CRISIS MODE The pandemic has created ex-traordinary demand for the help provided byfood banks, like the one at Nourish PierceCounty in Washington State, above.

GROWING PROBLEM The number of peopleseeking aid is up by more than 40 percent.“It’s people who have never had to turn to usbefore,” said Sue Potter, the food bank’s chief.

FIRST TIME Dax Dowling, who lost his jobs as acounselor and a soccer coach, was at the foodbank for the first time. “Don’t feel guilty,” hesaid. “Access the resources around you.”

VITAL LIFELINE Ed Wright has been coming tothe food bank since last year. The boxes offood have become even more helpful since hisdaughter recently lost her job.

CHALLENGES Social distancing rules compli-cate the task at hand. Volunteers are in shortsupply, so the National Guard pitches in. Andthe food bank is now mobile, visiting 23 sites.

‘HARD TIMES’ Maxine Miller relied on the foodbank before the virus. Lately, she’s seen morepeople in line. “Everybody’s on hard times,”she said. “But you have to keep going.”

Food Banks Are in Demand, and on the Move

PHOTOGRAPHS BY RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

C M Y K Nxxx,2020-05-20,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

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WASHINGTON — The UnitedStates economy faces irreparabledamage from the coronavirus, thenation’s top economic policymak-ers warned on Tuesday, althoughthey offered differing solutions onhow to ease the blow to businessthat has thrown more than 20 mil-lion people out of work.

In a joint appearance before theSenate Banking Committee,Treasury Secretary StevenMnuchin and the Fed chair, Je-rome H. Powell, offered a stark as-sessment of the fragile state of theeconomy as lawmakers and theTrump administration grapplewith how to restart commerce andwhether additional governmentsupport is needed.

Mr. Mnuchin, who acknowl-edged a painful month ahead, sug-gested that an expeditious re-opening of states was the key topreventing irreversible economicdevastation.

“There is the risk of permanentdamage” if states delay their re-openings, Mr. Mnuchin told law-makers. While Mr. Powell said joblosses would get “worse beforethey get better,” he suggested thatconditions would “improve in thethird and fourth quarters” as

states began reopening and busi-ness activity resumed.

Mr. Powell sounded a more cau-tious tone, saying that a full recov-ery would not take hold until thehealth crisis was resolved andpeople felt safe resuming normalactivity. He suggested that Con-gress, the White House and theFed itself might need to providemore help to carry states, house-holds and businesses through thepandemic.

“This is the biggest shock we’veseen in living memory,” Mr. Powellsaid, “and the question looms inthe air of, is it enough?”

Mr. Powell warned that leavingstates to fend for themselvescould slow the recovery if localgovernments, many of whichhave balanced budget require-ments, are forced to lay off work-ers amid budget crunches.

“We have the evidence of theglobal financial crisis and theyears afterward, where state andlocal government layoffs and lackof hiring did weigh on economicgrowth,” Mr. Powell said.

The differing views underscorethe competing arguments grip-ping Washington as Congress and

ECONOMY RISKINGLONG-TERM SCARS,

TOP OFFICIALS SAYMnuchin and Powell Diverge on Speed of

Restart and Need for More Aid

By ALAN RAPPEPORT and JEANNA SMIALEK

Continued on Page A9

JAMES ESTRIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Rev. Peter Purpura, a pastor in Queens who fought Covid-19,found a way to bring the church to his parishioners. Page A14.

Door-to-Door Service

Fever checkpoints at the en-trances to academic buildings.One-way paths across the grassyquad. Face masks required inclassrooms and dining halls. Anda dormitory turned quarantine fa-cility for any students exposed tothe coronavirus.

That was one vision for the fallsemester at the University of Ken-tucky conjured up by a specialcommittee last week — and notthe most dystopian scenario.

In a series of planning meetingson Zoom, dozens of key leaders atthe university, including deans,police officers and a sorority andfraternity liaison, debated

whether and how to reopen itscampus in Lexington, Ky., amid anactive outbreak.

Similar discussions have takenplace at almost every Americancollege and university over thepast few weeks, as administratorsfiercely debate whether they cansafely reopen their campuses,even as most provide studentswith encouraging messages aboutthe prospects of returning in thefall.

On Monday, Notre Dame be-came one of the first major univer-sities in the country to announcedetailed plans for bringing back

Face Masks Instead of Frisbee: One College Envisions the Fall

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

Continued on Page A12

Officials from China, Russia and theEuropean Union chided PresidentTrump over his sharp words. PAGE A7

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-16

W.H.O. Ignores Threat by U.S.Angling for a spot on the ticket used torequire a certain air of reluctance. Notanymore. Political Memo. PAGE A20

NATIONAL A20-25

Vice President? Count Me InIn some parts of America, restaurantdining rooms are open again, with newpolicies to prevent Covid-19. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-8

Setting the Table for SafetyAnnie Glenn, 100, an astronaut’s wifewho overcame a speech disorder, wasan advocate and inspiration. PAGE B10

OBITUARIES B10-12

‘Invincible Spirit’ for Stutterers

Melissa Clark has a recipe for a colorful,oily-in-a-good-way platter that can bethe star of your Memorial Day. PAGE D3

Feasting on VegetablesWhen Columbia closed, cutting short hersenior year, Mariel Sander went to worklifting bodies at a hospital. PAGE A16

Her Month at the MorgueThe secretary of state spurned a now-ousted inspector general’s request andanswered written questions about armssales to the Saudis instead. PAGE A21

Pompeo Declined InterviewLouis Delsarte, 75, rendered the HarlemRenaissance and his Brooklyn neigh-bors in brilliant colors. PAGE B12

Muralist Celebrating Black Life

Floyd Abrams PAGE A27

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

The Triple Crown horse race that usu-ally goes last plans to run on June 20,but with no spectators. PAGE B9

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B8-9

Belmont Is First Out of the Gate

Team owners made moves to increaseracial diversity in leadership ranks, butdid not adopt the most aggressivemeasure under consideration. PAGE B9

N.F.L.’s Small Step for Diversity

A nation’s crime syndicates are startingto make fentanyl, the drug that hasfueled the U.S. opioid crisis. PAGE A17

INTERNATIONAL A17-19

Myanmar’s Shifting Drug Trade

During the lockdown, a fleet of robotshas been helping with the groceries in asmall city northwest of London. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-7

This Robot Army Delivers

For one Rikers Island correc-tion officer, the low point camewhen he and his wife were bothextremely sick with the coro-navirus. She could hardly breatheand begged him to make sure shewas not buried in a mass grave, herecalled. He was sure he had con-tracted the disease working in thejailhouse, where supervisors haddiscouraged him from wearing amask.

“I’m looking at the person I caremost about possibly dying fromthis thing I brought home,” hesaid, choking back tears. “That tome is the scariest thing I everfaced.”

Another Rikers officer said heworked for nearly two weekswhile feeling ill but received nohelp from jail administrators ingetting a test. A third, who deliv-ered mail to people in custody,some of them sick, was told hecould not use a mask that he hadat home but had to wait for a city-issued one. He, too, became in-fected.

The coronavirus has wreakedhavoc on New York City’s 9,680correction officers and their su-pervisors, who, like the police andfirefighters, are considered essen-tial workers. So far, 1,259 havecaught the virus and six havedied, along with five other jail em-ployees and two correctionalhealth workers. The officers’ un-ion contends that the death of oneother guard is also the result ofCovid-19.

The virus has sickened morecorrection officers in New York,the center of the pandemic in theUnited States, than in most otherlarge American cities, includingChicago, Houston, Miami and LosAngeles combined, according todata collected by The New YorkTimes.

A majority of the officers in NewYork City are black and Hispanicand come from neighborhoodswith high rates of Covid-19. Theyhave been even more deeply af-fected than inmates, who alsohave been hit hard. At least three

Rikers GuardsFear OutbreakWill Hit Home

By JAN RANSOM

Continued on Page A15

Therese Kelly arrived for hershift at an Amazon warehouse onMarch 27 to find her co-workersstanding clustered in the cavern-ous space. They were awaiting abuildingwide announcement, ararity at the complex known asAVP1. Over a loudspeaker, a man-ager told them what they hadfeared: For the first time, an em-ployee had tested positive for thecoronavirus.

Some of the workers cut shorttheir shifts and went home. Ms.Kelly, 63, got to work, one of thehundreds of thousands of Amazonemployees dealing with the spikein online orders from millions ofAmericans quarantined at home.

In the less than two monthssince then, the warehouse in thefoothills of the Pocono Mountainsof northeastern Pennsylvania hasbecome Amazon’s biggestCovid-19 hot spot. More employ-ees at AVP1 have been infected bythe coronavirus than at any ofAmazon’s roughly 500 other facili-ties in the United States.

Local lawmakers believe thatmore than 100 workers havetested positive for the virus, butthe exact number is unknown. Atfirst, Amazon told workers abouteach new case. But when the totalreached about 60, the announce-ments stopped giving specificnumbers.

Amazon SeesRise in Orders

And InfectionBy KAREN WEISE

An Amazon fulfillment centerin northeastern Pennsylvania.

HANNAH YOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A10

BAGHDAD — After years of in-creasing tensions that nearly ledto war, Iran has moderated its ap-proach to the West, shifting from apolicy of provocation to one of lim-ited cooperation. The change re-flects an effort to avoid direct con-frontation with the United Statesthat the Iranians say could benefitPresident Trump in the Novem-ber election.

Nowhere is the shift more evi-dent than in Iraq, where Iran hasbacked a pro-American primeminister and ordered its proxy mi-litias to cease their rocket attackson American forces.

The Americans, while publiclydismissive of any change in Irani-an posture, have quietly recipro-cated in modest and indirectways.

Taken together, the openingsrepresent an incipient détentethat, even if it does not last or leadto the end of hostilities betweenIran and the United States, has al-ready lowered the temperature ofthe relationship, reducing the riskof open conflict.

“A war is less likely to happen,but there is still the risk of a con-frontation,” said Randa Slim, asenior fellow at the Middle EastInstitute. “But it’s less likely be-cause the intent of the primary ac-tors has shifted. Both Iran and theU.S. definitely do not want a warsix months before the U.S. elec-tions.”

Iran’s shift, which has not an-nounced or explained publicly, ap-

Softening Tone, Iran Keeps EyeOn Race in U.S.

By ALISSA J. RUBINand FARNAZ FASSIHI

Continued on Page A18

Johnson & Johnson is discontin-uing North American sales of itstalc-based baby powder, a productthat once defined the company’swholesome image and that it hasdefended for decades even as itfaced thousands of lawsuits filedby patients who say it caused can-cer.

The decision to wind down salesof the product is a huge conces-sion for Johnson & Johnson, whichhas for more than a century pro-moted the powder as pure andgentle enough for babies.

The company said on Tuesdaythat it would allow existing bottlesto be sold by retailers until theyran out. Baby powder made withcornstarch will remain available,and the company will continue tosell talc-based baby powder inother parts of the world.

Johnson & Johnson has oftensaid that faulty testing, shoddyscience and ill-equipped re-searchers are to blame for find-ings that its powder was contami-nated with asbestos. But in recentyears, thousands of people —mostly women with ovarian can-cer — have said that the companydid not warn them of potentialrisks that the company was dis-cussing internally.

Even as it announced the with-drawal of its baby powder, thecompany said that it “will contin-ue to vigorously defend the prod-uct” in court. But Johnson & John-son acknowledged that demandfor the talc-based version had

Talcum PowderWill Be PulledOff the Market

By TIFFANY HSUand RONI CARYN RABIN

Continued on Page A25

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,699 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2020

Today, partly sunny, breezy, cool,high 66. Tonight, clear to partlycloudy, breeze diminishes, low 47.Tomorrow, times of sunshine, cool,high 66. Weather map, Page A24.

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