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HOUSTON — It was the lastday of 11th grade at Jack YatesHigh School in Houston, nearlythree decades ago. A group ofclose friends, on their way home,were contemplating what senioryear and beyond would bring.They were black teenagers on theprecipice of manhood. What, theyasked one another, did they wantto do with their lives?

“George turned to me and said,‘I want to touch the world,’” saidJonathan Veal, 45, recalling theaspiration of one of the young men

— a tall, gregarious star athletenamed George Floyd whom hehad met in the school cafeteria onthe first day of sixth grade. Totheir 17-year-old minds, touchingthe world maybe meant the N.B.A.or the N.F.L.

“It was one of the first momentsI remembered after learning whathappened to him,” Mr. Veal said.“He could not have imagined thatthis is the tragic way people wouldknow his name.”

The world now knows GeorgePerry Floyd Jr. through his finalharrowing moments, as hebegged for air, his face wedged fornearly nine minutes between acity street and a police officer’s

knee.Mr. Floyd’s gasping death, im-

mortalized on a bystander’s cell-phone video during the twilighthours of Memorial Day, has pow-ered two weeks of sprawling pro-tests across America against po-lice brutality. He has been memo-rialized in Minneapolis, where hedied; in North Carolina, where he

was born; and in Houston, wherethousands stood in the unrelent-ing heat on Monday afternoon tofile past his gold coffin and bid himfarewell in the city where he spentmost of his life.

Many of those who attended thepublic viewing said they saw Mr.Floyd as one of them: a fellowHoustonian who could have beentheir father, their brother or theirson.

“This is something that touchedreally close,” said Kina Ardoin, 43,a nurse who stood in a line thatstretched far from the church en-trance. “This could have beenanybody in my family.”

Man of Outsize Dreams Stirred a Movement With Final BreathsBy MANNY FERNANDEZand AUDRA D. S. BURCH

A Minneapolis memorial for victims of police violence. A high school friend recalled George Floyd’s aspiration to “touch the world.”JOSHUA RASHAAD McFADDEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Houston Residents SayGoodbye to Floyd, One of Their Own

Continued on Page A17

MINNEAPOLIS — In anabrupt change of course, the may-or of New York vowed to cut thebudget of the nation’s largest po-lice force. In Los Angeles, themayor called for redirecting mil-lions of dollars from policing afterprotesters gathered outside hishome. And in Minneapolis, CityCouncil members pledged to dis-mantle their police force and com-pletely reinvent how public safetyis handled.

As tens of thousands of peoplehave demonstrated against policeviolence over the past two weeks,calls have emerged in cities acrossthe country for fundamentalchanges to American policing.

The pleas for change have tak-en a variety of forms — includingmeasures to restrict police use ofmilitary-style equipment and ef-forts to require officers to facestrict discipline in cases of mis-conduct. Parks, universities andschools have distanced them-selves from local police depart-

ments, severing contracts. Insome places, the calls for changehave gone still further, aiming toabolish police departments, shiftpolice funds into social services ordefund police departments partlyor entirely.

“It is a critical time that we cansee concrete change,” said theRev. Al Sharpton, who last weekaddressed the crowd gathered fora memorial service for GeorgeFloyd, the black man who died af-ter a white police officer pressedhis knee into his neck for nearlynine minutes in Minneapolis lastmonth. “The legislation and thepolicy changes will be the onesthat determine the victory of thismovement.”

Democrats in Congress on Mon-day unveiled legislation aimed atending excessive use of force bythe police and making it easier toidentify, track and prosecute po-lice misconduct. The measureswere seen as the most expansive

As Protesters March On,Calls to Redefine Policing

Hard Look at Moneyfor Public Safety

This article is by Dionne Searcey,John Eligon and Farah Stockman.

Continued on Page A16

The New York Police Depart-ment may lose some funding.

CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Former Vice President JosephR. Biden Jr. staked out a carefulposition on Monday in support of alaw enforcement overhaul but notdefunding police departments, re-butting a new Republican attackline as he tries to harness growingactivism against systemic racismwhile not alienating protesters ormore moderate voters.

In the face of continuing protestmarches calling to “defund the po-lice” nationwide in the aftermathof George Floyd’s killing, Mr. Bi-den’s campaign said in a state-ment that he “hears and sharesthe deep grief and frustration ofthose calling out for change” andthat he “supports the urgent needfor reform.” But a campaignspokesman, Andrew Bates, saidflatly that Mr. Biden was opposedto cutting police funding and be-lieved more spending was neces-sary to help improve law enforce-ment and community policing.

Mr. Biden’s effort to address thecalls of protesters while support-ing law enforcement comes aftergruesome videos and energeticprotests have quickly reshapedpublic opinion about racial dis-crimination, seemingly opening asubstantial window for new poli-cies that could bring far-reachingchange to law-enforcement agen-cies long accused of racially dis-criminatory practices. But thereare already signs of division be-tween activists who are eager todismantle police departments andcongressional Democrats who fa-vor a less drastic overhaul.

President Trump’s campaignand leading Republicans havesought to drive a wedge betweenthe immediate-but-incrementalcalls for change among electedDemocrats and the more sweep-ing demands that protesters arecalling for in places like Minne-apolis, where the death of Mr.Floyd after police officers pinnedhim down has prompted world-wide calls for racial justice.

Mr. Trump has not endorsedany new changes to policing pro-cedures or funding. On Monday,he met with law enforcement offi-cials at the White House andpraised them, saying virtually allpolice officers were “great, greatpeople” and boasting on Twitterthat crime was low nationwide.

The debate within the Demo-cratic Party was on plain displayon Monday, as congressional lead-ers unveiled a broad legislativeprogram on policing, includingnew limits on the use of lethalforce and on the legal protectionsafforded to officers accused ofmisconduct. Only hours before,progressives at the municipal lev-

Biden Stopping Short of Push to Defund

This article is by Jonathan Mar-tin, Alexander Burns and ThomasKaplan.

Continued on Page A15

It was among the last of the bigconferences before the coro-navirus pandemic shuttered themassive casinos lining the Las Ve-gas Strip in March. More than1,000 people gathered at MGMResorts International’s MirageHotel & Casino for the Women ofPower Summit, after organizersassured them that the risk of at-tending the networking event forexecutive women of color was “ex-tremely low.”

That seemed a reasonable bet,given that Las Vegas had yet torecord a single coronavirus case.

What no one realized was that oneof the conference speakers, a NewYorker, had already contractedthe virus by the time she landed atMcCarran International Airporton March 6. Two days later, shewas in a hospital.

Nevada’s case count nowstands at more than 9,600, and asof Sunday afternoon, 438 peoplehad died. But the case involvingthe Women of Power speaker isnowhere to be found in those grimtotals, despite the fact that she

What Makes Sin City Cautious? Risk of Virus as Casinos Reopen

By JO BECKER

Continued on Page A8

As the Trump administrationlashes out at China over a range ofgrievances, Beijing’s top diplo-mats and representatives are us-ing the president’s favorite onlinemegaphone — Twitter — to slapback with a pugnaciousness thatis best described as Trumpian.

Behind China’s combative newmessengers, a murky hallelujahchorus of sympathetic accountshas emerged to repost them andcheer them on. Many are new tothe platform. Some do little elsebut amplify the Beijing line.

No doubt some of these ac-counts are run by patriotic, tech-savvy Chinese people who getaround their government’s ban onTwitter and other Western plat-forms. But an analysis by TheNew York Times found that manyof the accounts behaved with asingle-mindedness that could sug-gest a coordinated campaign ofthe type that nation states havecarried out on Twitter in the past.

Of the roughly 4,600 accountsthat reposted China’s leading en-voys and state-run news outletsduring a recent week, many actedsuspiciously, The Times found.One in six tweeted with extremelyhigh frequency despite havingfew followers, as if they were be-ing used as loudspeakers, not assharing platforms.

Nearly one in seven tweeted al-most nothing of their own, insteadfilling their feeds with reposts of

Murky ChorusIs AmplifyingChina’s Tweets

This article is by Raymond Zhong,Aaron Krolik, Paul Mozur, RonenBergman and Edward Wong.

Continued on Page A5

Michael Gilsenan celebratedthe first day of New York City’s re-opening by treating himself to cof-fee and cheesecake at his neigh-borhood bakery in Greenwich Vil-lage.

He doesn’t even like cheese-cake, but it was a chance to getback to the little things he neverrealized he would miss until thecoronavirus took them away.

“These are markers of your lifein the city,” Mr. Gilsenan, a univer-sity professor, said. “It’s a sensethat against all the odds — and Ithink it is against all of the odds —that they’re still around today.”

Further uptown, Ashok Kumarcouldn’t wait to throw open the

doors to his plant and flower shopand drag out two dozen potted be-gonias and hydrangea onto thesidewalk for their first sunlightand fresh air in months. “It’s goingto take a long time, but over thenext few weeks we are going to tryto catch up to where we were,”said Mr. Kumar, who lost about$70,000 in plants that witheredaway while the shop, in Chelsea,was closed.

It was a perfect day — sunnybut not too hot — as glimpses ofthe old New York that had seemedto disappear almost overnightnow beckoned tantalizingly to vi-rus-weary residents and commut-ers. After months of wonderingwhether the city would ever re-turn to normal, there were smallbut reassuring signs that it would.

Commuters headed back to thesubway, wearing face masks asthey gripped morning coffees,checked phones and boardedfreshly scrubbed trains thatsmelled of cleaning solutions.Construction workers reportedfor work, lining up for tempera-tures checks so they could getback to building the city. And

Masked and Relieved, New Yorkers Reclaim CityBy WINNIE HU

Michelle Higgins and her friend Spencer Winson shopped for house plants in Chelsea on Monday.CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Streets Still a Shadowof the Past in Phase 1

of a Comeback

Continued on Page A6

Afghans once tuned in twice a day tohear the death notices, but the ritualhas lost much of its sway. PAGE A11

INTERNATIONAL A10-11

Waning Days for Death ScrollNaeem, who burst out in 2006 as SpankRock with “YoYoYoYoYo,” is back with anew album, “Startisha.” PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

A Rapper Speaks His Truth

Using tiny sensors and equipment on thespace station, the ICARUS project aimsto transform animal tracking. PAGE D1

SCIENCE TIMES D1-8

Far Beyond a Bird’s-Eye ViewAlthough economists announced thatthe United States entered a recession inFebruary, investors remain optimisticabout a recovery. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-6

S&P 500 Recoups 2020 LossesPresident Jair Bolsonaro’s governmenthas stopped disclosing comprehensivedata on cases and deaths as infectionrates continue to soar. PAGE A8

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-9

Brazil Hides Virus Data

Officials say they are willing to let thePalestinian Authority collapse to stopIsrael’s annexation plans. PAGE A10

Plan to Preserve West BankBooks on the subject have soared upbest-seller lists as protests continueacross the country. PAGE C1

Reading About RacismPaul Krugman PAGE A22

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

Britain’s National Collection of TypeCultures, a library of human bacterialpathogens, turned 100 this year. PAGE D1

A Bounty of Microbial Strains

A group of 511 infectious disease spe-cialists told The Times when they planto resume their daily lives. PAGE A9

Epidemiologists Are People, Too

Some Democrats think this is the yearthe state will flip and are urging theparty to invest in its races. PAGE A12

NATIONAL A12-20

Predicting a Blue Georgia

Adam Rapoport resigned after a photoof him dressed as a derogatory PuertoRican stereotype resurfaced. PAGE B6

Bon Appétit Editor Steps Down

For football, coronavirus has been anoff-season story. Now the league ishoping it can stay on schedule. PAGE B7

SPORTSTUESDAY B7-8

N.F.L. Sets Protocol for Camps

BAIL A judge set the amount at up to $1.25 million for Derek Chauvin,the white police officer charged with killing George Floyd. PAGE A18

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . . No. 58,719 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 2020

Today, sunshine, very warm, high86. Tonight, clear to partly cloudy,warm, low 69. Tomorrow, clouds andsunshine, more humid, high 88.Weather map is on Page A20.

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