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John McWhorter PAGE A22

OPINION A22-23

“Mind/Mirror,” a Jasper Johns retro-spective at the Whitney Museum andthe Philadelphia Museum of Art, re-veals his resiliency. A review. PAGE C1

WEEKEND ARTS C1-14

A Blockbuster of a Show x 2A memoir by a well-connected busi-nessman offers insights into the Com-munist Party’s thinking as it tightens itsgrip on the private sector. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-6

Tell-All Book on Power in ChinaThe fate of a boy whose parents died ina cable-car crash in Italy in May is thefocus of a court battle between relativesin Israel and those in Italy. PAGE A10

INTERNATIONAL A4-12

Fight Over Crash Survivor, 6A man opened fire in a grocery store inCollierville, a small suburb about 30miles east of Memphis, injuring at least12 and killing one. PAGE A21

NATIONAL A14-21

Mass Shooting in Tennessee

An influential scientific panelon Thursday opened a new frontin the campaign against the co-ronavirus, recommending boost-er shots of the Pfizer-BioNTechCovid vaccine for a wide range ofAmericans, including tens of mil-lions of older people. But the ex-perts declined to endorse addi-tional doses for health care work-ers, teachers and others whomight have higher exposure onthe job.

The decisions were made by theC.D.C. panel, the Advisory Com-mittee on Immunization Prac-tices, in a series of votes, duringwhich scientists agonized overtheir choices. The recommenda-tions revealed deep divisionsamong federal regulators and out-side advisers about how to containthe virus nearly two years into thepandemic.

Just a day earlier, the Food andDrug Administration authorizedbooster shots for certain frontlineworkers. But the C.D.C.’s advisersdisagreed that the doses wereneeded by so many healthy peo-ple.

The next step is for Dr. RochelleWalensky, the director of theC.D.C., to make a formal recom-mendation. If she follows the guid-ance of the agency’s advisorycommittee, as is typically thecase, the agency’s guidance mayconflict with that of the F.D.A.

One administration official saidXavier Becerra, the secretary ofhealth and human services, mightultimately have to mediate be-tween the two agencies.

“There’s a complexity here, be-cause Dr. Walensky was part ofthe White House announcement”on boosters, said Dr. Ashish Jha,dean of the Brown UniversitySchool of Global Health. “I thinkshe’s going to feel some amount ofpressure to authorize this forhealth care workers.”

Depending on what is decided,the White House is likely to beginpromoting and rolling out a planfor booster shots as soon as Fri-day. That would be in keeping withthe administration’s previouslyannounced plan to offer the addi-tional doses the week of Sept. 20.

Whatever the scientific reser-vations, millions are expected toseek out booster shots. In one re-cent poll, about three-quarters ofvaccinated Americans said theywould opt for a booster if the doseswere available.

State health departments gen-erally follow the recommenda-tions of the C.D.C. But manyAmericans were scrambling for

C.D.C. COMMITTEEBACKS THIRD DOSEFOR OLDER PEOPLE

REVEALS SCIENTIFIC RIFT

Health Workers Left Outof Eligible Groups in

Split With F.D.A.

By APOORVA MANDAVILLIand BENJAMIN MUELLER

Continued on Page A19

Since the beginning of the pan-demic, food delivery workers onbikes have become even moreubiquitous features of the NewYork City streetscape, earning lowwages and often braving horren-dous weather, hazardous streetsand the threat of robbery to bringpeople their takeout orders at allhours of the day.

On Thursday, the city becamethe first in the nation to take ag-gressive steps to improve thoseemployees’ working conditions,approving a groundbreakingpackage of legislation that will setminimum pay and address theplight of couriers employed byapp-based food delivery serviceslike Grubhub, DoorDash andUber Eats.

The legislation, which has thesupport of Mayor Bill de Blasio, isthe latest and broadest example ofthe city’s efforts to regulate themultibillion-dollar industry. Whileother cities have taken steps to re-strict the food delivery apps, nocity has gone as far as New York,which is home to the largest andmost competitive food deliverymarket in the country.

The vote comes at a time whenthe food delivery industry has ex-ploded as restaurants have reliedincreasingly on delivery services

to survive during the pandemic.The number of delivery workers,most of them immigrants, has ris-en to over 80,000, according to thecity, yet their working conditionsremain difficult at best and hor-rendous at worst.

Those conditions captured thecity’s attention a few weeks agowhen the remnants of HurricaneIda hit the city, and scenes of fooddelivery workers traversingflooded streets to deliver mealsstirred outrage.

A survey of 500 app food deliv-

New York CityActs to Protect

Food Couriers

Sweeping Bills to EaseApp Workers’ Plight

By JEFFERY C. MAYS

New York wants minimum payset for delivery workers.

HIROKO MASUIKE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A20

LEWISBURG, W.Va. — Thegovernor was livid.

“Other than GOD above and myfamily, I place my duties as Gover-nor above all else,” he thunderedin a statement sent out on Tues-day evening. “All I do is work, andI love my work, and I love the peo-ple of West Virginia, especially thekids.”

But there were some, he wenton, who had recently committed a“vile action,” one that was “mani-festly arbitrary and capricious,”even forbidden by law.

His antagonists were three re-tirees who sit on the school boardin Greenbrier County, 110 milessoutheast of the state capital. InAugust, they had voted not to hireGov. Jim Justice to coach the boys’varsity basketball team at Green-brier East High School.

“Does the hate of these Boardmembers hurt?” the governorwrote. “Of course, it does.”

This blast of dudgeon over hisauthority to coach the boys’ bas-ketball team in his spare time —

he already coaches the girls’ team— was par for the course in Mr.Justice’s tenure as governor ofWest Virginia.

A coal mining tycoon and thestate’s richest person, Mr. Justice,whose two terms in office havebeen richly marbled with conflictsof interest, has generally bull-dozed past various rules and obli-gations. He has been hounded byprivate companies, federal agen-

A Governor Fumes After Losing a Campaign. For a Coaching Job.By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON High School Basketball

Spat in West Virginia

Continued on Page A19

SAN ANTONIO — In Houston,nearly 2,000 Haitian migrantshave arrived this week from thesmall border community of DelRio, with buses pulling up to ahuge shelter nearly every hour. InSan Antonio, hundreds more havebeen allowed by the U.S. authori-ties onto flights to destinations asfar away as New York, Boston andMiami, paperwork in their pock-ets permitting them to remain inthe country.

Immigration and Customs En-forcement has deported about2,000 migrants in recent days onchartered flights to Haiti as the Bi-den administration tries to deter

more people from rushing to theborder. But the authorities havealso permitted thousands more totravel to cities across America,where they may live for months oryears as they await immigrationhearings.

“We are so happy to be in Amer-ica,” said Inso Isaac, 40, who leftHaiti years ago and was living inChile until he, his wife and their 2-year-old son made the dangerousjourney across several countriesand arrived last week in Del Rio.On Wednesday, they boarded aflight to New York, where theyplanned to stay with relatives onLong Island. “We want to start anew life here,” he said.

A chance to settle in the United

Criticism Mounts Even as U.S.Lets Thousands of Haitians StayThis article is by Edgar Sandoval,

Simon Romero and Miriam Jordan.

Continued on Page A18

DAVID BUSTOS

Footprints in New Mexico may change the timeline for humans’ spread in the Americas. Page A20.Stepping Into the Past

WASHINGTON — When JanetL. Yellen was Federal Reservechair in 2014, she faced a grillingfrom Republicans about whetherthe federal government had a planif the nation’s borrowing limit wasbreached and measures to keeppaying the country’s bills were ex-hausted.

Ms. Yellen, appearing at a con-gressional hearing, outlined a direscenario in which financial institu-tions might try to make paymentsthat they could not cover, becausethe Treasury Department was outof money, leading to a cascade ofbounced checks. She pushed backagainst the notion held by someRepublicans that an economicmeltdown could be averted, warn-ing that there was no secret con-tingency plan.

“To the best of my knowledge,there is no written-down plan,”Ms. Yellen said at the time, addingthat it was beyond her remit at theFed. “That’s a matter that is en-tirely up to the Treasury.”

Fending off such a calamity isnow squarely the responsibility ofMs. Yellen, who is confronting thebiggest test she has faced in her

Debt DebateForces YellenTo Play Politics

By ALAN RAPPEPORT

Continued on Page A15

Late Edition

VOL. CLXXI . . . . No. 59,191 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

RETURNS TO BROADWAY TOMORROW99 PERFORMANCES ONLYBY STEFANO MASSINI ADAPTED BY BEN POWER

WITH SIMON RUSSELL BEALE ADAM GODLEY ADRIAN LESTER DIRECTED BY SAM MENDES

THE

TRILOGY

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Forover a decade, the extremistgroup Boko Haram has terrorizednortheastern Nigeria — killingtens of thousands of people, kid-napping schoolgirls and sendingsuicide bombers into busy mar-ketplaces.

Now, thousands of Boko Haramfighters have surrendered, alongwith their family members, andare being housed by the govern-ment in a compound in the city ofMaiduguri, the group’s birthplaceand its frequent target.

The compound is next to a mid-dle-class housing developmentand a primary school, terrifyingresidents, teachers and parents.

“We are very afraid,” saidMaimouna Mohammed, a teacherat the primary school, glancing atthe camp’s wall 50 yards from herclassroom. “We don’t know theirminds.”

Nigerian military and justice of-ficials say that in the past month,as many as 7,000 fighters and fam-ily members, along with their cap-tives, have left Boko Haram, thelargest wave of defections by farsince the jihadist group emergedin 2002.

The turning point for its for-tunes appears to have been thedeath of Abubakar Shekau, BokoHaram’s longtime leader, whoblew himself up in May after beingcornered by a rival faction.

However weakened BokoHaram may be, though, it does notnecessarily mean an end to terror

Boko Haram Wanes, and Nigerian City Is FearfulBy RUTH MACLEAN

and ISMAIL ALFAEx-Fighters Now Living

Next Door to PeopleThey Menaced

This high-ranking Boko Haram commander said he surrendered because his leaders were gone and to give his children better lives.TOM SAATER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A12

Today, rain ending, residual flood-ing, partial clearing, high 73. To-night, clear skies, low 59. Tomorrow,sunny, mild, light breeze, high 75.Weather map appears on Page B12.

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