The New York Times - USA (2020-11-15)

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Princess Diana launched a thousand

tabloid stories and is now taking center

stage on Netflix’s “The Crown.” PAGE 6

ARTS & LEISURE

Oh, Diana

With formal events and travel canceled

because of the pandemic, the tradition-

bound tailors of London are pinning

their hopes on technology and the

kindness of their landlords. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Savile Row’s Survival Strategy

Taking a test is the best way to assure
yourself and others that you aren’t
spreading the virus. PAGE 4

AT HOME

Travel and Coronavirus Testing

After humbling President Trump, she’s
“front and center” at NBC News. PAGE 1

SUNDAY STYLES

Savannah Guthrie Feels Lucky

Despite hundreds of thousands pro-

testing against him for months, Presi-

dent Aleksandr G. Lukashenko has

clung to power thanks to a pervasive

security system. PAGE 12

A Ruthless Grip on Belarus

The director Steve McQueen’s new and

ambitious anthology series, “Small Axe,”

was six years in the making. PAGE 8

Being Black in Britain

The pandemic is showing us why big

business needs big government, and

vice versa. In the quest to develop a

coronavirus vaccine, the free market

alone comes up short. PAGE 1

Lessons of Covid Capitalism

Michelle Goldberg PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

The fatal assault of a cheerful and hard-

working Tibetan farmer was live-

streamed online, shocking China and

raising questions as to why the legal

system failed to protect her. PAGE 16

INTERNATIONAL 12-

Streamed Attack Jolts China

America’s election system, attacked by

the president, remains under threat.

THE MAGAZINE

Democracy Worked, This Time

The 44th president ponders his historic

first term. Books of The Times. PAGE 24

NATIONAL 18-

Obama on Obama, Part 1

ROME — At the funeral of Pope

John Paul II at St. Peter’s Square,

banners rose from the sea of

mourners reading “Santo Subito,”

or “Saint at Once.” He was a giant

of the church in the 20th century,

spanning the globe, inspiring gen-

erations of believers with his

youthful magnetism, then aged in-

firmity, and, as the Polish pope, he

helped bring down Communism

over his more than 26-year reign.

Days after his death in 2005,

cardinals eager to uphold his con-

servative policies had already be-

gun discussing putting him on a

fast track to sainthood, while dev-

otees in Rome and beyond clam-

ored for his immediate canoniza-

tion, drowning out notes of cau-

tion from survivors of sexual

abuse and historians that John

Paul had persistently turned a

blind eye to the crimes in his

church.

Now, after more than a decade

of doubts, his reputation has fallen

under its darkest cloud yet, after

the very Vatican that rushed to

canonize him released an extraor-

dinary report last week that laid at

the saint’s feet the blame for the

advancement of the disgraced for-

mer prelate Theodore E. McCar-

rick.

The investigation, commis-

sioned by Pope Francis, who can-

onized John Paul in 2014, revealed

how John Paul chose not to be-

lieve longstanding accusations of

sexual abuse against Mr. McCar-

rick, including pedophilia, allow-

ing him to climb the hierarchy.

The findings detailed decades

of bureaucratic obfuscation and

lack of accountability by a host of

top prelates and threatened to

sully the white robes of three

popes. But most of all, critics say,

it provides searing proof that the

church moved with reckless speed

to canonize John Paul and now it is

caught in its own wreckage.

“He was canonized too fast,”

said Kathleen Cummings, author

Vatican Report Puts a Saint in a Harsher Light

By JASON HOROWITZ

A tapestry of Pope John Paul II hung from a Vatican balcony in 2011 during his beatification.

ETTORE FERRARI/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

Continued on Page 15

President-elect Joseph R. Biden

Jr.’s first economic test is coming

months before Inauguration Day,

as a slowing recovery and acceler-

ating coronavirus infections give

new urgency to talks on govern-

ment aid to struggling households

and businesses.

With a short window for action

in the lame-duck congressional

session, Mr. Biden must decide

whether to push Democratic lead-

ers to cut a quick deal on a pack-

age much smaller than they say is

needed or to hold out hope for a

larger one after he takes office.

A continued standoff over aid

could set the stage for sluggish

growth that persists long into Mr.

Biden’s presidency. Republican

and Democratic leaders remain

far apart on the size and contents

of a rescue package, though both

sides say lawmakers should act

quickly.

Mr. Biden has until now sided

with top Democrats in Congress.

A Biden transition adviser said

Friday that he had begun to have

conversations with lawmakers

about what a lame-duck package

should look like.

The shifting dynamics of both

the pandemic and the recovery

are complicating the debate. Even

as it has slowed, the economy has

proved more resilient than many

experts expected early in the co-

ronavirus outbreak, leading Re-

publicans, in particular, to resist a

big new dose of federal aid. But

the recent surge in hospitaliza-

tions and deaths from the virus

has increased the risk that the

economy could slow further.

Even Before Biden Takes Office,

He Faces Quandary on Stimulus

By BEN CASSELMAN and JIM TANKERSLEY

Continued on Page 23

With the prospect that a corona-

virus vaccine will become avail-

able for emergency use as soon as

next month, states and cities are

warning that distributing the

shots to an anxious public could be

hindered by inadequate technol-

ogy, severe funding shortfalls and

a lack of trained personnel.

While the Trump administra-

tion has showered billions of dol-

lars on the companies developing

the vaccines, it has left the logis-

tics of inoculating and tracking as

many as 20 million people by

year’s end — and many tens of

millions more next year — largely

to local governments without pro-

viding enough money, officials in

several localities and public

health experts involved in the

preparations said in interviews.

Public health departments, al-

ready strained by a pandemic that

has overrun hospitals and drained

budgets, are racing to expand on-

line systems to track and share in-

formation about who has been

vaccinated; to recruit and train

hundreds of thousands of doctors,

nurses and pharmacists to give

people the shot and collect data

about everyone who gets it; to

find safe locations for mass vacci-

nation events; and to convince the

public of the importance of getting

immunized.

The federal Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention have sent

$200 million to the states for the

effort, with another $140 million

promised in December, but state

and local officials said that was

billions of dollars short of what

would be needed to carry out their

complex plans.

“We absolutely do not have

enough to pull this off success-

fully,” said Dr. Thomas E. Dobbs

III, the state health officer of Mis-

sissippi. “This is going to be a phe-

nomenal logistical feat, to vacci-

nate everybody in the country. We

absolutely have zero margin for

failure. We really have to get this

right.”

Health departments have

asked Congress for at least $8.

billion more for “a timely, compre-

hensive, and equitable vaccine

distribution campaign”; the

C.D.C. director, Dr. Robert R. Red-

field, has said that at least $6 bil-

lion is needed. But negotiations

States Aren’t Ready

to Distribute Shots

By ABBY GOODNOUGH

and SHEILA KAPLAN

Continued on Page 8

By the time Doug Raysby’s wife

was allowed to enter his hospital

room, it was too late to be sure

whether he even knew she was

there. After a feverish fight with

the coronavirus, he lay uncon-

scious on the bed. His wife cried

through an N95 mask, while a

computer tablet flashed a video

stream of his children saying

goodbye.

For weeks, as coronavirus

cases spiked across the United

States, deaths rose far more

slowly, staying significantly lower

than in the early, deadliest weeks

of the nation’s outbreak in the

spring. New treatments, many

hoped, might slow a new wave of

funerals.

But now, signs are shifting:

More than 1,000 Americans are

dying of the coronavirus every

day on average, a 50 percent in-

crease in the last month. Iowa,

Minnesota, New Mexico, Tennes-

see and Wisconsin have recorded

more deaths over the last seven

days than in any other week of the

pandemic. Twice this past week,

there have been more than 1,

deaths reported in a single day.

“It’s getting bad and it’s poten-

tially going to get a lot worse,” said

Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist

and senior scholar at the Johns

Hopkins Center for Health Securi-

ty. “The months ahead are looking

quite horrifying.”

For families like Mr. Raysby’s,

the pain of personal loss has com-

bined with a sense of anger that

the nation, exhausted after nine

months of the pandemic, has

DEATHS CLIMB FAST

AS HURDLES LOOM

FOR VACCINE PLANS

‘Horrifying’ Toll Seen

in Coming Months

This article is by Sarah Mervosh,

J. David Goodman and Julie

Bosman.

Refrigerated trailers are being

used as morgues by El Paso’s

medical examiner’s office.

JUSTIN HAMEL/A.F.P. — GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page 10

A patient arriving at an emergency room in El Paso, where hospitals are straining as the number of Covid-19 cases keeps jumping.

JOEL ANGEL JUAREZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

BACK TO WASHINGTONThe president-elect’s actions and attitudes on

the campaign trail offer a road map for how he will govern. PAGE 18

One New York City police offi-

cer was accused of pepper-spray-

ing a woman, then denying her

medical treatment while she was

handcuffed in a Bronx holding

cell.

Another officer slammed a 51-

year-old man who had been argu-

ing with some restaurant workers

onto the floor, knocking him un-

conscious, the man said. A third

officer was accused of tackling a

gay man during a pride parade

and using a homophobic slur.

The city’s independent

oversight agency that investi-

gates police misconduct found

enough evidence in all three cases

to conclude that the officers

should face the most severe disci-

pline available, including suspen-

sion or dismissal from the force.

But in the end, senior police offi-

cials downgraded or outright re-

jected those charges, and the offi-

cers were given lesser punish-

ments or none at all — the kind of

routine outcome that has left the

Police Department facing a crisis

of trust in its ability to discipline

its own.

“It’s a very raw thing,” recalled

Zakariyya Amin, who said he was

left deeply disillusioned by how

the Police Department handled

his case involving the incident in

the restaurant. “I wake up, still

seeing this guy throwing me

around, pushing me around.”

This pattern of lenient punish-

ment holds true for about 71 per-

cent of the 6,900 misconduct

charges over the last two decades

in which the agency, the Civilian

Complaint Review Board, recom-

mended the highest level of disci-

pline and a final outcome was re-

corded, according to an analysis of

recently released data by The

New York Times.

In case after case, the records

show that the Police Department

often used its power over the dis-

ciplinary process to nullify the re-

view board’s determination that

serious misconduct had occurred

and that the stiffest punishment

should be meted out.

N.Y.P.D. Thwarts Watchdog Agency, Data Shows

This article is by Ashley Southall,

Ali Watkinsand Blacki Migliozzi.

Punishments Reduced

for Most Officers

Continued on Page 27

MASON, Texas — The change
at the Sunday prayer service was
so subtle it went unnoticed by sev-
eral congregants. Tucked in be-
tween calls for divine health and
wisdom, the Rev. Fred Krebs of St.
Paul Lutheran Church, who rarely
brings up politics, fleetingly men-
tioned this month’s presidential
election.
“We pray for a peaceful transi-
tion,” he told his congregation of
50 people. The carefully chosen
words underscored the political
reality in Mason, a rural, conser-
vative town of roughly 2,000 peo-
ple, after Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s vic-
tory over President Trump. Not
everyone thought the election was
over, and not everyone said they
would respect the results.
“My Democratic friends think
Biden is going to heal everything
and unify everyone,” said Jeanie
Smith, who attends the more con-
servative Spring Street Gospel
Church in Mason, which is about
100 miles west of Austin. “They
are deceived.”
“Now you want healing,” she
added. “Now you want to come to-
gether. You have not earned it.”
That is the hard reality Mr. Bi-
den is facing, even after winning a
race in which he secured a larger
share of the popular vote than any
challenger since 1932. Towering
before him is a wall of Republican
resistance, starting with Mr.
Trump’s refusal to concede, ex-
tending to G.O.P. lawmakers’ re-
luctance to acknowledge his vic-
tory and stretching, perhaps most
significantly for American politics
in the long term, to ordinary vot-
ers who steadfastly deny the elec-
tion’s outcome.
It is all a far cry from how Mr.
Biden framed this election, from
the Democratic primary race
through his victory speech last
weekend. He cast the moment as a
chance for the country to excise
the political division Mr. Trump
has stoked, promising to repair
the ideological, racial and geo-
graphic fissures that have grown
into chasms since 2016. Announc-
ing his campaign, he called it an
opportunity to restore “the soul of
the nation.” Last weekend, he de-
clared, “Let this grim era of de-
monization in America begin to
end here and now.”

Many on Right

Reject the Call

For ‘Healing’

By ASTEAD W. HERNDON

Continued on Page 20

GEORGIA’S RUNOFFSTo seize
control of the Senate, Democrats
must first defy history. PAGE 19

Dustin Johnson has had a true 2020
experience: Covid positive in October,
now ahead at the Masters. PAGE 30

SPORTS 30-

From Quarantine to the Lead

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX... No. 58,878 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2020

Today,mostly cloudy, windy, after-

noon rain, high 59. Tonight, heavy

evening showers, windy, clearing,

low 45. Tomorrow,sunny, windy,

high 53. Weather map, Page 26.

$6.