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In a Venezuelan fishing village, goldnuggets and jewelry have been mysteri-ously washing ashore for weeks, easingthe pain of an economic crisis. PAGE 11

INTERNATIONAL 11-21

A Fortune Sent From the SeaDid you know solving challenges causesthe body to produce endorphins anddopamine? Introducing the sixth edi-tion of The Times’s “happiness maker.”

SPECIAL SECTION

Puzzle Mania ReturnsOur critics look back on the creativebright spots of 2020, when the pan-demic disrupted so much, but the artssomehow carried on and inspired.

ARTS & LEISURE

The Best of an Awful YearA 21-year-old fan of the president im-personated Trump family members onTwitter, spreading conspiracy theoriesand even fooling the president. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Pulling One Over on Trump David Quammen PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

VICTOR MORIYAMA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

When life changed seemingly overnight, photographers transformed how they worked, trading intimacy for distance. This is what they captured. A Special Section.

A Year Like No Other: 2020 in Pictures

she had pursued them on her own,with a meticulous abandon.

She cut her hair, dyed it and dis-guised herself as a pollster, ahealth worker and an election offi-cial to get their names and ad-dresses. She invented excuses tomeet their families, unsuspectinggrandmothers and cousins whogave her details, however small.She wrote everything down andstuffed it into her black computerbag, building her investigationand tracking them down, one byone.

She knew their habits, friends,hometowns, childhoods. Sheknew the florist had sold flowerson the street before joining theZeta cartel and getting involved inher daughter’s kidnapping. Nowhe was on the run and back to

SAN FERNANDO, Mexico —Miriam Rodríguez clutched a pis-tol in her purse as she ran past themorning crowds on the bridge toTexas. She stopped every fewminutes to catch her breath andstudy the photo of her next target:the florist.

She had been hunting him for ayear, stalking him online, interro-gating the criminals he workedwith, even befriending unwittingrelatives for tips on his where-abouts. Now she finally had one —a widow called to tell her that hewas peddling flowers on the bor-der.

Ever since 2014, she had beentracking the people responsiblefor the kidnapping and murder ofher 20-year-old daughter, Karen.Half of them were already in pris-on, not because the authoritieshad cracked the case, but because

‘If You Move, I’ll Shoot’: Stalking Her Daughter’s Killers in Mexico, One by OneBy AZAM AHMED

A ranch where 72 bodies were found in 2010 near San Fernando, a Mexico city scarred by violence.DANIEL BEREHULAK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 12

WASHINGTON — The head ofthe N.A.A.C.P. had a blunt warn-ing for President-elect Joseph R.Biden Jr. when Mr. Biden met withcivil rights leaders in Wilmingtonlast week.

Nominating Tom Vilsack, a sec-retary of agriculture in the Obamaadministration, to run the depart-ment would enrage Black farmersand threaten Democratic hopes ofwinning two Senate runoffs inGeorgia, the N.A.A.C.P. head, Der-rick Johnson, told Mr. Biden.

“Former Secretary Vilsackcould have a disastrous impact onvoters in Georgia,” Mr. Johnsoncautioned, according to an audiorecording of the meeting obtainedby The Intercept. Mr. Johnsonsaid Mr. Vilsack’s abrupt firing ofa popular Black department offi-cial in 2010 was still too raw formany Black farmers despite Mr.Vilsack’s subsequent apology andoffer to rehire her.

Mr. Biden promptly ignored thewarning. Within hours, his deci-sion to nominate Mr. Vilsack tolead the Agriculture Departmenthad leaked, angering the very ac-tivists he had just met with.

The episode was only one pieceof a concerted campaign by activ-ists to demand the president-electmake good on his promise that hisadministration will “look likeAmerica.” In their meeting, Mr.Johnson and the group also urgedMr. Biden to nominate a Black at-torney general and to name aWhite House civil rights “czar.”

The pressure on the Democrat-ic president-elect is intense, evenas his efforts to ensure ethnic andgender diversity already go farbeyond those of President Trump,who did not make diversity a pri-

Heat on BidenOver DiversityGrows Intense

By MICHAEL D. SHEARand ANNIE KARNI

Continued on Page 24

At Novant Health in Winston-Salem, N.C., the new ultracoldfreezers are ready — enough toeventually house more than500,000 doses of the first corona-virus vaccine approved in theUnited States.

In Los Angeles, the Cedars-Si-nai medical center has installedextra security cameras to protectthe secret location of its soon-to-arrive supply of the vaccine.

In Jackson, Miss., the state’s toptwo health officials are preparingto roll up their own sleeves in thecoming days and be the first to getthe shots there as cameras roll,hoping to send the message, “Wetrust it.”

The Food and Drug Administra-tion’s emergency authorization onFriday night of the vaccine devel-oped by Pfizer and BioNTech hasset in motion the most ambitiousvaccination campaign in the na-tion’s history, a challenge of stag-gering proportions choreo-graphed against a backdrop ofsoaring infection rates anddeaths. This weekend, 2.9 milliondoses of the vaccine are to begintraveling by plane and guardedtruck from Pfizer facilities inMichigan and Wisconsin to desig-nated locations, mostly hospitals,in all 50 states.

The first injections are ex-pected to be given by Monday tohigh-risk health care workers, theinitial step toward the goal of in-oculating enough Americans byspring to finally halt the spread ofa virus that has killed nearly300,000, sickened millions and up-ended the country’s economy, ed-ucation system and daily life.

The rapid development of thevaccine, and its authorizationbased on data showing it to be 95percent effective, has been a tri-umph of medical science, butmuch in this complicated nextstage could go wrong.

The Pfizer vaccine needs to bekept at minus 94 degrees Fahren-heit, and the special boxes it is be-ing shipped in can be opened nomore than twice a day, in order tomaintain the deep freeze. Side ef-fects, like achiness or headache,

VEXING LOGISTICSAS FIRST VACCINESARE SET TO ARRIVE

INITIAL SHOTS MONDAY

A Daunting Challenge ofStorage, Security and

Delivery to States

This article is by Abby Goodnough,Reed Abelson and Jan Hoffman.

Continued on Page 10

The Supreme Court repudiationof President Trump’s desperatebid for a second term not onlyshredded his effort to overturn thewill of voters: It also was a bluntrebuke to Republican leaders inCongress and the states who werewilling to damage American de-mocracy by embracing a partisanpower grab over a free and fairelection.

The court’s decision on Fridaynight, an inflection point afterweeks of legal flailing by Mr.Trump and ahead of the ElectoralCollege vote for President-electJoseph R. Biden Jr. on Monday,leaves the president’s party in anextraordinary position. Throughtheir explicit endorsements orcomplicity of silence, much of the

G.O.P. leadership now shares re-sponsibility for the quixotic at-tempt to ignore the nation’s found-ing principles and engineer a dif-ferent verdict from the one voterscast in November.

Many regular Republicans sup-ported this effort, too — a sign thatMr. Trump has not just bent theparty to his will, but pressed amainstay of American politics fornearly two centuries into the serv-ice of overturning an election out-come and assaulting public faithin the electoral system. The G.O.P.sought to undo the vote by suchspurious means that the SupremeCourt quickly rejected the argu-ment.

Even some Republican leaders

In Rejecting Lawsuit, JusticesDeliver a Rebuke to the G.O.P.

By JIM RUTENBERG and NICK CORASANITI

Continued on Page 25

When college students re-turned to campuses around thecountry this fall, spurring a spikein new coronavirus infections na-tionwide, people like PhyllisBaukol seemed at little risk.

A classical pianist who, at 94,was ill with Alzheimer’s, she livedtucked away in a nursing home inGrand Forks, N.D., far from theclassrooms, bars and fraternityhouses frequented by students atthe University of North Dakota.

But the surge of the virus inGrand Forks, first attributed tocases among students and thenballooning through the communi-ty, eventually reached Ms. Baukol.She tested positive this fall, andthree days later, staff members

pushed her bed up against a win-dow at the nursing home so herdaughter could say goodbye.

As coronavirus deaths soaracross the country, deaths in com-munities that are home to collegeshave risen faster than the rest ofthe nation, a New York Timesanalysis of 203 counties wherestudents compose at least 10 per-cent of the population has found.

In late August and early Sep-tember, as college students re-turned to campus and some insti-tutions put into place rigoroustesting programs, the number ofreported infections surged. Yetbecause serious illness and deathare rare among young coronavi-rus patients, it was unclear at thetime whether the growth of infec-

After the Students Came Back,Deaths Rose in College Towns

This article is by Danielle Ivory,Robert Gebeloff and Sarah Mervosh.

Continued on Page 6

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . No. 58,906 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2020

Today, mild, some sunshine, high 59.Tonight, mostly cloudy, still mild,low 40. Tomorrow, chillier, rain, mix-ing with wet snow in the afternoon,high 43. Weather map, Page 26.

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