thevote was canceled, as were themeetings, because the groupcould not gather in person.
Six years ago, the last timeAllen appeared on that ballot, hefell one vote short, collecting 11 of16 votes from the executives,historians and Hall of Famers onthe committee. The PhiladelphiaPhillies’ owner, John Middleton,got tired of waiting to acknowl-edge one of his childhood heroesand erased his team’s policylimiting number retirements toplayers recognized in Coo-perstown. The Phillies retiredAllen’s No. 15 at a ceremony lastsummer.
It was overdue recognition forthe first Black star from the lastNational League franchise tointegrate, but Allen had longsince made peace with Philadel-phia. In his first tenure with thePhillies, from 1963 through 1969,he grew so weary of the fans thathe scratched “BOO” in the dirt atConnie Mack Stadium and worea helmet in the field. When hereturned in the mid-’70s, at Vet-erans Stadium, he became anelder statesman on the firstPhillies playoff team in a genera-tion, a mentor for younger starslike Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinskiand Larry Bowa.
“We had read all the stuffabout how he wasn’t a good guy,but we never saw any of that,”Bowa said Monday in a state-ment released by the team. “Dickwas a great teammate and agreat tutor for us. He couldn’thave been more open with us asyoung players and was actuallythe complete opposite of every-thing we had read.”
Here’s what they might haveread, from a Sporting Newseditorial following Allen’s tradeto Philadelphia from Atlanta inMay 1975 that came after herefused to play for the Braves:
“In 12 years in the majorleagues, Dick Allen neverplayed with apennant-winning club,which may be a measure ofthe man’s contribution toteam success in face of hisown personal achievements.There is no question aboutAllen’s talents as a hitter,but he is first and foremostan individualist whowillfully refuses to go alongwith the rules that governthe rest of his teammates.Spring training? Allenscarcely needs it. Battingpractice? It’s a uselesswaste of time for Allen. Ifthe rest of the players arerequired to show up twohours before game time, 10minutes is enough forAllen.”
And so on. You get the idea.Allen had a brutal image in thenews media, and baseball writ-ers would reject him 14 times ontheir ballot, never giving Alleneven 20 percent of their support.Surely some of their opinionswere colored by bias — but may-
be not as much as it seems.Hall of Fame voters often
struggle to evaluate players likeAllen who did not compile gaudycounting statistics. Considerthose 10 Hall of Famers listedabove. All but Stargell andWilliams have at least 3,000 hitsor 500 homers. Stargell was aone-team guy, a beloved leaderwho won two World Series forthe Pittsburgh Pirates. Williamsplayed 16 of his 18 years for oneteam, the Chicago Cubs, andcame close to the benchmarks,with 2,711 hits and 426 homers.Williams needed six tries forelection.
Allen had 351 homers and 1,848hits. He never played in theWorld Series and was traded fivetimes in a six-year stretch. Hewon Rookie of the Year and MostValuable Player awards with a.292 career batting average. Butother rate statistics, like on-baseand slugging percentage, werenot especially valued in Allen’sera. Totals mattered most.
There are exceptions, likeRalph Kiner, who had 369
homers, never played in theWorld Series and did make theHall of Fame. But it took 15 tries,an obvious and compelling ac-complishment — Kiner led theN.L. in homers in each of his firstseven seasons — and a postca-reer spotlight in the Mets’ broad-cast booth to get him in.
Allen has vocal advocates likeSchmidt, the greatest third base-man in history, and a formerPhillies groundskeeper, Mark(Frog) Carfagno, who has pas-sionately promoted Allen’s causefor years. The controversies ofhis past have faded, and ulti-mately, it seems, Allen’s absencefrom Cooperstown has mostly todo with an inconsistent applica-tion of greatness.
If a pitcher dominates for a10-year stretch, like Roy Halla-day or Pedro Martinez, he usu-ally gets in easily. But if a pitcheris a tick below that level over 10years, like Ron Guidry, or has acomparable peak that lasted onlyseven years, like Johan Santana,he’s an afterthought on the bal-lot.
How long must a hitter excel?Apparently, longer than 10 or 11years. More recent sluggers likeAlbert Belle and Lance Berkmanhad comparable stat lines toAllen’s: fewer than 2,000 hits,between 350 and 399 homers,and a career average in the.290s. Neither lasted even threeyears on the ballot.
(As an aside, their relation-ships with voters hardly mat-tered — Belle’s was stormy,Berkman’s was warm. Severalstrong candidates in recent yearswere also dropped within twoballots despite being extremelycooperative with the news me-dia, like David Cone, CarlosDelgado, Orel Hershiser andBernie Williams. All deservedbetter.)
Maybe Allen, Belle and Berk-man needed more compellingnarratives. Maybe they scoredtoo low on the useful-but-mysti-fying Wins Above Replacementmetric. Maybe they needed morememorable moments, thoughBerkman had a fairly big one:his two-out, two-strike single offTexas’s Scott Feldman that savedSt. Louis from elimination inGame 6 of the 2011 World Series.
Really, what they need is an-other chance, another group ofvoters, another context. That iswhat Allen should have had onSunday, one more reckoning of apowerful legacy. When his dayfinally comes — and it will — itwill be too late.
TEAMS 5
SEASONS 15
AT-BATS 6,332
HITS 1,848
HOME RUNS 351
RUNS BATTED IN 1,119
AVERAGE .292
TEAMS 4
SEASONS 15
AT-BATS 6,491
HITS 1,905
HOME RUNS 366
RUNS BATTED IN 1,234
AVERAGE .293
TEAMS 3
SEASONS 12
AT-BATS 5,853
HITS 1,726
HOME RUNS 381
RUNS BATTED IN 1,239
AVERAGE .295
ALBERT BELLE
LF/DH
∙ TOP 10 IN M.V.P. AWARD
VOTING FIVE TIMES
∙ FIVE-TIME SILVER SLUGGER
∙ FIVE-TIME ALL STAR
LANCE BERKMAN
1B/OF
∙ TOP 10 IN M.V.P. AWARD
VOTING SIX TIMES
∙ ONE WORLD SERIES TITLE
∙ SIX-TIME ALL STAR
Three
Comparable
Careers.
Zero
Plaques.From the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, Dick Allen was one of the best hitters in base-ball. Allen never made it into the Hall of Fame. His statistics are similar to two recent players who came after him — Lance Berkman and Albert Belle.
DICK ALLEN
1B/3B/LF
∙ A.L. M.V.P.
∙ ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
∙ SEVEN-TIME ALL STARSource: Baseball-Reference.com
The Hall of Fame Kept Dick Allen Waiting.
BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES
He Ran Out of Time.
A feared slugger isstill on the outside,looking in.
TYLERKEPNER
ONBASEBALL
Dick Allen was namedthe National League’srookie of the year in 1964.
TOP, DAVE EINSEL/ASSOCIATED PRESS; ABOVE LEFT, GEORGE GOJKOVICH/GETTY IMAGES; ABOVE RIGHT, EZRA O. SHAW /ALLSPORT
B8 N SPORTSTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Y O U T H S P O R T S S C O R E B O A R D
SOCCER
M.L.S. PLAYOFF SCHEDULE
CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPSEastern ConferenceSunday, Dec. 6Columbus 1, New England 0Western ConferenceMonday, Dec. 7Seattle 3, Minnesota 2
M.L.S. CUPSaturday, Dec. 12Seattle at Columbus, 8 p.m.
ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE
Team GP W D L GF GA PtsTottenham . . . . 11 7 3 1 23 9 24Liverpool . . . . . 11 7 3 1 26 17 24Chelsea . . . . . 11 6 4 1 25 11 22Leicester . . . . . 11 7 0 4 21 15 21Southampton . . 11 6 2 3 21 17 20Man United . . . 10 6 1 3 19 17 19Man City . . . . . 10 5 3 2 17 11 18West Ham . . . . 11 5 2 4 18 14 17Everton . . . . . . 11 5 2 4 20 18 17Wolverhampton 11 5 2 4 11 15 17Crystal Palace . 11 5 1 5 17 16 16Aston Villa . . . . . 9 5 0 4 20 13 15Newcastle . . . . 10 4 2 4 12 15 14Leeds. . . . . . . 11 4 2 5 16 20 14Arsenal . . . . . . 11 4 1 6 10 14 13Brighton . . . . . 11 2 4 5 15 18 10Fulham . . . . . . 11 2 1 8 11 21 7Burnley . . . . . . 10 1 3 6 5 18 6West Brom . . . 11 1 3 7 8 23 6Sheffield United 11 0 1 10 5 18 1Sunday, Dec. 6West Brom 1, Crystal Palace 5Sheffield United 1, Leicester 2Tottenham 2, Arsenal 0Liverpool 4, Wolverhampton 0Monday, Dec. 7Brighton 1, Southampton 2Friday, Dec. 11Leeds vs. West HamSaturday, Dec. 12Wolverhampton vs. Aston VillaNewcastle vs. West BromMan United vs. Man CityEverton vs. Chelsea
FOOTBALL
N.F.L. STANDINGS
AMERICAN CONFERENCE
East W L T Pct PF PABuffalo . . . . . . . 9 3 0 .750 333 306Miami . . . . . . . . 8 4 0 .667 303 212N. England . . . . 6 6 0 .500 274 255Jets . . . . . . . . . 0 12 0 .000 180 353
South W L T Pct PF PAIndianapolis . . . . 8 4 0 .667 328 273Tennessee . . . . 8 4 0 .667 359 326Houston . . . . . . 4 8 0 .333 288 323Jacksonville . . . . 1 11 0 .083 251 352
North W L T Pct PF PAPittsburgh . . . . 11 1 0 .917 334 211Cleveland . . . . . 9 3 0 .750 306 321Baltimore . . . . . 7 5 0 .583 316 231Cincinnati . . . . . 2 9 1 .208 237 308
West W L T Pct PF PAx-Kansas City . 11 1 0 .917 370 254Las Vegas. . . . . 7 5 0 .583 323 347Denver . . . . . . . 4 8 0 .333 225 320L.A. Chargers. . . 3 9 0 .250 277 345
NATIONAL CONFERENCE
East W L T Pct PF PAGiants . . . . . . . 5 7 0 .417 231 265Washington . . . . 5 7 0 .417 264 260Phila. . . . . . . . . 3 8 1 .292 253 307Dallas . . . . . . . . 3 9 0 .250 268 393
South W L T Pct PF PAx-New Orleans . 10 2 0 .833 347 241Tampa Bay . . . . 7 5 0 .583 344 280Atlanta . . . . . . . 4 8 0 .333 311 302Carolina . . . . . . 4 8 0 .333 280 300
North W L T Pct PF PAGreen Bay . . . . 9 3 0 .750 379 299Minnesota . . . . . 6 6 0 .500 319 329Chicago . . . . . . 5 7 0 .417 246 284Detroit . . . . . . . 5 7 0 .417 286 358
West W L T Pct PF PAL.A. Rams . . . . . 8 4 0 .667 301 243Seattle . . . . . . . 8 4 0 .667 353 321Arizona . . . . . . . 6 6 0 .500 332 296San Fran. . . . . . 5 7 0 .417 285 288x-clinched playoff spotMonday, Dec. 7 Washington 23, Pittsburgh 17Buffalo 34, San Francisco 24Tuesday, Dec. 8 Baltimore 34, Dallas 17Thursday, Dec. 10New England at L.A. Rams, 8:20 p.m.Sunday, Dec. 13Arizona at Giants, 1 p.m.Jets at Seattle, 4:05 p.m.Dallas at Cincinnati, 1 p.m.Denver at Carolina, 1 p.m.Houston at Chicago, 1 p.m.Kansas City at Miami, 1 p.m.Minnesota at Tampa Bay, 1 p.m.Tennessee at Jacksonville, 1 p.m.Indianapolis at Las Vegas, 4:05 p.m.Atlanta at L.A. Chargers, 4:25 p.m.Green Bay at Detroit, 4:25 p.m.New Orleans at Philadelphia, 4:25 p.m.Washington at San Francisco, 4:25 p.m.Pittsburgh at Buffalo, 8:20 p.m.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
MEN'S SCORES
EASTFairleigh Dickinson 79 . . . . . . . CCSU 71St. Francis (NY) 93 . . . . . . . . . Bryant 91SOUTHCampbell 79 . . . . . . . . New Orleans 70Clemson 67 . . . . . . . . . . . . Maryland 51Radford 98 . . . . . . . . . . . . Mars Hill 50Richmond 78 . . . . . . . . . . . . N. Iowa 68MIDWESTChicago 88 . . . . . . . . . . Chicago St. 51Cincinnati 78 . . . . . . . . . . . . Furman 73Miami (Ohio) 67 . . . . . . . . . W. Illinois 57Michigan 91 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Toledo 71Wisconsin 73 . . . . . . . . Rhode Island 62SOUTHWESTProvidence 79 . . . . . . . . . . . . . TCU 70
WOMEN'S SCORES
EAST Bryant 78 . . . . . . St. Francis Brooklyn 61St. Francis (Pa.) 67 . . . . . . . Kent St. 64Villanova 78 . . . . . . . . . . . . . La Salle 52SOUTH Davidson 85 . . . Charleston Southern 56East Carolina 58 . . . . . . . . . . . . VCU 55Florida 70 . . . . . . . . . . UNC-Asheville 48Georgia Tech 86 . . . . Boston College 68High Point 108 . . . . . . . NC Wesleyan 71James Madison 79 George Washington 69Louisiana-Lafayette 80 . . McNeese St. 48Louisville 73. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Duke 49Troy 95 . . . . . . . . . . . . Chattanooga 74W. Carolina 63 . . . . . . . . . . Newberry 44MIDWEST Cent. Michigan 82 . . . . . W. Michigan 71Michigan 93 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Butler 54SOUTHWEST TCU 79 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lamar 53Texas 73 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Idaho 48Texas Tech 87 . . . . . . . Angelo State 42FAR WEST S. Utah 74 . . . . . . . . William Jessup 46UCLA 102 . . . . . . . UC Santa Barbara 45
BASKETBALL
N.B.A. PRESEASON SCHEDULE
Friday, Dec. 11Knicks at Detroit, 7 p.m.Orlando at Atlanta, 7 p.m.Houston at Chicago, 8 p.m.L.A. Clippers at L.A. Lakers, 10 p.m.Sacramento at Portland, 10:30 p.m.
U.S. MEN'S SOCCER SCHEDULE
(Won 2, Lost 0, Tied 1)Saturday, Feb. 1 — United States 1, Costa Rica 0Thursday, Nov. 12 — United States 0, Wales 0Monday, Nov. 16 — United States 6, Panama 2Wednesday, Dec. 9 — vs. El Salvador at FortLauderdale, Fla.,
TRANSACTIONS
M.L.B.
National LeagueSAN FRANCISCO GIANTS — Signed C Chadwick Tromp. Signed RHPs Silvino Bracho and Dominic Leone to minor league contracts.
N.B.A.
OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER — Agreed to terms with G Theo Maledon and F AleksejPokusevski. Signed F Josh Hall and CMoses Brown to two-way contracts.
N.F.L.
ARIZONA CARDINALS — DesignatedDL Jordan Phillips to return from injured reserve.ATLANTA FALCONS Signed CB Chris Williamson to the practice squad.BALTIMORE RAVENS — Activated OLBMatthew Judon, TE Mark Andrews andpractice squad OL Will Holden from thereserve/COVID-19 lists.CHICAGO BEARS — Re-signed LB Devante Bond to the practice squad.CINCINNATI BENGALS — Placed OT JonahWilliams on injured reserve. Activated CB Darius Phillips from injured reserve.DENVER BRONCOS — Placed CB Essang Bassey on injured reserve. Designated OLB Derrek Tuszka to return from injured reserve.JETS — Designated CB Bless Austin andTE Trevan Wesco to return from injuredreserve.
WEST ORANGE, N.J. — On arecent Sunday at a cavernous iceskating complex in suburban NewJersey, locker rooms sat emptywhile hockey players slipped intotheir uniforms in the parking lot.
The nearly 2,500 seats sur-rounding the main rink in WestOrange, about 20 miles from Man-hattan, were also empty, cordonedoff with yellow caution tape. In-stead, hockey parents gathered inthe parking lot around elaborateaudio visual setups, including aprojection screen unfurled behindan S.U.V., to watch live streams oftheir children playing.
It was not the typical routine ata youth hockey competition, but itwas the new reality the sport hashad to adapt to during the pan-demic. It was also one of the lasttimes even this strange scenewould unfold. New Jersey puthockey on hold on Dec. 5 as part ofits effort to combat a spike in thecoronavirus.
In New Jersey and in many sub-urban towns across the North-east, youth hockey is an all-con-suming ritual of the cold weathermonths. Players and their fam-ilies devote nights and weekendsand routinely drive hundreds ofmiles to compete in multiday tour-naments.
“This is a way of life,” said Vin-cent Cucci III, a lawyer fromScotch Plains, N.J., whose two
sons and daughter play on threedifferent teams.
But like so many other things, itis a way of life that has been up-ended by the pandemic after anumber of large coronavirus out-breaks were connected to hockey.
In many states, youth hockey isnow on hiatus.
New York has banned gamesand scrimmages since the begin-ning of the pandemic. New Jerseyand Connecticut stopped competi-tive hockey and other youthsports until January. And inter-state tournaments in the North-east have been suspended.
In places where youth hockeyhas not been halted, the normalrhythms have been tossed out thewindow — no spectators allowedin arenas, locker rooms off limitsto players and teams subject tomandatory quarantine if even oneathlete tests positive for the virus.
For many state governments,shutting down hockey is a logicalstep to slow the virus’s spread.
In mid-November, Gov. PhilipD. Murphy of New Jersey saidthat officials had been hearing ofnoncompliance with safety proto-cols, including by parents, andwarned that “hockey is in ourcross hairs.” In some instances,parents would congregate inrestaurants or bars, potentiallyrisky places to be, while their chil-dren played.
But to players and parents, can-celing hockey means giving up acherished pastime and the chance
to connect with peers when manyyoung people are isolated at homebecause of remote learning.
Cucci’s son, Vincent Cucci IV,who often plays at the West Or-ange arena as part of a New Jer-sey Devils under-18 youth hockeyteam, described getting out on theice as “an escape from the worldaround you.”
New Jersey health officialsgrew concerned after they con-
nected youth hockey to 22 corona-virus outbreaks around the state,many more than other indoorsports, like basketball, gymnas-tics and swimming.
The younger Cucci, a 17-year-old senior at Scotch Plains-Fan-wood High School, said he under-stood the need for safety, but be-lieved that the precautions thatteams and rink operators had tak-en were sufficient.
“I’m scared of losing my lastseason, scared of losing the lastopportunity to play with friendsI’ve played with since I was 8years old,” he said.
Even before the governor’smost recent ban, Cucci’s season
had been delayed about twomonths and was interruptedwhen teams had to quarantine fortwo weeks when one of their play-ers tested positive for the virus.
In New York, teams have had tosettle for constant practicing.
Brett Jackson, the coach for anunder-18 hockey team in Mamaro-neck, said his players longed forgames.
“It’s a little tougher to get thekids motivated, because it’s justpractice,” he said.
Some teams in New York hadbeen traveling to neighboringstates to play games before thosestates started banning the prac-tice.
Ken Smith, the rink manager atTerry Conners Rink in Stamford,Conn., said many out-of-stateteams had scheduled games therewhen they could not play in theirhome states.
“Every local youth hockey orga-nization within 30 miles was kindof ice hunting in Connecticut,”Smith said, adding, “That has allstopped for the time being, obvi-ously.”
New York State officials saidteams that ignored the rules andstill traveled out of state to playwere helping spread the virus.
“The hockey-related clusters inNew York have been connected togames played in other states —showing that even when we havestrong rules in place, we can behampered by individual actions,”
said Jack Sterne, a spokesman forGov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Some parents and hockey play-ers remain unconvinced thathockey is as much of a culprit aspublic health officials portray.
Kristen Schultz, who lives inLivingston, N.J., and manages herson Dillon’s under-16 team, saidthe operators of Essex County’sRichard J. Codey Arena, the offi-cial name of the West Orange facil-ity, were so careful that “you can’tcatch a cold, let alone Covid.”
But safety practices differ fromrink to rink, and some medical ex-perts see indoor rinks as intrinsi-cally unsafe environments.
Dr. Perry N. Halkitis, dean ofRutgers University’s School ofPublic Health and an expert in in-fectious diseases, said the wayhockey is played and its indoorsetting made the sport a risky ac-tivity.
“It’s really an ideal transmis-sion vector” because of factorslike sweat, spit and physical prox-imity, Halkitis said.
Still, identifying the source oftransmissions is not foolproof, andsome infections linked to hockeycould have occurred in other set-tings, he said.
U.S.A. Hockey, the sport’s na-tional governing body and a majororganizer of youth leagues, haspublished best practices on how toplay, including enforcing socialdistancing and avoiding contacton the ice, limiting or avoidingtime in locker rooms, and wearingmasks.
“If you want to keep playing,we’ve all got to do this in andaround the rink,” said Dave Fisch-
er, a spokesman for U.S.A. Hockey.Most players and parents at
Codey Arena were less concernedabout health risks than theprospect of giving up their season.
Marcos Trasbach, a 16-year-oldfrom Hawthorne, N.J., was chang-ing out of his gear in the rink’slobby after his team lost a game.He sat on a chair set well apartfrom other players.
“We’re all separated in therink,” he said. “Playing hockey, Idon’t feel scared at all.”
“This is my primary sport, and Icare a lot for it,” he added. “If thisseason ended, my hockey careerwould probably peter out,” and hewould lose “the brotherhood youget with your teammates.”
As Trasbach and his teammatesleft the rink, two teams of youngerplayers had their temperaturesscanned before filing in.
Jay Butchko was sitting in hisblack Mercedes GLS 550 with hisson Ryan, who had just finishedplaying. Butchko, who lives inToms River, along the JerseyShore, had watched the gamefrom his car.
“The ultimate goal of all hockeyparents is to be safe, and keepplaying,” he said. “Whatever ittakes to do, we’ll do in order tokeep our kids playing.”
Cucci’s last game before NewJersey’s shutdown took effect wasagainst the Cranford HockeyClub. The teams had moved thegame up before the ban started.
“I find it a little disappointing,for sure, but there’s been plenty ofgood that’s come out of hockey,”Cucci said, “and you have to takethe bad with the good.”
Covid Restrictions Upend ‘a Way of Life’ in the Northeast
Young players outside a West Orange, N.J., arena on Nov. 22,before hockey was shut down. Left, games were played beforeempty stands. Below, a parent watched his son play on a phone.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRYAN ANSELM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
By DANIEL E. SLOTNIK
Players and parentsfret as hockey isplaced on hiatus.
C O L L E G E F O O T B A L L
The Big Ten, faced with the pos-sibility of being shut out of the Col-lege Football Playoff — and the $6million-plus payday that comeswith it — rewrote its rules onWednesday so that Ohio Statecould be placed in its conferencechampionship game despite play-ing just five games this season.
The Buckeyes, 5-0 and rankedfourth, were faced with theprospect of not meeting the six-game threshold to qualify for theBig Ten title game on Dec. 19 afterMichigan on Tuesday canceledthis weekend’s rivalry game be-tween the teams because of a co-ronavirus outbreak within theprogram.
Now, after the conference’s Ad-ministrators Council, which in-cludes athletic directors and sen-ior women administrators,changed the rules and eliminated
a minimum-game restriction,Ohio State will face No. 14 North-western in Indianapolis for theconference title. The Buckeyeswill also have a competitive ad-vantage for that game, with an ef-
fective bye this week after theMichigan cancellation, whileNorthwestern plays Illinois onSaturday.
The conference said in a state-ment that the decision was based
on “a competitive analysis,” be-cause even if Ohio State had lost toMichigan it would have still fin-ished ahead of Indiana, the sec-ond-place team in the conference,whose one loss in seven gamescame to Ohio State, 42-35, on Nov.21.
The Big Ten shift was the latestinstance of rules devised for thisseason being rewritten on the fly.The Atlantic Coast Conferencecanceled the final games for NotreDame and Clemson to ensure theywould play in the championshipgame. The Pac-12 earlier re-worked its rules so that teamswhose opponents had canceledgames could schedule nonconfer-ence games. (Nebraska had
sought a similar change in the BigTen, but was rebuffed.)
But in a sign of how fragile theseason has been, there is a chanceIndiana may not have been able toplay next week anyway. OnWednesday, Indiana, along withrival Purdue, jointly called offtheir Saturday game because ofoutbreaks on both teams. Thatcancellation means only three ofthe conference’s 14 teams (PennState, Rutgers and Iowa) have achance to play a complete eight-game schedule.
And in the Pac-12, Washingtonannounced Wednesday it waspausing team activities ahead ofSaturday’s game at Oregon, whichis to determine the winner of theNorth division. If the game is can-celed, Washington would advanceto play Southern California or Col-orado in the Pac-12 championshipgame — if it is able to do so.
Ohio State’s Justin Fields dur-ing the Buckeyes’ romp overMichigan State last weekend.
GREGORY SHAMUS/GETTY IMAGES
By BILLY WITZ
Big Ten Calls an Audible to Let Ohio State Play for the Conference Title
N B9SPORTSTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
G Y M N A S T I C S
G O L F
Thursday’s N.F.L. MatchupBy BENJAMIN HOFFMAN
PATRIOTS AT RAMS, 8:20 p.m. Eastern, Fox, NFL Network and PrimeVideo
Line: Rams -5 | Total: 44.5
With four wins in five games — and the lone loss a fairly closegame against Houston — the Patriots (6-6) may not be pretty, butthey are mostly getting the job done. The team’s defense has recov-ered from some issues to return to a reasonable facsimile of lastyear’s dominant crew, and its offense lacks consistency but cankeep the team in games. A road game against the Rams (8-4),however, is a real test of just how good New England can be. LosAngeles has enough offense to score against any team and a de-fense that can force Cam Newton into mistakes.
The Rams have a 98 percent chance at qualifying for the playoffs,and hope to take advantage of Seattle’s struggles to win the N.F.C.West. That should be enough to keep them just as motivated asNew England, even as the Patriots are fighting for their playofflives. PICK: RAMS -5
A top gymnastics coach ac-cused of berating and mistreatingathletes will be barred from thesport for five years instead ofeight, after an arbitrator foundsome of the testimony that led toher suspension should not havebeen allowed.
At five years, the penalty im-posed on the coach, MaggieHaney, is still considered theharshest one that U.S.A. Gymnas-tics, the sport’s national govern-ing body, has handed down in acase that did not involve sexualabuse.
An arbitrator hearing an appealfrom Haney upheld the suspen-sion but ruled that the hearingpanel that decided it should nothave taken into account the casesof four of 11 gymnasts who com-plained.
In those cases, the arbitrator, ina ruling last week that was dis-closed Tuesday by Haney’s law-yer, found that U.S.A. Gymnasticshad failed to provide Haneyproper notice of the allegations,leaving Haney without the chanceto defend herself sufficiently dur-ing the hearing held in Februaryand March.
Arbitration decisions are usu-ally not released publicly, butHaney’s lawyer, Steve Altman,disclosed it, and a U.S.A. Gymnas-tics official acknowledged its ve-racity.
“We certainly hoped for betterresults,” Altman said, adding thathe and Haney had asked the arbi-trator to rescind the suspensionfully based on their claim that thehearing was biased and flawed.
They now are considering theirlegal options, Altman said, be-cause the arbitration decision“contains numerous legal and fac-tual flaws, and should be over-turned.”
In an emailed statement, CarolFabrizio, a spokeswoman forU.S.A. Gymnastics, said federa-tion officials were reviewing thearbitrator’s decision and consid-ering how to proceed. Theirchoices include letting the arbitra-tor’s decision stand, resubmittingthe testimony of the four gym-nasts and possibly hearing frommore witnesses or negotiating aresolution with Haney with re-
gard to those additional gym-nasts.
“We believe it is critical to en-sure that the experiences of all in-volved athletes in the MaggieHaney case are fully consideredas part of the ultimate resolutionof the case,” the federation’s state-ment said.
Haney’s case has roiled thesport of gymnastics as athletesconfront a longstanding culture ofemotionally and verbally abusivecoaches and their sometimesharsh, dangerous methods.
Her suspension derived fromaccounts of gymnasts — includingLaurie Hernandez, an Olympicgold medalist — who said Haneyforced them to train through inju-ries, mocked them and made aneffort to silence their complaintsand undermine the girls’ relation-ship with their parents.
At the hearing, Hernandez tes-tified that Haney ridiculed her fig-ure and belittled her when she
complained about pain, evenwhen Hernandez was made totrain on what turned out to be abroken wrist.
The hearing panel found thatHaney “failed to maintain properboundaries” within her coachingrelationship with Hernandez andengaged in “intimidating, humili-ating and offensive” behavior to-ward her.
“The toughest part about it wasthat there were no bruises ormarks to show that it was real,”Hernandez said in an interview inApril after the panel penalizedHaney. “It was all just so twistedthat I thought it couldn’t be real.”
Another gymnast, Riley Mc-Cusker, who has a good chance ofmaking the United States Olympicteam for next summer’s TokyoGames, has filed a lawsuit againstHaney, accusing her of forcing herto train with injuries includingstress fractures in one foot, a frac-tured pelvis and a potentially seri-
ous condition called exercise-in-duced rhabdomyolysis, which is abreakdown of muscle fibers thatcould cause kidney damage.
Haney has vehemently deniedthose accusations. McCusker’stestimony was among the fourcases voided in the arbitrator’sruling. When reached by tele-phone, her mother, Jessica Mc-Cusker, who testified at the hear-ing, on Tuesday declined to com-ment on Haney’s reduced suspen-sion.
Haney, in an interview lastmonth, expressed some regretover her coaching methods, butsaid she never intentionallyharmed athletes. She portrayedherself as among a dying breed ofdemanding coaches.
She said in the interview thatU.S.A. Gymnastics had overre-acted to complaints against her asit sought to garner public supportafter the Lawrence G. Nassar sex-ual abuse scandal shook the sport.
Nassar, the longtime nationalteam doctor, is now imprisonedfor molesting more than 200 girlsand women, including nationalteam and Olympic gymnasts.
MG Elite, Haney’s program,run out of a gym in central NewJersey, remains open, and Haneysaid more than 30 gymnasts werestill training there. A number ofparents have defended Haney.
“It upsets me greatly to seewhat’s happening in the sport ofgymnastics, and that so manygirls have reported allegations ofabuse, but this never happened inmy program,” Haney said in astatement, adding that she felt“unfairly targeted” by U.S.A.Gymnastics.
U.S.A. Gymnastics officialshave been trying to change a toxicculture that includes emotionaland physical abuse of athletesthat for decades was not only tol-erated but often encouraged. Be-fore the Nassar scandal, the sport
welcomed overbearing coacheswho demanded obedience fromtheir young gymnasts becausethat coaching style was thought tocreate winners.
But the transition to a new cli-mate is easier said than done, anddeciding how and whether to pun-ish coaches has been fraught.
Haney has said punishments ofcoaches have been inconsistent,or not given at all, and assertedthat the hearing process lackeddue process, a point the arbitratormade in his decision regardingsome of the gymnasts whobrought accusations.
In addition to McCusker, theother three gymnasts whose accu-sations were voided by the arbi-trator were Cameran Edwards,Zoe Gravier and Skyelar Kerico.They had accused Haney of abuseand bullying that included threatsand her cursing at them and call-ing them degrading things likelazy and emotionally disturbed,forcing them to train despite inju-ries and screaming at them somuch that it damaged their self-esteem and made them scared ofher. Cameran Edwards’s mother,Reaona Jones-Edwards, declinedto comment on the reduced sus-pension. The parents of the othertwo gymnasts didn’t immediatelyreturn phone calls requestingcomment.
Katherine Starr, a two-timeOlympian for Britain and founderof Safe4Athletes, an organizationthat advocates for athletes abusedby a coach or a teammate, said thesport should not solely rely onU.S.A. Gymnastics to make im-provements. She said athletesneed to be trained to speak clearlyand freely about the abuse theyare experiencing, and coacheswho abuse athletes need to ad-dress underlying issues as to whythey lash out at their athletes inthe first place. Parents, Starr said,also need to learn that they cannotignore abuse just because theyhope to raise a champion.
Over all, she said, those in thesport have many steps yet to take,and U.S.A. Gymnastics is respon-sible for taking the lead.
“Right now, that’s not happen-ing,” Starr said. “They don’t un-derstand how to change the sys-tem and don’t even have their shippointed in the right direction.”
Suspension Reduced for Coach Accused of Emotional and Physical AbuseBy JULIET MACUR
An arbitrator raised concern that Maggie Haney wasn’t given proper time to respond to some of the claims against her, her lawyer said.RACHEL WISNIEWSKI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
HOUSTON — The PGA Tourdoes not have a 72-hole strokeplay event this week, and severalweekend college football games,including the marquee matchupbetween Michigan and Ohio State,have been canceled or postponedbecause of the coronavirus, leav-ing the best female golfers in theworld well positioned to fill the TVviewing void.
This weekend, the L.P.G.A. con-tests the United States Women'sOpen, its most lucrative majortournament, pushed back sixmonths from its original date bythe pandemic, on a stage clearedof some of the usual obstacles thatcan overshadow women’s golf inAmerica. The spotlight it offers isin many ways tailored for AriyaJutanugarn.
Jutanugarn, a former women’sworld No. 1 from Thailand, gener-ates tremendous clubhead speedand can produce birdies inbunches when she gets on a roll.But Jutanugarn, 25, tested pos-itive for coronavirus before anL.P.G.A. event in Florida lastmonth. In her final practice roundthis week, she did not look like thesame player who was crownedOpen champion in 2018 or eventhe same one who tied for sixthduring an L.P.G.A. stop in Georgiain late October.
Playing the back nine of the Cy-press Creek course in a group thatincluded her older sister, Moriya,26, Jutanugarn consistently fell afew paces behind the others be-cause of what she described as alingering effect of the virus.
“Every time when I play I walkreally slow because my heart rateis up so high. But I just have to
deal with it.”A month after her diagnosis,
she continues to grapple with fa-tigue and headaches. The barbe-cue for which Texas is famous, astaple in players’ dining, is largelylost on her because she hasn’t re-gained her sense of smell or taste.
“It’s tough because I know mybody isn’t 100 percent yet,” Ju-tanugarn said. “I just have to dealwith it and do my best, and makesure I take good care of my body.”
Holiday-Themed Bubble
The poinsettia centerpieces onthe Nos. 1 and 10 tee snack tables
don’t fool the players. They areacutely aware that Christmas isn’tquite here yet.
“Coming into these two weeks,this past week or two that I washome, I was like, ‘OK, I’m going tobe in a bubble,” said Lexi Thomp-son, the No. 11-ranked player. “I’mnot taking the chance of testingpositive coming into the two mostimportant weeks of the year.”
Still, it’s 2020. So despite thebest made bubbles, stuff happens.On Wednesday, the United StatesGolf Association announced thatAndrea Lee, who had tested nega-tive for the coronavirus before theVolunteers of America Classicoutside Dallas and spent lastweek ensconced in the L.P.G.A.bubble, tested positive for the vi-rus upon arriving in Houston andhad withdrawn from the Open.
Jutanugarn breathed a sigh ofrelief Monday after passing herpre-event coronavirus test. De-spite being in a featured groupalongside two other former cham-pions, Inbee Park and So YeonRyu, Jutanugarn said her expec-tations were low.
In her return to competition af-ter quarantining, she finished tiedfor 62nd. Moriya, who had testedpositive at the same time as hersister, also made her competitivereturn at the Volunteers of Amer-ica Classic and tied for 16th.
“Last week when I walked 18holes I passed out because I wasso tired,” Ariya Jutanugarn said.
All is not necessarily lost. Lastmonth, Dustin Johnson won therescheduled Masters a month af-
ter testing positive for the corona-virus in a pretournament test.Like Jutanugarn, he isolated for atleast 10 days and returned for thefinal tuneup event.
On Masters Sunday, Jutanu-garn said, she turned on the TV, in-tending to watch Johnson’s finalround. But she was feeling fe-verish and her head was throb-bing. “I fell asleep for four hours, Iwoke up and he had finished,” shesaid.
Two Courses Needed
The challenge for Jutanugarn,and the rest of the Open’s competi-tors, is compounded because thisyear, for the first time, the tourna-ment is being played on twocourses to accommodate a full156-woman field in fading winterdaylight.
Cypress Creek, where three ofthe four rounds will be contested,is long, with massive greens. Thesecond course, Jackrabbit, whereeach contender will play one of thefirst two days, is a tighter layout,with contouring around the small-er green complexes. To play bothwell requires the versatility of aFormula One driver who couldalso be competitive in NASCAR.
Stacy Lewis, a two-time majorwinner who is a member of Cham-pions Club, knows both courseswell. “I think in everybody’s headyou say, ‘We’re going to play Cy-press three times, my focus is go-ing to go that way more than theother one,’” she said. “And thenyou have a bad day on Jackrabbit
and you’re not even playing thenext two. I know people haveasked me and I’ve told them, ‘Payattention to Jackrabbit.’”
Plenty on the Line
The next two weeks have theplayers’ full focus. Both the U.S.Women’s Open and next week’s fi-nale in Florida offer a winner’scheck of at least $1 million. TheU.S. Open will pay out $5.5 millionand the purse for the Tour Cham-pionship will be the fifth-highestin the women’s game this year at$3 million, a haul that makes thisstretch comparable only to themid-August-to-September spanduring which two other majors —the Women’s British Open and theAIN Inspiration — were con-tested.
“To be honest, it feels weird be-cause I’m playing in Decemberaround Christmas Day, so it’s the
first time,” said Jin Young Ko, thewomen’s world No. 1. “But thecourse is tough and then everyonelook nervous, too, so it’s fun.”
Fun? Danielle Kang, who haswon twice since the tour’s July re-start, is accompanied this week byher boyfriend, Maverick McNealy,who plays on the PGA Tour. Mc-Nealy is one of several male play-ers, including major winners Ja-son Day and Bryson DeCham-beau, who have thrown their sup-port behind the L.P.G.A. this weekby posting messages on social me-dia with the hashtag #Wom-enworthwatching. DeChambeau’sregular caddie, Tim Tucker, ismoonlighting this week on the bagfor Lexi Thompson.
Asked the best piece of advicethat she has received from Mc-Nealy, Kang, a one-time majorwinner, said, “Just relax. It’s theU.S. Open. Everyone is stressedout.”
A Final Major With a Few Twists, and One of the L.P.G.A.’s Largest PayoutsBy KAREN CROUSE
Ariya Jutanugarn, left, and her sister Moriya tested positive for the coronavirus last month. Jin Young Ko said playing the U.S. Open in December felt “weird” and “fun.”CARLOS OSORIO/ASSOCIATED PRESS DAVID J. PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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B10 N OBITUARIESTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Faces From the Coronavirus Pandemic
Those We’ve Lost
BUENOS AIRES — When Argentina’sSenate debated the legalizion of abortion in2018, Fernando Solanas, then a senator, ar-gued fervently in favor of the proposed lawin part by declaring that sexual pleasurewas a “fundamental human right.”
The bill was rejected, but Mr. Solanas’sspeech and its unusual argument quicklywent viral in a nation bitterly divided by theissue.
Mr. Solanas was a consistent voice on theleft, often speaking out in favor of humanand environmental rights — whether inpolitics or in his other life, as a filmmakerwhose movies and documentaries markeda new era in Latin American cinema.
He died of complications of Covid-19 onNov. 6 in Paris, Argentina’s foreign ministrysaid in a statement. He was 84.
Fernando Ezequiel Solanas was born onFeb. 16, 1936, in Olivos, Buenos Aires prov-ince. His father, Héctor, was a surgeon, andhis mother, María Julia Zaldarriaga, was apainter and poet. Mr. Solanas briefly stud-ied law before attending the National Con-servatory of Dramatic Arts.
He graduated in 1962 and went into ad-vertising.
That work allowed him to raise enoughmoney to make “La Hora de los Hornos”(“The Hour of the Furnaces”), a three-partdocumentary about neocolonialism and po-litical violence that he directed with OctavioGetino. Running four hours and 20 minutesin all, the film was released in 1968.
Described as “a unique film explorationof a nation’s soul” by Vincent Canby in TheNew York Times in 1971, the movie made asplash abroad but was officially banned inArgentina, which was then under militaryrule, although it received clandestinescreenings.
Mr. Solanas and Mr. Getino founded theinfluential Grupo Cine Liberación (the Lib-eration Film Group) and went on to coin theterm “Third Cinema” to describe a bur-geoning Latin American film movementwith a revolutionary undercurrent and anambition to break free from productionstandards set in Hollywood and Europe.
After receiving death threats, Mr. So-lanas went into exile in Europe in 1976 as abrutal military dictatorship took hold.
He returned to Argentina in 1983 andwent on to film some of his best-knownwork, including “Sur” (“South”), for whichhe won the best director prize at the CannesFilm Festival in 1988.
In 1991, Mr. Solanas was shot six times inthe legs; the perpetrators were nevercaught, but he blamed Carlos Menem, thepresident at the time, whom he bitterly op-posed. Two years later, his formal politicalcareer began when he won a seat in theChamber of Deputies, Argentina’s lowerhouse of Congress.
Mr. Solanas, known by the nicknamePino, returned to filmmaking after his four-year term ended. He made another forayinto politics with a run for the presidency in2007, but he garnered less than 2 percent ofthe vote. He went back to the lower house ofCongress in 2009 and was elected a senatorin 2013.
He was appointed ambassador to UN-ESCO last year.
Mr. Solanas had a brief early marriage,and later had two children with BeatrizTrixie Amuchastegui. In 1994 he marriedthe Brazilian actress Ângela Correa, whomhe met while directing his 1992 film “El Vi-aje” (“The Journey”).
She survives him, along with two chil-dren, Juan Diego Solanas and Victoria EvaSolanas; a stepson, Flexa D’Arco Iris Cor-rea Lopes; a brother, Jorge; a sister, MaríaMarta Solanas; and three grandchildren.
Fernando Solanas, 84Leftist Argentine Politician and an Influential and Acclaimed Filmmaker
By DANIEL POLITI
Fernando Solanas in 2004. He won the best-director award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for the movie “Sur.”MARTIAL TREZZIN/KEYSTONE, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
In November 1979, LorraineMillar’s 30-year-old son, John,died of cancer. The next month,her 24-year-old daughter, Mi-chele, skidded on black ice whiledriving, turned into an embank-ment and was killed instantly.
One of her two surviving chil-dren, Marilyn, spiraled into de-pression. “Why am I still here?”she asked during a phone call.
Ms. Millar responded with a let-ter. “She said, ‘You have twochoices,’” her daughter, now Mari-lyn Altavilla, recalled. “ ‘You ei-ther give up and let your lifewither away, or you become a sur-vivor.’”
Ms. Millar made her choiceclear: She was going to survive.Within weeks after her secondchild’s death, she moved fromConnecticut to South Carolina totake on a new role running the hu-man resources department of thechemical company she workedfor. She took along her husband,whose bipolar disorder had forcedhim to leave his job.
“I felt if she could live throughthe death of her children, two chil-dren, and continue to forge ahead,that she was going to be my rolemodel,” Ms. Altavilla said. “I knewthat I was going to become a sur-vivor like my mother.”
Ms. Millar died on Nov. 25 at Ev-ergreen Woods, a nursing home inNorth Branford, Conn. She was 95.The cause was Covid-19, Ms. Al-tavilla said.
Lorraine Mae Johnson wasborn on May 7, 1925, in Baker, Ore.Her father, Chris, ran a grain stor-age business he had inheritedfrom his father; her mother,Blenda (Samuelson) Johnson,taught school in North Powder,the tiny nearby town where thefamily lived. Lorraine’s graduat-ing class had seven students.
In 1946, at a dance in WallaWalla, Wash., where Lorraine at-tended Whitman College, she metJack Millar, a Chicago boy sta-tioned at a nearby military base.Less than three weeks later, theywere engaged.
They married that summer. Ms.Millar moved with her husband toChicago and missed graduatingfrom college by just six credits.
In the mid-1960s, Mr. Millar’scareer began to stall, and to puttheir children through college,Ms. Millar abandoned her life as ahomemaker to take a job process-ing health claims at an insurancecompany.
One Sunday morning in July1988, Mr. Millar said he didn’t feelwell, and Ms. Millar went tochurch without him. She returnedhome and noticed that the garagedoor, unusually, was closed. Mr.Millar was sitting inside his car.He had killed himself by carbonmonoxide poisoning.
Ms. Millar retired the next yearand started a new career as a taxpreparer for H&R Block.
She had a pulmonary embolismin 2004 and nearly died. Again shestarted anew: She moved to Ever-green Woods, where she becametreasurer of its general store andvolunteered at the library, prepar-ing tax returns at no cost.
In addition to Ms. Altavilla, Ms.Millar is survived by her sisters,Joan Thompson and PatriciaKerns; a son, David; three grand-children; and three step-grand-children.
From the late 1980s to the early2000s, Ms. Millar organized one-or two-week family vacations toMyrtle Beach, S.C. She woulddrive down with every necessitycarefully packed: pancake mix,beach chairs, homemade spaghet-ti sauce.
“It was that repetition that weall loved so much, because weknew what to expect,” Ms. Al-tavilla said. “We knew Grandma.She was going to remember ev-erything.”
Lorraine Millar, 95Resilient in the Face of Tragedy
By ALEX TRAUB
Lorraine Millar circa 2013. Shesuffered several family losses.
VIA MILLAR FAMILY
Dr. Michael Davidson, an epide-miologist who pursued a careerfocused on infectious disease inpart because of the death of hisgrandparents during the 1918Spanish flu pandemic, died onNov. 8 in Anchorage. He was 77.
His death, of Covid-19 at Provi-dence Hospital, was confirmed byDr. James Sprott, a close friend.
Dr. Davidson’s maternal grand-parents died of the 1918 flu withina week of each other, orphaningtheir five children. That tragicfamily history affected Dr. Da-vidson deeply.
A week before he tested positivefor the coronavirus, he told a long-time friend, Dr. John Finley, thathe would have relished the chanceto be part of the effort to end thepandemic. But he had already re-tired, shortly after a biking acci-dent in 2003 left him a quadriple-gic.
Dr. Davidson worked with theU.S. Public Health Service, theAlaska Native Medical Center andthe Centers for Disease Controland Prevention in Anchorage.
He conducted pivotal studies oncardiovascular health and infec-tious diseases among NativeAlaskans. He also studied pneu-monia, H.I.V. and the human pap-illomavirus, or H.P.V., and helpedconfirm that H.P.V. can triggercervical cancer. Throughout hiscareer, he traveled to remote partsof the world to further his re-search and provide medical train-ing.
He was a visiting fellow in 1993at the Papua New Guinea Insti-tute of Medical Research, focusingon pneumonia. In the 1980s, hetraveled to Peshawar, Pakistan, tocreate a paramedic training pro-gram for Afghan refugees.
An avid outdoorsman wholoved to cook, Dr. Davidson ranmarathons, hiked in the desert,cross-country skied in the back-country between remote Alaskanvillages, and rafted white-waterrivers.
The biking accident occurredshortly after he had relocated toNew Jersey for a new job headingup an H.I.V./AIDS research teamfor Roche Pharmaceuticals.
“He had two real loves in life:the outdoors and cooking,” Dr.Sprott said in an interview. Dr. Da-vidson honed his culinary skills bytrying every recipe in the 24-vol-ume “Time-Life Foods of theWorld” cookbook collection.
For the past 10 years, he had re-quired round-the-clock homecare. “He drove his aides crazy,telling them how to cook, but theycould never do it like he did,” Dr.Sprott said. A lover of jazz and theblues, Dr. Davidson also playedthe saxophone.
Michael Davidson was born onApril 8, 1943, in Greensburg, Pa.,outside Pittsburgh, to Peter andSelma Davidson. His parentsowned a men’s clothing store inGreensburg and later inMeadville, in northwest Pennsyl-vania, where Dr. Davidson grewup. His older sister, Paula, a nurse,died at a young age.
He earned a degree in biology in1965 at Franklin and Marshall Col-lege in Lancaster, Pa., and re-ceived his medical degree fromthe University of PittsburghSchool of Medicine in 1969. Hespent a summer while in medicalschool on a Navajo reservationstudying the high prevalence ofgallstones among the peoplethere, Dr. Thomas Welty, a friendand medical school classmate,said. The experience inspired Dr.Davidson to work with Indige-nous people in Alaska.
Dr. Davidson completed his in-ternal medicine training atGeorge Washington and George-town Universities, and had a fel-lowship in infectious diseases atthe University of New Mexico,where he later taught while run-ning a private practice in internalmedicine. He earned a master’sdegree in public health in 1983 anda doctorate in clinical epidemiolo-gy from Johns Hopkins Univer-sity in 1999. He also taught as partof the biomedical program at theUniversity of Alaska.
Dr. Davidson leaves no immedi-ate survivors.
Dr. Michael Davidson, 77Flu Victims’ Grandson and Student of Infectious Disease
By GLENN RIFKIN
Dr. Michael Davidson lovedthe outdoors and cooking.
VIA DAVIDSON FAMILY
Fred Sasakamoose began skating onblades his grandfather had tied to his moc-casins. His hockey stick was a willowbranch. A disk of cow manure served as thepuck. The rink was a frozen lake.
It was a far cry from the National HockeyLeague. But that is where he landed.
Sasakamoose played only 11 games in theN.H.L., as a member of the Chicago Black-hawks in the 1953-54 season. But his impactwas outsize: Sasakamoose was one of thefirst Indigenous athletes to play Canada’snational pastime at the highest level.
That turned him into a hero for First Na-tions people in a country that often margin-alized them. He later spent decades men-toring and encouraging young Indigenousplayers across the country; in 2018 he wasmade a member of the Order of Canada, oneof the nation’s highest civilian honors.
“There’ve been many Indigenous play-ers since I started, but it’s good to think Iinspired Indian kids way back then,”Sasakamoose wrote in a memoir, “Call MeIndian,” to be published in April. “Showedthem, showed everyone, that we couldmake it in the white world. That’s more im-portant than any award.”
He died on Nov. 26 in Prince Albert, Sas-katchewan, at 86. The N.H.L., which an-nounced the death, said he had been hospi-talized with complications from Covid-19.
Reggie Leach, the N.H.L.’s first Indige-nous superstar, was among those who paidtribute. “A lot of people say he only played 11games,” Leach told the Canadian Broad-casting Corporation. “But those 11 gameswere everything to our First Nations peo-ple.”
Frederick Sasakamoose was born onDec. 25, 1933, in the Ahtahkakoop Cree Na-tion, in central Saskatchewan. He was oneof 11 children, six of whom did not survivechildhood.
When he was 6, agents from the Canadi-an government came to the reservation andthrew him and his brother Frank into atruck. They were among the many Nativechildren in Canada who were forcibly re-moved from their families for schooling.
“We didn’t know what the heck was goingon,” he told the journalist Aaron Lakoff for a2018 episode of the podcast “Only a Game,”produced by the Boston public radio stationWBUR. “We were too small.”
Sasakamoose would spend years at St.Michael’s, one of Canada’s notorious resi-dential schools, in Duck Lake, about 60miles from the Sasakamoose home. Theschools, financed by the government but
run largely by churches, were in operationfrom 1883 until 1998, when the last oneclosed. The government has apologized forthe practice and compensated survivors,and a Truth and Reconciliation Commissionreport in 2015 called the system “culturalgenocide.”
Life at St. Michael’s was grim. “I neverheard words of encouragement,”Sasakamoose wrote in his memoir. “Ordersand corrections. That’s all we ever got.” Buthe found joy there playing hockey.
A mentor from St. Michael’s, the Rev.Georges Roussel, a Roman Catholic priest,later took him to Moose Jaw, Saskatche-wan, to play junior hockey — a feeder to theprofessional leagues. After four seasons,Sasakamoose received word that he hadbeen selected by the Chicago Blackhawksof the N.H.L.
He made his league debut on Nov. 20,1953, against the Boston Bruins. Over his 11games, he played against legends likeGordie Howe and Maurice Richard.
At one game in Chicago, the organistplayed the old Broadway show tune “IndianLove Call” after Sasakamoose’s name wasannounced. He was later asked if that hadoffended him.
“The fact that the white audience didn’treally understand who I was or where Icame from, the fact that they didn’t under-stand the significance of the symbols theywere using, well, that didn’t diminish my
pride one damn bit,” he later wrote.“And oh, man, was I proud.”Sasakamoose, a center, was nimble on
the ice, but he failed to score in the N.H.L.and spent the rest of his career in the minorleagues.
Still, those 11 games would be enough tofeed the dreams of a new generation of In-digenous players. A handful now play in theN.H.L. and on the Canadian women’sOlympic hockey team.
In later years, Sasakamoose served aterm as the chief of the Ahtahkakoop CreeNation. He also developed sports programsfor Indigenous youth, including a tourna-ment for First Nations teams, the FredSasakamoose “Chief Thunderstick” Cham-pionship.
Information on his survivors was not im-mediately available.
Last year, more than 300 people turnedup at the Roxy Theater in Saskatoon, Sas-katchewan, to watch a video of one ofSasakamoose’s N.H.L. games. When hewatched his younger self — wavy blackhair, No. 21 on his dark jersey — take the ice,he leapt to his feet.
“I had gone back in time,” Sasakamoosewrote in his memoir. “I was young again forover 60 minutes. Young and old at the samemoment. Full of ambition and energy, yetwith the wisdom to know what a rare andwonderful experience it was to have playedat all.”
Fred Sasakamoose, 86An N.H.L. Career of Much Greater Significance Than Length, as an Indigenous Player
By MIKE IVES
Fred Sasakamoose, shown in 2017, became a hero to the First Nations people.JASON FRANSON/THE CANADIAN PRESS, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
N B11OBITUARIESTHE NEW YORK TIMES THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Ray Perkins, who spent nearlyfour decades as a college andN.F.L. coach and was best knownfor succeeding Paul “Bear” Bry-ant at the University of Alabama,his alma mater, died on Wednes-day at his home in Tuscaloosa,Ala. He was 79.
His death was confirmed by hisdaughter Rachael Perkins, whodid not specify the cause but saidhe had struggled with heart prob-lems in recent years.
A hard-driving coach in themold of Bryant, his mentor,Perkins did not enjoy as much suc-cess as a coach as he did as a play-er, when he won championshipswith the Crimson Tide and laterwith Baltimore Colts. Though hespent many years on winningteams as a positions coach and of-fensive coordinator, he had a los-ing record in his eight years as anN.F.L. head coach, with his teamsqualifying for the postseason justonce.
His first stint as a head coach,with the New York Giants, was notan overwhelming success. He was23-34 in four seasons, including a9-7 record in 1981, when the teammade the playoffs. But Perkins de-veloped several players whoformed the core of the Giants’ 1986Super Bowl-winning team, includ-ing quarterback Phil Simms andlinebackers Harry Carson andLawrence Taylor. He also hiredthe future head coaches Bill Beli-chick, Romeo Crennel and BillParcells, who succeeded him in1983.
Perkins returned to Alabamathat year to take over for Bryant.In his four years in Tuscaloosa, histeams won two-thirds of their reg-ular-season games and three bowlgames.
But compared with Bryant, whoturned the Crimson Tide into a na-tional powerhouse during hisquarter-century there, Perkinshad only middling success at Ala-bama. His teams were never incontention for a national title, fin-
ishing in the top 10 only once. Inhis second season, Alabama fin-ished 5-6; it was the team’s firstlosing season since 1957, the yearbefore Bryant took over the pro-gram.
Perkins left Alabama after fouryears and returned to the N.F.L. in1987, this time to coach the TampaBay Buccaneers. With the addi-
tional title of vice president ofplayer personnel, he had an evenharder time winning games, going19-41 as head coach in four sea-sons in Tampa.
Perkins spent one losing seasoncoaching at Arkansas State andseven years as an offensive co-ordinator and position coach withthe New England Patriots, Oak-land Raiders and ClevelandBrowns. After more than a decadeaway from the sidelines, he re-sumed coaching in 2012 at a junior
college and then at Oak GroveHigh School in Hattiesburg, Miss.,near where he had grown up. Hefully retired from football in 2017.
Through his long career,Perkins earned a reputation as aworkaholic, often at the expenseof his family.
“I don’t remember taking a va-cation,” he told The New YorkTimes in 1979, when he took overthe Giants. Then he rememberedone: “There was a week once inToledo Bend — that’s in a corner ofLouisiana and Texas.”
Walter Ray Perkins was born onNov. 6, 1941, in tiny Mount Olive,Miss. — “the middle of nowhere,”he once said — the second of threechildren born to Woodrow andEmogene (Lingle) Perkins. Hisfather was a carpenter, and hismother was a homemaker. WhenRay was 3 the family moved to toPetal, Miss., a suburb of Hatties-burg.
He played running back on thefootball team at Petal High Schooland won a scholarship to Ala-bama. Bryant moved him to widereceiver after a serious head inju-ry during his freshman season re-quired surgery. Perkins become acornerstone of Alabama’s offensebetween 1964 and 1966, the hey-
day of the tough-nosed Bryant’stenure there.
Perkins was a teammate of thefuture Hall of Fame quarterbacksJoe Namath and Ken Stabler, andwas chosen as an All-American in1966. Alabama won the Southeast-ern Conference title in all three ofPerkins’s seasons and was na-tional champion in 1964 and 1965.
While his college statistics — 63catches for 908 yards and 9 touch-downs — were modest comparedwith those of players in today’spass-first offenses, Perkins, in thereflective glow of having played atAlabama, was picked in the sev-enth round of the N.F.L. draft bythe Baltimore Colts, who were inthe midst of their own heyday, ledby the star quarterback JohnnyUnitas and Coach Don Shula (whodied in May).
Unitas was wary of young re-ceivers, but he took an immediateshine to Perkins, who had goodspeed and an intuitive grasp of thegame. “I could tell right awaywhen he came to the team that helooked like he had been playing forfour or five years in the N.F.L.,”said Upton Bell, the Colts’ directorof player personnel in those years.
Perkins played five seasons atwide receiver and appeared ineight playoff games, including Su-per Bowl V, when the Colts beatthe Dallas Cowboys, 16-13, fortheir lone title in Baltimore.
After several knee surgeries,Perkins finished his N.F.L. careerin 1971 with 93 catches for 1,538yards and 11 touchdowns.
Perkins’s first marriage endedin divorce. In addition to hisdaughter Rachael, from his sec-ond marriage, he is survived byhis second wife, Lisa Perkins; twosons from his first marriage, Mar-tin Anthony Perkins, known asTony, and Michael Ray Perkins,who works for the JacksonvilleJaguars of the N.F.L.; anotherdaughter from his second mar-riage, Shelby Perkins; a sister, Su-san Thornton; and two grandchil-dren. Another sister, Shirley Sell-ers, died in 2007.
Ray Perkins led Alabama’s Crimson Tide after Bear Bryant, his mentor, retired in the 1980s. He remained in Tuscaloosa for four years.AL MESSERSCHMIDT/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ray Perkins, 79, a Hard-Driving Head Coach, Dies
Perkins with the Giants quarterback Phil Simms in 1981.RAY STUBBLEBINE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
By KEN BELSON
Hiring Belichick,Crennel and Parcellswhile with the Giants.
BUENOS AIRES — Dr. TabaréVázquez, a former Uruguayanpresident who ushered in 15 yearsof leftist leadership and continuedto practice as a physician while inoffice, died on Sunday at his homein Montevideo, Uruguay. He was80.
His son Dr. Álvaro Vázquez saidthe cause was lung cancer. Theelder Dr. Vázquez, an oncologist,announced in August 2019, towardthe end of his term, that he had thedisease.
Both his parents and a sisterdied of cancer, motivating him tomake that his medical specialty.And as president, he battled to-bacco companies and imposedone of the strictest antismokingregulations in the world.
His successor, President LuisLacalle Pou, who took over inMarch, declared three days ofmourning.
The election of President La-calle Pou, of the center-right Na-tional Party, marked the end of a15-year streak in the presidencyfor the Broad Front, a coalition ofleftist parties. Dr. Vázquez himselfhad started that run in 2005, whenhis alliance defeated the two tradi-tional center-right parties thathad long dominated Uruguayanpolitics. He was one of several left-leaning politicians who tookpower in Latin America at thetime.
Entering office on the heels ofan economic crisis, Dr. Vázquezpursued market-friendly reformswhile promoting social welfareprograms, including a plan to giveall public-school students free lap-tops and the expansion of pen-sions and public health care.
He made headlines around theworld when he turned Uruguayinto the first Latin Americancountry to prohibit smoking in-doors, part of an anti-tobacco cru-sade that led the cigarette makerPhilip Morris to file a lawsuitagainst the country at the WorldBank’s International Center forSettlement of Investment Dis-putes in 2010. Uruguay won thesuit in 2016.
A specialist in breast cancer, hecontinued to see patients one daya week at the clinic where he hadlong worked. “Practicing medi-cine is not only my vocation, itgives me an opportunity to contin-ue to be in direct contact with peo-ple, to see them and hear theirneeds,” President Vázquez said inan interview with The New YorkTimes in 2006.
He also promoted an effort to in-vestigate crimes committed dur-ing the military dictatorship that
ruled the country from 1973through 1985.
He was known for his centristpolicies; he even went against hisown party when he vetoed a bill in2008 that would have legalizedabortion. The practice was legal-ized four years later.
The Uruguayan constitutionbars consecutive presidentialterms, so Dr. Vázquez left office in2010, with a high approval rating.He was succeeded by José Mujica,also of the Broad Front, and afterMr. Mujica’s presidency, Dr.Vázquez again ran for presidentand won in a runoff in November2014.
His second term was more diffi-cult than the first. His popularitysuffered when the economy beganto stagnate amid increasing un-employment and rising crime. Acorruption scandal forced his vicepresident, Raúl Sendic, to resignin September 2017.
All of that contributed to Mr. La-calle Pou’s winning a narrow vic-tory in November 2019 after aclosely contested runoff againstthe Broad Front candidate, DanielMartínez.
Tabaré Ramón Vázquez Rosaswas born on Jan. 17, 1940, in the LaTeja neighborhood of Montevideo,the capital. He was one of five chil-dren of Héctor Vázquez, a unionleader who worked at the state-owned oil company Ancap, andElena Rosas, a homemaker.
Dr. Vázquez graduated from theSchool of Medicine at Uruguay’sUniversidad de la Republica in1969, working as a carpenter and awaiter to finance his studies. Hechose oncology as his specialty af-ter his parents and a sister haddied of cancer.
He married María AuxiliadoraDelgado, a civil servant, in 1964.She died in 2019. He is survived bytheir four sons, Álvaro, Javier, Ig-nacio and Fabián; nine grandchil-dren; and a brother, Jorge.
Dr. Vázquez joined the SocialistParty in 1983, which he had to doin secret because the country wasunder military rule. In 1989, fouryears after that military ruleended, he won the mayoralty ofMontevideo as a Broad Front can-didate. He then lost two presiden-tial elections, in 1994 and 1999, be-fore winning in 2004.
Tabaré Vázquez, 80, DoctorAnd Ex-Leader of Uruguay
By DANIEL POLITI
Tabaré Vázquez in 2017, during his second term as president.SERGEY GUNEEV/SPUTNIK, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
An oncologist whopushed some of thetoughest anti-tobaccorules in the world.
Cohen, Gerald
Copeland, Miriam
Cortese, Edward
Erlich, Helen
Kleiner, Robert
Mandle, Roger
McCormack, E.
Ober, Elizabeth
Plimpton, Peter
Shapiro, Stanley
Solowey, Debra
COHEN—Gerald David.
On Thursday, December 3,
Gerald Cohen, son of the late
Frances and Leo Cohen,
passed away at age 85. The
founder and CEO, Gerald la-
ter served as Chairman of the
Board of Information Buil-
ders, Inc. (ibi), once the lar-
gest privately held software
company in New York City.
Gerald's family includes son
Jeffrey (father of his grand-
sons Benjamin and Mat-
thew); son Evan and son-in-
law Bengho; son Daniel
and daughter-in-law Rhonda
(parents of his grandchildren
Maxwell, Samantha, and Alli-
son); son Adam (father of his
granddaughter Molly); nieces
Francine and Jeanine; and an
army of friends and former
colleagues. His brother Ber-
nard passed on December 7
at the age of 90. Born and
raised on the Upper West
Side of New York City, Gerald
earned a B.A. in Mechanical
Engineering from CCNY and
an MA in Engineering from
Columbia University. After
marrying Sybil Cohen, he be-
gan developing Ramis soft-
ware, often cited as the
world's first fourth-gener-
ation language (4GL) at
Mathematica in 1965. Sales of
Ramis were brisk because it
was the first 4GL product to
be sold by a company other
than IBM. Cohen conceived
new ideas of selling software
directly to large corporations
and left Mathematica to
found ibi with Peter Mittel-
man (also a Ramis develo-
per) and Dr. Martin Slagowitz
in 1975. Cohen devised
FOCUS, a 4GL software pro-
duct that allows computer
users with little training to
manipulate data using stan-
dard English. Originally used
through timesharing (think
Cloud services in the 1980s),
the revenue stream enabled
ibi to fund development of
FOCUS for other systems be-
yond the mainframe. By the
end of 1987, ibi was among
the three largest privately-
held software companies in
the United States. A lifelong
believer in learning, Cohen
graduated in 1991 with a
Master of Arts degree from
St. John's College in New
Mexico. He also received
numerous patents for his
technologies, including Ac-
tive Reports. Another innova-
tion conceived by Cohen was
EDA (later iWay), a data ac-
cess tool released the same
year. iWay integrated any da-
tabase and application files,
and application programs, in
multiple operating environ-
ments. FOCUS for Windows
debuted in 1994. Later that
year, he married Pamela
Zimmerman (who prede-
ceased him on June 27, 2020).
The company introduced
WebFOCUS in 1996, a power-
ful tool to display reports on
the Internet. Gerald segued
from CEO to Chairman of the
Board of ibi in 2019. Earlier
this year, after ibi agreed to
be acquired by TIBCO Soft-
ware Inc., a global leader in
enterprise data, Gerald an-
nounced his retirement. Ger-
ald also served as Chairman
of the New York Software In-
dustry Association. He taught
at NYU and supported the
NYU Langone Medical Cen-
ter. He enjoyed bicycling,
paddle boarding and tennis.
He and Pamela loved film
and were avid Eric Clapton
concert-goers, along with
seeing more Grateful Dead
shows than three of his child-
ren. A private burial was held
in New Jersey, as well as a
virtual memorial. In lieu of
flowers, donations can be
made to the American Dia-
betes Association at:
http://main.diabetes.org/
goto/gerry.
COPELAND—MiriamD.,93, December 8, 2020. Proud
daughter of Brooklyn and
Midwood High School.
Earned BA in business admin
from NYU in 1948. With late
beloved husband, Bob
(Robert L.), helped found
Garden City Jewish Center;
headed its sisterhood. Orga-
nized major fundraisers for
UJA for many years. Sur-
vived by children Joanne
(David Hoffman), Debra,
Larry (Laurie Segal), and lov-
ing grandchildren Sean, Sara,
Lauren, Elliot, and Chuckie.
Graveside service Friday,
December 11, 11:00am, Mt.
Hebron Cemetery, Flushing,
NY.
CORTESE—Edward,a longtime and loyal execu-
tive with the LeFrak Organi-
zation, passed away peace-
fully Saturday, December 5,
at his Long Island home. Mr.
Cortese served his country
with distinction during the
Korean War where he served
as a Naval Aviator. A gra-
duate of Fordham University,
Mr. Cortese began his career
with LeFrak in 1960 as Mana-
ger of Marketing, Advertising
and Corporate Relations. Mr.
Cortese created all Market-
ing and PR campaigns for a
newly acquired property of 42
acres that was to become
LeFrak City. One of his most
recognizable marketing cam-
paigns was a 150' billboard
facing the Long Island Ex-
pressway with the slogan “IF
YOU LIVED HERE, DADDY,
YOU'D BE HOME NOW!” In
the 1980's Mr. Cortese would
lead the marketing launch of
LeFrak's most ambitious de-
velopment to date - Newport,
Jersey City. Mr. Cortese's
tireless work ethic and devot-
ed leadership will be remem-
bered by the many profes-
sionals he helped mentor, as
well as by the many col-
leagues who worked along-
side him during his long and
illustrious career with the
Company. He is survived by
his wife Frieda, his children
Edward Jr., Robert and Kristi-
na and extended family. The
LeFrak family and the firm's
employees wish to extend
their deepest sympathies and
condolences to Mr. Cortese's
family, and express our sin-
cere feelings that he will be
deeply missed.
ERLICH—Helen,passed away peacefully in
her home on December 6,
2020. Helen was a beloved
mother, sister, wife, grand-
mother, and great -
grandmother, a devoted
friend and member of her
community. Helen, a Holo-
caust survivor, was born as
Brandla Edelstein in Poland
in 1925. She married her be-
loved husband Murry (died
2000) in 1945 and emigrated to
New York in 1948. Helen had
a real love of life. She was
deeply devoted to her family
and instilled that love of fami-
ly, and a love of learning, in
her daughters. A strong, inde-
pendent, caring woman who
will be sorely missed, Helen is
survived by her daughters
Senia Feiner (Mark Feiner),
Shelley Holm (Paul Hammer-
schlag), grandchildren Jere-
my Safron, Joshua Safran
(Jess Camacho), Andrew
Holm (Jacqueline Holm), and
Elisabeth Holm (Daniel Ber-
ger), and great-grandchildren
Gemma and Joseph Holm.
Donations in her name can
be made to the Alzheimer's
Association and Park Avenue
Synagogue. A private grave-
side funeral will be held on
Wednesday, December 9th.
Gathering for Shiva will be
postponed due to COVID-19.
She will be in our hearts
forever.
KLEINER—Robert L.,79, passed away December 8,
2020. Tax attorney turned in-
dependent investor, athlete,
opera and art lover. Leaves
behind his second wife and
soul-mate Sally, his much
loved daughter Melissa and
grandchildren Alexa and
Jyllian.
MANDLE—Roger.
The Board of Trustees, staff,
faculty, and alumni of Rhode
Island School of Design
(RISD) note with great sad-
ness the passing of Roger
Mandle, RISD's 15th president
(1993-2008). We will be forev-
er grateful for his commit-
ment to the arts and educa-
tion, and for his success help-
ing to build RISD's global sta-
ture and impact. Even after
his tenure as president, Ro-
ger Mandle always consi-
dered the RISD community to
be part of his extended fami-
ly, and he remained actively
engaged in the life of the col-
lege and its alumni. His
boundless energy, generous
spirit, and far-reaching in-
fluence will be sorely missed,
but the legacy of his 15 years
as president will endure. We
extend our deepest sym-
pathies to his widow Gayle,
his family, and friends.
McCORMACK—Elizabeth.
Manhattanville College
mourns the loss of former
President and Trustee
Elizabeth McCormack. Eli-
zabeth J. McCormack, Ph.D.,
a graduate of Manhattanville
College served as its Pres-
ident from 1966-1974 and was
a member of the college's
Board of Trustees. She
passed away December 4 at
the age of 98. McCormack
was a pivotal figure in Man-
hattanville's history. She
served as president of Man-
hattanville during a period of
tremendous social and cultur-
al change for both the college
and the country. During her
tenure, she led the transfor-
mation of Manhattanville
from an elite Catholic wo-
men's institution to a non-
denominational, co-educa-
tional center of higher educa-
tion. Born Elizabeth Jane
McCormack on March 7, 1922
in New York City to Natalie
(nee Duffy) and George
Henry McCormack, her fami-
ly moved to Larchmont in
1925. McCormack attended
high school at Maplehurst, an
all-girls' boarding school in
the Bronx. After graduating,
McCormack applied to Man-
hattanville College - founded
by the Society of the Sacred
Heart religious order - where
she studied English literature
and philosophy. By the fall of
her senior year, McCormack
had reached a life-changing
decision years in the making:
After graduating in 1944, she
would join the Society of the
Sacred Heart. After teaching
at Catholic schools and earn-
ing her master's degree in
religious education in 1957
from Providence College,
McCormack was assigned in
1958 to work at Manhattan-
ville College as assistant to its
president, Mother Eleanor
O'Byrne, RSCJ. The role also
gave her the chance to
pursue a doctorate at Ford-
ham University. McCormack
served as Manhattanville's
academic dean beginning in
1962. In 1966, she was award-
ed her Ph.D. in philosophy
and shortly after became the
sixth president of the College.
McCormack entered her
presidency in the midst of tre-
mendous cultural upheaval.
She felt keenly that the Col-
lege must change as well to
reflect, and even embrace,
the societal shifts happening
across the nation. “The Cath-
olic college of today,” she
said in her inaugural address,
“will be judged by the role its
graduates play in helping
solve (hard questions).”
McCormack led with fierce
compassion for her students.
In 1969, when eighteen Black
students barricaded them-
selves in an academic build-
ing demanding racial justice,
McCormack barred outside
law enforcement. Instead,
she sat down with the protes-
ters - by climbing through a
window - and addressed their
demands. Her legacy also in-
cludes changing the name of
the college by dropping “of
the Sacred Heart” and intro-
ducing “the new curriculum”
focused on independent stu-
dy. In 1973, The New York
Times wrote the new system
had “turned Manhattanville
into one of the most educa-
tionally radical colleges in the
country.” In 1974, at the age of
51, she announced her resig-
nation from the Society of the
Sacred Heart and left her
post as president of Manhat-
tanville. In December of
1976 she married Jerome
(”Jerry”) Aron. McCormack,
a highly influential philan-
thropist, began advising the
Rockefeller family on its phi-
lanthropic causes in the 1970s,
a relationship that would last
decades. She served on
numerous foundation boards,
including that of the John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, the Atlantic Phi-
lanthropies, the Population
Council, The Julliard School,
and the Trust for Mutual Un-
derstanding, among others.
To make a donation to Man-
hattanville College in memo-
ry of Elizabeth McCormack,
please visit:
Alumni.mville.edu/
Elizabeth McCormack
McCORMACK—Elizabeth.StoryCorps' Board and staff
mourn the loss of our beloved
Board member and mentor,
Elizabeth McCormack. A
wise, fearless, and enlight-
ened human being, Elizabeth
understood like few others
the healing power of listen-
ing. While her presence will
be missed, her voice, and
wondrous spirit, will continue
to guide us.
Gara LaMarche, Board Chair
Dave Isay, Founder
and President
Robin Sparkman, CEO
OBER—Elizabeth Ann.Born in Chicago April 4, 1938,
died November 30, 2020 in
Litchfield, CT, Liz was a viva-
cious, stalwart Foreign Ser-
vice wife who, after studying
at DePauw and Boston Uni-
versity, supported her hus-
band Robert Fairchild Ober
Jr. during assignments in
Hamburg, Warsaw, Moscow
(three times), New Delhi, and
Athens, and his incumbency
as President of International
College, Beirut, Lebanon,
1998-01. She was president of
American women's clubs in
Moscow and New Delhi. In
1978, then-Senator Joe Biden,
whom she had guided around
Moscow, wrote the Charge
d'affaires that she belonged
in the Foreign Service itself!
She was a devoted and loving
mother of three: Elise La-
Fosse, a Docent at the Wads-
worth Atheneum, Hartford,
Abby Ober, an artist and in-
structor at St. Michael's, Ma-
ryland, and Robert F. Ober III,
a History teacher at Kent
School, Connecticut, and
owner of ober gallery. Their
spouses Laurent, John, and
Amy, and her four grand-
children, Natalie Laible, Rob
Laible, Rob Ober IV, and
Lucy Ober, and her friends
here and abroad will remem-
ber her abiding love.
PLIMPTON—Peter A.P.,died on December 5, age 69
from COVID 19. Retired Vice
President at Chase and em-
ployed by New York Blood
Center. Loving companion of
Ellen Marie Helinka, best
friend of Jim March. Peter,
who had a passion for milita-
ry history, was generous, in-
teresting, and funny. We will
remember him and smile.
Reposing Friday, December
11, 2-5pm at Riverdale-on-
Hudson Funeral Home.
SHAPIRO—Stanley,passed away peacefully on
December 7, 2020. Beloved
husband of the late Renee,
loving father of Adam (El-
len), Leslie (Ken) and David,
grandfather of Alexandra,
Caroline, Nicole, Anna, Kate,
Lily, William and James. A
Word War II Navy veteran, he
will be deeply missed and re-
membered warmly for his
charm, wit and selflessness
toward his family and many
friends. Services will be held
at 11:00am on Thursday, De-
cember 10 at Mt. Ararat Ce-
metery, 1165 NY-109, Linden-
hurst, NY 11757.
SOLOWEY—DebraNewman, PhD.Insightful and compassionate
psychologist. Graduate of the
University of Pennsylvania.
Cherished friend. Loving wife
to Jeffrey Solowey. Loving
sister to Eric Newman and
daughter of Gustave New-
man and Winifred Goldberg
Newman. Adored and ador-
ing mother of Jack and Mat-
thew Solowey and daughter-
s-in-law Kyra Edson Solowey
and Leah Connor. She will be
deeply missed.
Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths Deaths
B12 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
20°
30°
40°
50°
60°
70°
Record
highs
Normal
highs
Normal
lows
Record
lows
S S M T W T
TODAY
F S S M
High High
ActualForecast
range
LowLow
Color bands
indicate water
temperature.
60s
50s
White33/16 A bit of morning snow
Green31/18 Morning snow showers
Adirondacks32/22 Cloudy
Berkshires40/23 Times of clouds and sun
Catskills39/26 Clouds and sun
Poconos43/31 Clouds and sun, milder
Southwest Pa.47/36 Milder, morning fog
West Virginia53/36 Times of clouds and sun
Blue Ridge57/35 Times of clouds and sun
Today’s forecast
HH
H
H
LLL
LLL
70s70s70s70s
80s0s
40ss40s0s
30s3
20s20s
10s10s10s1
s0s
<0
<0
80s
80s
70s
7070s70s
70s
70s70s70s60s
60s
60s
50s0
50s5
50s
40s40s40s
40s
40s0s
30s330330s
30s
0s30s30s
20s20s
20s20s20ssss
s20s0s20s2222
10s
Pierre
BismarckFargoFargFargo
MinneapolisMinneapolisMinneapolisnn St. PaulS
ChicChicagoChica
eeMilwauke
liIndianapolislia
Detroit
Cleveland Pittsburghghgh
WashingtonWashiashi
PhiladelphiaPhi
New YorkN
chmondRichm
NorfolkNNN
ghRaleigh
Charlotte
biaColumb
Atlanta
JacksonvilleJ
OrlandoOrOO
Tampaa
Miami
Nassau
Birminghamm
MobileMo
NewNew
Orleans
Jackson
Baton Rougeo
Little RockMemphisMeMe
eNashvillee
LouisvilleCharlestonC to
Sioux Fallsx Casper
Cheyenne
Denver
Colooradoo
Sppringsp
egWWinnipegW
Regina
BilillingsBil
Helena
seBoisis
Spokaneanekane
VancouverVaVa
attleSeaea
Renoo
SaSan Franciscoan FrancSan Franc co
noFresnn
Los Angeles
SSan Diegoan Diean Die
Honoluluoluluuu
HiloH
FairbanksFairb
AnchorageAnchoragageageAnchorAnchor
Juneaueau
PhoenixPhoPhoe
onTucsoo
Las
VegasVegasVegas
Salt Lakeakeake
CitCityCit
AlbuqueAlbuquerqueAlbuque
Santaa Feta
LubbockEEl PasoEl Ft. Wortht. Wot. Wo
Dallas
Oklahoma Ca Citya C60
San AntonioAan AoustonHou
Corpus ChristiCCC
MMonterreyM
Eugenne
Portlanand
AlbanyAA
HartfordHaraaoBuffaloo
ToToronontoont
Ottawa
Montreal
cQuebebecueb
Burlingtononn nManchesterMaM
BostonBos
PortlandPoPorPo
HalifaxH
Des MoinesDes MoinesDes Moines
OOmahaO a
Topekaekaeka
Wichita
KansasKa
CityiSt. Louis.
Springfielde
LLLLL
LHHH
Unusuallywarm
Unusuallycool
Rain
T-storms
Snow
Rain, Snow & Ice
JET STREAM
A large storm will bring precipitation to the eastern third of the nation this weekend. Moderate to heavy snow may fall from the western Great Lakes to northern Maine. Rain and thunderstorms will sweep across the South and Middle Atlantic region in the warmer air. In the West, rain and mountain snow will signal the arrival of another Northwest storm.
Highlight: The Weekend Outlook Metropolitan Almanac
In Central Park, for the 16 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday.
Reservoir levels (New York City water supply)
Yesterday ............... 77%Est. normal ............. 82%
Temperature
10°
20°
30°
40°
50°
60°
Recordhigh 66°(1966)
high 45°Normal
low 34°Normal
(1876)low 7°Record
31°2 p.m.
Noon38°
TUE. YESTERDAY
4p.m.
12a.m.
6a.m.
12p.m.
4p.m.
Avg. daily departure Avg. daily departurefrom normal from normalthis month...................... -0.7° this year......................... +2.3°
Precipitation (in inches)
Yesterday ............... 0.05Record .................... 2.54
Snow ..................... TraceSince Oct. 1 .......... Trace
For the last 30 daysActual ..................... 4.77Normal .................... 4.08
For the last 365 daysActual ................... 46.24Normal .................. 49.92
LAST 30 DAYS
Air pressure
High ........... 29.88 1 a.m.Low ............ 29.76 2 p.m.
Humidity
High ............. 88% 2 p.m.Low .............. 49% 1 a.m.
Heating Degree Days
An index of fuel consumption that tracks howfar the day's mean temperature fell below 65
Yesterday................................................................... 30So far this month...................................................... 220So far this season (since July 1) .............................. 837Normal to date for the season ............................... 1045
Trends Temperature PrecipitationAverage Average
Below BelowAbove Above
Last 10 days
30 days
90 days
365 days
Chart shows how recent temperature and precipitationtrends compare with those of the last 30 years.
H L
TODAY’S HIGHS
FRONTS PRESSURE
COLD HIGH LOW RAINSHOWERS ICEFLURRIES SNOWT-STORMSMOSTLY
CLOUDY
WARM STATIONARY COMPLEXCOLD PRECIPITATION
<0 0s 10s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 100+
Weather patterns shown as expected at noon today, Eastern time.
CitiesHigh/low temperatures for the 16 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches) for the 16 hours ended at 4 p.m. yesterday.Expected conditions for today and tomorrow.
C ........................ CloudsF ............................. FogH .......................... HazeI............................... IcePC ............. Partly cloudyR ........................... RainSh ................... Showers
S .............................SunSn ....................... SnowSS .......... Snow showersT ............ ThunderstormsTr ......................... TraceW ........................ Windy–............... Not available Recreational Forecast
Sun, Moon and Planets
Weather Report Meteorology by AccuWeather
Sun
Jupiter
Saturn
Moon
Mars
Venus
National Forecast
Boating
New First Quarter Full Last Quarter
Dec. 14 Dec. 21 Dec. 29 Jan. 6
Mountain and Ocean Temperatures
11:17 a.m. 10:29 p.m.
RISE 7:10 a.m. SET 4:28 p.m. NEXT R 7:10 a.m.
R 9:51 a.m. S 7:23 p.m.
R 9:55 a.m. S 7:30 p.m.
R 2:04 a.m. S 1:56 p.m. R 3:18 a.m.
S 2:20 a.m. R 1:20 p.m.
R 5:03 a.m. S 3:04 p.m.
United States Yesterday Today Tomorrow
N.Y.C. region Yesterday Today Tomorrow
50/ 38 S 54/ 44 PCBridgeport 40/ 27 0.12 49/ 34 S 50/ 39 PCCaldwell 39/ 26 0.01 50/ 31 PC 54/ 36 PCDanbury 38/ 20 Tr 46/ 26 PC 51/ 34 PCIslip 40/ 26 0.16 49/ 32 S 54/ 40 PCNewark 40/ 29 0.02 51/ 34 S 55/ 40 PCTrenton 39/ 26 0.03 49/ 30 S 52/ 38 PCWhite Plains 38/ 27 0.01 48/ 32 PC 49/ 37 PC
Albany 33/ 30 0.08 39/ 24 C 42/ 32 PCAlbuquerque 56/ 33 0 45/ 33 Sh 48/ 26 ShAnchorage 28/ 20 0 24/ 9 SS 14/ 10 PCAtlanta 60/ 39 0 66/ 41 S 65/ 49 SAtlantic City 48/ 39 0 54/ 40 S 60/ 47 PCAustin 81/ 42 0 78/ 61 PC 75/ 51 RBaltimore 46/ 36 0.01 55/ 36 S 58/ 42 PCBaton Rouge 70/ 44 0 73/ 52 S 71/ 60 CBirmingham 62/ 39 0 68/ 42 S 67/ 54 PCBoise 39/ 23 0 40/ 22 PC 38/ 24 PCBoston 38/ 32 0.04 46/ 29 S 48/ 37 PCBuffalo 40/ 35 0.30 43/ 34 PC 48/ 38 FBurlington 35/ 31 0.10 38/ 28 Sn 43/ 33 CCasper 52/ 24 0 33/ 17 C 29/ 15 SnCharlotte 55/ 34 0 62/ 37 S 62/ 41 SChattanooga 60/ 35 0 65/ 38 S 65/ 47 PCChicago 50/ 32 0 52/ 37 S 44/ 38 RCincinnati 51/ 30 0 54/ 41 PC 57/ 47 PCCleveland 42/ 32 Tr 48/ 39 F 50/ 43 FColorado Springs 62/ 36 0 47/ 25 C 33/ 20 SnColumbus 46/ 29 Tr 50/ 37 S 55/ 44 PCConcord, N.H. 35/ 24 0.02 40/ 20 PC 44/ 26 PCDallas-Ft. Worth 75/ 44 0 76/ 60 PC 71/ 41 RDenver 64/ 28 0 42/ 22 C 31/ 16 SnDes Moines 55/ 32 0 54/ 32 PC 38/ 29 RDetroit 45/ 31 0 45/ 35 F 46/ 37 FEl Paso 66/ 42 0 60/ 42 Sh 61/ 37 SFargo 44/ 28 0 38/ 22 C 32/ 17 CHartford 39/ 30 0.03 46/ 26 PC 49/ 34 PCHonolulu 84/ 70 0.02 85/ 72 PC 85/ 73 PCHouston 76/ 49 0 77/ 63 S 72/ 61 TIndianapolis 50/ 28 0 54/ 39 S 53/ 48 PCJackson 68/ 41 0 72/ 47 S 68/ 57 CJacksonville 62/ 41 0 69/ 42 S 70/ 47 SKansas City 64/ 36 0 62/ 36 PC 41/ 32 RKey West 67/ 60 0 69/ 64 S 73/ 70 PCLas Vegas 65/ 45 0 64/ 40 S 60/ 37 SLexington 52/ 30 0 56/ 40 PC 60/ 47 PC
Little Rock 69/ 38 0 71/ 48 S 64/ 51 RLos Angeles 72/ 49 0 64/ 48 PC 63/ 48 SLouisville 57/ 34 0 59/ 43 PC 62/ 51 PCMemphis 66/ 43 0 70/ 49 S 66/ 56 PCMiami 66/ 47 0 71/ 59 S 75/ 68 PCMilwaukee 45/ 33 0 49/ 37 PC 43/ 35 RMpls.-St. Paul 46/ 32 0 44/ 29 PC 36/ 27 CNashville 63/ 37 0 67/ 43 PC 66/ 52 PCNew Orleans 70/ 49 0 73/ 56 S 72/ 62 CNorfolk 52/ 38 0 54/ 40 S 65/ 52 PCOklahoma City 70/ 35 0 68/ 44 PC 49/ 33 ShOmaha 60/ 31 0 50/ 31 PC 38/ 27 ROrlando 61/ 43 0 70/ 47 S 72/ 55 PCPhiladelphia 42/ 36 0.01 50/ 34 S 57/ 42 PCPhoenix 79/ 56 0 61/ 50 Sh 63/ 45 SPittsburgh 40/ 28 0.02 47/ 34 F 53/ 40 FPortland, Me. 33/ 25 Tr 42/ 25 PC 41/ 31 CPortland, Ore. 50/ 36 0.18 45/ 39 R 44/ 36 ShProvidence 38/ 31 0.08 47/ 28 S 51/ 38 PCRaleigh 52/ 34 0 59/ 36 S 65/ 43 SReno 52/ 26 0 53/ 24 PC 43/ 29 CRichmond 49/ 30 0 56/ 36 S 62/ 43 SRochester 39/ 35 0.16 43/ 31 C 50/ 39 FSacramento 65/ 38 0 64/ 35 S 58/ 40 PCSalt Lake City 44/ 26 0 39/ 27 C 37/ 26 SSSan Antonio 80/ 45 0 76/ 62 PC 74/ 52 CSan Diego 70/ 51 0 65/ 52 PC 64/ 46 PCSan Francisco 63/ 46 0 59/ 45 W 56/ 46 PCSan Jose 66/ 41 0 61/ 40 PC 57/ 41 PCSan Juan 84/ 72 0 84/ 74 PC 83/ 74 PCSeattle 50/ 39 0.12 47/ 39 PC 46/ 35 ShSioux Falls 54/ 33 0 44/ 26 PC 36/ 22 CSpokane 38/ 27 0.12 37/ 24 C 31/ 24 SnSt. Louis 62/ 37 0 64/ 41 S 54/ 45 RSt. Thomas 84/ 75 0 84/ 75 PC 83/ 75 PCSyracuse 38/ 35 0.12 41/ 31 C 50/ 39 PCTampa 64/ 52 0 72/ 54 S 73/ 58 SToledo 45/ 30 0 49/ 37 F 49/ 42 FTucson 78/ 53 0 61/ 44 Sh 61/ 38 STulsa 69/ 36 0 71/ 49 PC 56/ 38 RVirginia Beach 54/ 38 0 55/ 41 S 67/ 52 PCWashington 46/ 37 0 53/ 39 S 59/ 45 PCWichita 67/ 32 0 61/ 37 PC 41/ 31 RWilmington, Del. 42/ 33 0.01 50/ 32 S 55/ 41 PC
Africa Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Asia/Pacific Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Algiers 59/ 48 0.34 63/ 53 R 67/ 59 CCairo 73/ 55 0 73/ 56 S 78/ 59 CCape Town 75/ 62 0 74/ 58 PC 70/ 58 CDakar 82/ 74 0 83/ 73 PC 85/ 74 PCJohannesburg 76/ 56 0.04 81/ 60 C 83/ 60 TNairobi 77/ 60 0.04 78/ 57 C 79/ 57 PCTunis 59/ 49 0.08 60/ 52 PC 63/ 55 Sh
Baghdad 70/ 48 0 66/ 46 PC 65/ 44 PCBangkok 88/ 70 0 89/ 72 PC 90/ 76 PCBeijing 39/ 19 0 47/ 22 PC 43/ 21 PCDamascus 66/ 45 0 60/ 37 PC 62/ 38 PCHong Kong 70/ 60 0 71/ 66 PC 73/ 66 PCJakarta 91/ 77 0 89/ 76 Sh 86/ 76 TJerusalem 59/ 47 0 61/ 44 S 62/ 47 CKarachi 84/ 59 0 85/ 60 PC 82/ 55 PCManila 88/ 76 0.22 84/ 76 Sh 85/ 76 TMumbai 93/ 73 0 91/ 77 PC 90/ 77 C
South America Yesterday Today Tomorrow
North America Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Europe Yesterday Today Tomorrow
New Delhi 83/ 56 0 81/ 56 PC 79/ 57 PCRiyadh 77/ 50 0 70/ 48 PC 66/ 46 SSeoul 43/ 19 0 49/ 32 PC 49/ 32 PCShanghai 58/ 43 0 59/ 49 C 56/ 47 CSingapore 90/ 75 0.33 88/ 77 Sh 86/ 77 CSydney 76/ 57 0 77/ 57 W 69/ 55 CTaipei City 70/ 64 0.55 75/ 67 C 76/ 67 ShTehran 46/ 32 0 44/ 31 PC 43/ 31 STokyo 52/ 45 0.04 54/ 48 R 56/ 48 PC
Amsterdam 38/ 30 Tr 38/ 30 PC 40/ 39 ShAthens 66/ 54 0.14 63/ 49 T 60/ 57 RBerlin 39/ 34 0.15 34/ 28 PC 36/ 31 CBrussels 38/ 29 0 40/ 31 PC 44/ 42 RBudapest 43/ 34 0.14 41/ 33 R 41/ 35 CCopenhagen 41/ 39 0.06 39/ 35 Sh 39/ 37 RDublin 46/ 33 0.21 47/ 43 Sh 47/ 38 ShEdinburgh 45/ 39 0.06 43/ 40 C 46/ 42 ShFrankfurt 39/ 30 0.02 36/ 28 PC 37/ 37 CGeneva 41/ 31 0.04 38/ 31 PC 41/ 39 RHelsinki 28/ 24 0 29/ 26 PC 33/ 31 SnIstanbul 59/ 44 0 61/ 52 PC 60/ 51 PCKiev 26/ 19 0.08 31/ 29 C 32/ 26 CLisbon 58/ 50 0.40 63/ 59 R 63/ 59 ShLondon 45/ 38 0.23 46/ 43 C 50/ 41 RMadrid 51/ 31 0 57/ 52 Sh 61/ 47 ShMoscow 29/ 12 0 27/ 17 S 26/ 16 PCNice 57/ 43 0.02 54/ 43 C 51/ 45 ROslo 34/ 29 0.17 32/ 28 SS 30/ 28 SnParis 40/ 30 Tr 44/ 40 PC 52/ 43 RPrague 39/ 37 0.31 39/ 32 Sh 36/ 31 CRome 55/ 45 0.34 55/ 44 Sh 55/ 46 CSt. Petersburg 29/ 23 0 30/ 19 S 32/ 30 SnStockholm 36/ 34 0.19 36/ 33 Sh 37/ 35 RVienna 41/ 37 0.25 38/ 33 PC 39/ 36 CWarsaw 31/ 28 0 35/ 34 Sn 39/ 35 C
Acapulco 87/ 75 0 88/ 75 S 88/ 73 SBermuda 67/ 62 0.02 71/ 64 PC 69/ 64 PCEdmonton 32/ 24 0 26/ 9 S 20/ 11 CGuadalajara 82/ 50 0 80/ 47 PC 78/ 47 THavana 72/ 61 0 71/ 56 PC 77/ 61 PCKingston 81/ 74 0.04 84/ 74 Sh 85/ 74 PCMartinique 86/ 66 0.01 85/ 73 PC 85/ 73 PCMexico City 72/ 49 0 74/ 52 C 75/ 52 PCMonterrey 76/ 42 0 79/ 53 S 85/ 51 SMontreal 33/ 24 0.17 36/ 29 C 40/ 30 CNassau 72/ 63 0 73/ 66 PC 77/ 69 PCPanama City 89/ 75 0.19 86/ 73 Sh 88/ 74 PCQuebec City 26/ 16 0.02 34/ 24 C 33/ 23 CSanto Domingo 87/ 71 0.01 85/ 70 C 84/ 70 PCToronto 42/ 34 0.05 42/ 34 PC 44/ 34 CVancouver 46/ 40 Tr 46/ 38 C 43/ 34 PCWinnipeg 39/ 21 0 32/ 20 PC 28/ 16 C
Buenos Aires 84/ 68 0 89/ 69 S 81/ 64 ShCaracas 87/ 73 0 87/ 72 PC 86/ 72 PCLima 72/ 65 0 75/ 65 C 75/ 65 PCQuito 63/ 51 0.45 66/ 53 R 67/ 52 ShRecife 82/ 73 0.11 85/ 78 PC 84/ 77 PCRio de Janeiro 79/ 74 0.15 78/ 73 R 80/ 74 TSantiago 90/ 54 0 75/ 48 S 82/ 53 S
From Montauk Point to Sandy Hook, N.J., out to 20 nautical miles, including Long Island Sound and New York Harbor.
Wind will be from the northwest at 10-20 knots. Waves will be 1 foot or less on New York Harbor, 1-2 feet on Long Island Sound and 2-4 feet on the ocean. Visibility will be generally unrestricted.
Atlantic City .................... 3:10 a.m. .............. 3:22 p.m.Barnegat Inlet ................. 3:23 a.m. .............. 3:38 p.m.The Battery ..................... 3:53 a.m. .............. 4:06 p.m.Beach Haven .................. 4:42 a.m. .............. 4:57 p.m.Bridgeport ...................... 6:53 a.m. .............. 7:23 p.m.City Island ....................... 6:49 a.m. .............. 7:23 p.m.Fire Island Lt. .................. 4:10 a.m. .............. 4:25 p.m.Montauk Point ................ 4:44 a.m. .............. 5:06 p.m.Northport ....................... 7:01 a.m. .............. 7:36 p.m.Port Washington ............. 6:58 a.m. .............. 7:44 p.m.Sandy Hook .................... 3:24 a.m. .............. 3:39 p.m.Shinnecock Inlet ............. 3:14 a.m. .............. 3:35 p.m.Stamford ........................ 6:51 a.m. .............. 7:26 p.m.Tarrytown ....................... 5:42 a.m. .............. 5:55 p.m.Willets Point .................... 6:52 a.m. .............. 7:27 p.m.
High Tides
New York City 38/ 31 0.05
Metropolitan Forecast
TODAY .....................................Mostly sunny
High 50. A milder weather pattern willbegin to take hold. High pressure willbring plenty of sunshine. The temperaturewill climb a few degrees above average.
TONIGHT ..................................Partly cloudy
Low 38. High pressure will bring dryweather and clear skies throughout thenight. The temperature will remain a bitabove average, with just a light breeze.
TOMORROW .....................Partly sunny, mild
High 52. The milder weather pattern willcontinue. As the high pressure centershifts offshore, there will be a light breezeunder a partly sunny sky.
SATURDAY ..........................Cloudy and mild
High pressure will move farther away. Thiswill allow clouds to return, along with apossibility of showers. Despite this, the airwill continue to get milder.
SUNDAYMONDAY ...........................Mild, then cooler
Sunday will be variably cloudy and mildwith showers. High 55. Monday will becooler, with clouds and sunshine andpossible rain at night. High 45.
A storm that brought accumulatingsnow and flurries to part of the Northeaston Wednesday will move offshore. As thestorm leaves, spotty snow will taper offover northern New England, but chilly airwill linger over the Northeast in general.
Meanwhile, warm air will continue tobuild from the southern Plains to theMississippi, Ohio and Tennessee valleys.Temperatures can climb to as much as 25degrees above average in some placesunder sunshine. A wedge of cool air willbegin to drop in over the northern Plains.
A storm will bring long-awaited rain toparts of the Arizona and New Mexicodeserts, with snow over the mountains inboth states, as well as Colorado.
While California will be dry, showers willapproach the coastal Northwest.
A few snow showers will be scatteredfrom the Adirondack Mountains throughnorthern New England. A trend to milderweather will begin across the rest of theregion, with plenty of sunshine over theBlue Ridge and West Virginia mountainsand a mix of clouds and sunshine fartherto the north.
Sauté. Sear. Simmer. Savor.Discover thousands of expert-tested recipes, how-to guides for every skill level, plus more.
nytcooking.com
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020 C1
N
NEWS CRITICISM
5 MUSIC
John Lennon’s lessons fromsolitude. BY BARBARA GRAUSTARK
7 MUSIC
A critic holds fast to his troveof CDs. BY ANTHONY TOMMASINI
4 BOOK REVIEW
How Leonardoapplied scientificknowledge topainting. BY PARUL SEHGAL
When Robert F. Smith, the billionairephilanthropist, became the new chair-man of Carnegie Hall in 2016, he seemedalmost too good to be true.
He promised to be a stabilizing pres-ence at Carnegie after the brief, tumul-tuous reign of his predecessor. Mr. Smithwas a benefactor with deep pockets anda strong interest in the hall’s educationefforts. He was the rare board leader ofcolor in a field where diversity lags. Andhe was cheered as a national hero lastyear when, during his commencementaddress at Morehouse College, hepledged to pay off the student debt of theentire graduating class.
So it came as a shock this fall when Mr.
Smith, 58, admitted to having played asupporting role in what federal prosecu-tors called the largest tax evasion case inU.S. history — acknowledging that hehad “willfully failed to report” over $200million in income — and signed a non-prosecution agreement in which heagreed to pay large fines and cooperatewith investigators.
Mr. Smith’s admission that he hadfailed to report a substantial amount ofincome to the Internal Revenue Servicemade Carnegie Hall the latest in a line ofmajor cultural institutions that havefound themselves facing questions aboutthe actions of the benefactors that theyrely on for their very survival. Carnegie’sleaders are standing firmly behind Mr.Smith, even as some philanthropy ex-perts question whether he should remainin the position.
“I am a huge fan,” said Sanford I. Weill,a member of Carnegie’s board whoserved as its chairman for 29 years. “Hehas done an outstanding job leading Car-negie Hall. He has been very philan-thropic and he has helped grow our insti-tution to reach new heights.”
The news could not have landed at amore difficult moment for Carnegie, thenation’s premiere concert hall, with itsstage silenced by the pandemic that hasput the classical music industry in crisis.A poster near its locked front doors thisfall riffed on the ancient joke — “How doyou get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, prac-tice, practice!” — with a plea for “Pa-tience, patience, patience.”
By way of explanation, Mr. Smith hasessentially said he is human and he issorry.
“I can learn from my mistakes. And Ihave,” Mr. Smith — who declined to be in-
Carnegie HallStill SupportsIts ChairmanAmid Tax CaseRobert F. Smith hasadmitted playing a rolein a long-running scheme.
By ROBIN POGREBIN
CONTINUED ON PAGE C6
But some outside expertsquestion whether heshould keep his job.Others sing his praises.
It’s a tale that has long been repeated at theuniversity and medical center in Baltimorethat bear his name: In 1807, the 12-year-oldJohns Hopkins was summoned home fromboarding school to work the fields of thefamily’s sprawling tobacco farm in Mary-land after his father, following the directives
of his Quaker faith, freed the family’s slaves.Young Johns grew up to be a wildly suc-
cessful businessman and, as the story goes,a committed abolitionist. And on his deathin 1873, he left $7 million — the largest phil-anthropic bequest in American history atthat time — to found the nation’s first re-search university, along with a hospital thatwould serve the city’s poor “without regard
to sex, age or color.”Hopkins’s Quaker rectitude has been a
touchstone for the institution he founded.But an important part of that origin story, itturns out, is untrue.
On Wednesday, Johns Hopkins Univer-sity released new research revealing thatthere were enslaved people in its founding
Records indicate
that Johns Hopkins,
above circa 1870,
once owned
enslaved people.
JHU SHERIDAN LIBRARIES/GADO, VIA GETTY IMAGES
Johns Hopkins’s Feet of ClayNew research suggests the university founder’s anti-slavery reputation was unearned.
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
CONTINUED ON PAGE C4
For more than 40 years, Ronald S. Laudercollected knights in shining armor. Now hehas decided to be one.
As cultural institutions all over the worldare struggling in the pandemic, the cosmet-ics magnate and philanthropist is giving 91pieces of arms and armor to the Metropoli-tan Museum of Art, which the New York in-stitution is calling the most important dona-tion of its kind in 80 years.
The Arms and Armor galleries are one ofthe museum’s main attractions, a gatewayto culture for children captivated by the ma-jestic warriors on horseback and an inter-nationally renowned collection of chainmail, helmets and breastplates from Eu-
rope, Asia, America and the Middle East.Those galleries will be named for Mr. Lau-der.
“When I was collecting, I was collectingwith the Met in mind,” he said in an inter-view. “Many of the things I bought werethings the Met did not have.”
Mr. Lauder, who declined to disclose thedonation’s value, said he decided to give at atime when so many museums were worriedabout the future. “It’s important to say, ‘Westill care about institutions,’” he said. “It’san important symbol.”
The donation, which includes funds tosupport gallery improvements and educa-tional programs, features an armor made inTuscany in a workshop patronized by theMedicis and another made in the royalcourt workshops at Greenwich as a gift toFriedrich Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel — both from the 17th century.
Gauntlets belonging to Maximilian I, attributed to Lorenz Helmschmid (circa 1490), are now reunited with their original suit of armor.
GEORGE ETHEREDGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
A Donation by Ronald Lauder Fills Gaps in the Met’s ArmorThe 91-object gift is the mostimportant of its kind in 80years, the museum says.
By ROBIN POGREBIN
CONTINUED ON PAGE C2
C2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Several of the donated items fill holes inthe Met’s collection and will allow the mu-seum to present a more comprehensivenarrative from the late Middle Agesthrough the Renaissance. The Greenwicharmor’s matching gauntlets, for example,will be reunited with the armor to whichthey originally belonged — the now-com-plete outfit will be on view for six monthsstarting early this month.
“We had unmistakable gaps where wejust couldn’t show what happened at certainplaces at certain times,” Mr. Terjanian said.“Those complete armors can anchor groupsof objects that we have had but just didn’thave much context for. It’s a very well-rounded ensemble of stories that the gift en-ables us to tell.”
There will inevitably be some speculationthat Mr. Lauder is trying to one-up his
brother, Leonard A. Lauder, who in 2013gave the Met his collection of 78 Cubistpaintings, drawings and sculptures, valuedat more than $1 billion.
But Ronald Lauder said there was noth-ing to this: “We both have collections in dif-ferent areas.”
Mr. Hollein also disputed that there wasany sibling rivalry at work. “Both of themare great lovers of art,” he said. “The mu-seum is lucky to have two great patrons likeLeonard and Ronald.”
Although the Met would not provide anestimate of what Ronald Lauder’s gift isworth, Mr. Terjanian said, “With all themoney in the world, I would challenge youto find anything of the like.”
At the same time, Mr. Lauder acknowl-edged that arms and armor are not exactlya hot segment of the art market; when theodd crossbow or jousting lance comes up forsale, there isn’t a lot of competition.
“I’m the only armor collector,” Mr. Lau-der joked. “There is no one else.”
and armor.”“I knew of him long before I had the op-
portunity to meet him,” Mr. Terjanianadded.
Two of Mr. Lauder’s pieces were includedin the Met’s recent ambitious show “TheLast Knight: The Art, Armor, and Ambitionof Maximilian I,” which was organized byMr. Terjanian with Mr. Lauder and his wife,Jo Carole, as lead sponsors.
As co-chairman of the department’s vis-iting committee, an advisory group, Mr.Lauder has also been part of the discussionsabout the Met’s arms and armor collection.
“He knows us well, because in thosemeetings we discuss our successes and ourambitions and sometimes our limitations,”Mr. Terjanian said. “He had many, manyyears to get to know us, and he has takenadvantage of that position to help us.”
“Ronald has had a long relationship withthe Met,” said Max Hollein, the Met’s direc-tor. “He’s literally been the patron saint ofthe Arms and Armor department.”
Growing up in New York City, Mr. Lauderrecalled being awed by the museum’s ar-mor as a youth and said he continued to seethose same expressions of wonder on chil-dren’s faces in the galleries. “The collectionhad a major effect on me,” he said. “I stillhave the excitement when I come to see it.”
Mr. Lauder began collecting arms and ar-mor in 1976 and developed a close relation-ship with Stephen Vincent Grancsay, theMet’s curator in charge of Arms and Armorfrom 1929 to 1964. “He started to get me in-terested in it,” Mr. Lauder said.
“I have swords dating back to the Cru-sades,” he added. “They tell a history of var-ious kings, fighting. It would not be as fa-mous as Waterloo, but these were impor-tant battles of their time.”
The billionaire, who founded the NeueGalerie and collects deeply in 16 other cate-gories — including 20th-century Germanand Austrian art and design as well asWorld War II memorabilia — said heviewed arms and armor as art.
“Some of the greatest artists and sculp-tors of the 15th and 16th century were work-ing in arms and armor,” Mr. Lauder said.“These are not names that people know, butthese were some of the greatest artists oftheir time.”
“You have to be very, very good at whatyou’re doing,” he continued. “Remember,these helmets were usually pounded out ofpieces of metal. To make them perfectlyround takes great ability.”
Mr. Lauder has built one of the leading ar-mor collections in the world. Pierre Terja-nian, who leads the Met’s department,which consists of 14,000 objects, said Mr.Lauder “has always been regarded as a gi-ant in the field of collecting European arms
A Big Gift Fills Gaps in the Met’s ArmorPHOTOGRAPHS BY KARSTEN MORAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
CONTINUED FROM PAGE C1
Top, Ronald S. Lauder in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art’s
Arms and Armor galleries,
newly renamed for him to
recognize his gift to the
collection, above. The suit of
armor at left, made for
Friedrich Ulrich, Duke of
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in the
17th century and on display, is
part of Mr. Lauder’s donation.
A PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR, hertwo college buddies and her nephew walkinto a cruise ship’s bar . . .
The director Steven Soderbergh fills inthe rest in the HBO Max movie “Let ThemAll Talk,” starring a trinity of great Holly-wood dames: Meryl Streep, CandiceBergen and Dianne Wiest, though the col-orless comedy-drama snoozes through thepunchline.
Filmed aboard the Queen Mary 2, themovie stars Streep as Alice, an author who,while traveling to accept a prestigiousaward, aims to reconnect with her friendsand work on her new manuscript — butfinds her relationships with both more com-plicated than anticipated. Roberta(Bergen) resents Alice for writing her mostfamous book based on Roberta’s life, whichshe says was ruined as a result. Susan(Wiest, mostly wasted here) tries to keepthe peace.
Alice’s nephew, Tyler (Lucas Hedges), as-
sists his aunt, while Alice’s nervous newagent (Gemma Chan), who’s secretly on-board, gets close to Tyler to keep an eye onher client.
Talk, talk, talk — “Let Them All Talk” isaptly named, because it’s full of stilted con-versations, though they fail to captivate.
(The script was written by the short-storywriter Deborah Eisenberg but much of itwas improvised.) And despite the talentedactors onscreen, Soderbergh’s mannereddirection lacks charisma and the characterslack chemistry.
It’s not as if Soderbergh is going for the
warm, fuzzy reunion movie. He wants un-comfortable static in these scenes, a moviefull of social disconnects — something off-hand and offbeat but with underlying depth.But even on their own the characters lackverve, and Soderbergh seems ambivalentto them. There are hints of a more interest-ing film: With nimbler dialogue and moreprominent character design, we’d near thefield of “Annie Hall”-era Woody Allen; somemore notches of tenderness and we’d be on“Before Sunset”-era Richard Linklater’sdoorstep.
By the end the issue isn’t the sluggish-ness and unseasoned execution, but itsmoral ambiguity regarding Alice’s use ofthe unofficial Karl Ove Knausgaard writingmethod — plucking from loved ones’ livesfor inspiration. The question of what storiesAlice can own, what’s off-limits and how sheherself lives in the writing is more interest-ing than the film gives it credit for. But I’mdone now; can we change the conversa-tion?
MAYA PHILLIPS FILM REVIEW
Reuniting With Resentment on a Luxury CruiseA prizewinning authorexperiences rough seas withher college friends.
Lucas Hedges and Meryl
Streep aboard the Queen Mary
2 in Steven Soderbergh’s “Let
Them All Talk.”
PETER ANDREWS/HBO MAX
Let Them All TalkRated R. They all talked. Running time: 1 hour53 minutes. On HBO Max.
N C3THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication ordivision, as indicated in the box. A 4x4 grid will use the digits 1-4. A 6x6 grid will use 1-6.For solving tips and more KenKen puzzles: www.nytimes.com/kenken. For feedback: [email protected]® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. Copyright © 2020 www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved.
ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLES
KenKen
Two Not Touch
Put two stars in each row, column and region of the grid. No two stars may touch, not even diagonally.Copyright © 2020 www.krazydad.com
Cryptogram
M A V P Q ’ I X A W W B I F H Z S M , “ F C B W S S G G A U S I P T Q , ” I F A Z Z
B P Q U B G K S Q B F C P U F C Q B B C T U G Q B G K A Z Z A S U G S Z Z P Q I .
ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLES
YESTERDAY’S ANSWER Nose guardPUZZLE BY BEN BASS
“AN ASTONISHING COLLECTION!” —RICHARD LEDERER, author of Anguished EnglishSO TO SPEAK
11,000 Expressions That’ll Knock Your Socks Off
ON SALE NOW
Enjoy wordplay every day.
nytimes.com/games
Crossword Edited by Will Shortz
ACROSS 1 Orthodontic
challenges 5 Doctor’s order10 Grp. that might
hold a raffle13 “Please, enough
already!”14 Like some
residents on the Gulf of Aden
15 What’s anything but neutral?
16 Siding?18 Sarcastic
sentence ender19 Traveling figure,
briefly20 It shares a
1,650+ mile border with the U.S.: Abbr.
21 “I’m game if you’re game!”
22 Sound track?25 ___ Heep, David
Copperfield rival27 Oration?30 Dermatologist’s
concern33 Q2 and Q3 maker34 ___-green35 Juice brand36 Female?39 What “Lucy in
the Sky With Diamonds” supposedly isn’t about
40 Factor for determining one’s grade in school
41 Podcast host Maron
42 Hill with no peak43 Aground?48 Foil, e.g.49 Discuss work
outside of work, say
53 Rock’s Joan ___ & the Blackhearts
54 Main squeeze, in modern lingo
55 Réunion buddy56 Were present?57 Cold?62 ___ Fields63 Fried snack
dusted with cinnamon sugar
64 ___ Millions65 It hits close to
home66 “On again, off
again” love stories, say
67 Hope beyond hope
DOWN 1 “Check it out for
yourself” 2 Dog breed
named after a region in Japan
3 Frigid
4 One on a slippery slope
5 Novelist/essayist Susan
6 World’s largest theater chain
7 Informal word of agreement
8 Hometown hero of Louisville, Ky.
9 Swingin’
10 Longtime Life Savers flavor
11 Lacking bite
12 Colonial workers, maybe
14 Little fella
17 Wheedle
21 It may be glossed over
23 Infirmary sight
24 Top round steak, e.g.
25 Grp. that determines what a 24-Down is
26 Pompeii, for one
28 ___ Lock (PC key)
29 When repeated, “You get the idea”
30 Frequent filers, for short
31 Player with a record 10 World Series championships
32 Superficial inspection
36 Discussed over Slack, say, in brief
37 Like shark attacks
38 Magic 8 Ball, e.g.
42 You may find a range of these: Abbr.
44 Sight at a winery
45 Herculean efforts
46 Grassy plain of the Southwest
47 Stretched (out)
50 Curmudgeonly sort
51 Resistance figure
52 A constant celebration?
53 A window may go in it
57 Injection units, for short
58 Clicking sound?
59 Persian, e.g.
60 Cup holder
61 Fuse box unit
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE
PUZZLE BY JACK MURTAGH
12/10/20
Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.
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13 14 15
16 17 18
19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29
30 31 32 33 34
35 36 37 38 39
40 41 42
43 44 45 46 47
48 49 50 51 52
53 54 55
56 57 58 59 60 61
62 63 64
65 66 67
C R I C K R B I S B B C
N I T R O M O O L A O E R
N O S I R A T O L L I M O
S E T T H E B A R L O W
B I T P A R T R E D H E A D
O B O E A H A S F E R N S
B E N D O V E R S O A P
A T E N E W U S E R L E E
D E A L B A C K W A R D
G R I D S R A G U A T O I
L E T I T B E G R A V E S T
U N D E R A C H I E V E
T O O E S T E E A D M A N
E W W A R O A R I H O P E
I N N K A R T L I M B O
IN JANUARY, the stand-up comic CarmenLynch told a joke on “The Tonight Show”about dating a man turning 50. “The otherday, he came up to me and said, ‘Please livewith me’” she said, hands on heart. “I said,‘Please live.’”
The joke got laughs and a smattering ofapplause, but a killer set on late night does-n’t mean what it did decades ago. “You getrespect from your peers and your agentsends you an email, but I don’t think itchanges your life,” Lynch explained overSkype. By November, however, a trans-formed version of that joke went viral, andin the process brought her new audiencesand helped change her artistic process. Thebit’s evolution provides a case study in thelife span of a joke in the age of social media,and how the pandemic is changing comedy.
Lynch, who is five years younger thanher boyfriend, has been a respected if notfamous comic for years, a regular at theComedy Cellar with six late-night TV setson her résumé. Her dry delivery and con-cise jokes put her in the comedic family treeof Steven Wright and Mitch Hedberg. Shehad been telling that joke about her boy-friend in a fairly unadorned deadpan forthree years. “It always worked because it’sso simple,” she said.
Anticipating the shutdown in February,she recorded one of her last sets on the roadin Bloomington, Ind., and released it as analbum in July, with a similar version of theboyfriend joke. But this time she added asmall laugh to soften its harsh tone. Saleswere modest.
After clubs closed, Lynch adjusted, tryingrooftop, park and Zoom shows. She startedtwo podcasts (“The Human Centipod,” withthe boyfriend from the joke, and “Conver-sando con Carmen,” in Spanish). But asweeks turned to months, Lynch began fo-cusing more time on social media (her ac-counts are all named @carmencomedian).Until this year, her attitude toward peopledoing jokes on TikTok veered between indif-ference and jealousy. She believed the liveexperience of stand-up did not translate.But like many club comics, necessity forcedexperimentation. Her early attempts werehalfhearted and sporadic, rerunning oldlate-night sets, which earned hundreds ofviews.
What changed everything was a sex joke.(Of course — this is the internet.) She knewthat divisive content generated traffic, soshe tried a joke poking fun at her boyfriendfor asking if her eyes rolled back during sexbecause she was experiencing so muchpleasure. Then she erupted in mocking
laughter. It instantly got attention, hittingtens of thousands of views right away andgrowing into the millions. This piqued hercuriosity. Why did this one video work somuch better than others? To understand,she signed up for an online class with a dig-ital marketing consultant, and after lookingat the video, he said the laugh was key. Itengaged people. She noticed many of thecomments were about the laugh. And some-thing else he said stuck with her: “If itworks, milk it.”
Lynch started thinking about jokes shetold with laughs, gags she could isolate andredo for TikTok. Even though she wonderedif the platform’s young audience would re-late, she thought of her joke about her boy-friend turning 50. She taped the joke on abed, trying out different cackles, placingher face behind the pillows. Onstage, herlaugh was meant to soften the punchline,but here, she leaned into it. This laugh wasovertly fake, theatrical even. It was the fo-cus. She began with the title: “My boyfriendwill not like this joke.”
“It’s clickbait,” she said matter-of-factly.“Social media is visual and this draws peo-ple in.”
After a video is shot, TikTok suggests mu-sic to accompany it. She didn’t like the sug-gestions, but they inspired her to add an in-strumental version of “Mrs. Robinson” from“The Graduate.” It wasn’t just a knowingreference to the affair with an older personfrom the movie. “It’s kind of a mean joke so Iwanted to add a contrasting lovey song toit,” she said.
This new joke managed to be entirely dif-ferent from the original without changingthe words. What began as a deadpan quipbecame something much broader, morephysical, exposing a sillier side of Lynch.Onstage, she can seem aloof. But here, inthis intimate video, she was ingratiatinglygoofy. Lynch said partly this was becauseshe was performing home alone and felt re-laxed, but paradoxically, she sees this ver-sion of her as more of a performance. “Tik-Tok feels more like a character,” she said.“More of a persona, like I’m just acting.”
Whatever she was doing, it worked. Thevideo took off, rocketing to a million views,and in the past month, as she posted clipsdaily, her followers tripled. She even startedreceiving small payments from TikTok,earning $100 in the past month. “There are
more old people on TikTok than I realized,”she said. “I don’t know if that’s because ofCovid and people are bored, but they’re outthere.”
After posting the video on other plat-forms, she found that the joke didn’t havethe same impact on each one. She was farless successful on Instagram and barelymade a ripple on Twitter. TikTok is morelikely to show videos from people who are-n’t following you, which can expose you tonew fans. In an effort to compete, Insta-gram started a TikTok-like service, Reels, inAugust. That’s where Lynch had the mostsuccess with the boyfriend joke, racking up2.5 million views. After struggling to raiseher Instagram follower count, she’s seenmajor growth since that joke went viral. “Iwas at 12,400 forever and even when I didFallon, I might have gotten 500, but in thelast two weeks, I had 5,000 new followersand that’s from Reels.”
These are still small numbers comparedwith popular influencers, and most comicslike Carmen Lynch are not going to make aliving off social media. They are aiming tobuild their audience and hoping that trans-lates to ticket sales when live shows return.
Comics tend to be alert to the audience,but many veterans have chosen not tospend much time telling jokes on social me-dia. Some aren’t digital natives, some un-derstandably think stand-up is an inextrica-bly live form and others see social media asbeneath them.
But like it or not, these platforms arewhere much of the comedy audience is now.The pandemic has accelerated the transi-tion to digital, and there will be an impact onthe business and aesthetic of comedy. Itmatters that a club crowd’s laugh is lessquantifiable than the raw numbers on socialmedia.
With those numbers, artists can tell whatpeople like with more specificity. In the lastfew months, Lynch said, she learned thatcaptions in black draw more eyeballs forher than red ones. And hashtagging doesn’talways benefit her. Also, TikTok is quickerto censor than Instagram or the other plat-forms. Her “Queen’s Gambit” parody wastaken down because of a reference to drugs,and she joked that she had soured on Tik-Tok. “I preferred Instagram and then whenI went viral on TikTok, it’s ‘Instagramwho?’” she said. “Now it’s Reels. I go whereI’m loved.”
This year, Lynch went from all but ignor-ing doing jokes on social media to spendingeight to 10 hours a week making new videos.She’s now talking with other social mediaconsultants to see how she can increase hernumbers. “I’m just trying to keep up withthe Joneses,” she said, adding it’s the newnormal. In an email, she wrote: “I missstand-up, but in the meantime, I’m learninga few things.”
JASON ZINOMAN ON COMEDY
Did You Hear the One About TikTok?Carmen Lynch had a joke thatdidn’t take off until it became a goofy video posted there.
The comedian Carmen Lynch
joking about her older
boyfriend on “The Tonight
Show” at the beginning of the
year. By November, however, a
transformed version of that
joke went viral, and in the
process brought her new
audiences and helped change
her artistic process.
ANDREW LIPOVSKY/NBC
C4 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
CLUE OF THE DAY
FOR THE CORRECT RESPONSE, WATCH
JEOPARDY! TONIGHT OR LOOK IN THIS
SPACE TOMORROW IN THE TIMES.
Watch JEOPARDY! 7 p.m. on Channel 7
ARTEUROPEAN GEOGRAPHY
ONCE A RESIDENCE OF RULERS OF AUSTRIA,
THIS CITY ON THE DANUBE LESS THAN 20
MILES FROM VIENNA BECAME A NATIONAL
CAPITAL IN 1993
Yesterday’s Response:WHO IS JACK LONDON?
WHEN TESTING A NEW PEN, Leonardo daVinci was in the habit of scrawling thephrase dimmi — tell me.
The doodles appear in the margins of hisnotebooks, those records of his ravenous,almost carnal curiosity about the naturalworld. Dimmi was his animating question.Dimmi, he wrote between scribbled shop-ping lists (eels, velvet, wine) and sketchesof inventions, instructing himself: “De-scribe what sneezing is, what yawning is,the falling sickness, spasm.” Dimmi — tellme your secrets — he implored in his stud-ies of the movement of water and the work-ing of the woodpecker’s tongue.
Painter, engineer, anatomist, the de-signer of torture devices as well as ma-chines to break men out of prison, Leonardois heralded as the “real Renaissance man.”Never mind that this notion is reductive andplain wrong — or so argues the art historianFrancesca Fiorani in her new book, “TheShadow Drawing.”
Leonardo’s interests were not as dizzy-ingly disparate as they seem. His mindsought synthesis. He was hunting basicprinciples, the fundamental laws of all na-ture. “Write of swimming under water,” hedeclared, “and you will have the flight ofbirds through the air.” His artistic and scien-tific interests were conjoined. In painting,Leonardo could apply all he learned aboutgeometry, shadow and light, about the in-terplay of the eye and mind in perception.
By no means is Fiorani the first to makethis case (the historian Sydney Freedbergelegantly described how knowledge was in-divisible for Leonardo), but she makes itwith fresh force and pitches it against themisconception that Leonardo abandonedpainting for science in his later years.
Where did that idea come from? Sureenough: The unmistakable, chaos-sowingfigure of Freud skitters in the shadows.
It was from Freud’s influential, and exu-berantly fictionalized, study of Leonardothat many of our false impressions spring,including the idea of the “dual Leonardo” —the artist turned scientist. (This depiction isburied beneath the essay’s most memora-ble claim: Freud, in full sail, laments thatLeonardo was excessively cuddled by hismother.) True, Leonardo’s output seems tosupport Freud’s case — the first charge atleast. He was one of the least prolific paint-ers of his era. In 40 years, he completed, atmost, 15 paintings and left much work — in-cluding the “Mona Lisa” — deliberately un-finished. In contrast, a kind of graphomaniaseemed to seize him. By some counts, thenotebooks run to 16,000 pages — only a frac-tion of which have been viewed.
In “The Shadow Drawing,” Fiorani ar-gues that Leonardo’s artistic and scientificpreoccupations likely shared their root inthe seven-volume 11th-century manuscript“Book of Optics,” by the Arab philosopherAbu Ali al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham, known inthe West at the time as Alhacen.
There’s no proof that Leonardo read thetext, but translations circulated among Ital-ian painters. Born near Florence in 1452, theillegitimate child of a notary and a house-hold servant, Leonardo was apprenticed tothe artist Andrea del Verrocchio, one of thefew professional avenues open to him. Fromhis shadow drawings in his notebooks, wecan see that he was already exploring opti-cal effects in his 20s, perhaps ones he firstencountered in Alhacen’s work.
“Book of Optics” gathered all the avail-able knowledge of the field at the time: Ga-len’s study of the eye, Euclid’s and Ptol-emy’s treatises on geometry, Aristotle’ssuppositions about the soul. What Alhacentheorized, Leonardo put into practice.
Roland Barthes once wrote that the pho-tographs that compel us never overpoweror coerce; they attract us because they arepensive, they think. Leonardo’s paintingsare stuffed with ideas, with suppositions onperspective and distortion, on how therounded surface of the eye influences per-ception. They were living laboratories —which is Fiorani’s explanation for the unfin-
ished paintings. Process simply becamemore alluring to Leonardo than a final prod-uct.
One wishes only that Fiorani felt freer tothink alongside this work. Her approach isadmiring but oddly withdrawn. She is proneto parroting her thesis and lapsing intosomnolent praise. Leonardo’s youthfulpaintings are “stunning.” His skull draw-ings are “stunning.” His landscapes are“stunning.” So too are his anatomical draw-ings, his portrait of Ginevra Benci, his treat-ment of drapery and too many other tech-niques to mention.
The patness of this description is strik-ing; its laziness borders on indifference.Does it bespeak the challenges of writingabout Leonardo — how to make a fresh casefor his obvious genius? How to write in thewake of so many others? One recent exam-ple, published just last year, is CarmenBambach’s monumental four-part biogra-phy, which Fiorani herself calls “unsur-passed.”
Dimmi, I wanted to say to the writer, tellme not what has been seen before but whatyou have seen. Sometimes Fiorani does ex-actly that, and in such passages, when sheloses herself in looking, the book achievesfluency and power. She notes the traces ofthe azure paint on the throat of the “MonaLisa” and wonders if it is responsible forgiving us the sense of seeing her pulse. Ortake the bravura section on “The Last Sup-per,” in which she explains how the paintingexists in two time frames, with several char-acters making gestures that will mark themin the future. Thomas, for example, isshown raising the very finger he will lateruse to prod Christ’s wounds.
“The Shadow Drawing” doesn’t offer theconventional satisfactions of biography:the evocation of Leonardo’s world, his para-doxes and idiosyncrasies, that famous fond-ness for solitude and rose-pink tunics. Thebook trains its gaze on his technical andphilosophical obsessions. Its focus may feelnarrow at times, and yet its pleasures oftenprove surprisingly wide. The book reorientsour perspective, distills a life and brings itinto focus — the very work of revision andrefining that its subject loved best.
PARUL SEHGAL BOOKS OF THE TIMES
Opening Doors of PerceptionLeonardo’s paintings stemmedfrom an interest in optics,anatomy and other sciences.
The Shadow Drawing: How Science TaughtLeonardo How to PaintBy Francesca FioraniIllustrated. 374 pages. Farrar,Straus & Giroux. $35.
Follow Parul Sehgal on Twitter: @parul_sehgal.
benefactor’s household as late as 1850. Andwhile the Hopkins family’s entanglementswith slavery are complicated, the univer-sity has so far found no evidence of JohnsHopkins’s father freeing any enslaved peo-ple.
As for the longstanding claims that Hop-kins himself held abolitionist beliefs, it is un-clear whether they rest on any evidence atall.
In a letter to the Hopkins community, theleaders of the university, medical schooland medical system announced a multiyeareffort to further study the Hopkins family’sconnections with slavery, which it called “acrime against humanity.”
The revelation about Johns Hopkins, theleaders said, “calls to mind not only thedarkest chapters in the history of our coun-try and our city but also the complex historyof our institutions since then, and the lega-cies of racism and inequity we are workingtogether to confront.”
In recent years, a growing number of uni-versities have confronted their historicalentanglements with slavery. Many, some-times in response to student activism, haverenamed buildings or removed statues ofslaveholders, or created prominent memo-rials to the enslaved people who built andserved the campus.
Johns Hopkins University, founded afterthe Civil War by a supposedly antislaverybenefactor, might seem to have largelysidestepped that reckoning, even as it in-creasingly acknowledged how the univer-sity (which did not admit its first Black un-dergraduate until 1945) has been shaped byJim Crow and racism.
But last spring, a researcher at the Mary-land State Archives became aware of an1850 census record listing four enslavedpeople in the household of a man namedJohns Hopkins, and contacted the univer-sity. Its president, Ronald J. Daniels, askedMartha S. Jones, a history professor, to in-vestigate the matter as part of a broader ex-ploration of the university’s history of dis-crimination announced in July, in the after-math of the George Floyd protests.
In an interview, Mr. Daniels said the newsof Hopkins’s slaveholding was “obviouslyextremely painful.” But he added that it wasimportant to tell the full story of the man,citing the university’s motto: The truth willset you free. “You want your origin story tobe more than mythical,” Mr. Daniels said.“For an origin story to be foundational anddurable, it also has to be true.”
How the news will land at the universityor in Baltimore more broadly, a majorityBlack city with which the university has of-ten had fraught relations, remains to beseen. But Mr. Daniels said he hoped that“unflinching introspection” and transpar-ent disclosure would create “a strongerfoundation for our relationship.”
Asked if he imagined the university’sname might be challenged, he said thatwhile it was important to fully acknowledgeHopkins’s slaveholding, the institution wasnot defined by it. “Over the course of our al-most 150 years of history, there’s been lots ofscope for choice in the way in which wecharted our mission, and the way in which
we’ve taken the best from the bequest wereceived,” he said.
Few personal papers of Hopkins and hisfamily survive. To begin fleshing out thestory of the Hopkins family and slavery,Professor Jones worked with Allison Seyler,the program manager of an existing Hop-kins history project at the university’s li-brary, to dig into legal, census and otherrecords.
In addition to the 1850 record, the re-
searchers found an 1840 census entry show-ing one enslaved person in the Hopkinshousehold. (The 1860 census does not listenslaved people in his household.) Theyalso found documents from the 1830s show-ing that Hopkins and his firm sometimessought to acquire enslaved people to settledebts.
But Professor Jones, whose scholarshipfocuses on Black political activism in 19th-century America, also looked at just howthe university came to tell a rosy and, it ap-pears, erroneous story about Johns Hop-kins to begin with.
“The story of Hopkins’s forebears havingfreed enslaved people, of Hopkins as an ab-olitionist, suited us as an institution,” shesaid.
That a man of Hopkins’s wealth and posi-tion would own or trade in enslaved peopleis not in itself surprising. Slavery remainedlegal in Maryland, one of four slave statesthat stayed in the Union, until shortly beforethe end of the Civil War.
Professor Jones’s research report notesthat at Hopkins’s death, some newspaperarticles did refer to his and his family’s his-tory of slaveholding. One recounted a storyabout his grandfather manumitting en-slaved people. (Professor Jones foundrecords of the grandfather freeing eight en-
slaved people in 1778, but keeping dozens ofothers in bondage.)
Another article noted Hopkins’s gener-ous bequest to “three colored servants,” oneof whom he was said to have granted free-dom to “years ago,” but who had “remainedfaithfully in his service ever since.” (ButProfessor Jones writes that she has so farfound no record of Hopkins freeing any en-slaved people.)
In the 20th century, Professor Jonesfound, a new story, based on family reminis-cences and scrambled facts, began to takeshape.
In 1917, a former director of the Hopkinshospital, in an article, told the story aboutHopkins’s father, Samuel, manumitting hisslaves, which he seems to have gotten frominterviews with Hopkins family members.
In 1929, the university’s press published“Johns Hopkins: A Silhouette,” a fond biog-raphy by his grandniece, Alice Thom. (Hop-kins had no children.) That book repeatedthe story about Samuel Hopkins, while alsogenerally depicting slavery as “a benign in-stitution” and enslaved people as “con-tented and loyal,” Professor Jones writes.
That story caught on, and was frequentlyrepeated in newspaper articles and books.And it was also one the university reachedfor, Professor Jones said, when recountingits history.
A 1974 article in the alumni magazine re-peated that story, as did a 1976 article inAmerican Heritage describing how “thehard realities of the working life abruptlydropped onto his young shoulders when, in1807, his father’s adherence to a new Quakerpolicy led him to free all his slaves.”
The story was repeated again in 1995, inan article commemorating the 200th anni-versary of Hopkins’s birthday, noting his“fervent abolitionism.” And it also appearsin an article currently on the website of theHopkins medical system, entitled “WhoWas Johns Hopkins?”
Johns Hopkins’s personal views on slav-ery, Professor Jones said, require furtherresearch. So far, she said, she had found noevidence that he ever espoused or pro-moted abolition, which her report defines as“the immediate and unqualified end to slav-ery in the United States.”
She said it would also be important to lookat Hopkins’s founding bequest — which en-visioned a hospital that, unusually for thetime, treated Black patients, but in separatewards — through a fresh lens. “On its face,it’s a complex mix of benevolence and theinstitutionalization, in a post-slavery world,of what we have come to call segregation,”she said.
In their letter, the university and medicalleaders called Johns Hopkins’s personallegacy “complex and contradictory.” Moreresearch was needed, they said, beforecoming to any “firm conclusions” about theimplications of his slaveholding for the in-stitutions he created.
Professor Jones said the broader projectshe was leading, called “Hard Histories atHopkins,” will address how the past informscontentious issues in the present, like theuniversity’s controversial plan to create anarmed private police force. (The plan waspaused in July, in the wake of the racial jus-tice protests.)
And she said it was important that BlackBaltimoreans be seen as a central audiencefor the research. “This is the communitywrit large that lives with the legacies ofslavery, racism and inequality,” she said.
The revelations of Johns Hopkins’s slave-holding may be a reputational blow to theuniversity. But the real “hard history,” shesaid, was borne by the enslaved, who werelisted on the census forms without even thedignity of a name.
“We shouldn’t forget that,” she said.“That’s where the tragedy is. That’s why weshould be shattered.”
Hopkins’sFeetOf Clay
JAMES BRUNKER/ALAMY
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
CONTINUED FROM PAGE C1
Top, a monument to Johns
Hopkins at the university.
Above, excerpts from the 1850
census showing four unnamed
“slave inhabitants” in the
Hopkins household.
nytcooking.com
N C5THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Could there possibly be an upside to thelong, stressful periods of isolation that somany people have endured during the pan-demic lockdown of 2020? When we emerge,will we see the world in a new way? Couldthere even be a silver lining to these monthsof quiet living and self-reflection?
Four decades ago, I heard firsthand howa long period of solitude changed an ex-traordinary figure who was determined tomake his life have meaning: John Lennon,who was mourned by millions on Tuesday,the 40th anniversary of his murder.
There was no pandemic in late 1975 whenLennon and Yoko Ono, the most public ofpersonalities, withdrew for what became afive-year hiatus from interviews and re-cording after the birth of their son, Sean.But for Lennon there was plenty of exist-ential angst, and actual fear.
He was living in New York City, still seek-ing a green card and fighting deportation.Though the Beatles had stopped makingmusic, it would take years to dissolve legalties, and the band’s shadow enveloped hislife.
Collections of classic Beatles songs wererecycling the Fab Four’s greatest hits, leav-ing Lennon to worry if he could ever live upto the public demand that the Dream Bandreunite. Paul McCartney soared up thecharts with Wings, but Lennon hadn’t had aNo. 1 album since “Walls and Bridges” in1974, with Elton John’s assistance on“Whatever Gets You Thru the Night.”
It was time for him to start over. He wouldlater tell me that musically, his mind wascluttered, filled with static like a car radio.“The messages were as confused coming inas they were going out,” he said.
In early 1976, he and Ono went into a self-imposed lockdown. His movements weren’tlimited, and his finances were secure, but heshut off the outside world to find his pur-pose again.
During those years, while Ono took overthe business and dealt with the lawyers
from her downstairs office at the Dakota,where they lived on the Upper West Side ofManhattan, Lennon was the ultimate home-body. Staff members in the apartment onthe seventh floor recall hearing him happilyplaying the white piano in the couple’s all-white living room overlooking Central Park,and singing Beatles songs, one after theother.
He was shaping his days around Sean, hesaid: up at 6 a.m., “have a cup of tea — nocaffeine — and plan what Sean’s going tohave for breakfast, and he comes out, wecommunicate, and then I’m thinking aboutthe next meal, like Mrs. Higgins, in Wiscon-sin.”
His epiphany came in 1979 after Ono sug-gested he take a journey alone to HongKong and Singapore, to reconnect to thenon-god — the person he had been and notthe celebrity he became. As he explained,the isolation inspired a breakthrough notonly as an artist but as a human being.
And in August 1980, as abruptly as it hadbegun, the pair ended their seclusion, re-turning to the studio to record a collabora-
tive album. They granted me their first in-terview in five years, for Newsweek maga-zine, where I was a young pop music writer.(Ono asked for my birth date and said Ichecked out, numerologically.) “DoubleFantasy” was full of Lennon’s vulnerablelove songs (written to his wife and son) andOno’s au courant dance rock.
“Hi, I’m Howard Garbo, or is it GretaHughes today, mother?” Lennon quippedwhen Ono introduced us at the Hit Factorytwo months before his 40th birthday. Heheld out a plate of sushi in greeting. Overfive days, munching eel and rice in the re-cording studio (where a picture of Sean’sbeaming smile was ever-present), sipping“Zen-blended” coffee in a macrobioticrestaurant near Carnegie Hall or sitting inthe all-white Dakota living room, he talkedabout creativity, being a father, his collabo-rative album with Ono and being free of theBeatles — “the four guys that used to bethat group but can never, ever be that groupagain, even if they wanted to be.”
“The air is cleared and I’m cleared,” hesaid. These are edited excerpts from theconversations, some of which appeared in“Strawberry Fields Forever: John LennonRemembered” (1980, Bantam Books).
Why did you pull in your antennae anddisappear from view for five years?
Sean will be 5 and I wanted to give five solidyears of being there all the time. I hadn’tseen my first son, Julian, grow up and nowthere’s a 17-year-old man on the phonetalkin’ about motorbikes. I was not there forhis childhood at all. I was on tour. And mychildhood was something else. If I don’t givehim attention from zero to 5 then I’mdamned well going to have to give it from 16to 20 — they’re going to get that attentionsomehow.
He’s not an independent thing yet, but Ilet him come to [the studio] where I work.He’ll be part of that too if he wants.
Did you decide to withdraw from music-making itself or from the pressures of beingJohn Lennon? The lawsuits, the immigrationproblems —
A bit of both. I’d been under contract since Iwas 22, and I was always “supposed to.” Iwas supposed to write 100 songs by Friday,supposed to have a single out by Saturday. Itdawned on me that the reason I became anartist was freedom; because I couldn’t fitinto the classroom, the college, the society.But suddenly I was obliged to a record com-pany, obliged to the media, obliged to thepublic, obliged to go to court every timesome [expletive] bumped into me on thestreet. I know freedom is in the mind but Icouldn’t clear my mind. So it was time to re-group.
You’ve withdrawn before, and isolated your-self?
Once in the Himalayas with Maharishi, andall the press wrote about was “look at thoseidiots.” But I was sitting still, as they call it inthe I-Ching. Once when the Beatles gotback from Hamburg, when we got deported,I didn’t contact the others for a month. Iwithdrew to think whether this was worthgoing on with. George and Paul were mad atme. But knowing when to stop is survivalfor me.
The fear in the music business is that youdon’t exist if you’re not on the charts.
I just wanted to remember that I existed atall!
At first it was very hard not to be doingsomething musical. It was a matter of noclarity and no desire to do it because I wassupposed to. The real music, the music ofthe spheres, the music that surpasses un-derstanding, comes to me and I’m just achannel. But in order to get that clear chan-nel open again, I had to stop picking up ev-ery radio station in the world, in the uni-
verse. So my turning away from it is how Ibegan to heal again.
There was a hard withdrawal period,what people must go through at 65, and thenI started being a househusband and swungmy attention onto Sean. And then I realized,I’m not supposed to be doing something, Iam doing something, and then I was free.
You didn’t feel you were missing somethingin New York by not going out . . .
[Snappishly] Picasso didn’t go to the muse-ums. He was either painting, or eating or[having sex]. Picasso lived where he livedand people came to see him. That’s what Idid. Did Picasso go down to some studio towatch people paint?
The only person I ever went to see in Lon-don during the “Swinging Sixties” era wasJimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan at the Isle ofWight. I was too busy doing it to be watch-ing other people. The competition doesn’tinterest me unless it’s phenomenal and thenit will be around longer than one night in aclub. All the performers I ever saw, from Lit-tle Richard to Jerry Lee Lewis, I was alwaysdisappointed. I preferred the record.
For years the music industry had made youfeel that your creative life had ended withthe Beatles. Did that make you afraid totake risks?
What I did in the past five years was to dis-cover that I was John Lennon before theBeatles, and I would be John Lennon afterthe Beatles, and so be it.
The actual moment when I rememberedwho I was, completely, not in glimpses, Iwas in a room in Hong Kong because Yokohad sent me on a trip round the world bymyself, and I hadn’t done anything by my-self since I was 20! I didn’t know how to callfor room service, check into a hotel — if any-body reads this, they think, those [exple-tive] artists, or those bloody pop stars, andthey don’t understand the pain of being afreak.
What do you mean, Yoko “sent” you?
She said, “Why don't you do this?” I said:
“Really? By myself? Hong Kong? Singa-pore? But what if . . . ”
Sounds like about as much fun as an anxietyattack.
I had to isolate, using Being Famous as animmense excuse for never facing anything.Because I was Famous, therefore I can’t goto the movies. I can’t go to the theater. Butthen sitting in this [hotel] room, takingbaths, which I noticed Yoko did, every time Igot nervous — I must have had about 40baths — I’m looking out over the Hong KongBay, and there’s something ringing a bell.It’s like, what is it? And then I just got very,very relaxed. And it was like a recognition:This is me! This relaxed person is me! I re-member this guy from way, way back. Iknow who I am — it doesn’t rely on any out-side agency, or adulation, or achievement,or hit record. It’s absolutely irrelevantwhether the teacher loves me, hates me, I’mstill me. He knows how to do things, heknows how to get around. Wow! So I calledYoko and I said, “It’s me.”
Did you enjoy the aloneness?
I loved it. There’s a difference between be-ing alone and being lonely. That’s what Ilearned in the last five years. I rediscovered[in Hong Kong] the feeling I used to have asa youngster, walking in the mountains ofScotland with an auntie. You know, you’rewalking [gestures fast] and the groundstarts going beneath you, and the heather,and the clouds moving above you, and youthink, Ah, this is the feeling they’re alwaystalking about, the one that makes you paintor put it into poetry because you can’t de-scribe it any other way. I recognized thatthat feeling had been with me all my life. Thefeeling was with me before the Beatles.
So this period was to re-establish me, asme, for myself. That’s why I’m free of theBeatles. Because I took time to free myself,mentally, from it, and look at what it is. Andnow I know. So here I am, right? It’s beauti-ful, you know. It’s just like walking thosehills.
Top, John Lennon, with Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon, at home in New York in 1975 before his
self-imposed period of seclusion. “There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely,”
said Lennon, above in 1975 at a Yonkers cafe. He didn’t return to the recording studio until 1980.
‘I know freedom is in the mind butI couldn’t clear my mind. So it wastime to regroup.’JOHN LENNON
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BOB GRUEN
A Quiet Voyage of DiscoveryFor John Lennon, isolationhad a silver lining: time andspace to reflect and grow.
By BARBARA GRAUSTARK
C6 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
terviewed — told Andrew Ross Sorkin ofThe New York Times during DealBook’s re-cent Online Summit. “It’s clear to me that inorder for me to focus on the problems of thepresent, I need to resolve the issues of thepast and problems of the past — and the set-tlement offered me that ability to do so.
“So I’ve agreed to it,” Mr. Smith contin-ued. “I’m moving forward, I’ve made rightwith the government. And — now I’m abso-lutely committed to continuing my impor-tant work, my philanthropy.”
Carnegie Hall’s board members seem tohave accepted Mr. Smith’s mea culpa andmoved on. “He is beloved,” said DarrenWalker the president of the Ford Founda-tion, who is a Carnegie trustee. “I do notthink we should ask for his resignation. AndI don’t think you will find anybody on theCarnegie Hall board who disagrees.”
Still, it is not always easy for even pre-eminent institutions to navigate the inter-section of power, extreme wealth and highculture.
The Metropolitan Opera took the name ofone prominent benefactor, the investor Al-berto W. Vilar, off its grand tier in 2003 aftersome promised pledges failed to material-ize; he was later convicted of fraud. L. Den-nis Kozlowski, the former chief executive ofTyco International, sought a prominent pro-file in New York’s art world, joining theboard of the Whitney Museum of AmericanArt, before being convicted of grand lar-ceny, conspiracy and fraud.
Amid mounting public pressure, the Met-ropolitan Museum of Art recently felt com-pelled to swear off money from members ofthe Sackler family because of their links toOxyContin. And last year Warren B. Kan-ders was forced to step down as a vice chair-man of the Whitney after protests over hiscompany’s sale of tear gas. (He later got outof the tear gas business.)
But many institutions stand by their sup-porters, even if they bring a trail of badheadlines.
The hedge fund titan Steven A. Cohen,whose SAC Capital Advisors agreed in 2013to plead guilty to insider trading violationsand paid a record $1.8 billion penalty, is onthe board of the Museum of Modern Art.
And MoMA has been noticeably silent onwhether it is reviewing the status of itschairman, Leon Black, the billionaire pri-
vate equity executive, who paid at least $50million to Jeffrey Epstein for financial ad-vice in the years after Mr. Epstein’s 2008conviction for soliciting prostitution from ateenage girl.
Mr. Smith has admitted to hiding morethan $200 million in income and evadingmillions of dollars in taxes by using an off-shore trust structure and offshore bank ac-counts. In a letter to his investors, Mr. Smithsaid that he had created the structure 20years ago “at the insistence of my only in-vestor in my first private equity fund.”
The Justice Department said in a newsrelease that Mr. Smith had used millions ofdollars of the unreported income to “ac-quire and make improvements to real es-tate used for his personal benefit,” includingbuying and renovating a vacation home inSonoma, Calif., and buying “two ski proper-ties and a piece of commercial property inFrance.”
Mr. Smith ultimately donated all themoney in the offshore trust structure to hisfoundation, the Fund II Foundation, whichhe established in 2014, he wrote this fall tohis investors. The foundation has madeover $250 million dollars in contributions toa broad range of institutions, including Car-negie Hall, as well as to an array of organi-zations and initiatives that support vulnera-ble populations.
As part of his agreement with prosecu-tors, Mr. Smith will pay $139 million in taxesand penalties, abandon a $182 million tax re-fund he had been seeking for charitable con-tributions, and cooperate with ongoing in-vestigations. The main target of those in-vestigations is Mr. Smith’s associate andearly investor, Robert T. Brockman, a Hous-ton tech executive who has been chargedwith hiding $2 billion in income from theI.R.S. in what prosecutors called “the larg-est ever tax charge against an individual inthe United States.”
“Since first learning about the Depart-ment of Justice’s investigation, I have co-operated fully for the last four and one-halfyears and have provided all relevant infor-mation to them,” Mr. Smith said in the letterto his investors. “The decision made 20years ago has regrettably led to this tur-moil, which has put undue stress and bur-den on too many.”
Experts in philanthropy said that theybelieve the donations he made to Carnegiewere not likely at risk of having to be re-turned.
“He reached a plea agreement and paidpenalties, so I don’t think there is any expo-sure,” said Daniel L. Kurtz, an attorney spe-cializing in nonprofits. “It’s hard to findsomebody who’s that wealthy who doesn’thave some issue in the past — I don’t thinkwe make that the measure of the value oftheir gifts.”
But some experts in philanthropy andcorporate governance questioned whetherhe should remain chairman, including Pa-tricia Illingworth, a professor at Northeast-ern University and the editor of “GivingWell: The Ethics of Philanthropy.”
“Although he has practiced somethoughtful philanthropy, especially theMorehouse gift, he has also been complicitin a 15-year scheme to avoid paying his fairshare of taxes, placing an unjust burden onthose who are not in a position to bear it,”she said.
And John C. Coffee Jr., a professor at Co-lumbia Law School who specializes in cor-porate governance, said that while hethinks Mr. Smith should be able to remainon Carnegie’s board, he should give up the
chairmanship. He said that “Carnegie iswearing a self-imposed blindfold (probablyin the hopes of future donations) when theyignore this.”
Mr. Smith took the helm of the Carnegieboard after the short and stormy tenure ofhis immediate predecessor, the billionaireRonald O. Perelman, who stepped down af-ter clashing with the hall’s leadership. Hisdeparture put an end to talks about a newmajor Perelman gift; soon after he left, hedonated $75 million to build a performingarts center at the World Trade Center site.
After Mr. Smith arrived, things seemed tocalm down on Carnegie’s board.
Clive Gillinson, Carnegie’s long-servingexecutive and artistic director, said he had“absolute, complete trust” in Mr. Smith.“Everybody makes mistakes in life; whatmatters is how you deal with them,” he said.“And he’s a man of great integrity, that’s ev-erything that I see.”
The reluctance of Carnegie Hall’s boardto dethrone Mr. Smith is understandable;he is financially generous, gets high marksas a collegial steward, and — named therichest Black man in America by Forbes in2015 — is the first African-American to holdthe Carnegie Hall post at a time when thelack of diversity at many cultural organiza-tions has become a pressing issue.
Moreover, good arts leaders are hard tofind and increasingly necessary in a timewhen institutions are struggling throughthe Covid crisis.
“When you have a wonderful chair who isa good leader and generous, it can be chal-lenging to ask them to depart,” said MichaelM. Kaiser, chairman of the DeVos Instituteof Arts Management at the University ofMaryland, who has run several major artsinstitutions. “Great chairs don’t grow ontrees.”
Emily K. Rafferty, the former president ofthe Metropolitan Museum of Art, who isalso on the board, called Mr. Smith “an ex-tremely effective chairman — unbelievablygenerous, really aligned with the missionand cause of Carnegie Hall.”
Nevertheless, Mr. Kaiser added, Mr.Smith’s conduct may give prospective do-nors pause, “or at least, there will always bethe question about whether a new donorwants to engage with the organization andis comfortable with Mr. Smith as chairman.”
Mr. Smith has been a generous donor.Since 2014, he has given about $40 million toCarnegie, much of which was directed to-ward education and social impact pro-grams. That money includes $20 million ofhis personal funds, with the other half com-ing from Mr. Smith’s Fund II Foundation,which helped finance the expansion of Car-negie Hall’s national music education pro-grams.
Mr. Smith, who loves music (he namedhis youngest sons, Hendrix and Legend, af-ter Jimi Hendrix and John Legend), hasalso supported the Hall’s National Youth Or-chestra of the USA; Ensemble Connect, afellowship program for young professionalmusicians; and its growing digital activi-ties.
In addition, Mr. Smith has made substan-tial gifts to the National Museum of AfricanAmerican History and Culture; helped re-store African-American monuments in na-tional parks; supported the Louis Arm-strong House Museum in New York; andgiven $50 million to Cornell’s School ofChemical and Biomolecular Engineering,which was renamed for him.
Mr. Smith — who is based in Austin, Tex.,where the private equity firm he founded,Vista Equity Partners, has its headquarters— grew up in Denver, graduated from Cor-nell and earned his M.B.A. from Columbia.
During the DealBook Summit, he said hewas “excited about the opportunity to cleanup the past.”
Similarly, Mr. Gillinson said he was fo-cused on the future. “Who hasn’t made amistake in their life? You deal with it in areally good way and move on,” he said. “All Ican say is that I’m incredibly lucky to havehad him as my partner.”
“Without exception,” Mr. Gillinson added,“everybody is 100 percent behind him.”
KRISTA SCHLUETER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
VINCENT TULLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
KRISTA SCHLUETER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
CONTINUED FROM PAGE C1
Top, Robert F. Smith at
Carnegie Hall’s
opening-night gala in
October 2019. The
chairman of the Carnegie
Hall board, he has
retained the support of
other members after he
acknowledged having
evaded income taxes.
Left, Mr. Smith and the
Rev. Al Sharpton at an
event last February. Mr.
Smith’s wealth and
connections were seen as
a good fit for the
institution, above.
Collegial, financiallygenerous stewards ‘don’tgrow on trees.’
Carnegie Hall Still Supports Chairman
N C7THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
MADRID — After winning the Nobel Prize inLiterature, Louise Glück has found herselfat the heart of less-welcome publicity, be-cause of a dispute over who should hold theSpanish-language rights to her work.
Pre-Textos, a publisher based in Valencia,Spain, which has translated and releasedseven of her books, has called on the Ameri-can poet to intervene in its favor after herliterary agent selected another Spanish-language publisher a month after heraward. Pre-Textos had let the Spanishrights to Glück’s work expire, but it main-tains that it should be rewarded for broad-ening her readership and publishing, at aloss, her work.
“We want some kind of justice for 14 yearsof loyalty to an author who was almost com-pletely unknown” to Spanish-languagereaders until the Nobel, Manuel Borrás, theliterary director of Pre-Textos, said in aphone interview. “For years, we have lostmoney with pleasure, in the name of pro-moting great poetry and a wonderful au-thor.”
Borrás acknowledged that he had littleground for a lawsuit against the agent, An-drew Wylie, but he said that “there is alsosomething called ethics.” According toBorrás, Wylie did not offer Pre-Textos achance to sign a new rights contract afterGlück won the Nobel. Instead, Glück willnow be distributed in Spanish by Visor, a
publisher that specializes in poetry.Chus Visor, that publisher’s founder, told
Europa Press, a Spanish news agency, thathe would start publishing Glück as soon aspossible and did not understand the dis-pute. “What happened with Glück has hap-pened with authors throughout life and inSpain as well: Many change publishers, in-cluding some who go to Pre-Textos,” hesaid.
In an email, Glück declined to comment,saying she preferred “not to weigh in” onthe issue.
The dispute between Pre-Textos and Wy-lie has been debated on Spanish-speakingsocial media and largely presented as thefight of a small publisher against a powerfuland ambitious agent, and Borrás said thathe was grateful for the “tsunami of solidari-ty” that Pre-Textos had received, particu-larly from Latin America.
But Wylie said the issues began long be-fore the Nobel news. Pre-Textos failed to re-new the rights to Glück’s work after theirinitial contract expired in 2015, he said, andit did not pay the agreed-upon advance forthe signing of a second contract. In addition,Pre-Textos ignored messages from theagency over several years, he said, thenpublished her books “Meadowlands” in2017 and “A Village Life” in 2020 withoutconsulting her, despite having promised todo so.
“Pre-Textos have breached their con-tracts and the law, but they have also fallenin breach of every editorial standard,” Wyliesaid in an email. “While we recognize the re-spect that their list commands for manyreaders, this behavior would be unaccept-able in any field.”
Wylie is well known in the literary worldfor his clout and extensive list of clients,
among them writers like Martin Amis, Mi-lan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, MirandaJuly and Elizabeth Gilbert. Wylie also rep-resents the literary estates of such iconicauthors as John Cheever, Jack Kerouac,V. S. Naipaul, Susan Sontag and John Up-dike.
After Glück won the Nobel Prize in Octo-ber, Pre-Textos submitted an offer for trans-lation rights, but Wylie chose to go with adifferent publisher, he said.
It isn’t unusual for agents to change theirauthors’ publishers to obtain more money,better marketing or a different editorialteam. In the United States, Glück startedout publishing her work at Ecco and latermoved to Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Winning a Nobel Prize typically boosts anauthor’s sales and international audienceand can lead to a frenzied competition to se-
cure translation rights. Spain is a majorplayer for Spanish-language publishingglobally, releasing more than 62,000 booksin 2018, a 3 percent increase from the previ-ous year, according to the most recent annu-al data from the country’s national statisticsinstitute.
Pre-Textos publishes about 65 books ayear, and its catalog includes three otherNobel laureates: Peter Handke, Elfriede Je-linek and Patrick Modiano. Borrás declinedto disclose the company’s earnings but said,“We have always been a slightly strangepublishing house, betting more on the qual-ity of the literature than its sales potential.”
Poetry, even by Nobel Prize winners,rarely sells well, he added, saying that theSpanish translations of Glück’s books hadsold 150 to 200 copies each.
Damián Tullio, a translator working inArgentina, said that he initially felt outragewhen he heard that Pre-Textos had lost thetranslation rights to Glück’s work, but henow thinks that Glück should seize on thenewfound interest the Nobel has generatedin her poetry, and should work with which-ever publisher can provide the strongestand most international book distribution.
In general, Tullio said, “independentSpanish publishers have a lot of difficulty todistribute their books in Latin America.”
Borrás first came across Glück’s workwhen he was given one of her books duringa visit to New York. He bought a couplemore before returning to Spain and tellinghis editorial team that Pre-Textos shouldpublish her.
Discovering her poetry was “love at firstsight,” Borrás said. “Even if she aligns withher agent and disappoints us, I will continueto call her a great poet.”Alexandra Alter contributed reporting.
Dispute Erupts Over Translation Rights to Poet
Louise Glück, outside her home
in Cambridge, Mass., received
this year’s Nobel Prize in
Literature.
DANIEL EBERSOLE/NOBEL PRIZE OUTREACH, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
After Louise Glück won theNobel Prize, her agent changedSpanish-language publishers.
By RAPHAEL MINDER
IN THE LATE 1970S, when I was living in Bos-ton, the record store of choice for classicalmusic fans was the Harvard Coop. It had anextensive catalog and informed salespeopleeager to offer invariably strong opinions onwhich albums to buy. I’d often bump intofriends and fellow musicians, all of us flip-ping through bins of LPs. After making apurchase I’d have to squeeze yet more shelfspace out of my cramped apartment, but Iwas pleased at my growing home library.
Then, in 1982, CDs arrived. Slowly every-one started converting from 12-inch vinylLPs to four-and-a-half-inch plastic CDs injewel-box cases that required a completelydifferent storage setup. And what were yousupposed to do with your old LPs?
Now the cycle has repeated itself, withCD sales dwindling to a fraction of theirheights a couple of decades ago. Downloadand streaming services have taken hold,and physical discs have become obsolete.After all, with everything available online,why clutter up your living space?
This question has taken on newly person-al significance as two albums of VirgilThomson’s music that I made as a pianist inthe early 1990s were recently reissued.While a two-CD set is available, online op-tions have immediately made these record-ings vastly more accessible than ever be-fore. And bringing attention to some won-derful yet little-known music was the mainimpetus for the original project.
And yet I can’t imagine giving up myhome collection. Yes, finding room in a Man-hattan apartment to store ever-increasingnumbers of CDs is a constant challenge. Inmy front hallway and living room I have fivewall-affixed cabinets made for me by a car-penter friend, more than 90 feet of shelfspace. In my home office I also have an in-dustrial-looking file cabinet that efficientlyholds nearly 2,000 CDs. I probably have, intotal, more than 4,000 discs. (And I knowpeople who have twice that many!)
And, perhaps out of nostalgia, I still havea stereo cabinet with a long shelf for someold LPs, along with a good turntable in theliving room. (Vinyl has been making acomeback over the last decade. And whenI’ve popped into stores selling used andjust-released LPs, the majority ofcustomers seem to be young people looking
for rock and pop albums. Go figure.)Books have gone digital, too, so we all
could certainly clear out our shelves. Yetmany of us still love holding real books inour hands and keeping a personal library,however crammed. It means so much to meto have bookcases in my apartment filledwith novels I love by Dickens, Dreiser,Hardy and Roth; dozens of biographies andhistories; a complete edition of Shake-speare’s plays; and a 12-volume 1911 editionof Jane Austen’s works that I found in a usedbookstore.
I feel the same about having right at handthe historic 22-disc edition of Stravinskyconducting his own works; the EMI col-lection of Maria Callas’s recordings of doz-ens of complete operas, both studio ac-counts and live performances; big boxed
sets of Britten, Messiaen, Liszt and Ligeti;multiple surveys of Beethoven’s 32 pianosonatas, from Artur Schnabel’s influentialrecordings of the 1930s to young Igor Lev-it’s recent, extraordinary nine-disc set. Atlast count, I have 15 complete recordings ofWagner’s “Ring.”
Most of these recordings are available on-line. But not organized in volumes like ar-chival documents, with extensive notes, es-says and information.
And then there is the issue of audio qual-ity. For decades, starting in the 1950s, thedemand for ever-improving, more faithfulsound was driven by devotees of classicalmusic. Rock and pop fans were quicker tolatch on to MP3s and iPods, excited to beable to store hundreds of favorite songs ondevices they could put in their pockets andquite ready to sacrifice audio excellence forconvenience.
The classical music contingent held out— but not for long. In time, even thosechoosy collectors decided that being able tolisten through earbuds to Bach’s “Branden-burg” Concertos as they jogged in a park, orto Debussy’s “La Mer” as they rode the bus,was worth the trade-off in richness ofsound. And, at least at home, it’s possible tohook up your computer or device to high-end stereo component systems, or to speak-ers that rival them.
My system, though very good, is hardlytop of the line; I’m not a fervent audiophile.Yet the act of going to a shelf, pulling out arecording of the piece I want to hear and sit-ting down to listen focuses my attention andenriches the experience.
For a while, my husband, Ben, deferred tome about what was, after all, an essentialelement of my life’s work. And in earlierdays, when he was looking forward to join-ing me for a concert of Sibelius symphoniesor a performance of Verdi’s “Falstaff,” hewas quite glad to have my library of record-
ings available to prep himself. But he hasgone 100 percent Spotify. And even if, athome, he can channel online recordingsthrough a small Flip 5, an external Blue-tooth speaker that actually sounds verygood, he also loves his earbuds.
Years ago, as my collection kept expand-ing, Ben reached a breaking point and insti-tuted a household regulation: For everynew CD I bring in, I must give up an old one.That’s actually reasonable. And when Ileave the giveaways in the lobby, they areusually scooped right up, which suggests tome that many other music lovers also stilllike physical discs and box sets. Maybe it’sgenerational. My young critic colleagues atThe New York Times have minuscule num-bers of actual CDs, they tell me. Theystream everything.
If streaming has its shortcomings interms of compensating artists, it may bebetter from an environmental standpoint.I’ve always assumed that, as with books,CDs can at least be recycled. But a recentTimes story set me straight. CDs can be pro-cessed into polycarbonate flakes, with somedifficulty. But the global market for this ma-terial is fast disappearing. So is my homeCD library not just a relic, but also an envi-ronmental disaster?
Perhaps there’s a middle ground. Manyrecordings may reach more listeners, domore good and remain available longer on-line. But it is worth keeping at home record-ings I cherish and albums of archival value,like a six-disc set of Bartok at the piano, orArtur Rubinstein’s 82-disc RCA catalog?Perhaps it will suffice for me to read an elec-tronic version of Barack Obama’s newmemoir, whereas I am very glad to have ahardcover of my friend Alex Ross’s latestbook, “Wagnerism.”
And in truth, now and then, despite Ben’shousehold rule, I sneak new CDs into theapartment. There are worse habits.
ANTHONY TOMMASINI CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
My CDs Aren’tGoing Anywhere
In praise of pulling a tangiblerecording off a shelf andsettling in for a good listen.
JAVIER JAÉN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANTHONY TOMMASINI
Below, a small corner of the
critic Anthony Tommasini’s
home CD collection, along with
his many vinyl LPs. For every
new CD he brings in, household
rules say he must give up an old
one. But sometimes that is
more a guideline than a rule.
C8 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020 D1
N
FASHION BEAUTY NIGHTLIFE
In a TikTok filmed in August outside of awomen’s health center in Charlotte, N.C.,the uncensored version of the mid-1990snovelty rap song “Short, Short Man” byGillette blares, “Eenie weenie teenie weenieshriveled little short, short man.”
The camera is focused on a middle-agedwhite man in sunglasses, who is holding aposter depicting what appears to be a fetuswith the word “abortion” printed on it. Thecaption on the video reads, “don’t worry, thevolume was turned all the way up so hecould hear :-)”
This is just one of a series of viral videosby Alex Cueto, 19, an abortion clinic defend-er with the organization Charlotte forChoice. She posts videos of her confronta-tions with abortion protesters on TikTok as@alexthefeminist, to a large audience. The“Short, Short Man” video, which was filmedoutside of A Preferred Women’s Health Cen-ter, has over four million views.
More well known is the TikTok in which
Abortion Rights ActivistsTake a Youthful Turn
By JESSICA GROSE
CLARK HODGIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
CONTINUED ON PAGE D6
An abortion clinic defender outside A Preferred
Women’s Health Center in Charlotte, N.C.
TikTok, for one, is a tool anunapologetic left uses togalvanize like-minded peers.
In a case of truly unfortunate timing, theweek before the Victoria and Albert Muse-um’s blockbuster show celebrating allthings bag related — an exhibition over 18months in the making, one of the largestever in a museum, with loans from aroundthe world — was to have opened on April 25,Britain shut down in response to the co-ronavirus. The show was postponed.
So far, so normal for global culturalevents during the pandemic. But thensomething unusual started to occur.
As the months of stasis stretched on, thewhole concept of the handbag, that repos-itory of stuff and signifier of personality,that accessory that had become so obses-sively renewable it drove record-settingprofits for numerous fashion brands, beganto seem irrelevant. And not just becausethere were fears when lockdown began thatbags could be virus carriers.
What was the point of a bag if no onecould go out? Why did we ever think weneeded so many of them in the first place?What are we supposed to do with all of thoseextra totes and purses and clutches? Ac-cording to data from Euromonitor, a re-search firm, bag sales this year fell 10 to 28percent in every region of the world com-pared to last year.
Suddenly it seemed as if, with 2020, theage of the handbag might actually havecome to an end. With the V&A show, when ithappened, if it happened, acting as its obitu-ary.
As if.This week “Bags: Inside Out” finally
opens to the public, and what it suggests isthat any rumor of the death of the handbaghas been greatly exaggerated.
That, in fact, bags have been intertwinedwith both male and female identity for cen-
By VANESSA FRIEDMAN
CONTINUED ON PAGE D7
Predictions on the end ofthe handbag have beengreatly exaggerated.
JOANNA NEBORSKY
They Were Carried Away
3 SKIN DEEP
Chronic stress can take avisible toll. BY JESSICA DeFINO
2 GLAMOUR SHOTS
Mount Sinai nurses becomeworks of art. BY JESSICA IREDALE
4 UPON FURTHER REVIEW
Uggs get help reinventingthemselves. BY MAX BERLINGER
8 FIRST PERSON
Freedom soars just outsidetheir window. BY DAN SINKER
Growing up in foster homes, Norris DántaFord, a fashion designer, cleverly usedclothes to impress his future parents, dress-ing up himself and his sister in multiple out-fits to show how stylish they were. Realizingthe confidence that can come from clothes,Mr. Ford, 34, built a career as a stylist, work-ing with celebrities including Prince andMatthew McConaughey, before realizingthe creative potential in making his owngarments. Now a men’s wear pattern de-signer and online sewing teacher in Atlanta,he is at the forefront of a new and growingmovement of men embracing home sewing.
Sewists (the increasingly popular gen-der-neutral term) have long worked toshake the old-fashioned housewife imageryoften associated with their hobby. Col-lective creative efforts ranging from theAIDS Memorial Quilt to knitting pussy hatshave moved the home arts into the politicaland public sphere. And with D.I.Y.ers ableto show their stuff on platforms like Pinter-est and Instagram, sewing and other handi-
ThreadingA GenderNeedle
By HANNAH STEINKOPF-FRANK
PEYTON FULFORD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
CONTINUED ON PAGE D8
Norris Dánta Ford, a fashion designer and online sewing teacher, is at the
forefront of a new and growing movement of men embracing home sewing.
D2 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
“There’s nothing fashionable — ever —about being in a hospital,” said LindaValentino, the vice president and chief nurs-ing officer at Mount Sinai Health System.
But as of Dec. 1, Mount Sinai’s soaring 11-story Guggenheim Pavilion (designed byI. M. Pei) on upper Fifth Avenue in Manhat-tan has been bedecked with large-scale por-traits of 46 of the hospital’s nurses, paintedby Rebecca Moses, the fashion designerand artist. It’s an exhibition titled simply“Thank You, Mount Sinai Nurses.”
Like many stories of 2020, this one beginsback in March, when New York City wentinto lockdown and all of Ms. Moses’sprojects, including a campaign for the Fra-grance Foundation that had been a year inthe works, ground to a halt.
Ms. Moses is a fashion industry veteranwith a long and varied career, including suc-ceeding Gianni Versace at the Italian labelGenny in Milan in the 1990s. She has be-come mostly known for her impressionisticportraiture of women rendered in vivid col-ors and highly stylized, akin to a fashionsketch.
Even before quarantine, Ms. Moses, 62,drew and painted every day as an artisticexercise and discipline, but inspiration wasin short supply while stuck inside. “I was il-lustrating a woman sitting in front of thenews, eating popcorn, drinking wine out ofthe bottle, you know, trying to bring humorinto it, so I would stay sane,” she said. “AfterI did, like, 20 of those, I was bored. I didn’tfeel satisfied. I felt helpless. I felt like Ineeded to do something for people. Butwhat could I do?”
On her Instagram account, she offered topaint and post a portrait of any woman whoshared her story of life in lockdown. Womenneed only send a letter — 2,000 charactersor less, per the platform’s limitations — anda photo. A trickle of submissions grew into anetwork of more than 360 girls and womenin 21 countries that Ms. Moses calls the StayHome Sisters.
They range in age from 4 years old to 100,including June Ambrose, a stylist, and herdaughter Summer; Sonia Warshawski, aHolocaust survivor and star of the docu-mentary “Big Sonia”; Melba Wilson,restaurateur and owner of Melba’s inHarlem; Sandy Schreier, the fashion histo-rian whose collection was the subject of anexhibition at the Metropolitan Museum ofArt last year; and Nicole Fischelis, the for-mer fashion director of Macy’s and SaksFifth Avenue.
“I never really did a lot of real portraitureof real people,” Ms. Moses said. “I wasn’teven sure if women would like the way I sawthem. Because that’s a very personal thing,too. What if I paint you and you don’t like theway you look?”
She started interviewing her subjects onInstagram Live and creating events, like aturban contest — she adores turbans — thatwas judged by Debi Mazar, the actress, andFreddie Leiba, a veteran stylist.
In April, Ms. Valentino’s sister, Anne, con-tacted Ms. Moses. Linda recounted that hersister told Ms. Moses: “‘My sister is not aStay Home Sister. She’s actually on the frontlines of working on the response to the pan-demic.’” At the time, Linda was working atMount Sinai’s Covid-19 epicenter in Brook-lyn to oversee all nursing operations.
Ms. Moses rendered her portrait as aside-by-side of Ms. Valentino in civilianclothes contrasted with her wearing herpersonal protective equipment. She was thefirst emergency medical worker Ms. Mosespainted. But not the last.
As it turns out, even before the coronavi-rus, 2020 had been designated the Year ofthe Nurse and Midwife by the World HealthOrganization in honor of the 200th anniver-sary of the birth of Florence Nightingale,
the founder of modern nursing. “To have allof our nurses traumatized in the Year of theNurse and not do anything about it, it wasliterally keeping me up at night,” Ms.Valentino said.
Ms. Valentino, Ms. Moses and LindaLevy, the president of the Fragrance Foun-dation, came up with a plan. The designerwould paint the portraits of 46 nurses fromMount Sinai and donate the original art-works to the hospital to be featured in an ex-hibition (each nurse will receive a print),while Ms. Levy arranged to donate 5,000fragrance and beauty products all filed un-der self-care for those whose job is to carefor others. (Mount Sinai employs 8,000nurses. The self-care products were distrib-
uted by lottery.)This kind of exhibition is an anomaly at
the hospital. “We’ll display the artful side ofgenomic studies,” Ms. Valentino said.
When Vanessa Joseph, a labor and deliv-ery nurse, first saw Ms. Moses’s portrait ofher wearing a marigold twin set and full, flo-ral skirt against a floral background, shewas “blown away that someone paid atten-tion to me and wanted to paint me — I’mjust a nurse.”
Seeing herself and her peers captured offduty in the vivid hues of Ms. Moses’s paletteresonated powerfully. “Sometimes you feellike you’re in the trenches,” Ms. Joseph said.“We put on the full P.P.E., and no one caneven recognize you anymore. I’m just try-ing to guess what Rebecca saw, and it’s somuch life and vibrancy. It gives people hopethat we’re going to get back to that again.”
Chosen by management, the nurses wereasked to submit plainclothes photos. Onlywomen were selected for this project,though not as a swipe against men. “I don’tdraw men,” Ms. Moses said. “It’s not mystrength. I love men, but I don’t draw themwell.”
ILLUSTRATIONS BY REBECCA MOSES
An exhibition of large-scale portraits of 46 nurses hangs at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, raising spirits at the end of a singularly difficult year.
A Glamour MomentFor Mount Sinai Nurses
The designer Rebecca Mosesturns a quarantine art projectinto a gift of thanks and tribute.
By JESSICA IREDALE
Mariel Galang-Lantin, registered nurse
in ambulatory oncology.
Carmelle K. Cime, family nurse practitioner,
specialty coordinator in dialysis.
Vanessa Joseph, a registered nurse
in women’s services.
Earl Reyes, registered nurse
in perioperative services.
There is general agreement onvery little in this world, save, per-haps, for one thing: This year hasbeen a mess, and the next one can-not come fast enough.
So it should be a surprise to noone that the prognosticators atPantone — those trend forecast-ers who scour the globe formonths noting developments inclothing, cars, kitchens, coffee(the stuff that surrounds us) andtranslate it into a color they claimwill be the dominant shade of thecoming year — have chosen, asthe color of the year for 2021 . . .two colors!
Which does not represent inde-cisiveness, but a metaphor. Getready for Ultimate Gray and Illu-minating. Or, in normal-speak:the light at the end of the tunnel.
After Living Coral in 2019 andClassic Blue in 2020, this may notbe what anyone expected (thatmight have been “grim black”),but it might be what everyoneneeds.
“No one color could get acrossthe meaning of the moment,” Lau-rie Pressman, the vice presidentof the Pantone Color Institute,said on a call. “We all realized wecannot do this alone. We all have adeeper understanding of how weneed each other and emotionalsupport and hope.”
Hence, said Leatrice Eiseman,the executive director of the Pan-tone Color Institute, the decisionto select “two independent colorsreally coming together.”
No one ever pretended colortheory was subtle. Besides, thechoice does represent a step for-ward, of sorts.
This is only the second time inthe 22 years that Pantone hasbeen choosing a color of the yearthat two colors have been se-lected. The first time was in 2015,when Rose Quartz and Serenitywere chosen (which is to say, pinkand blue for 2016). That year, thetwo shades were meant to blendinto each other, reflecting the rec-ognition of gender fluidity and so-cial progress. But this year, thetwo shades are meant to stand ontheir own, as complementarytones, supporting each other.
It is also the first time that agray has earned the honor, andonly the second time for a yellow.As it happens, both shades wereadded to the Pantone color wheelearlier this year, along with PeriodRed. Imagine if that one had wonout.
Both Ms. Eiseman and Ms.Pressman said they did not startthe process with a two-color resultin mind, but they realized early on
that the stakes around the choiceof color for 2021 were very highand might demand a new ap-proach.
Not just because choosing a sin-gle anything to represent what’snext after a year of historic crisiscould seem a fool’s errand. (Whoknows what’s next?!) But be-cause the question of consump-tion, which is intrinsically linkedto Pantone’s choice, and its statusas a marketing stunt, is itselffraught. Also because no onecould move around as they had inthe past to sleuth out what washappening in the color universe.Ms. Eiseman, for example, saidshe had not been on a plane sinceFebruary.
Still, between the internet andthe Pantone teams in almost 30countries, the direction thingswere going was fairly certain bymidsummer.
The prognosticators began byacknowledging the shades of grayin which we have all been im-mersed. Indeed, of all the grays inthe palette, Ultimate Gray is a de-terminedly neutral kind of gray. Itis not the dark gray of gatheringstorm clouds or the dour gray ofinstitutional sameness or the dimgray of skulking in the shadows orthe soft, luxurious dove gray ofDior, but a more solid, granite-likegray. The kind of gray of wisdom(gray beards!) and intelligence(gray matter!) and construction.
“It’s a dependable gray,” Ms.Eiseman said
One person’s dependable is an-other person’s depressing, howev-er, which is where Illuminatingcomes in. It’s not the egg yolk-likeyellow of Mimosa, the color of theyear of 2009, nor an acidic or high-lighter yellow, nor the “go into thelight” yellow of the afterlife, or sci-fi adventure, but more of a sun-shine, or smiley face, yellow.
Together, Ms. Eiseman said,“the color combination presses usforward.” It has been popping upeverywhere, from Nike to theMarks & Spencer Porn Star Mar-tini cans.
It would be easy to think thatthe whole “working together” as-pect of the messaging includes aquasi-political subtext, as wecome out of an administrationmarked by party standoffs, ratherthan compromise, but Ms. Press-man said that was not the point.
“It’s about our minds resettingto what’s really important,” shesaid.
The choice is also, of course,about selling. Get ready for the“Get the color of the year look!”emails that inevitably ensue.
Still, news of the coronavirusvaccine has reinforced Pantone’sselection. Even in the gray same-ness of our current days, the fu-ture does look a whole lot brighter.Illuminated, even.
Picking Out Colors For the Tunnel’s End
Ultimate Gray and Illuminating are Pantone’s 2021 colors of the
year. Normally just one is selected, but two were needed to
capture “the meaning of the moment,” an executive said.
By VANESSA FRIEDMAN
Pantone selects two huesfor 2021, but can we getthrough 2020 first?
The two shades are meant to stand on their own, as complementary tones.
ILLUSTRATIONS VIA PANTONE
N D3THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
It starts in utero.A mass of cells divides and develops, and
from a single layer of embryonic tissue, twoinherently interconnected systems areborn: the brain and the skin.
They are bound for life. When one sensesembarrassment, the other blushes. Whenone senses pain, the other processes it. Andwhen one bears the burden of a pandemic,political unrest, systemic racism and theever-worsening effects of climate change. . . well, the other gets a pimple.
Or perhaps, it’s not a pimple but an ecze-ma outbreak. A psoriasis flare-up. A bout ofrosacea. A dehydrated, dull, oily or evenolder-looking appearance. General blah-ness, if you will.
This is your skin on stress.“There are two different types of stress:
acute stress and chronic stress,” said Dr.Whitney Bowe, a dermatologist and the au-thor of “The Beauty of Dirty Skin.” A quicksurge of stress can be a good thing. It mayheighten your senses, enhance mental clar-ity and help create collagen to facilitatewound repair. It’s there and it’s gone.
It’s the chronic, continuing stress thattakes a toll on the skin.
It takes a toll on the entire being, and acompromised complexion is the least of itsconsequences. But “the skin is the organthat we see,” said Dr. Loretta Ciraldo, a der-matologist and founder of the Dr. Lorettaskin-care line. And in a society where un-sustainable stress is not only the norm, butsometimes a celebrated sign of success,what better way for the subconscious to cryout than “stress skin”? (It is, after all, easierto ignore your feelings than your face.)
How Stress Affects Your Skin
Much of the skin-psyche connection comesdown to the overproduction of cortisol, theprimary stress hormone, and its effect onthe skin barrier.
“The barrier traps moisture in and keepsallergens, irritants and pollutants out,” Dr.Bowe said. It effectively does the job of mostskin-care products on the market, sansproducts, and needs three things in order tothrive: oil, water and the microbiome. Corti-sol depletes them all.
During times of stress, cortisol slows theproduction of beneficial oils. “We get dry,rough and much more irritated becausethose healthy oils act as a protective layerfor us,” Dr. Ciraldo said. Without adequatelipids to seal in hydration, the skin starts to“leak” water in a process known astransepidermal water loss (TEWL).
At the same time, cortisol stimulates theoverproduction of sebum, the oil that is im-plicated in acne. “So for many of us, our skinseems more oily when we’re under stress,and it’s more acne prone,” she said.
All of this alters the skin’s pH, which com-promises the acid mantle and creates an in-hospitable environment for the one trillionsymbiotic micro-organisms that exist onand in the skin barrier — a.k.a., the micro-biome.
Under ideal conditions, the microbiomerenders topical skin care all but superflu-ous. There are microbes that feed off se-bum, which helps sustain healthy oil levels.There are microbes that feed off dead skincells — the original exfoliators. There aremicrobes that produce peptides and ce-
ramides, two beauty ingredients that keepskin firm and moisturized. There are mi-crobes that offer protection from pollution,sunlight and invading pathogens.
“If you’re not producing enough of thosehealthy fats and not maintaining a healthybarrier, though, you’re altering the terrainon which these microbes grow and thrive,”Dr. Bowe said. “Imagine stripping the soil ofall the nutrients and seeing if your vegeta-ble garden is going to grow. It’s the same forthe skin.”
In turn, the microbiome may experiencean overgrowth of so-called bad bacteria(like C. acnes, the strain associated withacne) and a dearth of good bacteria. The mi-crobiome becomes more prone to infection,irritation, inflammation and hyperpigmen-tation. It becomes more sensitive to outsideaggressors, like the free radicals generatedby pollution.
Stress prompts the body to produce inter-nal free radicals, as well. “You can think offree radicals like little missiles,” Dr. Bowesaid, in that they target cells for destructionand cause oxidative stress. When free radi-cals target DNA, it leads to skin cancer.When free radicals target elastin and colla-gen, it leads to fine lines and wrinkles.When free radicals target lipids, it leads todehydration and skin barrier damage andacne.
Chronic exposure to cortisol also inhibitsthe production of hyaluronic acid and colla-gen. “These are what keep the skin plumpand youthful,” Dr. Bowe said. “When youcan’t make enough, the skin gets thinner.”
Sadly, hyaluronic acid serums and colla-gen creams can’t counteract cortisol. Topi-cal ingredients don’t serve the same biologi-cal purpose as those produced in the bodyand rarely penetrate to the lower layer ofthe dermis, where collagen and hyaluronicacid naturally occur.
In fact, skin-care products aren’t the an-swer to stress skin at all.
“Most products are meant for consumerswho have a healthy skin barrier,” said RonRobinson, a cosmetic chemist and founderof BeautyStat Cosmetics. Exposing an al-ready broken barrier to active ingredients— or too many ingredients — only exacer-bates existing issues.
For this reason, Dr. Ciraldo recommendsremoving barrier-degrading ingredientslike glycolic acid, salicylic acid, benzoyl per-oxide and retinol from your stress skin rou-tine. “They are very drying, and they reallydo deplete the normal, healthy barrier func-tion,” she said.
Dr. Bowe advises that you avoid anyleave-on products with essential oils inthem, because they can cause irritation. “Alot of people think they’re calming andsoothing, but for the skin, that’s not thecase,” she said.
Exceptions can be made for barrier-boosting ingredients, like glycolipids(found in Dr. Loretta Intense ReplenishingSerum), fatty acids (found in Symbiome Re-spond Postbiomic Oil) and ceramides(found in BeautyStat Pro-Bio MoistureBoost Cream).
Address the Stress to Heal the Skin
Managing stress may seem nearly impossi-ble, considering that so many modernstressors are systemic. Yet according to Dr.Heather Woolery-Lloyd, a dermatologist,“90 percent of our stress is not the stressor
itself, but how we deal with that stressor.”In other words: While meditation can’t
mitigate global warming, it can, at the veryleast, clear your complexion.
Meditating, Dr. Woolery-Lloyd said, initi-ates “the relaxation response,” which acti-vates the body’s parasympathetic nervoussystem and decreases cortisol and inflam-mation. With consistent practice, the skinbarrier can stop leaking and start locking inmoisture, suggesting that the fabled innerglow is less symbolic than scientific.
Dr. Ciraldo tells her patients to think ofmeditation as “The Life-Changing Magic ofTidying Up” for the mind. “Try to find a spotwhen you’re going to sit quietly for 20 min-utes a day and really go through yourthoughts like you would your closet,” shesaid. “If something comes into your mindthat doesn’t give you joy, put energy intodiscarding that thought.”
Not into meditation? No matter. Breath-ing, which may beat drinking water as themost eye-rollingly simple yet undeniably ef-fective skin-care tip, is enough. Researchfrom Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard Medi-cal School shows that taking slow, deepbreaths triggers the relaxation responseand, Dr. Bowe said, “can stop psychologicalstress from being translated to physical in-flammation in the skin.” Breath workclasses, like those offered on the holistichealing hub ALTYR, can help with tech-nique.
“Do not put on CNN with John King upthere five minutes before bed,” Dr. Ciraldosaid, which is to say, beware the blue lightemitted from electronics. It interrupts yourcircadian rhythm and leads to lower-quality
sleep, which is linked to increased cortisol,free radical damage and inflammation.
“Something as simple as sleep canchange the skin barrier,” Dr. Woolery-Lloydsaid.
To address and prevent free radical dam-age, fill your plate with antioxidants, whichstabilize these unstable molecules to leaveskin clearer, calmer, brighter and more eventoned. Vitamins A and C (abundant in fruitsand vegetables), lycopene (found in toma-toes), astaxanthin (salmon) and polyphe-nols (green tea, dark chocolate) are allgreat options, according to Dr. Bowe.
Exercise increases antioxidants, as well.(Behold, the body produces yet anotherpopular skin-care ingredient on its own.) Itlowers cortisol levels, meaning fewerbreakouts and a stronger skin barrier. Andif you’re exercising outdoors? Even better.
“I’m a big believer in the healing power ofnature,” Dr. Woolery-Lloyd said. “Peoplesay, ‘I don’t have the time,’ but it doesn’thave to be this drawn out thing. Just goingoutside and seeing a tree and looking at afew birds is proven to lower inflammatorymarkers in our body.”
If all else fails, cry.“Crying is a stress reliever and helps de-
crease cortisol levels,” said Dr. Purvisha Pa-tel, a dermatologist and the founder ofVisha Skincare. “This can result in fewerbreakouts.” She notes that orgasms have asimilar effect on cortisol (and are, by all ac-counts, more enjoyable).
“This isn’t B.S.,” Dr. Ciraldo said. “Theseare things we can do for our skin and our-selves that don’t cost anything, but the re-ward is great.”
Mind and Body WoesRise to the Surface
CHLOE ZOLA
By JESSICA DeFINO
Psychological strain can show up as ‘stress skin.’ Treating thesituation is easier (and more affordable) than you may think.
SKIN-CAREPRODUCTS
AREN’ T THEANSWER.
SKIN DEEP
Rosa Isabel Rayos, 28, is an Afro-Latinatransgender rapper whose goal is to makemusic that uplifts, supports and encouragesBlack transgender women — including, attimes, herself.
“Everybody who raps only raps aboutwhat they know,” said Ms. Rayos, who goesby Ms. Boogie when she performs. Her mo-tive just happens to be very clear: to con-nect to other trans people who need a re-minder that they deserve to feel safety, loveand joy.
“It’s imperative for me to center my workaround spreading that ‘femme queen joy,’”Ms. Rayos said. “It seems like the rightthing to do, to create on an emotional level,to make the things I needed and continue toneed to hear. I am gifting myself, too.”
Black transgender women live undersuch constant threat of violence that theAmerican Medical Association declared thewave of murders of trans people last year an“epidemic.” “We are at the very bottom ofthe totem pole,” Ms. Rayos said, “right nextto the cisgender Black woman.”
Media coverage of trans life is minimaland usually depicts tragedies that stemfrom harassment and discrimination. Thismakes the rare positive depictions of transpeople all the more important, according toadvocates for the trans community.
Steven Canals, a creator, director and ex-ecutive producer of “Pose” — a televisionshow about the L.G.B.T.Q. ballroom com-munity in 1980s New York City that includestrans cast members — recalled being ap-proached by two young Black trans women,who were extras, one day on set.
“One of them grabbed my hand,” he said.“With tears in their eyes, they were like: ‘Asa young girl I had a desire to be an actor, butbecause I’m Black and trans I always felt
like that’s never going to happen for me. Ilet the dream go. Being here on this set hasallowed me to dream again.’”
Raquel Willis, a transgender activist anda former national organizer of the Trans-gender Law Center, also emphasized theimportance of positive pop culture and me-dia representation for trans people.
“When you have been so maligned andmarginalized, you have no choice but toimagine a better world or imagine a fullerlife because you have been forced to findthat in some of the most difficult circum-
stances,” Ms. Willis said. “We have to recre-ate ourselves, whether for ourselves or tonavigate a world that it often feels like otherpeople have tried to create for us.”
Born and raised in the East New Yorkneighborhood of Brooklyn, Ms. Rayos be-gan performing in the warehouse rave cir-cuit in New York City six years ago andfound that she felt empowered onstage. Shehad previously walked in New York’s ball-room scene, and used that experience to de-velop a distinct physicality and presencethat melded rap with ballroom. As a musi-
cian, Ms. Rayos performed under the nameJay Boogie.
As her popularity grew, so did her suc-cess. She began touring to different citiesand countries and was the subject of admir-ing profiles in Vice and other publications,but the life she was getting to experiencedid not match how she felt.
“I was in a very divisive place in my life,”Ms. Rayos said. “I was torn.”
Performing provided an outlet for hergender expression. “In many ways, before,it felt like getting ready for a performanceand stepping into the glamour was an op-portunity for me to feel closer to my wom-anhood,” she said. “I would really look for-ward to it.”
In 2018, Ms. Rayos came out publicly in aletter published in Paper Magazine, writ-ing, “In a practical world, I would be a ‘transwoman,’ but in the world that I have built formyself and my loved ones, I am simply my-self.”
What followed, onstage, was a transfor-mation to an effervescent performer thatMs. Rayos conjured by mixing a bit of hermother’s tenacity, a punch of Grace Jones’sconfidence and several spoonfuls of FoxyBrown’s Brooklyn pretty-girl aura.
The extreme self-assuredness she hopesto embody is not meant to mask the realityof the dangers she and other trans peopleface disproportionately in the United Statesand around the world, but to fly in the face ofit. “My joy and determination of self doesnot exempt me from being targeted in anyway,” Ms. Rayos said.
She does feel an obligation to learn thestories of other trans women and to fight forthem, she said. But she is also working onletting herself enjoy the moment. She has anew single, “Fem Queen,” an upcoming al-bum, and was recently featured in VogueMexico.
“I’m excited to just make things and con-tinue to tell my story, to create more andgive more gifts to some queens,” Ms. Rayossaid.
She Shares ‘Femme Queen Joy’ to Benefit Others and HerselfRosa Isabel Rayos at her home
in New York. She says that
Black transgender women “are
at the very bottom of the totem
pole, right next to the
cisgender Black woman.”
ASHLEY PENA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Rosa Isabel Rayos, who rapsas Ms. Boogie, is on a mission.
By SANDRA E. GARCIA
to revamp the brand image by bringing innew styles and new consumers — espe-cially teens and younger adults, many ofwhom may not be familiar with the brand orhaven’t owned a pair before.”
Ugg kicked things off with the Los Ange-les enfant terrible Jeremy Scott, who plas-tered his boots with a kitschy flame print,and it followed up with the New York de-signer Phillip Lim, whose designs featuredfront zippers, pops of orange and rubberguards that recalled duck boots.
Last year, the arty bicoastal duo behindEckhaus Latta made clunky square-toedclogs and mules, and the louche streetwearlabel Stampd created a convertible pair thatcould transform from slippers to boots,which the website Highsnobiety called“peak work from home footwear.”
Next up are the British designer MollyGoddard, she of the tulle extravaganzas,who showed platform mules, shaggy slip-pers and boots with floral appliqués at herspring 2021 show, and the Brooklyn de-signer Telfar Clemens, whose patchwork,logo-strewn boots (along with bedazzled T-shirts, oversize hoodies and fur-linedbucket hats) will be released next year.
“They are basically an accessible luxury,”said Mr. Clemens, who has upended oldideas about gender and identity. “It’s aChristmas list thing for hundreds of thou-sands of people. That’s the sort of space wewant to occupy.”
Department stores known for their dis-cerning product mix, like Nordstrom and
the Canadian retailer SSENSE, have takennotice and started to carry the limited-edi-tion releases.
“The totally unexpected nature of the col-laborations continues to keep the brand rel-evant,” said Brian Costello, the vice presi-dent and merchandise manager for wom-en’s shoes at Nordstrom. And while the lim-ited editions generate excitement withintargeted communities, they do so withoutalienating fans of the core collection.
Ms. O’Donnell, whose first memory of thebrand is Pamela Anderson wearing Uggswith her red “Baywatch” swimsuit (Ms. An-derson, an animal-rights activist, has sincerenounced the boots), calls the classic boota “cultural icon.” That sort of talk is oftenballyhoo, but in this she’s not wrong. Uggspermeated the zeitgeist in a way few otherfootwear brands can claim.
Oprah Winfrey included them in her an-nual “Favorite Things” episodes, starting in2003, creating a frenzy. Celebrities oftenwore them between takes while filming,which continued to raise their profile. Andstarlets helped forge an image of them asglamorous and casual in the early part ofthe century. Originally they were worn bysurfers to keep their feet warm after amorning of wave-riding, giving them in-stant street (beach?) cred. Still, withoutconstant tending and innovation, a brandbuilt around one signature item can easilyget stuck in a rut.
“Uggs will always and forever remind meof coming of age in the early aughts, seeing
them on celebrities like Jessica Simpson on‘Newlyweds’ or Paris Hilton shopping atKitson,” said Tyler McCall, the editor inchief of the website Fashionista. “Lately,though, they also bring up images of a veryspecific, cool-art-scene kid.”
For Ms. McCall, it was those Y/Projectboots that helped her see the boots anew.“At first it was like, ‘Wait, these are crazy!’then, ‘Are these crazy, though?’ and finally,‘Wait, maybe these are so crazy they’recool?’”
“With the internet, it feels like there is adizzying number and array of fashion cir-cles, and Ugg has made its way into a few ofthem,” Ms. McCall said. “Whether it’s peo-ple interested in these buzzy collaborationsor those who want to wear them with a sortof nod-wink ironic nudge to that millennialaesthetic.”
While the collaborations have been ableto whip up excitement in the fashion com-munity, serendipitous outside forces haveadded to Ugg’s recent good fortune. It is oneof a few fashion brands poised to benefitfrom the novel coronavirus as stay-at-homeorders and mandated quarantines created asurge in popularity for cozy apparel and ac-cessories, like sweats and house slippers.Uggs may be just the regression we all needin these times.
Additionally, nostalgia for trends fromthe early aughts has experienced a renais-sance in recent years, fueling a fervor forPuma sneakers, Prada nylon bags andother brands of the era. And while Uggshave been derided by some as downrightunattractive, ugly shoes are popular in cer-tain cool-kid circles. Ms. Homma of Eu-romonitor likened Ugg’s trajectory to theascent of another ugly-covetable shoe:Crocs.
In its most recent quarterly earnings call,in late October, Ugg reported a modest in-crease in net sales, at 2.5 percent. Ms.Homma noted that, considering the chal-lenging retail environment of the last year,that figure actually read as quite resilient.
In September, Lyst, the fashion searchplatform, noted: “As ugly boots are replac-ing ugly sandals post-summer, demand forUgg boots is growing 24 percent week onweek. Over the past month, there have beenmore than 41,000 searches for the brand.”
Moreover, the availability of these partic-ular partnerships is concentrated, with theultimate goal of creating a halo effectaround other products, like the Fluff col-lection, which has been seen on SerenaWilliams, Cardi B and Justin Bieber (who, in2010, told Seventeen magazine he thoughtUggs were “ugly”).
To further expand its image, the companyrecently released a campaign starring thepierced and tattooed Dennis Rodman andthe pink-haired skater du jour Evan Mockmugging on a debris-filled mansion lawn.And last month a new flagship store con-cept, which leans heavily into sensualcurves and terrazzo floors, was unveiled onFifth Avenue.
So, like it or not, Uggs are cool again. Ormaybe they were always cool. Or, keeping inmind the strange and fickle ways thattrends ebb and flow in the social media era,maybe they were never cool, which is whatmakes them, well, cool.
Doses of CoolReboot a BootUgg plays the high-fashion game byturning to an eclectic list of collaborators.
By MAX BERLINGER
D4 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
And so a new era begins at Chloé. Less thana week after the departure of Natacha Ram-say-Levi following a four-year tenure, theFrench fashion house announced GabrielaHearst as its new artistic director, effectiveimmediately.
Ms. Hearst, a Uruguayan-born women’sready-to-wear and accessories designerwho founded a namesake luxury label in2015, had been widely tipped in recentmonths for the role. In just five years, herbrand has gained respect and recognitionacross the industry for its honed focus oncasual elegance, sharp tailoring and use ofsustainably sourced textiles, albeit at sky-high prices.
Last year, in New York, she held the in-dustry’s first carbon-neutral fashion showand was named American women’s weardesigner of the year at the CFDA FashionAwards. This September, she held her debutpresentation at Paris Fashion Week — oneof around 20 that had a live audience.LVMH Luxury Ventures, an investmentarm of the multinational luxury goods con-glomerate LVMH, took a minority stake inthe Gabriela Hearst business in January2019; the brand recorded revenues ofaround $24 million last year.
In a statement published Monday an-nouncing the appointment, Chloé said thatMs. Hearst would continue as creative di-
rector at her own business in addition to tak-ing on the position of artistic director atChloé. She will follow in the footsteps of anumber of star designers, including Karl La-gerfeld, Stella McCartney and Phoebe Philo,who have all previously held the role atChloé, which was founded in 1952 by GabyAghion. The house is owned by the Swissluxury goods group Richemont, which alsoowns luxury brands like Azzedine Alaïa andCartier and is an archrival of LVMH.
“Gabriela is a forward-thinking womanand her creative leadership will be a positive
force in further evolving and expanding ourfounder’s original vision of meaningful andpowerful femininity,” said Riccardo Bellini,Chloé’s chief executive. “Her powerful vi-sion of more responsible fashion truly em-bodies the values and sense of commitmentof today’s Chloé women.”
Ms. Hearst, who was raised on her fam-ily’s cattle ranch in Uruguay and is a vocalproponent for improved transparency inthe luxury supply chain, added that she wasexcited to work with Mr. Bellini and to sup-port him in his “commitment to create a
business that is socially conscious and inbalance with the environment.”
“I am also humbled to be able to workwith the Chloé team to help execute thisbeautiful vision in creative and accountableways,” she continued.
Ms. Hearst’s first collection for the housewill be presented in March for the fall win-ter 2021 season. Her appointment is the lat-est in a series of high-profile designer hiresatop of the world’s best-known luxuryhouses this year, following those ofMatthew Williams at Givenchy in June andKim Jones at Fendi in September.
Gabriela Hearst Steps In as Artistic Director at Chloé
From left: the designer
Gabriela Hearst at her show
during New York Fashion
Week in February; Gabriela
Hearst, fall 2020; Gabriela
Hearst, spring 2021.
LEFT AND CENTER, ANGELA WEISS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES; RIGHT, LUIS ALBERTO RODRIGUEZ
By ELIZABETH PATON
Along with her new role, thedesigner will continue on ather namesake brand.
TOP AND ABOVE: VIA UGG; CENTER: VIAUGG; JARED SISKIN/GC IMAGES; DIADIPASUPIL/GC IMAGES; JOHN SCIULLI
Center, the Ugg Classic Mini
ambassadors, from left, Joan
Smalls, Irina Shayk, Emily
Ratajkowski and Jasmine
Tookes. Above, the fruits of
Ugg’s collaboration with the
designer Molly Goddard.
It started with Rihanna, as these things sooften do.
It was the halcyon days of 2018 and thepop singer and fashion icon wore a pair ofUggs to — where else? — the Coachella mu-sic festival.
Not your average pair, like the classicboots made famous by a Juicy Couture-cladLindsay Lohan at the height of her UsWeekly fame in the early aughts. This pairwas a collaboration with the Belgian de-signer Glenn Martens of the avant-garde la-bel Y/Project, who exploded the ostenta-tiously unsexy style to Brobdingnagian pro-portions, yielding a version that was high-heeled, slouchy and reached well abovemid-thigh. A picture of Rihanna in thewaderlike footwear amassed more than 3.3million likes on Instagram, and even Voguecouldn’t resist their strange allure.
“The C.F.O. was not superexcited aboutthem,” Andrea O’Donnell, the Ugg brandpresident, recalled. After seeing a CNNnews segment of the Y/Project runwayshow in which they were unveiled, “he camein and said, ‘Tell me that I didn’t see thigh-high boots, on a catwalk, worn by a man,’”she said, laughing.
Ms. O’Donnell had been hired in 2016 tohelp reposition the brand with consumerswho associated Ugg with the classic boot inits purest form: shin-high, slip-on, mochabrown and lined in sheepskin. It was a casu-al style, to be worn with yoga pants whilerunning errands. Ugg wanted to widen itsimage to encompass more fashion-forwardassociations.
And Ugg had lost its luster. Once the bootdu jour for carefree socialites and off-dutystarlets, it had become part of the uniformof a certain upwardly mobile consumer withbland bourgeoisie taste. The label washardly the first to experience thistrajectory. It’s a common one infashion: Things that once had anair of exclusivity and mystiqueare then fully absorbed by the cul-ture. Uggs were beloved but massmarket.
Ms. O’Donnell, who came fromthe luxury department store LaneCrawford, moved to Santa Bar-bara, Calif., where Deckers, theUgg parent company, is based,and got down to work, initiating aseries of high-profile collabora-tions to inject some glamour intothe label.
“We needed to engage the fash-ion community about what ourbrand could be,” Ms. O’Donnellsaid.
She has since assembled a ros-ter of collaborations that are aseclectic as they are eccentric. Farfrom tapping, say, luxury labels inthe European mold (recent part-nerships between Prada and Adi-das or Dior and Nike Air Jordan come tomind), Ugg chose designers with edgier,artier inclinations, which helped reinforcewhat Ms. O’Donnell said was the brand’spotential to be both aspirational and acces-sible.
“Ugg really needed to reinvent itself,”said Ayako Homma, an analyst at the mar-ket research firm Euromonitor Interna-tional, citing market saturation and coun-terfeits as reasons for waning consumer in-terest. “And collaborations are a great way
N D5THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
D6 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
Ms. Cueto recites the lyrics of Cardi B andMegan Thee Stallion’s bawdy hit “WAP,”while an opponent of abortion reads the Bi-ble outside the clinic.
“We treat these protesters like they’re ajoke already,” Ms. Cueto said in an inter-view. “We don’t give them that sense of mor-al superiority.”
Ms. Cueto, who grew up in South Carolinaand now lives in Charlotte, is one of manyGen Z campaigners for abortion rights whouse social media to galvanize their peers.“Every day I post about being pro-choice,”said Michaela Brooke, 19, a student at theUniversity of Alabama in Birmingham andan activist with Advocates for Youth, a non-profit that organizes young people aroundreproductive health. Ms. Brooke said sheposted educational resources as well as in-formation about opportunities to organize.
Many of these activists came of age inSouthern and Midwestern states with sig-nificant restrictions on abortion. KatieGreenstein, 17, who uses nongendered pro-nouns and lives in Wildwood, Mo., said thatthey got involved with NARAL Pro-ChoiceMissouri, the local branch of an abortionrights advocacy group, after Missouri out-lawed abortion after eight weeks in 2019.(The law was later blocked by a federaljudge.)
Still, “abortion is out of reach because ofvarious barriers enacted” in Missouri, Ms.Greenstein said. They include a 72-hourwaiting period and a prohibition on the useof telehealth services to counsel those whoseek abortions by medication. “It pushedme into wanting to fight,” Ms. Greensteinsaid.
According to a an American Psychologi-cal Association Survey conducted in Au-gust, 64 percent of Gen Z adult women saythat a possible change in abortion laws is a
source of stress for them in 2020. The con-firmation of Amy Coney Barrett, a conser-vative, on the Supreme Court soon after,also invigorated abortion rights propo-nents who fear that Roe v. Wade may be atrisk.
The day after Justice Barrett was con-firmed, “I woke up angry, just ready to go,”said Ms. Greenstein, whose state has a so-called trigger law that would immediatelyban abortion if Roe v. Wade were over-turned. “There is so much on the line.”
Shunning Shame
The modern abortion rights movementgrew out of the women’s rights movementof the 1960s, said Alesha Doan, 48, a profes-sor at the University of Kansas and the au-thor of “Opposition and Intimidation: TheAbortion Wars and Strategies of PoliticalHarassment.” In the early days, activistsworked on passing laws at the state level,and talked about their experiences in con-sciousness-raising groups, Professor Doansaid.
After Roe v. Wade became federal law in1973, the anti-abortion movement began tocoalesce, adopting the tactics the abortion-rights proponents had once used. You can’ttalk about one group without the other, Pro-fessor Doan said: “They coexist, they learnfrom each other, and they respond and re-act to each other.”
Clinic escorts — volunteers who standoutside clinics and help patients entersafely — were not widespread until the late1980s and early 1990s, said ShoshannaEhrlich, 64, a professor of women’s, genderand sexuality studies at University ofMassachusetts Boston. “That really grewup in a very powerful way in response tothe increased clinic violence” from abor-tion foes, she said, which included the mur-ders of a handful of doctors who performedabortions, as well as other clinic workers.
The guiding philosophy for clinic escortshas always been to not be confrontational,Professor Ehrlich said; they have seentheir role more as human shields, protect-ing clients with their bodies, even if notwith their words.
But while escorts still by and large take anonconfrontational approach to dealingwith anti-abortion protesters, so-called de-
fenders, like Ms. Cueto, act more as coun-terprotesters.
The rise of defenders mirrors the rise ofanti-abortion protests outside of clinics. Ac-cording to a report from the National Abor-tion Federation, there were more than6,000 incidents of anti-abortion picketing atclinics in 2010, and more than 100,000 inci-dents in 2019. Trespassing incidents also in-creased significantly over the course of adecade.
And since the pandemic began, “we’veseen an increase in harassment and at-tempted clinic invasions and people show-ing up to scream and protest and shout un-masked,” said Katherine Ragsdale, 62, thepresident and chief executive of the Na-tional Abortion Federation.
This is where clinic defenders and othermore adversarial counterprotesters havestepped in. In general, young activists “arepushing forward with a more unapologeticvoice,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, 48, thepresident of Planned Parenthood’s actionfund.
Though Gen Z isn’t the first group to em-ploy loud and unapologetic tactics — someolder activists and writers, including KathaPollitt, have been pushing these ideas foryears — they may be doing it in larger num-bers.
There is some evidence that a slightlygreater percentage of Gen Z Americanssupport abortion rights than previous gen-erations, and that those who support abor-tion rights feel more strongly about it, saidNatalie Jackson, the director of research atthe Public Religion Research Institute, anonprofit and nonpartisan polling organi-zation.
According to the nonprofit’s most recentsurvey, from 2019, 59 percent of Americansages 18 to 29 say abortion should be legal inall or most cases, compared with 57 percentof the same age group in 2014. “Other agegroups have not changed much since 2014,”the report noted.
What’s more, some activists in theirteens and early 20s now reject the “safe, le-gal and rare” framing of abortion rightsthat was embraced by many in the 1990s,said Diana Thu-Thao Rhodes, 36, the vicepresident for policy, partnerships and or-ganizing at Advocates for Youth. Gen Z ac-tivists “have really pushed for the issue as
an intersectional issue,” Ms. Rhodes said.“Your race, gender, sexuality, age — all ofthose contributing identities impact youraccess to care.”
A Shift in Strategy
Calla Hales, 30, the executive director of APreferred Women’s Health Center(A.P.W.H.C.) in Charlotte, has seen thenumber of anti-abortion campaigners out-side the clinic explode since 2015. Sheknows the history of the center well, as herparents started the network of clinics in1999 in Raleigh, N.C.
Before 2015, “on a weekday, we’d see fiveto 10 protesters, and on the weekends 20 to30,” Ms. Hales said. In the past five years,there have been prayer walks outside theCharlotte clinic on Saturdays organized bya group called Love Life, involving as manyas 5,000 people according to her clinic’s esti-mates, Ms. Hales said.
“In years past we have had several thou-sand gather for prayer and worship and cel-ebration of life,” said Josh Kappes, the direc-tor of city development for Love Life. “Thisyear was much less due to Covid.
“This year, we continued our outdoorprayer walks offering masks and hand sani-tizer in each participating city. Love Lifestrongly encouraged social distancing andface coverings where they were mandated.We also encouraged virtual participationfor at-risk family members, elderly andcommunities with community spread.”
In March, four men who are part of theLove Life organization were charged withviolating a stay-at-home order in Greens-boro, N.C. Ms. Hales, of the clinic, said it wasnot uncommon to see 90 anti-abortion advo-cates gathered outside the clinic on a typicalday earlier this year when the state wasmuch more locked down with coronavirusrestrictions.
Local newspapers like The Charlotte Ob-server and The Queen City Nerve havebeen covering the clashes between abortionrights advocates and anti-abortion cam-paigners outside A.P.W.H.C. for years.Many involve disputes over noise ordi-nances. Anti-abortion campaigners havecamped out on the land next door to thehealth center so they can “point their speak-ers toward the clinic while avoiding the
need for a city-approved sound permit,” TheObserver reported. In November, the anti-abortion group Cities4Life received a con-sent order from a federal judge that allowsprotesters to approach cars as they enterand exit the clinic’s driveway. Cities4Lifedid not respond to a request for comment.
Ms. Hales said that her parents “werevery much of the ‘put your head down’ kindof crowd, a strategy favored by a lot of abor-tion providers,” which involved not con-fronting those campaigning against abor-tion. “That doesn’t work any longer whenthey’ve got the property next door andthey’re coming in droves at a time.”
She said 2020 was also the first time alarge number of people in their teens and20s had organized outside her clinic. A me-dia strategist for Charlotte for Choice whowithheld her real name because she fearedharassment from anti-abortion campaign-ers said that since Ms. Cueto and others hadbeen publicizing the organization’s work inproviding clinic defenders and escorts, vol-unteers had tripled to 150.
Not everyone is happy with the new strat-egies, though. A handful of board membersresigned from Charlotte for Choice in re-sponse to the more confrontational tacticsadopted by clinic defenders this year, saidAngela Blanken, 42, a founding board mem-ber who was among those who resigned.
While the anti-abortion protesters havealways been noisy, Ms. Blanken said havingcounter-protests just added to the chaosand made the experience worse for pa-tients. “It’s just more noise outside yourmedical appointment,” she said. Referringto patients, she added, “they don’t knowwho is on their side and who’s againstthem.”
Ms. Hales disagrees that the patient ex-perience has suffered. “As the executive di-rector of the clinic who is more intimatelyinvolved with the ins and outs of the clinic,that has not been the case,” she said.
Ms. Cueto believes that adversarialmethods are effective because they draw at-tention away from patients. “We’re makingsure they’re focusing on us and arguingwith us and how mean we are, and not fo-cusing on trying to shout through the bushline and telling patients they’re murderingtheir baby and going to burn in hell,” shesaid.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CLARK HODGIN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
CONTINUED FROM PAGE D1
Abortion Rights Activism Takes a Gen Z Turn
Top, anti-abortion protesters
outside of A Preferred Women’s
Health Center in Charlotte, N.C.
Above left and right, both sides
confront each other with signs
and cellphone video.
Defenders say they have to match the zeal of protesters outside clinics.
Not everyone in favor of a woman’s right to choose endorses confrontation.
N D7THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
turies, and have survived multiplecrises, only to return with evenmore import. That reports fromDior and Hermès of handbagsselling out as stores reopen in Asiaand life returns to quasi-normalare actually not anomalies, butpart of a historical pattern.
That the news of record vintagehandbag auctions at Christie’s,the dominant force in the resalemarket, which recorded a total of$2,266,750 during an online sale inJuly, including $300,000 for a croc-odile Hermès Diamond HimalayaBirkin 25, may be a harbinger ofthe future. That the hullabaloo onsocial media last week about theHouston Rockets point guardJames Harden giving the rapperLil Baby a black Prada nylon duf-fle bag for his birthday filled withvery expensive treats was a signof the times.
“People kept saying it was theend of bags,” said Lucia Savi, thecurator who put the V&A show to-gether. “But bags go hand in handwith humanity. We have alwayshad to carry something.”
Even in a pandemic, it turns out,le sac c’est nous. Perhaps what weought to be wondering is why.
A Brief History of Handbags
It is impossible to know who in-vented the handbag, but theyseem to have been with us almostfrom the beginning. Bags madefrom linen, papyrus and leatherwere found in the tombs of ancientEgypt, dating from 2686 to 2160B.C. In ancient Greece, littleleather bags were used for coins;one of the first known purse own-ers was Judas Iscariot, whose jobit was to carry the money bag forJesus and his disciples.
The British Museum has a goldand garnet lid believed to havecome from a bag belonging to aman in the seventh century andfound in the Sutton Hoo excava-tion. There are bags depicted in anAssyrian wall carving found in thepalace of Ashurnasirpal II at Nim-rud in the ninth century, featuringa winged figure toting what lookslike a purse.
Bags play a role in “The Canter-bury Tales,” “Pride and Prejudice”and “Anna Karenina” (amongother literary masterpieces).
Indeed, Ms. Savi said her pointwith the show was to elucidate theliving and universal nature ofbags — not to treat them as sculp-tures in leather and cloth, but toreveal the peculiarly unique rolethey play in both our physical andpsychological lives, and the waysin which they become part of notjust the fashion record but alsohistory.
That despite all of its iterations,there is no substitute for a bag.
Hence the show, the largest de-voted to bags to be held at a mu-seum that is not a bags-only mu-seum since the 2004 “Le Cas duSac” at the Musée de la Mode inParis. (Those bag-only museumsinclude the Simone handbag mu-seum in Seoul; the Tassenmu-seum, or Museum of Bags andPurses, in Amsterdam; and theESSE Purse Museum in LittleRock, Ark.)
Composed of more than 250bags and bag-related pieces fromaround the world, “Bags: InsideOut” is divided into three parts:function and utility (bags as re-ceptacles); status and identity(bags as celebrity totems); anddesign and making (how bags areconstructed).
There are famous bags of thekind that have penetrated the popculture imagination, like the firstBirkin made for Jane Birkin, lentto the show by its current owner, acollector and French boutiqueowner. (Ms. Birkin auctioned thebag in 1994, and it comes completewith scratches and other signs ofuse.) There is the Fendi Baguettestolen from Sarah Jessica Park-er’s character in an episode of“Sex and the City” and the LouisVuitton Miroir beloved of KimKardashian West.
There are power bags, like Mar-garet Thatcher’s structured As-prey and Winston Churchill’s reddispatch box for papers of state.And there are historic bags, suchas an inro, a pillbox bag from the19th century used by Japanesemen to carry medicine, and a 17th-century purse in the shape of afrog. They remind us, Ms. Savisaid, “that we haven’t inventedanything,” including the turn-of-the-millennium concept of the Itbag.
“They are both a very glam-orous container of personal be-longings that acts as a sort of se-cret receptacle as well as a con-tainer of memories,” she said. “Atthe same time, they are very visi-ble on the body, telling people whowe are and who we want to be.They embody the tension be-tween inside and outside andfunction and status.”
Bags are something you touchevery day — their materiality isendemic to their appeal — as wellas a flag the outside world can see.As such they play a dual role aspersonal comfort and public com-munication. For a relatively small,even everyday, object, they con-tain multitudes.
So perhaps what should be sur-prising is not that bags have en-dured, but that this is the firstshow the V&A has devoted tothem, after shows on shoes andhats. This despite the fact that themuseum’s collection includes2,000 bags, in pretty much everycuratorial department, and, ac-cording to the catalog that accom-panies the exhibition, “eachmonth, visitors from across theworld leave around 10,000 hand-bags and suitcases in the cloak-rooms” of the museum.
What’s in a Bag?
It may be counterintuitive, buteven if we are going out less dur-ing the pandemic, we often have tocarry more when we do go out,meaning the bags we choose areincreasingly important.
They need to hold hand sani-tizer, gloves, masks, extra shoes,all the personal protective equip-ment we have now become used tobringing on any outing — just as,during World War I, Ms. Savinoted, people needed bags to holdtheir gas masks. (Queen Mary’sgas mask bag is on display at the
V&A show.)It is also true, said Beth Gold-
stein, the fashion, footwear andaccessories analyst at NPDGroup, that despite the generalslowdown in the bag market dur-ing the pandemic, certain seg-ments have proven notably hardy,especially the higher end and re-sale.
Charles Gorra, the chief execu-tive of the Rebag resale site, saidthat just after the start of lock-down in the United States theyhad a week of sales larger thanBlack Friday and Cyber Mondayof 2019 combined; he attributesthe growth to the need for “retailtherapy” and desire for self-care.
Ms. Savi cites three additionalfactors: the professional sectors
that stayed solvent during thepandemic maintained an incomestream even as current eventscurtailed discretionary spending,creating more disposable income;the fact that of all fashion items,bags are among the easiest to buyonline, everyone’s current shop-ping destination of choice; and thebehavioral tendency, in times ofcrisis, to retreat to the classic,putting money into pieces thathold their investment and aes-thetic value.
As for investment pieces, a pa-per from Art Market Researchpublished this summer noted thatthe market for collectible hand-bags — especially bags by brandslike Hermès, Chanel and LouisVuitton — has been “doing so well
it outperformed art, classic carsand even knocked rare whisky offits number one position as an in-vestment of passion this year.”
Since 2010, the report said, “theaverage value” of an HermèsKelly handbag has risen 129 per-cent. The bag's success has creat-ed a trickle-down effect, and now“collectors are embracing vintagepieces from other iconic brands.”
So while we may never go backto the peak acquisition days be-fore 2020, and while styles andsizes may rise and fall with the ex-igencies of life — cross-bodies ap-pear to be having a mini-moment,according to Ms. Goldstein ofNPD — the theory that bags arean item of the past is equally im-probable. Just as our wardrobes
have not reverted to sweatpantsdespite the Chicken Littles cryingthat fashion has fallen, so our ac-cessories will not be reduced tothe fanny pack. (Ms. Goldsteinsaid fanny packs are already outof favor.)
Indeed, amid all the hand-wringing — perhaps precisely be-cause of the hand-wringing, —Ms. Savi thinks that bags have be-come another kind of symbol. Notof aspiration or indulgence, not ofwhat we have lost, but rather ofoptimism and hope. That to swingyour bag onto your shoulder is tomake a statement of belief: Oneday we will go out again.
And that means, she said, “wehave realized we do need bags.Actually more than ever.”
They Were Carried AwayCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
PHOTOGRAPHS VIA VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM
From top: Queen Elizabeth with a
gas mask in a bag during World War
II; Margaret Thatcher and her
Avery bag in 1987; and Grace Kelly
with her Hermès Kelly handbag.
JOHN REDMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
PA IMAGES, VIA GETTY IMAGES
ALLAN GRANT/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION,VIA GETTY IMAGES
Clockwise from above: Frog
Purse, 1600s; Inro with netsuke
and ojime, c. 1750-1850, Japan;
Hermès Kelly handbag, 2018,
Paris; John Peck & Son, London,
Winston Churchill as Secretary
of State; Jane Birkin’s Birkin,
1984; and the Fendi Baguette
bag worn by Sarah Jessica
Parker in “Sex and the City.”
DE SPITE ALL OFITS ITERATIONS,
THERE IS NOSUB STITUTE FOR
A BAG.
D8 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
crafts are surging in popularity.Quarantine has accelerated this trend,
with what CNN reports is a significant risein sewing machine sales (and not just tomake face masks). In lieu of traditionalcrafting circles, makers are connecting onsocial media to build community and pro-mote diversity and inclusiveness: #vin-tagestylenotvintagevalues is a popularhashtag, with retro-style sewists disavow-ing regressive gender politics and racism.
Within these groups are an increasingnumber of men making clothes not only tobreak traditional gender stereotypes butalso to support body acceptance, racial jus-tice and more sustainable lifestyles.
Mr. Ford, who has over 37,000 Instagramfollowers, started sewing after he begandating Mimi Goodwin (commonly known asMimi G), a well-known sewing blogger, cre-ating eclectic garments in a retro-streetwear-meets-business-casual style.He quickly realized the limited offerings ofmen’s sewing patterns: While women’s pat-terns span vintage reproductions to the lat-est runway trends, men’s patterns arelargely limited to a narrow range of classicsilhouettes and many, many pajamas.
Working with the major pattern companySimplicity, Mr. Ford drafted and releasedhis own patterns based on what he thoughtan average guy would want to wear. He andMs. Goodwin also share their skills withSewItAcademy, an online sewing school.
Still, he is often the only man in a craftstore. “The sewing notions, the tools, a lot ofit is pink and girlie,” Mr. Ford said. “It’s not acomforting environment for the averageguy.” So he started the hashtag #dope-mensew, and a Facebook group with around200 members, to promote the accomplish-ments of male sewists. “With social media,”he said, “if you see a guy sewing and you seea clean suit or nice shirt, a guy’s firstthought is: ‘Oh man, that’s dope. Where canI buy that?’ And then they look and be like,‘Oh, he made it. Come on, you can makethat.’”
The Rise and Fall of Home Ec
One regular user of the hashtag is BradSchultz, 35, a first-grade teacher in Gaines-ville, Fla., who has sewn his own colorful,trend-driven clothes for over a decade.While he enjoys showing his students hiscreations, Mr. Schultz has no local friends
who also sew. He remembered standing outat a sewing convention filled with women inTexas 10 years ago. More recently, he hasbeen able to meet fellow male sewistsonline.
“It’s the same feeling I get when I visit abigger city, like, there’s more out there,” Mr.Schultz said. “I don’t feel as confined, be-cause I know that Instagram opens thosedoors, and it allows me to connect andshare.”
Often adapting women’s patterns to hismeasurements because they are generallymore fashionable, Mr. Schultz said that heenjoys making clothes for the perfect fit thatis difficult to find in commercial pieces.
“On one hand, the ability to sew and cre-ate whatever style I want, in the size I need,gives a huge amount of freedom,” he wrotein an email. “When I am making somethingI don’t feel as confined or affected by styles‘meant’ for one gender of the other.”
Independent pattern companies are in-creasingly making men’s and unisex pat-terns. In April, Reese Cooper, a designer inLos Angeles, introduced a $98 kit to recre-ate his popular utilitarian-style coat, whichsold out quickly. Mr. Cooper has also offeredpatches and D.I.Y. tie-dye T-shirt kits.
But mainstream sewing companies havemoved slowly to market to men. Mr. Fordthinks there might be many men who sewbut don’t publicly share their creations,
since the perception that this is “women’swork” has lingered.
Going back to the Middle Ages, men andwomen in Europe were both part of sewingtrades, particularly when it came to embroi-dering garments for royalty and the clergy,according to Claire Hunter, a textile artistand author of “Threads of Life: A History ofthe World Through the Eye of a Needle.”The Black Death pandemic wiped out muchof their wealthy clientele, leaving the fewjobs left to men who organized gender-exclusive guilds. It was mostly men whobenefited from the development of easterntravel routes and new trade in silk and otherluxurious textiles.
While men made luxurious garments forthe court, women worked in more practicalcottons and linens. With the advent of thesewing machine and industrialized clothingproduction in the 19th century, women, par-ticularly immigrants, often took low-payingfactory jobs while male designers were atthe helm of the first modern fashion houses.
Sewing and needlework were increas-ingly taught to girls in schools, becomingcentral to the concept of homemaking, saidSarah Gordon, author of “ ‘Make It Your-self’: Home Sewing, Gender, and Culture,1890-1930.” “The sewing training conveyednot only that this is a way to be a woman anda mother, but this is a way to be an Ameri-can,” Ms. Gordon said.
By the 1920s, the increasing availability
of commercial garments decreased the de-mand for home sewing and consequentlythe value associated with it.
And as more women entered the workforce, they no longer needed nor had thetime to learn these skills. Home economics,which included sewing and other domesticarts, was increasingly left out of school cur-riculums. Over time, the skill of the craftbecame increasingly marginalized asmarket-driven fashion cycles intensified,with designs quickly going from runways tofashion retails within days.
StitchTok
Joe Ando-Hirsh, a sewist in New York whodid not want to give his age because he alsoacts, thinks this disconnection between thetechnical process and final garment hasbeen further strengthened by the commer-cialization of fashion week, where the focusis largely on documenting the shows and ce-lebrities and not what goes into making thecollection. With TikTok, Mr. Ando-Hirschtries to give sewing modern clout.
He was planning his senior fashion showat the Fashion Institute of Technology andorganizing a summer internship when thecoronavirus hit. Mr. Ando-Hirsch movedfrom Brooklyn to his parents’ house onLong Island, setting up a studio in their ga-rage. His girlfriend, Niamh Adkins, a mod-el, suggested he make a TikTok profileabout sewing. On March 14, he shared the
Norris Dánta Ford in his
studio. Above are two items
made by Mr. Ford. His aim is
to create eclectic garments in
a retro-streetwear-meets-
business-casual style.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY PEYTON FULFORD FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
CONTINUED FROM PAGE D1
New Sewing Circles:Men Are Threading A Gender Needle
Me, my wife, our teenager and our5-year-old, we knew nothingabout birds before the lockdownsent us inside in March. Ourcramped home was suburban-convenient before the pandemichit, nestled a few blocks from aschool we don’t go in and a traindowntown we won’t ride, and nowit is just small.
It was a bedroom short and hadnothing a person could call workspace beyond the dining room ta-ble even before it became our en-tire lives. But it did have windows,sunny and bright in the morning,that looked out on the worn patchof yard just outside, so I bought abird feeder and some cheap seedand mounted it just outside ourdining room window. We needed adistraction.
The birds came in swarms, tinybrown ones at first that constantlypecked at one another over the ab-solute trash seed we’d put out. Itwas as if we’d opened an avian
fight club. Then came the cardi-nals, regal and red, and thegoldfinches, a hallucinatory yel-low. They all fought, too, but theywere beautiful.
The 5-year-old kept telling ushe’d seen a blue jay, but it wouldalways fly off, he’d claim, when weturned around. We thought it wasa way of getting attention afterlosing his preschool, his swimlessons, his friends — everythinghis tiny world encompassed — tothe pandemic. A phantom bird forattention, a way of controlling thetiny slice of world that existed out-side our window. When I saw it forthe first time, its iridescent bluetail catching the late spring sun-light, I screamed. He was right.
The pandemic required fulldays of work to become half days,our time now split down the mid-dle between work and child care.We began drawing birds, my sonand I, making a poster a week, onebird a day. He and I drew in themornings, and he would study thebirds with his mother in the after-
How the Birds SetThese People Free
A father writes: “For show and tell, the 5-year-old flipped the camera
and let the other kids see the birds. Zoom school isn’t all bad.”
CAROLINE TOMPKINS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
FIRST PERSON
By DAN SINKER
N D9THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
process of sewing a red jacket with heart de-tails for her birthday. In the months since,he has gained over 800,000 followers, andalso started posting tutorials on YouTube.
“I’m happy that these videos are givingsome kids permission to pursue what theywant to do,” Mr. Ando-Hirsch said, “becausethere’s so many people who comment, say-ing like, ‘Man I always had thought aboutdoing fashion, but I went to med school in-stead and I really regret it.’”
Currently inspired by mixing the creamcolors of desert environments with theoversize, masculine style of 1970s WallStreet, Mr. Ando-Hirsch takes customorders and hopes to start his own businessfocusing on unisex fashion. He hopes toappeal to younger generations that aremore fluid with their clothing choices andparticularly men who are increasingly will-ing to take fashion risks, experimentingwith color and more form-fitting styles.
“All of that is changing right now,” he said.“I think aside from the pandemic, it’s a re-ally good and interesting time to be a de-signer, because there’s more people outthere who are open to what you’re doing.”
Brandon Hayden, 24, a sewist in Atlantawho runs Happily Dressed, a wellnessbrand, also has this mind-set. Mr. Haydenhas a fraternal twin and wanted to distin-guish himself by wearing thrifted outfitsthat mixed more masculine and femininestyles. Sewing enables him to envision gar-
ments beyond the narrow fashion choicesfor men, and also take a stand against envi-ronmentally damaging fast-fashion cycles.He thrifts most of his fabrics, often usingcurtains, tablecloths and other unexpectedmaterials: Upholstery fabric with safari an-imals became a cropped jacket, and aCarhartt denim coat was transformed into achain bag.
“Sewing has shown me that you can dowhatever you put your mind to and not onlythat: the praise for your individuality andnot having to spend an arm and a leg just tokeep up with the trends,” Mr. Hayden said.“You become your own trend, which I thinkis the best way to live your life.”
His YouTube tutorials range from a tiereddress to a loose romper to a vest and pantsset. This summer, he raffled off two sewingmachines, with entries based on participat-ing in the voting process or going to a pro-test, designating one for a person of color.
“Being a minority in America, it’s hard tofeel capable when popular opinion doesn’talways portray people who look like you ascapable,” said Mr. Hayden, who is Black.“Being able to sell and create things for afraction of the price that they cost openedmy mind to how boxed-in other people’sopinions can be about who you can be,whether it’s skin color, race or gender.”
In recent months, sewists and other cre-atives formed Black Makers Matter, a coali-tion intended to transform the sewing com-
munity. Members have met with top sewingbrands to discuss lack of diversity and high-light Black creators on their social mediapages, including Michael Gardner, 36, asewist in Philadelphia who for the last sixyears has dedicated his free time to makingclothes for his daughter, Ava, sharing hiscreations on the website and Instagram ac-count Daddy Dressed Me by MichaelGardner.
Mr. Gardner said that his own father wasabsent growing up, and that he was inspired
by his sister to start sewing outfits for Avawhen she was 3, refashioning adult gar-ments to fit her. Ava now helps select fabricsand style photo shoots. Mr. Gardner saidsewing has become a way for them to bond,and builds her confidence, including aftershe experienced bullying at school. He saidthat other students didn’t believe her whenshe said that her father made her clothesand did her hair.
“For her it’s kind of all she knows, so shethinks other dads are doing it too,” he said.“But seeing her be proud about it, I just usu-ally have a big smile on my face.”
Mr. Gardner recently sewed a blue se-quined suit for Ava’s ninth birthday and afull set of outfits for the family to wear forhis engagement to his fiancée. Despite hav-ing sewn over 200 garments for Ava, he’sjust starting to make clothes for himself,and while he originally dedicated his socialmedia to his relationship with Ava, he hasincreasingly included his perspective as amale sewist. He was recently named abrand ambassador for Janome, a sewingmachine company.
And through #dopemensew, he has beenconnecting with beginner sewists, includ-ing one who bought a machine during quar-antine and just made his first button-downshirt. “His mom actually DMed me whenshe saw the post where I shared him,” Mr.Gardner said, “and was like: ‘That’s my son.I’m so proud.’”
Top left and above left, Michael
Gardner, who makes clothes for
his daughter, Ava. Top right and
above right, Brad Schultz in
items he sewed himself.
MICHELLE GUSTAFSON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
VIA BRAD SCHULTZ
VIA BRAD SCHULTZ
VIA MICHAEL GARDNER
noons. The time split was incon-venient, but how long could it pos-sibly last, we asked.
Spring turned into summer, andwe were still inside. That onefeeder became two and then three.A suction-cup feeder on the win-dow. A thistle feeder on the fence.When the 5-year-old and I werekicking a soccer ball in our tinymud patch of a yard and a hum-mingbird flew overhead, that wasthe next feeder we hung.
Remote school ended for ourteenage son, and summer breakmeant more of the same. We wereforever indoors, but the world wasalive in our tiny yard that wasmore weeds and dirt than grass.
I bought a pole that could holdsix feeders at a time. We’ve onlygotten drive-through twice in thelast eight months but kept our fly-up fully stocked at all times. Twokinds of suet. A feeder built for
woodpeckers. One that could holdwhole peanuts for the blue jays; itbecame a prize the neighborhoodsquirrels dedicated their lives toclaim. A second hummingbirdfeeder went up after we read theywere highly territorial.
The 5-year-old got a children’sguide to birds for his birthday, abirthday celebrated inside. Hespent hours poring over it, teach-ing himself to read by sheer de-sire, calling out for help withwords that grew longer and morecomplex as the weeks wore on. Hememorized page after page.
The posters we draw line thewalls of our dining room now — 25at this point, one a week, the num-ber always increasing. His tinyhand was unsure at first, lines andlettering halting and hesitant, but
as weeks became months, he’sgrown more confident and ambi-tious. Backyard birds. Sea birds.Exotics, Crayola bright. Theyreach the ceiling. We’re runningout of space.
A new school year started, andwe were still inside. The teenagerretreated to high school in his bed-room while we crammed a tinydesk into the corner of our diningroom. Zoom kindergarten un-folded on a tablet screen, birdsswarming the feeders just out-side. For show and tell, the 5-year-old flipped the camera and let theother kids see the birds. Zoomschool isn’t all bad.
School’s start gave way to fall,leaves glowing in yellows andreds. We prepare for the un-knowns of the “dark winter”ahead, holding on to fall like a ropeabove a pit. Cases are up every-where, over a million in just aweek. The numbers — the num-bers are people, I remind myselfwhen I check them every day —seem impossible, yet expertswarn they’ll grow even largerwhen winter comes.
Things are changing, rapidly.We stay inside and look out.
The feeders are changing too.Migratory birds visit for stop-overs unexpectedly, gone asquickly as they come. Woodpeck-ers, once a novelty, are now regu-lars; their usual supply of insectshave disappeared with the onsetof cold. The red-bellied wood-pecker, whose head sports ashocking red stripe and whosewings are an op-art dream ofblack-and-white polka dots, nowregularly gets in fights with the lit-tle trash birds, throwing his sharpbeak in their direction when theyswarm too close.
We knock ice off the bird bath —just a plastic tray on an upside-down flower pot — most morningsnow. I make a mental note to re-search warmers. It’s been 272days since the boys were last inschool. It was a cold day that lastday, and it’s cold days again now.Whole seasons inside.
“That’s a dark-eyed junco” the5-year-old announced excitedlyone morning last month (what’stime anymore?), pointing at a birdthat, to my eyes, looked just likethe trash birds we get by the hun-dreds. It was maybe a little darker,its beak a little lighter. Its only dis-tinguishing mark was a little flickof a white tail I never would havenoticed. He noticed.
This time I didn’t question him.I just looked it up in his bird book,and there it was, exactly as hesaid, a dark-eyed junco. They onlycome in winter.
Avian art: “We began drawing birds,
my son and I, making a poster a
week, one bird a day.”
DAN SINKER
D10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020
