TO U.S. APPROVAL GETS STEP CLOSER ONE-DOSE VACCINE · 25/2/2021  · C M Y K x,2021-02-25,A,001,Bsx...

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Kate Dwyer revisits the Vertical Club,the gym that once served as the centerof New York fitness culture. Above, anaerobics class in 1984. PAGE D1

THURSDAY STYLES D1-6

Where the Stars Got SweatyA Brooklyn show features the work ofKAWS, or Brian Donnelly, who borrowsfrom pop culture and fashion. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-6

An Artist’s AppropriationsVaccines depend on test subjects thatare in short supply, reviving calls for a“strategic monkey reserve.” PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-7

A Shortage of Lab Monkeys

A former secret police officer was sen-tenced to prison for abetting crimesagainst humanity in a case that rightsgroups hailed as a landmark. PAGE A9

INTERNATIONAL A9-12

Syrian Convicted in GermanyAn order from President Biden is in-tended to start an effort to insulate theeconomy from future shortages ofcritical imported components. PAGE A16

NATIONAL A13-19

U.S. Review of Supply Chains

Theater companies and venues that putwork online are finding large audiences— but not much revenue. PAGE C1

Big Crowd, Small Box OfficeJerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, calledbetter caregiving options an “areaworth looking at” for Congress. PAGE B1

Improving Child-Care Policy

Anthony Warner was gripped by anoutlandish tale about lizard aliens andother conspiracy theories. PAGE A13

Nashville Bomber’s Obsession

Jennifer Senior PAGE A22

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

By the time Rigoberto Lopezboarded an A train on a recent Fri-day, he was years into a down-ward spiral. He had hit his father.He had punched a police officer.He had been caught with cocainethat the police said he intended tosell.

In each instance he was ar-rested, and his family tried unsuc-cessfully to help him.

“He was unraveling,” hisbrother, William Astwood, said.Mental health problems that sur-faced when he was a teenager hadworsened with drug addiction, Mr.Astwood said.

But Mr. Astwood had not ex-pected what the New York PoliceDepartment said happened next:Mr. Lopez went on a deadly ram-

page in the cars and stations alongthe A subway line. Starting themorning of Feb. 12, he plunged thesame knife into four victims,killing two, the police said.

The horrific streak of violence

reflected a convergence of inter-twined crises — homelessnessand mental illness — that the pan-demic has exacerbated and mademore difficult to address. Mr. Lo-pez, 21, and all his victims werehomeless, and one victim had re-cently been hospitalized in a psy-chiatric ward.

For years, homeless sheltersand Rikers Island have served asde facto mental health hospitals.

Mental Health and Homeless Crises Collided in Subway AttacksThis article is by Ashley Southall,

Edgar Sandoval and ChristinaGoldbaum.

A Troubled Young Manand 4 Stabbings

Continued on Page A19

The coronavirus vaccine madeby Johnson & Johnson providesstrong protection against severedisease and death from Covid-19,and may reduce the spread of thevirus by vaccinated people, ac-cording to new analyses releasedWednesday by the company andthe Food and Drug Administra-tion.

The reports provided confirma-tion of the initial results an-nounced by Johnson & Johnsonlate last month, indicating that theUnited States is likely to soonhave access to a third coronavirusvaccine developed in under a year.The F.D.A. could authorize thevaccine as early as Saturday, de-pending on a vote by its vaccineadvisory panel on Friday, and dis-tribution could begin within days.

If cleared, the vaccine wouldreach a number of firsts for theU.S. pandemic. Unlike the autho-rized vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which re-quire two doses, Johnson & John-son’s is just a single shot, allowingthe number of fully vaccinatedAmericans to rapidly increaseonce it is deployed. More than 44million Americans have receivedat least one dose of the Modernaand Pfizer vaccines, but onlyaround 20 million have received asecond dose.

Those earlier vaccines use anew technology called mRNA thatneeds freezers for long-term stor-age. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine,which uses sturdier viruses to de-liver genes into cells, can keep forthree months at normal refrigera-tion temperatures, making it easi-er to distribute and easier forpharmacies and clinics to stock.The White House on Wednesdaysaid around two million doseswould be ready to allocate tostates next week, with up to an-other two million for pharmaciesand community health centers.

The documents published bythe F.D.A. on Wednesday showedthat the new vaccine had an over-all efficacy rate of 72 percent in theUnited States and 64 percent inSouth Africa, where a concerningvariant emerged in the fall that isnow driving most cases. The effi-cacy in South Africa was sevenpercentage points higher thanearlier data released by the com-pany showed.

The vaccine also showed 86 per-cent efficacy against severe formsof Covid-19 in the United States,and 82 percent against severe dis-ease in South Africa. That meansthat a vaccinated person has a farlower risk of being hospitalized ordying from Covid-19. None of thenearly 22,000 vaccinated peoplein the trial died of Covid-19.

“The vaccine has definitely metthe bar of what’s worthy of rollingout and using. It’s performingwell,” said Natalie Dean, a bio-statistician at the University of

ONE-DOSE VACCINEGETS STEP CLOSERTO U.S. APPROVAL

EASY-TO-STORE VERSION

Johnson & Johnson ShotKeeps Acute Illness at

Bay, F.D.A. Says

This article is by Carl Zimmer, NoahWeiland and Sharon LaFraniere.

Dr. Rebone Maboa, right, working on a study of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this month in Elandsdoorn, South Africa.JEROME DELAY/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Continued on Page A8

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — Inmidsummer of 2018, OumouKanoute, a Black student at SmithCollege, recounted a distressingAmerican tale: She was eatinglunch in a dorm lounge when ajanitor and a campus police officerwalked over and asked her whatshe was doing there.

The officer, who could havebeen carrying a “lethal weapon,”left her near “meltdown,” Ms.Kanoute wrote on Facebook, say-ing that this encounter continueda yearlong pattern of harassmentat Smith.

“All I did was be Black,” Ms.Kanoute wrote. “It’s outrageousthat some people question my be-ing at Smith College, and my exist-ence overall as a woman of color.”

The college’s president, Kath-

leen McCartney, offered profuseapologies and put the janitor onpaid leave. “This painful incidentreminds us of the ongoing legacyof racism and bias,” the presidentwrote, “in which people of colorare targeted while simply goingabout the business of their ordi-nary lives.”

The New York Times, TheWashington Post and CNN pickedup the story of a young female stu-dent harassed by white workers.The American Civil Liberties Un-ion, which took the student’s case,said she was profiled for “eating

while Black.”Less attention was paid three

months later when a law firmhired by Smith College to investi-gate the episode found no persua-sive evidence of bias. Ms. Kanoutewas determined to have eaten in adeserted dorm that had beenclosed for the summer; the janitorhad been encouraged to notify se-curity if he saw unauthorized peo-ple there. The officer, like all cam-pus police, was unarmed.

Smith College officials empha-sized “reconciliation and healing”after the incident. In the months tocome they announced a raft ofanti-bias training for all staff, a re-vamped and more sensitive cam-pus police force and the creationof dormitories — as demanded byMs. Kanoute and her A.C.L.U. law-yer — set aside for Black students

Tensions Simmer Over Race and Class at SmithBy MICHAEL POWELL

Smith College officials emphasized “reconciliation” after an incident involving a Black student.CHRISTOPHER CAPOZZIELLO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

College Struggles WithIdentity After Bias

Complaint

Continued on Page A14

WASHINGTON — Days afterPresident Biden took office, theBureau of Land Management puta scenic landscape of a windingriver at the top of its website,which during the previous admin-istration had featured a photo-graph of a huge wall of coal.

At the Department of Home-land Security, the phrase “illegalalien” is being replaced with “non-citizen.” The Interior Departmentnow makes sure that mentions ofits stakeholders include “Tribal”people (with a capital “T” as pre-ferred by Native Americans, itsaid). The most unpopular twowords in the Trump lexicon — “cli-mate change” — are once againappearing on government web-sites and in documents; officialsat the Environmental Protection

Agency have even begun usingthe hashtag #climatecrisis onTwitter.

And across the government,L.G.B.T.Q. references are poppingup everywhere. Visitors to theWhite House website are nowasked whether they want to pro-vide their pronouns when they fillout a contact form: she/her, he/him or they/them.

It is all part of a concerted effortby the Biden administration to re-brand the government after fouryears of President Donald J.Trump, in part by stripping awaythe language and imagery thatrepresented his anti-immigration,anti-science and anti-gay rightspolicies and replacing them withwords and pictures that are more

‘Alien’ Is Out, and So Is Coal, As Biden Recasts U.S. Policies

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

Continued on Page A17

HONG KONG — The ordersseemed innocuous, even obvious:Primary school students in HongKong should read picture booksabout Chinese traditions andlearn about famous sites such asthe Forbidden City in Beijing orthe Great Wall.

But the goal was only partiallyto nurture an interest in the past.The central aim of the new curric-ulum guidelines, unveiled by theHong Kong government thismonth, was much more ambi-tious: to use those historicalstories to instill in the city’syoungest residents a deep-rootedaffinity for mainland China — and,with it, an unwavering loyalty toits leaders and their strong-armtactics.

Students, the guidelines said,should develop “a sense of belong-ing to the country, an affection forthe Chinese people, a sense of na-tional identity, as well as anawareness of and a sense of re-sponsibility for safeguarding na-tional security.”

The Chinese government, in itsefforts to quash dissent, has im-posed a strict set of restrictions onHong Kong, including new rulesthis week to bar any candidatesdeemed disloyal to the Commu-

In Hong Kong,History EditedTo Exalt China

By VIVIAN WANG

Continued on Page A12

SACRAMENTO — Long beforeOrrin Heatlie filed papers to recallGavin Newsom, he knew the oddswere against unseating the suaveex-mayor of San Francisco whoascended to become California’sgovernor.

“Democrats have a superma-jority here — it’s one-party rule,”said Mr. Heatlie, a Republican andretired Yolo County sheriff’ssergeant. Voters had elected Mr.Newsom in 2018 by a record 24-point margin. As recently as April,70 percent still approved of hisperformance. Plus, just to triggera recall election, Mr. Heatlie’s peti-tion would require about 1.5 mil-lion valid voter signatures.

Lately, however, Mr. Heatlie hasbeen feeling lucky.

California has been upended bythe coronavirus. Most of the stateis waiting — impatiently — forvaccinations. Schools in big citieshave yet to reopen their class-rooms. Prison inmates and inter-national fraud rings may havelooted as much as $30 billion fromthe state’s pandemic unemploy-ment insurance program.

And then there was that dinnerat the French Laundry restaurantthat the governor attended,barefaced, after telling Californi-ans to stay in and wear masks toavoid spreading the virus.

“This is an easy sell,” reported

Mr. Heatlie last week, speaking byphone from rural San JoaquinCounty, where he was deliveringpetitions that he said pushed hishaul over the 1.7 million-signaturemark with three weeks to go be-fore the deadline.

“I like to say we have nobody tothank but him,” he said, “and hehas nobody to blame but himself.”

A year into the coronavirus cri-sis, Mr. Newsom is not the onlygovernor who has hit a politicalrough patch. Across the country,pandemic-weary Americans aretaking their rage and grief out onchief executives.

Drive to RecallNewsom TapsPandemic Fury

In California, a Mirrorof a Weary Nation

By SHAWN HUBLER

Continued on Page A18

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s approvalrate has fallen to 46 percent.

DAMIAN DOVARGANES/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tiger Woods has amazed us with hiscomebacks. But at 45 — and after aserious car crash — he may find thatplaying golf is a distant goal. PAGE B8

SPORTSTHURSDAY B8-12

Uncertain Recovery Awaits

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 58,980 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2021

A worrisome new mutation was foundin samples from Westchester to LowerManhattan, scientists said. PAGE A8

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-8

Variant Spreading in New York

Today, partly sunny, breezy, not asmild, high 45. Tonight, mostly clear,low 31. Tomorrow, mostly sunny,seasonable, a light breeze, high 43.Weather map appears on Page B12.

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