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NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania — MohamedouOuld Slahi is almost clinical as he recalls detailsof the torture he endured in the summer of 2003at Guantánamo Bay.

There were the guards who menaced him withattack dogs and beat him so badly they broke hisribs. The troops who shackled him, blasted himwith heavy metal music and strobe lights ordrenched him in ice water to deny him sleep formonths on end. The mind-numbing isolation in adarkened cell without his Quran. The femaleguards who exposed themselves and touchedhim sexually in an effort to undermine his adher-ence to Islam.

But what left Mr. Slahi in utter despair, he said,

was the interrogator who tried to threaten himinto acknowledging that he was complicit in plot-ting a terrorist attack.

“If you don’t admit to it, we are going to kidnapyour mother, rape her,” the interrogator said, byMr. Slahi’s account.

“I remember telling them: ‘This is unfair. Thisis not fair,’” Mr. Slahi recalled. The interrogator,he said, responded: “I’m not looking for justice.I’m looking to stop planes from hitting buildingsin my country.”

To which Mr. Slahi said he replied, “You needto get those people, not me.”

Today, Mr. Slahi, 50, is a free man in Maurita-nia, his homeland in West Africa, after nearly 15years as a detainee, an early portion of that time

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was tortured at Guantánamo Bay, now lives in Mauritania.BTIHAL REMLI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

One Legacy of Sept. 11:A Torture Policy’s Stain

Continued on Page A9

By CAROL ROSENBERG

MEXICO CITY — As soon asthe nurse found out that she hadan abortion at home, FernandaGarcía knew she was in danger.The nurse began yelling that shewas a criminal, that what she haddone was wrong, that she wouldbe sent to jail.

“She told me that they were go-ing to report me, that I was goingto face charges,” said Ms. García,who went to the hospital lastmonth after experiencing painand bleeding. “I’ve never felt soscared in my life.”

When Ms. García tried to leave,she said the medical staff refusedto return her belongings. She saidthat she snatched her things andran out, but that she still shakesevery time the doorbell rings, con-vinced the police are coming to ar-rest her. She says she has thoughtabout killing herself many timessince then.

Now, Mexico’s Supreme Courthas ruled that abortion is not acrime, setting a national prece-dent that puts the country on thepath to becoming the most popu-lous nation in Latin America to al-low the procedure. Thousands ofpeople have faced criminal inves-tigations in recent years for end-ing their pregnancies, and thecourt’s unanimous decision lastweek should enable them to getany charges dropped, legal ex-perts said.

But cases like Ms. García’sshow how out of sync the nation’stop judges are with the views ofthe conservative majority in Mex-ico, where polls indicate that mostpeople don’t believe abortionshould be legal.

As an emboldened women’srights movement increasinglytook to the streets in Mexico, thecountry edged toward broader ac-cess to abortion, with severalstates decriminalizing the pro-cedure before the Supreme Courtruling. But as in Argentina, whichlegalized abortion last year only tohave many doctors refuse to pro-vide the procedure on moralgrounds, those changes have cre-ated sharp divisions in a countrywith one of the world’s largestnumbers of Catholics.

In fact, lawmakers in Mexicoenshrined a doctor’s right torefuse to perform any procedurethat goes against his or her per-sonal beliefs in 2018 — a con-

ABORTION RULINGINFLAMES DEBATE AMONG MEXICANS

WELL OF PUBLIC DISSENT

Procedure Is Now Legal,but Many DoctorsWon’t Provide It

By NATALIE KITROEFFand OSCAR LOPEZ

Continued on Page A6

The results of the California re-call election won’t be known untilTuesday night. But some Republi-cans are already predicting vic-tory for the Democrat, Gov. GavinNewsom, for a reason that shouldsound familiar.

Voter fraud.Soon after the recall race was

announced in early July, the em-bers of 2020 election denialism ig-nited into new false claims onright-wing news sites and socialmedia channels. This vote, too,would supposedly be “stolen,”with malfeasance ranging fromdeceptively designed ballots tonefariousness by corrupt postalworkers.

As a wave of recent polling indi-cated that Mr. Newsom was likelyto brush off his Republican chal-lengers, the baseless allegationsaccelerated. Larry Elder, a lead-ing Republican candidate, said hewas “concerned” about electionfraud. The Fox News commenta-tors Tomi Lahren and Tucker Carl-son suggested that wrongdoingwas the only way Mr. Newsomcould win. And former PresidentDonald J. Trump predicted that itwould be “a rigged election.”

This swift embrace of false alle-gations of cheating in the Califor-nia recall reflects a growing in-stinct on the right to argue thatany lost election, or any ongoingrace that might result in defeat,must be marred by fraud. The re-lentless falsehoods spread by Mr.Trump and his allies about the2020 election have only fueledsuch fears.

“I very honestly believe therewere irregularities and fraudulentactivity,” Elena Johnson, 65, ateacher in Los Angeles Countywho was in the crowd at a rally forMr. Elder last week in VenturaCounty, said of the presidentialcontest last year. “It was stolen.”

Because of her concerns aboutvoter fraud in the 2020 election,Ms. Johnson said, she would becasting her ballot in person onTuesday instead of by mail. Shesaid she was supporting the Re-publican because she thought Cal-ifornia, her adopted home afterimmigrating from the Philippines40 years ago, was on the brink.“California is where I came, andCalifornia is where I want to stay,”she said.

Since the start of the recall, alle-gations of election fraud have

IN CALIFORNIA,THRIVING CLAIMS

OF VOTER FRAUD

ECHOES OF ’20 IN RECALL

Baseless Theories BeforeElection a New Norm

on the Right

By NICK CORASANITI

Continued on Page A12

WASHINGTON — Like otherRepublican governors around thecountry, Tate Reeves of Missis-sippi reacted angrily to the co-ronavirus vaccine mandatesPresident Biden imposed on pri-vate businesses. Declaring themove “terrifying,” he wrote onTwitter: “This is still America, andwe still believe in freedom from ty-rants.”

There is a deep inconsistency inthat argument. Mississippi hassome of the strictest vaccine man-dates in the nation, which have notdrawn opposition from most of itselected officials. Not only does itrequire children to be vaccinatedagainst measles, mumps and sev-en other diseases to attend school,but it goes further than moststates by barring parents fromclaiming “religious, philosophicalor conscientious” exemptions.

Resistance to vaccine man-dates was once a fringe position inboth parties, more the realm ofmisinformed celebrities thanmainstream political thought. Butthe fury over Mr. Biden’s man-dates shows how a once-extremestance has moved to the center ofthe Republican Party. The gover-nors’ opposition reflects the angerand fear about the vaccine amongconstituents now central to theirbase, while ignoring longstandingpolicy and legal precedent in favorof similar vaccination require-ments.

“Republicans care about get-ting beyond this pandemic everybit as much as Democrats do,”said Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean ofthe Brown University School ofPublic Health. But, he added, “po-liticians are certainly happy to ex-ploit this issue for political gain,which is why I think the Republi-can governors are up in arms.”

Mr. Biden also imposed vaccinemandates on federal workers andmany health care workers. ButRepublican outrage is really boil-ing over his plan to require all pri-vate-sector businesses with morethan 100 employees to mandatevaccines or weekly testing fortheir work forces.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texascalled the president’s move “apower grab.” Gov. Henry McMas-ter of South Carolina promised tofight Mr. Biden in court, to “thegates of hell.” Gov. Greg Gianforteof Montana called it “unlawful andun-American.” Gov. Kay Ivey ofAlabama called the move “out-rageous” and “overreaching.”

But each of these states — in-deed, every state in the country —already mandates certain vacci-nations for children, and some-times for adults, including health

G.O.P. Seethes,But Every StateRequires Shots

Fury at Biden Ignoresa Century of Rules

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Continued on Page A11

NORMAL, Ill. — When hebought a construction contractorcalled Weber Electric in 2018, JoshMosier inherited about 20 em-ployees. By the end of the nextyear, he was up to about 100 em-ployees. By the spring of 2021, thenumber was over 225.

“Because of this boom,” said Mr.Mosier, whose company oftenworks on large building projects,“we’ve grown exponentially.”

The epicenter of that boom is anelectric-vehicle maker named Ri-vian, which brought in Mr.Mosier’s company and others inthe Normal, Ill., area to work onthe city’s costliest constructionproject in decades: a massive autoplant.

As it prepares to deliver its firstelectric pickup trucks and sport

utility vehicles this year, Rivianhas spent around $1.5 billion reno-vating and expanding a factoryonce owned by Mitsubishi. On atypical day the 3.3-million-square-foot plant hosts several hundredconstruction workers alongsidemore than 2,500 workers em-ployed by the company, which ex-pects to eventually double its localhead count.

The effects are hard to miss inNormal and nearby Bloomington,a metropolitan area of about170,000. Hotels are frequentlybooked up, pandemic or not; hun-dreds of housing lots are being de-veloped; and many employerslooking to hire a full-time plumberare basically out of luck.

Continued on Page A13

A Green-Energy Boom Town,But Can the Good Times Last?

By NOAM SCHEIBER

After a long effort, a private museumhas opened in Joseph Brodsky’s com-munal home in St. Petersburg. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-9

Russian Poet’s Room Preserved

The efforts to strengthen roads andpublic transit in President Biden’s$1 trillion infrastructure plan could beset back as companies struggle to findqualified people for the jobs. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-4

Scarce Skilled Workers

Kirsten Dunst’s new film, “The Powerof the Dog,” is yet another stage in herlauded career reinvention. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-6

She Just Keeps Going

After the Taliban’s takeover, interna-tional donors withdrew funds. Nowanother Covid wave looms. PAGE A7

Afghan Health System Teeters

Companies both big and small areseeing dollar signs after a federal judgeopened up a way for app developers toavoid Apple’s commission of up to 30percent on their sales. PAGE B1

Win for ‘the Small Guys’

The first trials of parents accused offalsifying their children’s athletic featsand paying college officials to gainadmittance are set to start. PAGE A14

Admissions Fraud on Docket

The 1-year-old was one of two youngboys in New York City who the policebelieve were recently killed by theirmothers’ partners. PAGE A13

Man Charged in Child’s Death

Many people with disabilities live inrural areas of Northern California thatlack the resources to support themwhen wildfires strike. PAGE A10

NATIONAL A10-15

Disabled, and Desperate

Venus Williams PAGE A19

OPINION A18-19As was the case after the attacks ofSept. 11, 2001, a baseball game let NewYorkers find some relief. PAGE D1

Rivals Play for Their City

Pittsburgh muscled past the Bills on thefirst Sunday of the N.F.L. season. TheGiants and the Jets fell. PAGES D2-3

SPORTS D1-6

Steelers’ Opening Statement

To fully appreciate the un-masked roars of 2021 at the U.S.Open, it was best to have experi-enced the silence and vast empty

spaces of 2020.It was the

contrast thatmade such adifference thisyear in thecollective mood.

“The crowd was the thirdplayer this year,” said ChrisEvert, one of tennis’s grandedames, who played in her firstOpen in 1971. “The crowds at theU.S. Open have always been likethis, but this year they justseemed louder.”

Established stars like NovakDjokovic had missed the noise.Relative newcomers like EmmaRaducanu were hearing it for thefirst time. The fans had missedthe experience.

The surprise upon everyone’s

return to the tournament washow forcefully the newest gener-ation of rising stars would stormthe gates.

Serena and Venus Williams,

Roger Federer and Rafael Nadalwere absent at once for the firsttime in 25 years, and though itseemed that void would be muchtoo big to fill, the young players

piled in gleefully. With so manystars missing and so much primetennis real estate available,young Americans like FrancesTiafoe and Jenson Brooksbybecame fixtures on the mainshow courts, playing thrillingmatches. The Spanish 18-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, playing in hisfirst U.S. Open, reached thequarterfinals and soon had fanschanting “Carloooooos” as loudlyas they usually chant“Rafaaaaaa.”

“I definitely think guys aretrying extra hard because thereisn’t Roger and Rafa,” Tiafoesaid. “I see guys foaming in themouth. Pretty funny to watch.I’m in the locker room crackingup.”

Attendance was down from2019, the most recent year whenfans were permitted to attend.But volume and emotion wereup, and the fans who watched

At U.S. Open, a Sense of Renewal on the Court and in the Crowd

Daniil Medvedev, right, beat Novak Djokovic in the final. Page D1.BEN SOLOMON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A15

CHRISTOPHERCLAREY

ON TENNIS

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 59,180 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

Today, partly cloudy, warm, humid,high 85. Tonight, becoming cloudy,warm, low 70. Tomorrow, partlysunny skies, afternoon rain, high 79.Weather map appears on Page B6.

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