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Nearly three dozen Iranian gov-ernment officials and members ofParliament are infected and a sen-ior adviser to the supreme leaderhas died.

The Health Ministry has pro-posed sending 300,000 militiamembers door-to-door on a des-perate mission to sanitize homes.The top prosecutor has warnedthat anyone hoarding face masksand other public health equip-ment risks the death penalty.

Iran’s leaders confidently pre-dicted just two weeks ago that thecoronavirus contagion ravagingChina would not be a problem intheir country. They even braggedof exporting face masks to theirChinese trading partners.

Now Iran is battered by coro-

navirus infections that have killed77 people, among the most outsideof China, officials said Tuesday.But instead of receiving govern-ment help, overwhelmed doctorsand nurses say they have beenwarned by security forces to keepquiet. And some officials sayTehran’s hierarchy is understat-ing the true extent of the outbreak— probably, experts contend, be-cause it will be viewed as a failurethat enemies will exploit.

As the world wrestles with thespread of the coronavirus, the epi-demic in Iran is a lesson in whathappens when a secretive statewith limited resources tries toplay down an outbreak, and thenfinds it very difficult to contain.

In Iran, Outbreak’s Chaos ShowsThe Cost of Secrecy and Paranoia

By FARNAZ FASSIHI and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

Continued on Page A8

DOUBLE SPRINGS, Tenn. —Jean Gregory had been fastasleep when her husband yankedher to the floor and flung himselfon top of her for six, seven, maybe10 minutes, as they waited for thetornado that had descended ontheir small community in PutnamCounty, Tenn., to finally pass.

“It just shook the house — theysaid it moved off the foundation,”said Mrs. Gregory, 73, as she sur-veyed the ruins of the house shehad shared for decades with herhusband.

Around them, it was muchworse. At least 19 people died onTuesday morning in PutnamCounty after a series of tornadoescut a swath across the central partof Tennessee, killing at least 25

people in all. In Mrs. Gregory’sneighborhood, a mix of trailers,apartments and modest houses,the devastation was everywhere.

A few yards away, a woman wasfound dead outside her trailer. Thewoman’s husband was foundhours later, buried under rubble.On the other side of Mrs. Greg-ory’s house, she said, the windpicked up a trailer and slammed itback down, killing a man inside.

Upended cars, massive up-rooted trees and splintered re-mains of homes littered thestreets.

State officials said on Tuesdaythey were grappling with uncer-tainty, pushing to learn the full ex-tent of the destruction as search-and-rescue crews combedthrough wreckage and as otherworkers struggled to clear streets

Reeling From Death and Ruin, Tennessee Dreads the Days AheadBy RICHARD FAUSSET

and RICK ROJAS

Linda Clemons surveying damage to her Cookeville, Tenn., home.BRETT CARLSEN/GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page A12

LINDALE, Texas — A smallgroup of women at a recent CityCouncil meeting held hands andoffered hushed prayers in an oth-erwise silent room.

Everyone was waiting for thecouncil members to decidewhether their community wouldbecome the next “sanctuary cityfor the unborn.”

No one was trying to build anabortion clinic in the Texas com-munity of Lindale, population6,000. Residents wanted to keep itthat way.

Persuaded by a shaggy-hairedpastor in a backward baseball cap,a dozen other Texas communitiesalready had passed measures pro-

hibiting abortion within their bor-ders.

Legal scholars call the effortsunconstitutional, and some criticshave sued. But that hasn’t cur-tailed Mark Dickson, the pastor,and a director for the Right to LifeEast Texas.

“We’re really trying to protectthe culture and the atmospherethat these cities already have,” Mr.Dickson said.

Sanctuary cities for the unbornare the latest way some Americancommunities are attempting towall themselves off from rulesthey disagree with, laws imposedby higher authorities that do not

‘Sanctuary Cities’ for Unborn Reflect a Nation’s Rising Walls

By DIONNE SEARCEY

Continued on Page A11

POLICY CHOICES Wealthy countries pledged to limit damage from thevirus, but they appeared to be operating with limited options. PAGE B1

INCREASED TESTING Vice President Mike Pence said restrictions hadbeen lifted and “any American can be tested” for the virus. PAGE A20

The Democratic presidentialrace emerged from Super Tues-day with two clear front-runnersas Joseph R. Biden Jr. won Virgin-ia, North Carolina and at least sixother states, largely through sup-port from African-Americans andmoderates, while Senator BernieSanders harnessed the backing ofliberals and young voters to claimthe biggest prize of the campaign,California, and several other pri-maries.

The returns across the countryon the biggest night of voting sug-gested that the Democratic con-test was increasingly focused ontwo candidates who are standard-bearers for competing wings ofthe party, Mr. Biden in the politicalcenter and Mr. Sanders on the left.Their two other major rivals, Sen-ator Elizabeth Warren and Mi-chael R. Bloomberg, were on trackto finish well behind them andfaced an uncertain path forward.

Mr. Biden’s victories camechiefly in the South and the Mid-west, and in some of them he wonby unexpectedly wide margins. Ina surprising upset, Mr. Biden evencaptured Ms. Warren’s home stateof Massachusetts, where he didnot appear in person, and whereMr. Sanders had campaigned ag-gressively in recent days.

It was a remarkable show offorce for Mr. Biden, the formervice president. In just three dayshe resurrected a campaign thathad been on the verge of collapseafter he lost the first three nomi-nating states. But he bouncedback with a landslide win in SouthCarolina on Saturday, and onTuesday, in addition to victories inVirginia, North Carolina, andMassachusetts, he prevailed inArkansas, Alabama, Tennessee,Oklahoma and Minnesota.

Mr. Sanders rebounded late inthe evening in delegate-rich West-ern states: He was quickly de-clared the winner in Colorado andUtah after polls closed there, andhe also claimed the largest dele-gate lode of the primary race, Cali-fornia, The Associated Press re-ported. Mr. Sanders also easilycarried his home state of Vermont.

Yet Mr. Biden’s sweep of statesacross the South and the Midwestshowed he had the makings of aformidable coalition that couldpropel him through the primaries.As he did in South Carolina, Mr. Bi-den rolled to victory in severalstates with the support of largemajorities of African-Americans.And he also performed well with ademographic that was crucial tothe party’s success in the 2018midterm elections: college-edu-cated white voters.

“We were told, well, when yougot to Super Tuesday, it’d be over,”a triumphant Mr. Biden, 77, said at

BIG NIGHT FOR BIDEN SERVES NOTICE TO SANDERS

By JONATHAN MARTINand ALEXANDER BURNS

A Two-Man RaceEmerges as 14

States Vote

JOSH HANER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Joseph R. Biden Jr., top, on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, and Senator Bernie Sanders in EssexJunction, Vt. About a third of the Democratic delegates were at stake in nationwide primaries.

ERIN SCHAFF/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Biden 18 31 43 53 33 39 23 41 63 38 40 16 34 22

Sanders 28 28 24 23 27 30 36 25 17 25 22 34 32 51

Bloomberg 19 17 13 10 12 8 22 16 12 14 17 17 12 9

Warren 11 12 11 11 22 15 17 10 6 13 10 15 17 13

Reporting 30 64 96 100 83 96 82 98 88 93 93 28 67 98

= Winner Source: National Election Pool, results as of 12:29 a.m. Eastern time

%

%

Calif. Tex. N.C. Va. Mass. Minn. Colo. Tenn. Ala. Okla. Ark. Utah Me. Vt.

415 228 110 99 91 75 67 64 52 37 31 29 24 16Delegates

Continued on Page A14

In an extraordinary attempt tocontain the coronavirus’s eco-nomic fallout, the Federal Reserveslashed interest rates on Tuesdayas policymakers unanimously ap-proved their biggest one-time cut— and first emergency rate move— since the depths of the 2008 fi-nancial crisis.

Stocks in the United States ral-lied for about 15 minutes after therate cut, but worries about theFed’s impotence in the face of eco-nomic risks from the coronavirusquickly fueled a market sell-off.By late Tuesday, stocks weresharply lower and bond yields hadplummeted to previously unthink-able lows as investors sought asafe place to park their money.

The S&P 500 fell about 2.8 per-cent, undoing some of Monday’s4.6 percent surge. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes dipped below

1 percent.Interest rates are now set in a 1

percent to 1.25 percent range, andJerome H. Powell, the Fed chair,signaled that further moves werepossible. “The virus and the meas-ures that are being taken to con-tain it will surely weigh on eco-nomic activity, both here andabroad, for some time,” Mr. Powellsaid at a news conference, addingthe Fed was “prepared to use ourtools and act appropriately, de-pending on the flow of events.”

But the market’s negative reac-tion may reflect a recognition thatcutting interest rates or engagingin other types of fiscal stimuluswill do little to contain the virusthat has sickened more than90,000 people, with major out-breaks taking hold in South Korea,Japan, Iran and Italy.

More than 100 people are in-fected in the United States, withnew cases emerging in some bigmetro areas, including FultonCounty, Ga.; Cook County, Ill.; SanMateo County, Calif.; WestchesterCounty, N.Y.; and MaricopaCounty, Ariz. Washington State re-ported another fatality from thecoronavirus on Tuesday, raisingthe U.S. death toll to nine.

While cutting rates can bolsterconfidence and help to keep bor-rowing cheap, it cannot preventdisease from spreading or help

Virus Fear Grips MarketsDespite the Fed’s Rate Cut

By JEANNA SMIALEK and JIM TANKERSLEY

Continued on Page A21

3400

3200

3000

2800

PeakS&P 500

Source: Refinitiv THE NEW YORK TIMES

2/19 2/24 3/32/27

AT HOURLYINTERVALS

Inspectors said that Tehran again ap-pears to have enough enriched uraniumto produce a nuclear weapon. PAGE A9

INTERNATIONAL A4-9

Iran Has the Fuel for a Bomb

Corruption charges add to the motiva-tion for the Israeli prime minister’ssupporters. News Analysis. PAGE A4

Fervent Base Lifts NetanyahuWhat happens when you cross a short-bread cookie with a pretzel? Somethingvery good, Melissa Clark says. PAGE D3

This Hybrid’s Going Fast

The writer Ronan Farrow said he wasdropping the Hachette Book Groupbecause it is publishing the memoir ofhis father, Woody Allen. PAGE B3

BUSINESS B1-9

Farrow Cuts Ties Over a Book

Robert Durst is charged in a friend’skilling, but still faces scrutiny for hisfirst wife’s disappearance. PAGE A24

NEW YORK A24-25

‘The Jinx’ Subject on Trial

A rift over an integration plan deepensas Asian-American parents take on theschools chancellor. PAGE A25

Brewing Fight Over Schools

Parts of California received no rainfalllast month, and the number of wildfirecalls was above average. PAGE A13

NATIONAL A10-23

Forecast: Dry and Scary

The Supreme Court seemed split overlimits to the president’s ability to firethe director of the Consumer FinancialProtection Bureau. PAGE A10

Justices Weigh a Trump Firing

Despite a settlement offer, U.S. gym-nasts who were the victims of abusefeel justice is a long way away. PAGE B10

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B10-13

Getting Money, Not Answers

A writer/chef offers advice on how tomake vegan burgers as tasty as thoseyou can find in restaurants. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-8

Fake Meat, Real DeliciousHilary Mantel’s new book takes ThomasCromwell, architect of the English Ref-ormation, past the finish line. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-6

Wrapping Up a Trilogy

Dave Burd, better known as Lil Dicky,fictionalizes his hip-hop rise in the newFXX series “Dave.” PAGE C2

His Rapping Is a Joke

Thomas L. Friedman PAGE A27

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,622 + © 2020 The New York Times Company WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2020

The scene, on its face, mightnot have been surprising a yearago: Joe Biden — appraisedamong Democrats as a decentman and affable sidekick to theparty’s most popular figure —racking up primary victories andhaving fun talking about it.

“They don’t call it Super Tues-day for nothing!” he told sup-porters in Los Angeles, shouting

through a list of states he hadwon amid a medley of fist-pumpsand we-did-its.

But a week ago, the resultwould have been somethingclose to unthinkable.

Lifted by a hasty unity amongcenter-left Democrats disinclinedtoward political revolution, Mr.Biden has propelled himself inthe span of three days from

electoral failure to would-bejuggernaut. He has demonstrat-ed durable strength with African-Americans and emerged as theif-everyone-says-so vessel fortactical voters who think little ofSenator Bernie Sanders and fearthat his nomination would meanfour more years of PresidentTrump.

Mr. Biden’s performance in-cluded decisive wins early in thenight in Virginia and North Car-

A Wobbling Moderate Suddenly Hits His Stride

By MATT FLEGENHEIMERNEWS ANALYSIS

Continued on Page A15

Printed in Chicago $3.00

Mostly cloudy with a morning flurryin the north. Partly sunny and mildin the south. Afternoon tempera-tures in the upper 40s north to the60s south. Weather map, Page B8.

National Edition