C M Y K Nxxx,2020-08-02,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

Young Russians are partying again,seeking a return to normal life anddisregarding the pandemic. PAGE 11

INTERNATIONAL 11-14

Cocktail Time in MoscowHong Kong techniques, like puttingtraffic cones on tear gas shells, spread asfar as Washington, D.C., above. PAGE 16

NATIONAL 16-25

Protest Tactics Gone Viral

In a reversal, President Jair Bolsonarogave in to pressure and took steps tocurb Amazon deforestation. PAGE 14

Brazil Bans Forest Fires

Stigmatized, out of work and facingdangers, migrant laborers are returningby the thousands — and may be fuelingan outbreak in Ethiopia. PAGE 4

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK 4-10

Migrants Return to EthiopiaAs America confronts its racism, thenext step should be a broadcast specta-cle that squares the present with thepast, Wesley Morris writes. PAGE 1

ARTS & LEISURE

What This Moment Demands

With fears over the virus, New Yorkparents of means are seeking class-rooms near their second homes. PAGE 1

A Hamptons School Surge

Basharat Peer PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

Groups of fraternity brothers and soror-ity sisters are working to kick theirorganizations off campuses. PAGE 1

SUNDAY STYLES

The War on Greek Life

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The Spurs’ Patty Mills, who has faced alifetime of racial abuse as an Indige-nous Australian, is finding his voice asan activist in the N.B.A. PAGE 29

SPORTS 29-31

A Star Lets Down His Shield

Senator Tammy Duckworth,like the man she might serve asvice president, prizes loyalty inher ranks and occasional mischiefin her workplace.

So when a top communicationsaide prepared to defect last yearto the presidential campaign ofPete Buttigieg, Ms. Duckworthrecognized an opportunity. She re-corded a faux media interviewtrashing Mr. Buttigieg for hiringher staff away, recruiting an in-tern to pose as a journalist on thetape. The file was sent to the de-parting aide, Sean Savett, whocalled the Buttigieg team in apanic.

Soon, Mr. Savett was sum-moned to the Illinois senator’s of-fice, where she fumed theatrically,stalling as other staff membersfiled in quietly for the reveal: Itwas all a ruse. Ms. Duckworthhanded him a parting gift — aSmirnoff Ice, the centerpiece of aviral drinking game known as “ic-

The Biden-estOf Those Vying

To Be His V.P.By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

Continued on Page 20

Tammy Duckworth during herSenate run in Illinois in 2016.

ALYSSA SCHUKAR FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON — It was one ofthe few issues on which PresidentBarack Obama and Vice Presi-dent Joseph R. Biden Jr. dis-agreed: how far to go in limitingthe influence of lobbyists in gov-ernment.

The vice president privatelycomplained that his boss’s effortto slam shut the revolving doorbetween K Street and the adminis-tration would deprive it of experi-enced talent, and he bristled whenMr. Obama’s aides tried to blockhim from hiring a well-connectedWashington operator who hadlobbied for pharmaceutical and in-surance companies, credit agen-cies and others.

Eight years later, that sameconfidant, Steve Ricchetti, is help-ing to run Mr. Biden’s presidentialcampaign. Also involved to vary-ing degrees are other advisers,operatives, fund-raisers and allieswith deep connections to Wash-ington’s lucrative lobbying, com-munications and strategic con-sulting industry.

That puts Mr. Biden at oddswith powerful elements of his par-ty’s liberal base. Increasingly,they are expressing concern thatthe military contractors, WallStreet banks and other major cor-porations that paid members ofMr. Biden’s inner circle while theywere out of government couldhold disproportionate power in aBiden administration.

Politically, it could limit Mr. Bi-den’s ability to cast himself as theantidote to the anything-goes ac-cess peddling that has prolifer-ated in President Trump’s admin-

Left Is PressingBiden Over TiesWith Lobbyists

By KENNETH P. VOGELand GLENN THRUSH

Continued on Page 25

Five months after the coro-navirus outbreak engulfed NewYork City, riders are still stayingaway from public transportationin enormous numbers, often be-cause they are concerned thatsharing enclosed places withstrangers is simply too danger-ous.

But the picture emerging in ma-jor cities across the world sug-gests that public transportationmay not be as risky as nervousNew Yorkers believe.

In countries where the pan-demic has ebbed, ridership has re-bounded in far greater numbersthan in New York City — yet therehave been no notable super-spreader events linked to masstransit, according to a survey oftransportation agencies con-ducted by The New York Times.

Those findings could be evi-dence that subways, commuterrailways and buses may not be asignificant source of transmis-

Riding SubwayMight Not PoseInordinate RiskBy CHRISTINA GOLDBAUM

Continued on Page 8

GÜSTROW, Germany — Theplan sounded frighteningly con-crete. The group would round uppolitical enemies and those de-fending migrants and refugees,put them on trucks and drive themto a secret location.

Then they would kill them.One member had already

bought 30 body bags. More bodybags were on an order list, investi-gators say, along with quicklime,used to decompose organic ma-terial.

On the surface, those dis-cussing the plan seemed reputa-ble. One was a lawyer and local po-litician, but with a special hatredof immigrants. Two were activearmy reservists. Two others werepolice officers, including MarkoGross, a police sniper and formerparachutist who acted as their un-official leader.

The group grew out of a nation-wide chat network for soldiersand others with far-right sympa-thies set up by a member of Ger-many’s elite special forces, theKSK. Over time, under Mr. Gross’ssupervision, they formed a paral-lel group of their own. Membersincluded a doctor, an engineer, adecorator, a gym owner, even a lo-cal fisherman.

They called themselves Nord-kreuz, or Northern Cross.

“Between us, we were a wholevillage,” recalled Mr. Gross, one ofseveral Nordkreuz members whodescribed to me in various inter-views this year how the groupcame together and began makingplans.

They denied they had plotted tokill anyone. But investigators andprosecutors, as well an accountone member gave to the police —transcripts of which were seen by

The New York Times — indicatetheir planning took a more sinis-ter turn.

Germany has belatedly begundealing with far-right networksthat officials now say are far moreextensive than they ever under-stood. The reach of far-right extre-mists into its armed forces is par-ticularly alarming in a countrythat has worked to cleanse itself ofits Nazi past and the horrors of theHolocaust. In July the govern-ment disbanded an entire com-pany infiltrated by extremists inthe nation’s special forces.

But the Nordkreuz case, whichonly recently came to trial afterbeing uncovered more than threeyears ago, shows that the problemof far-right infiltration is neithernew nor confined to to the KSK, oreven the military.

Far-right extremism penetrat-ed multiple layers of German soci-ety in the years when the authori-ties underestimated the threat orwere reluctant to countenance itfully, officials and lawmakers ac-knowledge. Now they are strug-gling to uproot it.

One central motivation of theextremists has seemed so far-fetched and fantastical that for along time the authorities and in-vestigators did not take it seri-ously, even as it gained broadercurrency in far-right circles.

Neo-Nazi groups and other ex-tremists call it Day X — a mythicalmoment when Germany’s socialorder collapses, requiring com-mitted far-right extremists, intheir telling, to save themselvesand rescue the nation.

Today, Day X preppers aredrawing serious people with seri-ous skills and ambition. Increas-

Plans for German ‘Day X’ Show Revival of Far Right

Police Officers, Reservists and ProfessionalsHad Enemies Lists and Body Bags

By KATRIN BENNHOLD

Continued on Page 12

PUNE, India — In early May, anextremely well sealed steel boxarrived at the cold room of the Se-rum Institute of India, the world’slargest vaccine maker.

Inside, packed in dry ice, sat atiny one-milliliter vial from Ox-ford, England, containing the cel-lular material for one of theworld’s most promising coro-navirus vaccines.

Scientists in white lab coatsbrought the vial to Building 14,carefully poured the contents intoa flask, added a medium of vita-mins and sugar and began grow-ing billions of cells. Thus beganone of the biggest gambles yet inthe quest to find the vaccine thatwill bring the world’s Covid-19nightmare to an end.

The Serum Institute, which isexclusively controlled by a smalland fabulously rich Indian familyand started out years ago as ahorse farm, is doing what a fewother companies in the race for avaccine are doing: mass-pro-ducing hundreds of millions ofdoses of a vaccine candidate thatis still in trials and might not evenwork.

But if it does, Adar Poonawalla,

Serum’s chief executive and theonly child of the company’sfounder, will become one of themost tugged-at men in the world.He will have on hand what every-one wants, possibly in greaterquantities before anyone else.

His company, which has teamedup with the Oxford scientists de-veloping the vaccine, was one ofthe first to boldly announce, inApril, that it was going to mass-

produce a vaccine before clinicaltrials even ended. Now, Mr. Poon-awalla’s fastest vaccine assemblylines are being prepared to crankout 500 doses each minute, and hisphone rings endlessly.

National health ministers,prime ministers and other headsof state (he wouldn’t say who) andfriends he hasn’t heard from inyears have been calling him, he

The Indian Family Betting a Fortune on a VaccineBy JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

A technician at the Serum Institute, in Pune, India, a global vac-cine giant controlled by the small and rich Poonawalla family.

ATUL LOKE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 9

CHICAGO — First, the PacificNorthwest and the Northeastwere hit hardest as the coro-navirus tore through the nation.Then it surged across the South.Now the virus is again picking updangerous speed in much of theMidwest — and in states fromMississippi to Florida to Califor-nia that thought they had alreadyseen the worst of it.

As the United States rides whatamounts to a second wave ofcases, with daily new infectionsleveling off at an alarming highermark, there is a deepening na-tional sense that the progressmade in fighting the pandemic iscoming undone and no patch ofAmerica is safe.

In Missouri, Wisconsin and Illi-nois, distressed government offi-cials are retightening restrictionson residents and businesses, andsounding warnings about a surgein coronavirus-related hospital-izations.

In the South and the West, sev-eral states are reporting theirhighest levels of new coronaviruscases, with outbreaks overwhelm-ing urban and rural areas alike.

Across the country, communi-ties including Snohomish County,Wash., Jackson, Miss., and BatonRouge, La., have seen coronavirusnumbers fall and then shoot backup — not unlike the two ends of aseesaw.

In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzkersounded an unusually sombernote this past week as he deliv-ered a warning that reverberatedacross the state: Even though Illi-noisans had battled an early floodof coronavirus infections and thenmanaged to reduce the virus’sspread, their successes were fleet-ing. As of Thursday, the state wasaveraging more than 1,400 cases aday, up from about 800 at the startof July.

“We’re at a danger point,” Mr.Pritzker said in Peoria County,where the total number of caseshas doubled in the last month.

Gone is any sense that the coun-try may soon gain control of thepandemic. Instead, the seven-dayaverage for new infections hov-ered around 65,000 for two weeks.Progress in some states has beenmostly offset by growing out-breaks in parts of the South andthe Midwest.

Brief Reprieve, Then the Virus

Charges Back

Resurgence in Midwest,South and California

This article is by Julie Bosman,Manny Fernandez and ThomasFuller.

Continued on Page 6

FLORIDA Clearwater Beach. The state continues to report some of its highest daily totals.EVE EDELHEIT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

GEORGIA Sunning in Atlanta. Several Southern states are seeing their highest levels of new cases.LYNSEY WEATHERSPOON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

TEXAS A drive-in movie in San Antonio. Harris County, home to Houston, had a lull, then a surge.CHRISTOPHER LEE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Overcrowding, not density, has definedmany coronavirus hot spots. Serviceworkers’ quarters skirting Silicon Val-ley are no exception. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Home to 12. Enter Covid-19.

Trump administration evictees haveturned their tenures into a new genre:political revenge literature. PAGE 22

Piecing Together a Presidency

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,773 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, AUGUST 2, 2020

Today, mostly cloudy, humid, a fewshowers and thunderstorms, high87. Tonight, evening thunderstorms,low 76. Tomorrow, humid, sunny,high 86. Weather map is on Page 24.

$6.00