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CHICAGO — A month ago, new coronavirus cases in the United States were ticking steadily down- ward and the worst of a miserable summer surge fueled by the Delta variant appeared to be over. But as Americans travel this week to meet far-flung relatives for Thanksgiving dinner, new virus cases are rising once more, espe- cially in the Upper Midwest and Northeast.
Federal medical teams have been dispatched to Minnesota to help at overwhelmed hospitals. Michigan is enduring its worst case surge yet, with daily caseloads doubling since the start of November. Even New England, where vaccination rates are high, is struggling: Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire have tried to contain major outbreaks.
Nationally, case levels remain well below those seen in early September, when summer infec- tions peaked, and are below those seen last Thanksgiving. But con- ditions are worsening rapidly, and this will not be the post-pandemic Thanksgiving that Americans had hoped for. More than 90,000 cases are being reported each day, com- parable to early August, and more than 30 states are seeing sus- tained upticks in infections. In the hardest-hit places, hospitaliza- tions are already climbing.
“This thing is no longer just throwing curveballs at us — it’s throwing 210-mile-an-hour curve- balls at us,” said Michael Oster- holm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota. He said that the virus had repeatedly de- fied predictions and continues to do so.
The new rise in cases comes at a complicated moment. Last Thanksgiving, before vaccines were available, federal and local officials had firmly urged Ameri- cans to forgo holiday gatherings. But in sharp contrast, public health officials, including Dr. An- thony S. Fauci, the nation’s lead- ing infectious-disease expert, have mostly suggested this year that vaccinated people could gather in relative safety.
U.S. VIRUS CASES ARE RISING AGAIN AS HOLIDAY NEARS
FAMILY DINNERS RETURN
Anxiety Lingers
Continued on Page A18
Waiting in the holding area of a Manhattan courthouse in 1966, Talmadge Hayer turned to the two men who were standing trial with him. He told them that he in- tended to confess to his role in the assassination of Malcolm X and make it clear that they were inno- cent.
“I just want to tell the truth, that’s all,” he said when he took the stand.
But the jury was not convinced. Mr. Hayer had told a different story earlier in the trial, and he still refused to name his co-con- spirators or to say who they were working for. Eleven days later, the jury convicted all three men of first-degree murder.
The other two men, known then as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, went down in his- tory with Mr. Hayer as the assas- sins of an icon of the Civil Rights
Exonerations Lift One Burden For an Assassin of Malcolm X
This article is by Jonah E. Bromwich, Ashley Southall and Troy Closson.
Continued on Page A19
Mujahid Abdul Halim AFRO AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS, VIA GADO IMAGES
WASHINGTON — Over the summer, as he was working to scale back President Biden’s do- mestic agenda, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia trav- eled to an $18 million mansion in Dallas for a fund-raiser that at- tracted Republican and corporate donors who have cheered on his efforts.
In September, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who along with Mr. Manchin has been a ma- jor impediment to the White House’s efforts to pass its package of social and climate policy, stopped by the same home to raise money from a similar cast of do- nors for her campaign coffers.
Even as Ms. Sinema and Mr. Manchin, both Democrats, have drawn fire from the left for their efforts to shrink and reshape Mr. Biden’s proposals, they have won growing financial support from conservative-leaning donors and
G.O.P. Donors Flock to Back
2 Democrats By KENNETH P. VOGEL
and KATE KELLY
Continued on Page A21
As Toek Tik recounts it, he was a teenage foot soldier for the geno- cidal Khmer Rouge in Cambodia in the late 1970s when he first real- ized that looting ancient statues could be a lucrative trade.
Once, while bartering stolen cattle for clothing along the bor- der with Thailand, he recalled, a trading partner gestured toward his ox cart, which held the heads of statues Toek Tik had collected near his home.
To his surprise, he was offered money, hard currency, for them. For the livestock, he said, “they would give only shirts or a bat- tery.”
So began the prolific looting ca- reer of an unschooled man from a thatch-roofed hut who recently began disclosing to authorities how he oversaw hundreds of con- federates as they swept through temple ruins, pillaging sculptures and other treasures.
In the two decades he was ac- tive, ending in the late 1990s, Toek Tik, who goes by the nickname Lion, estimates he plundered more than 1,000 artifacts, many of them considered the finest mas- terpieces of Khmer culture, such as huge sandstone sculptures of deities and their attendants.
He has identified more than 100 as being in the collections of mu-
seums around the world, includ- ing the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Others he has spotted in respected private col- lections.
His testimony, and that of oth-
ers who worked for him, has be- come the centerpiece of a global effort by Cambodia to claw back its fabled heritage as it challenges the museums and collectors who have long defended their acquisi-
tions as fully documented and un- questionably lawful.
Already Cambodian officials have begun to press the Met to re- turn 45 items, in part because of
An Ex-Plunderer Helps Cambodia Reclaim Its Cultural Relics By TOM MASHBERG
Toek Tik at a temple in the Prasat Thom complex to help find evidence of artifacts he had looted. THOMAS CRISTOFOLETTI
Continued on Page A12
WASHINGTON — Over the past 20 months, Israeli intelli- gence operatives have assassi- nated Iran’s chief nuclear scientist and triggered major explosions at four Iranian nuclear and missile facilities, hoping to cripple the centrifuges that produce nuclear fuel and delay the day when Tehran’s new government might be able to build a bomb.
But American intelligence offi- cials and international inspectors say the Iranians have quickly got- ten the facilities back online — of- ten installing newer machines that can enrich uranium at a far more rapid pace. When a plant that made key centrifuge parts ex- perienced what looked like a crip- pling explosion in late spring — destroying much of the parts in- ventory and the cameras and sen- sors installed by international in- spectors — production resumed by late summer.
One senior American official wryly called it Tehran’s Build Back Better plan.
That punch and counterpunch are only part of the escalation in recent months between Iran and the West, a confrontation that is about to come to a head, once again, in Vienna. For the first time since President Ebrahim Raisi took office this summer, Iranian negotiators plan to meet with their European, Chinese and Rus- sian counterparts at the end of the month to discuss the future of the 2015 nuclear agreement that sharply limited Iran’s activities.
American officials have warned their Israeli counterparts that the repeated attacks on Iranian nucle- ar facilities may be tactically sat- isfying, but they are ultimately counterproductive, according to several officials familiar with the behind-the-scenes discussions. Is- raeli officials have said they have
Israeli Attacks Spur Upgrade
Hopes Dim for Revival of ’15 Nuclear Deal
This article is by David E. Sanger, Steven Erlanger, Farnaz Fassihi and Lara Jakes.
Continued on Page A15
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A Christmas market in Vienna. As a new wave of Covid infections spreads in Europe, restrictions are setting off a backlash. Page A14. Locked Down and Frustrated in Austria
WASHINGTON — Tom Per- riello saw it coming but could do nothing to stop it. André Kapanga, too. Despite urgent emails, phone calls and personal pleas, they watched helplessly as a company backed by the Chinese govern- ment took ownership from the Americans of one of the world’s largest cobalt mines.
It was 2016, and a deal had been struck by the Arizona-based min- ing giant Freeport-McMoRan to sell the site, located in the Demo- cratic Republic of Congo, which now figures prominently in Chi- na’s grip on the global cobalt sup- ply. The metal has been among several essential raw materials needed for the production of elec-
tric car batteries — and is now critical to retiring the combustion engine and weaning the world off climate-changing fossil fuels.
Mr. Perriello, a top U.S. diplo- mat in Africa at the time, sounded alarms in the State Department. Mr. Kapanga, then the mine’s Con- golese general manager, all but begged the American ambassa- dor in Congo to intercede.
“This is a mistake,” Mr. Ka- panga recalled warning him, sug- gesting the Americans were squandering generations of rela- tionship-building in Congo, the source of more than two-thirds of the world’s cobalt.
Presidents starting with Dwight D. Eisenhower had sent hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, including transport planes and other military equipment, to the mineral-rich country. Richard M. Nixon intervened, as did the State Department under Hillary Clinton, to sustain the relation- ship. And Freeport-McMoRan had invested billions of its own — before it sold the mine to a Chi- nese company.
Not only did the Chinese pur- chase of the mine, known as Tenke Fungurume, go through uninter- rupted during the final months of the Obama administration, but four years later, during the twi- light of the Trump presidency, so did the purchase of an even more impressive cobalt reserve that
How U.S. Lost a Clean Energy Treasure to China By ERIC LIPTON
and DIONNE SEARCEY
Securing the World’s Cobalt
After being held hostage for 37 days by a gang, two of the 17 people with a U.S. Christian aid group have been released, the group says. PAGE A14
INTERNATIONAL A4-16
2 Hostages in Haiti Are Freed Though the country is not frequently mentioned as a destination for the pastime, the wonder of Italian alpine fishing is making itself known.
TRAVEL B8
The Joy of Fly Fishing in Italy The Chinese star held a 30-minute call with top Olympic officials, but the head of women’s professional tennis still could not reach her. PAGE D2
SPORTS D1-8
OPINION A24-25
A witness said a vehicle sped into a Christmas parade in progress in Wau- kesha, Wis. Over 20 people were struck and some were killed. PAGE A22
NATIONAL A17-22
S.U.V. Plows Into Parade
Today, a bit of morning rain, some clearing late, turning windy, high 52. Tonight, breezy, colder, low 33. To- morrow, partly sunny, blustery, high 42. Weather map is on Page A20.
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