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WASHINGTON — Cotton farm-ers were paid 33 times as much infederal subsidies in 2019 as the in-come they actually lost to tradedisruptions, one study showed.

Farmers in Georgia, the homestate of Agriculture SecretarySonny Perdue, were paid more infederal aid per acre than any-where else in the nation, anotherfound.

Some farms collected millions

of dollars in payments despite alimit of $250,000 per farmer.

The Trump administration’s$28 billion effort in 2018 and 2019to compensate farmers for lossesfrom its trade wars has been criti-cized as excessive, devised on thefly and tilted toward states politi-

cally important to Republicans.Now the administration is start-ing to send farmers tens of billionsmore to offset losses from the co-ronavirus pandemic, raising ques-tions about how the money will beallocated and whether there is suf-ficient oversight to guard againstpartisan abuse of the program.

Months before an election inwhich some farm states are majorbattlegrounds, Democrats andother critics of the administra-tion’s agriculture policies are ex-

More Billions to Farms, This Time for Virus AidBy SHARON LaFRANIERE

Sarah Lloyd’s farm is in Wisconsin, which has received more in farm aid than all but two states.LAUREN JUSTICE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Payouts Have ExceededAny Actual Losses

Continued on Page A10

DENVER — Ever since peopleacross the country began pouringinto the streets to protest police vi-olence, Dakota Patton has driventwo hours each day to rally on thesteps of the Colorado State Capi-tol. He has given up his gig jobsdelivering food and paintinghouses. He is exhausted. But hehas no plans to leave.

“This is bigger,” Mr. Patton, 24,said. “I’m not worried about any-thing else I could be doing. I wantto and need to be here. As long as I

need.”As Monday marks two full

weeks since the first protestsparked by the killing of GeorgeFloyd, the massive gatherings forracial justice across the countryand now the world have achieveda scale and level of momentum notseen in decades. And they appearunlikely to run out anytime soon.

Streets and public plazas arefilled with people who havescrapped weekend plans, can-celed meetings, taken time offfrom work and hastily calledbabysitters. Many say the eco-nomic devastation of the coro-

navirus had already cleared theirschedules. With jobs lost and col-leges shuttered, they have noth-ing but time.

“This feels like home to me,”said Rebecca Agwu, 19, who losther campus job in the pandemic.She spent five days at the Denverprotests, and spent a recent after-

noon chatting in the shade of theboarded-up Capitol building withthree other women who had beenlaid off from their mall jobs.

On Sunday, as protesters con-tinued gathering around the coun-try, their growing influence wasapparent as local leaders vowed tocurb the power of the police.

Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged tocut the budget for the New YorkPolice Department and spendmore on social services in the city.In Minneapolis, nine City Councilmembers — a veto-proof majority— publicly promised to create a

Other Movements Have Faded. This One ‘Feels Like Home.’By JACK HEALY

and KIM BARKER

Protesters at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, facing the National Mall. Two weeks have passed since the first demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd.MICHAEL A. McCOY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A21

Calls for Racial JusticeAchieve Momentum

Not Seen in Years

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump said on Sunday that he hadordered National Guard troops tobegin withdrawing from the na-tion’s capital, after a week of re-lentless criticism over his threatto militarize the government’s re-sponse to nationwide protests, in-cluding rebukes from inside themilitary establishment itself.

Mr. Trump announced his orderon Twitter as three former chair-men of the Joint Chiefs of Staffharshly condemned him for usingforce to drive protesters backfrom the White House and threat-ening to send troops to quell pro-tests in other cities. They warnedthat the military risked losingcredibility with the American peo-ple.

The president said the NationalGuard soldiers would withdraw“now that everything is underperfect control.”

“They will be going home, butcan quickly return, if needed,” hewrote on Twitter. “Far fewer pro-testers showed up last night thananticipated!”(In fact, the daylongprotest in Washington on Satur-day appeared larger than earlierrallies over the past week.)

The withdrawal capped a tu-multuous week that badlystrained relations between Mr.Trump and the military, andtested the constraints on a presi-dent’s ability to deploy troops onAmerican soil. Federal authoritiesused chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades to clear peacefulprotesters outside the WhiteHouse for a photo opportunity byMr. Trump, National Guard heli-copters flew low over demonstra-tors to scatter them and active-duty troops were summoned tojust outside the capital.

On Sunday, Mayor Muriel E.Bowser of Washington called theTrump administration’s deploy-ment of troops to the area “an in-vasion.” And the retired militarycommanders said the troopsshould never have been there in

NATIONAL GUARDLEAVING CAPITAL

Ex-Commanders Rebuke Trump on Use of Force

By LARA JAKESand HELENE COOPER

Continued on Page A22

The day before he went out toprotest, Colinford Mattis, 32, anIvy-educated corporate lawyer inBrooklyn, chatted for over an houron the phone with a close highschool friend. They discussedGeorge Floyd’s death as just “an-other example of an unarmedblack person being killed,” thefriend said, but they talked aboutgrocery shopping and YouTubevideos as well.

The next afternoon, Urooj Rah-man, 31, who is also a lawyer andMr. Mattis’s close friend, attendeda Zoom talk about building “soli-darity movements” between peo-ple of color. Ms. Rahman had re-cently finished fasting for Rama-dan and was caring for her motherat home, also in Brooklyn.

What happened next came as asurprise to many who know thetwo young lawyers.

The pair took to the streets onMay 29 with thousands of NewYorkers who were voicing theiroutrage over Mr. Floyd’s death.But after midnight, police officersspotted them in a tan minivandriving through the Fort Greeneneighborhood of Brooklyn. At onepoint, Ms. Rahman climbed out,walked toward an empty policepatrol car and threw a Molotovcocktail through its broken win-

Bomb ChargeShocks Friends

Of 2 Lawyers

By NICOLE HONGand WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Continued on Page A20

Exactly 100 days after its firstcase of coronavirus was con-firmed, New York City, whichweathered extensive hardship asa center of the worldwide out-break, was set to take the first ten-tative steps toward reopening itsdoors on Monday.

Getting here took the sacrificeof millions of New Yorkers wholearned to live radically differentlives. More than 205,000 havebeen infected, and nearly 22,000have died.

As many as 400,000 workerscould begin returning to construc-tion jobs, manufacturing sites andretail stores in the city’s firstphase of reopening — a surge ofnormalcy that seemed almost in-conceivable several weeks ago,when the city’s hospitals were at abreaking point and as many as800 people were dying fromCovid-19 on a single day.

Many retail stores, battered bymonths of closure, are readying todo business again on Monday,starting with curbside and in-store pickup. Construction com-panies are adding safety featuresand stockpiling masks and gloves.Manufacturers, whose shop floorshave idled since March, are test-ing machines.

State and city officials said thatthey were optimistic that the citywould begin to spring back to life.Testing is robust, reaching 33,000people on a recent day. And newinfections are now down to around500 a day — half as many as therewere just a few weeks ago.

That is low enough for NewYork City’s corps of contract trac-ers, who began work last week, totry to track every close interac-tion and, officials hope, stop a re-

DELICATE RESTARTHAS COME AT LASTTO NEW YORK CITY

400,000 TO BEGIN WORK

After 100 Arduous Days,a Hint of Normalcy

Amid the Unrest

By J. DAVID GOODMAN

Continued on Page A9

With the general election lessthan 150 days away, there are ris-ing concerns that the push for re-mote voting prompted by the pan-demic could open new opportuni-ties to hack the vote — for Presi-dent Vladimir V. Putin of Russia,but also others hoping to disrupt,influence or profit from the elec-tion.

President Trump has repeat-edly said that mail-in ballots invitevoter fraud and would benefitDemocrats. It is a baseless claim:Mail-in voting has resulted in littlefraud in the five states that haveused it for years, and a recentstudy at Stanford Universityfound that voting by mail did notadvantage either party and mightincrease voter turnout for bothparties.

But there are different worries.The rush to accommodate remotevoting is leading a small numberof states to experiment with or ex-pand online voting, an approachthe Department of Homeland Se-curity deemed “high risk” in a re-port last month. It has also put re-newed focus on the assortment ofonline state voter registration sys-tems, which were among the chieftargets of Russian hackers in 2016.Their security is central to ensur-ing that, come November, voters

States ScrambleAs Hackers Eye

Remote VotingThis article is by David E. Sanger,

Nicole Perlroth and Matthew Ro-senberg.

Continued on Page A23

Charles M. Blow PAGE A25

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A24-25

Residents are social distancing in barsand pools, and handing out their phonenumbers for contact tracing. PAGE A8

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-13

Berlin Exits LockdownWith few athletic events going on nowa-days, wagering on video game competi-tions has surged for casinos. PAGE D1

SPORTSMONDAY D1-6

Betting on Bits and BytesGeorge Gene Gustines takes a look atcomic books and graphic novels featur-ing L.G.B.T.Q. characters. Above, apanel from “Always Human.” PAGE C2

ARTS C1-8

10 Comics to Celebrate Pride

For 64 days, The Times tracked anoutbreak at the Burlington Health &Rehab Center in Vermont. PAGE A11

Siege at a Nursing HomeA mysterious mural to cover up con-struction at Arsenal’s stadium offers anidea and a warning. On Soccer. PAGE D1

From 1992, Newly Resonant

A closer look at data suggests an initialanalysis that raised questions of vote-rigging — and helped force out a presi-dent — was flawed. PAGE A15

INTERNATIONAL A14-15

Reviewing Bolivia’s ElectionJames Bennet stepped down on Sundayafter a much-criticized Op-Ed by aUnited States senator calling for amilitary response to civic unrest inAmerican cities. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-6

Times Opinion Editor Resigns

Mexico’s president is staunchly reject-ing stimulus packages, even as millionsrisk falling into poverty. PAGE A14

No Spending Plan for Mexico

Dozens of hospitals received federal aidto pay staff and buy protective gearduring the pandemic. Yet they have laidoff, furloughed or cut the pay of tens ofthousands of workers. PAGE B1

Big Bailouts, and Then Layoffs

The attorney general’s remarks cameas the president was scheduled to meetwith law enforcement officials. PAGE A26

NATIONAL A16-23, 26

Barr Denies Racism in Policing

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . . No. 58,718 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, JUNE 8, 2020

Today, mostly sunny and season-ably warm, high 79. Tonight, mainlyclear with some thin clouds, low 63.Tomorrow, sunny skies and warmer,high 85. Weather map, Page A26.

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