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Tamales, along with the cultures andmicroeconomies that they sustain, areessential to the city, even during apandemic. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-8

A Delicious Dish in Los AngelesTrying to rescue the small apes in Thai-land has proved to be tricky, and somecritics say it’s misguided. PAGE A14

INTERNATIONAL A8-14

Gibbons Await a New HomeDevices to measure oxygen levels in theblood give misleading readings of Blackpatients, a study showed. PAGE A4

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-7

Pulse Oximeter Errors

The N.F.L. team everybody outsideNew England loves to hate collapsed intwo ways, Mike Tanier writes: gradual-ly, and then suddenly. PAGE B8

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B8-10

The End of the Patriot Way

Alex Padilla, California’s secretary ofstate, will serve out the two years left inKamala Harris’s Senate term. PAGE A17

California’s New Senator-to-Be

Aid allotted to public schools by Con-gress isn’t enough to cover a loomingfinancial crisis, districts say. PAGE A6

‘Wall of Need’ for Schools

Mindful of animation’s history of racistimagery, the studio aimed to make thejazz pianist at the center of the film asspecific as possible. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

How Pixar Pictured Its ‘Soul’

Cathy Park Hong PAGE A23EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

MAURICIO LIMA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

An intensive care unit in Paris this month. As Europe struggles to control the pandemic, medical workers feel the strain. Page A11.For Hospitals, It’s Wave After Wave

LONDON — As nation after na-tion rushed this week to closetheir borders with Britain, themoves brought back memories ofthe way the world reacted afterthe coronavirus first emergedbroadly in the spring. Most ofthose initial travel prohibitionscame too late, put in place afterthe virus had already seeded itselfin communities far and wide.

This time, with countries tryingto stop the spread of a new, possi-bly more contagious coronavirusvariant identified by Britain, itmay also be too late. It is notknown how widely the variant isalready circulating, experts say,and the bans threaten to causemore economic and emotionalhardship as the toll wrought bythe virus continues to grow.

“It is idiotic” was the blunt as-sessment of Dr. Peter Kremsner,the director of Tübingen Univer-sity Hospital in Germany. “If thismutant was only on the island,only then does it make sense toclose the borders to England,Scotland and Wales. But if it hasspread, then we have to combatthe new mutant everywhere.”

He noted that the scientific un-derstanding of the mutation was

limited, and its dangers unclear,and described as naïve the notionthat the variant was not alreadyspreading widely outside Britain.

Also, Britain has some of themost sophisticated genomic sur-

veillance efforts in the world,which allowed scientists there todiscover the variant when it mighthave gone unnoticed elsewhere,experts said.

Dr. Hans Kluge, the World

Health Organization’s regional di-rector for Europe, said that mem-ber states would try to come upwith a coherent approach to anythreat posed by the variant. At the

The Mutant Virus Is Loose. Travel Bans Won’t Stop Its Spread.By MARC SANTORA

BORDER DEAL France and Britain agreed to let freight proceed. Here, a tarmac in England. Page A5.WILLIAM EDWARDS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page A5

It took Portland, Ore., almost $1million in legal fees, efforts by twomayors and a police chief, andyears of battle with the police un-ion to defend the firing of OfficerRon Frashour — only to have tobring him back. Today, the veteranwhite officer, who shot an un-armed Black man in the back adecade ago, is still on the force.

Sam Adams, the former mayorof Portland, said the frustrateddisciplinary effort showed “howlittle control we had” over the po-lice. “This was as bad a part ofgovernment as I’d ever seen. Thegovernment gets to kill someoneand get away with it.”

After the death of George Floydat the hands of Minneapolis offi-cers in May spurred huge protestsand calls for a nationwide reset onlaw enforcement, police depart-ments are facing new state laws,ballot proposals and proceduresto rein in abusive officers. Port-land and other cities have hirednew chiefs and are strengtheningcivilian oversight. Some munici-pal leaders have responded fasterthan ever to high-profile allega-tions of misconduct: Since May,nearly 40 officers have been firedfor use of force or racist behavior.

But any significant changes arelikely to require dismantlingdeeply ingrained systems thatshield officers from scrutiny,make it difficult to remove themand portend roadblocks for re-form efforts, according to an ex-amination by The New YorkTimes. For this article, reportersreviewed hundreds of arbitrationdecisions, court cases and policecontracts stretching back dec-ades, and interviewed more than150 former chiefs and officers, lawenforcement experts and civilianoversight board members.

While the Black Lives Matterprotests this year have aimed toaddress police violence againstpeople of color, another wave ofprotests a half-century ago wasexploited to gain the protectionsthat now often allow officers ac-cused of excessive force to avoiddiscipline.

That effort took off in Detroit,partly as a backlash to the civilrights movement of the 1960s,when police officers around thecountry — who at times acted as

The Way CitiesLost OversightOf Their Police

Unions Leverage Fearsto Ease Punishment

This article is by Kim Barker, Mi-chael H. Keller and Steve Eder.

Continued on Page A18

A budget crisis forced the country’sParliament to dissolve, bringing thefourth election in two years. PAGE A9

Israeli Government CollapsesThe Justice Department says the re-tailer fed the crisis by letting its pharma-cies fill dubious prescriptions. PAGE B6

BUSINESS B1-7

Walmart Faces Opioid Lawsuit

Young and eager, Harry Rosadonever had trouble finding a job.

Fresh out of high school, he washired as a sales associate in Mid-town Manhattan at Journeys andthen at Zumiez, two fashion storespopular with young shoppers. Hemoved on to Uncle Jack’s MeatHouse in Queens, where heearned up to $300 a week as a bus-boy.

Then Mr. Rosado, 23, was laidoff in March when the steakhouseshut down because of the pan-demic. He was called back afterthe steakhouse reopened, butbusiness was slow. In August, hewas out of work again.

New York City has been hitharder by the economic crisis setoff by the pandemic than mostother major American cities.

But no age group has had itworse than young workers. BySeptember, 19 percent of adultsunder 25 in the city had lost jobscompared with 14 percent of allworkers, said James Parrott, di-rector of economic and fiscal pol-icy at the Center for New YorkCity Affairs at The New School.

Young adults have been espe-cially vulnerable because theywere overrepresented in the serv-ice industries that have been deci-mated by social distancing re-strictions.

While workers under 25 madeup just 10 percent of the city’s totalwork force of 4.8 million before thepandemic, they held 15 percent ofthe jobs in the hardest-hit serviceindustries, including restaurants,retail stores, and arts, entertain-ment and recreation businesses,Mr. Parrott said.

The consequences of losing ajob for workers just starting outcan reverberate for years, leadingto lower wages, fewer jobprospects and financial hardshipand instability, especially forthose already burdened with col-lege or credit card debt, according

They’re Under 25 and Jobless, And Their Prospects Are Bleak

By WINNIE HU In New York, YoungerWorkers Are Hit theHardest by Layoffs

Continued on Page A6

In an audacious pre-Christmasround of pardons, PresidentTrump granted clemency on Tues-day to two people who pleadedguilty in the special counsel’s Rus-sia inquiry, four Blackwaterguards convicted in connectionwith the killing of Iraqi civiliansand three corrupt former Republi-can members of Congress.

It was a remarkable assertion ofpardon power by a president whocontinues to dispute his loss in theelection and might well be fol-lowed by other pardons in theweeks before he leaves office onJan. 20.

Mr. Trump nullified more of thelegal consequences of an investi-gation into his 2016 campaign thathe long labeled a hoax. He grantedclemency to contractors whoseactions in Iraq set off an interna-tional uproar and helped turn pub-lic opinion further against the warthere. And he pardoned threemembers of his party who had be-come high-profile examples ofpublic corruption.

The 15 pardons and five com-mutations were made public bythe White House in a statement onTuesday night. They appeared inmany cases to have bypassed thetraditional Justice Departmentreview process — more than halfof the cases did not meet the de-partment’s standards for consid-eration — and reflected Mr.Trump’s long-held grudges aboutthe Russia investigation, his in-stinct to side with members of themilitary accused of wrongdoingand his willingness to reward po-litical allies.

Hundreds if not thousands ofclemency seekers have been look-ing for avenues of influence to Mr.Trump as he weighs pardons be-fore leaving office. The statementhighlighted a number of promi-nent Republicans and Trump al-lies who had weighed in on behalfof those granted clemency.Among them were Pam Bondi, aformer Florida attorney generaland lobbyist who helped defend

TRUMP PARDONS2 MORE FIGURESIN RUSSIA INQUIRY

MAKING AUDACIOUS MOVE

Clemency for BlackwaterGuards and G.O.P.Ex-Congressmen

By MAGGIE HABERMANand MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Continued on Page A21

The Trump administration andPfizer are close to a deal underwhich the pharmaceutical com-pany would bolster supply of itscoronavirus vaccine for theUnited States by at least tens ofmillions of doses next year in ex-change for a government direc-tive giving it better access to man-ufacturing supplies, people famil-iar with the discussions said.

An agreement, which could beannounced as early as Wednes-day, would help the United Statesat least partly offset a loomingvaccine shortage that could leaveas many as 110 million adultAmericans uncovered in the firsthalf of 2021.

So far, only two pharmaceuticalcompanies — Pfizer and Moderna— have won federal authorizationfor emergency distribution ofCovid-19 vaccines, and most ofwhat they are capable of pro-ducing for the next six months hasalready been allocated throughcontracts with the United States

and other governments.In the negotiations, the govern-

ment is asking for 100 million ad-ditional doses from Pfizer fromApril through June. The companyhas signaled that it should be ableto produce at least 70 million, andperhaps more, if it can get moreaccess to supplies and raw ma-terials.

To help Pfizer, the deal calls forthe government to invoke the De-fense Production Act to give thecompany better access to roughlynine specialized products it needsto make the vaccine. One personfamiliar with the list said it includ-ed lipids, the oily molecules inwhich the genetic material that isused in both the Moderna and Pfi-zer vaccines is encased.

Pfizer first started asking for

U.S. and Pfizer Nearing DealTo Expand Supply of Vaccine

By SHARON LaFRANIEREand KATIE THOMAS

Millions of Extra Dosesin Return for Access

to Raw Materials

Continued on Page A6

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 58,916 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2020

The president-elect accused PresidentTrump of an “irrational downplaying” ofan immense cyberattack on the federalgovernment this year. PAGE A21

NATIONAL A15-21, 24

Biden Jabs at Trump Over Hack

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump on Tuesday eveningthreatened to derail months of bi-partisan work in Congress to de-liver $900 billion in coronavirusrelief to a country battered by thepandemic, demanding checks toAmericans that are more thanthree times larger than those inthe bill, which he called a “dis-grace.”

The president, who has beenpreoccupied with the baselessclaim that the election was stolenfrom him, seized on congressionalleaders’ decision to pass the reliefbill by combining it with a broaderspending plan to fund govern-ment operations and the military.That spending plan includes rou-tine provisions like foreign aid andsupport for Washington institu-tions like the Kennedy Center forthe Performing Arts and theSmithsonian.

But Mr. Trump portrayed suchspending items as “wasteful andunnecessary” additions to the co-

ronavirus legislation.“It’s called the Covid relief bill,

but it has almost nothing to dowith Covid,” Mr. Trump said in avideo posted online. “Congressfound plenty of money for foreigncountries, lobbyists and specialinterests while sending the bareminimum to the American peo-ple.”

“I am asking Congress toamend this bill and increase the ri-diculously low $600 to $2,000,” headded.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Cali-fornia, who had been pressing forsimilarly sized checks, welcomed

Breaking Silence on Covid Relief,President Calls Bill a ‘Disgrace’

By LUKE BROADWATERand ALAN RAPPEPORT

Lawmakers and AidesUndercut in Push for

Bigger Checks

Continued on Page A7

FINE PRINT The spending billincludes a lot — good, bad andjust plain strange. PAGE A7

Today, mostly sunny, less wind, high42. Tonight, partly cloudy, low 39. To-morrow, mostly cloudy, increasinglywindy, afternoon showers, high 57.Weather map appears on Page A24.

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