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As protesters hurled rocks out-side Haiti’s national palace andset fires on the streets to demandPresident Jovenel Moïse’s resig-nation, President Donald J. Trumpinvited him to Mar-a-Lago in 2019,posing cheerfully with him in oneof the club’s ornate entryways.

After members of Congresswarned that Mr. Moïse’s “anti-democratic abuses” remindedthem of the run-up to the dictator-ship that terrorized Haiti in dec-ades past, the Biden administra-tion publicly threw its weight be-hind Mr. Moïse’s claim on power.

And when American officialsurged the Biden administration tochange course, alarmed thatHaiti’s democratic institutionswere being stripped away, theysay their pleas went unheeded —and sometimes never earned a re-sponse at all.

Through Mr. Moïse’s time in of-fice, the United States backed hisincreasingly autocratic rule, view-ing it as the easiest way of main-taining stability in a troubledcountry that barely figured intothe priorities of successive admin-istrations in Washington, currentand former officials say.

Even as Haiti spiraled into vio-lence and political upheaval, theysay, few in the Trump administra-tion took seriously Mr. Moïse’s re-peated warnings that he facedplots against his life. And as warn-ings of his authoritarianism inten-sified, the Biden administrationkept up its public support for Mr.Moïse’s claim to power, even afterHaiti’s Parliament emptied out inthe absence of elections and Mr.Moïse ruled by decree.

When Mr. Moïse was assassi-nated this month, it left a gapingleadership void that set off ascramble for power with the fewelected officials remaining. The

U.S. STOOD BEHINDHAITI’S PRESIDENTAS TURMOIL GREW

FEARS OF CRISIS IGNORED

Long Before Deadly Plot,a Washington Habit of

Backing Autocrats

By NATALIE KITROEFFand MICHAEL CROWLEY

Continued on Page 6

MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark. —When the boat factory in this leafyOzark Mountains city offered freecoronavirus vaccinations thisspring, Susan Johnson, 62, a re-ceptionist there, declined the of-fer, figuring she was protected aslong as she never left her housewithout a mask.

Linda Marion, 68, a widow withchronic pulmonary disease, wor-ried that a vaccination might actu-ally trigger Covid-19 and kill her.Barbara Billigmeier, 74, an avidgolfer who retired here from Cali-fornia, believed she did not need itbecause “I never get sick.”

On July 8, all three were pa-tients on 2 West, an overflow wardthat is now largely devoted totreating Covid-19 at Baxter Re-gional Medical Center, the largesthospital in north-central Arkan-sas. Mrs. Billigmeier said thescariest part was that “you can’tbreathe.” For 10 days, Ms. John-son had relied on supplementaloxygen being fed to her lungsthrough nasal tubes.

Ms. Marion said that at onepoint, she felt so sick and fright-ened that she wanted to give up.“It was just terrible,” she said. “Ifelt like I couldn’t take it.”

Where Few GotCovid Vaccine, Many Get SickBy SHARON LaFRANIERE

Continued on Page 19

Broadway is planning to startperformances of at least threedozen shows before the end of theyear, but producers do not know ifthere will be enough tourists —who typically make up two-thirdsof the audience — to support all ofthem.

The Metropolitan Opera is plan-ning a September return, but onlyif its musicians agree to pay cuts.

And New York’s vauntednightlife scene — the dance clubsand live venues that give the cityits reputation for never sleeping— has been stymied by the slow,problematic rollout of a federal aidprogram that mistakenly declaredsome of the city’s best-known

nightclub impresarios to be dead.The return of arts and enter-

tainment is crucial to New York’seconomy, and not just because it isa major industry that employedsome 93,500 people before thepandemic and paid them $7.4 bil-lion in wages, according to thestate comptroller’s office. Cultureis also part of the lifeblood of NewYork — a magnet for visitors andresidents alike that will play a keyrole if the city is to remain vital inan era when shops are battling e-commerce, the ease of remotework has businesses rethinkingthe need to stay in central busi-

New York Is Counting on CultureTo Lead the Way on Reopening

This article is by Michael Paulson,Ben Sisario and Robin Pogrebin.

Patrons took in Alex Da Corte’s installation “As Long as the Sun Lasts,” on the Met’s Roof Garden.GEORGE ETHEREDGE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 18

A CITY STIRS

The Arts Hope for a Rebound

In the middle of the night nearlytwo years ago, construction crewsgathered near Senso-ji, Tokyo’soldest Buddhist temple and a pop-ular tourist site. The streets wereempty, the air was sultry and theworkers hoped it would not rain.Machines rumbled to life.

It was a little thing, barely no-ticed. But it was a sign of thesometimes futile and farcicallengths taken to put on the biggestshow in sports.

More than 1,000 Japanese haddied of heat-related causes in Julyand August of 2018 and 2019, andseveral Olympic test events in To-kyo had made athletes ill and hadscuttled schedules. Drastic meas-ures for the upcoming Olympicswere required.

Among them was this project,resurfacing the 26.2-mile mara-thon course with a shiny, reflec-tive coating meant to bounce theheat away. It was a small expensefor an event that would cost bil-lions, and officials were not en-tirely sure it would do much good.But inch by inch, with large ma-chines making whooshing noisesover several hot August nights,the marathon course was un-veiled in a silvery stripe.

Two months later, officialsmoved the marathon course 500

miles north to Sapporo, which hascooler weather. Left behind wasthe meandering stripe throughcentral Tokyo, a marker of regret-table ideas.

Six months later, the coronavi-rus pandemic postponed the 2020Tokyo Games for a year. ManyJapanese wondered if this bloatedsports festival was worthwhileanymore, worth the risks to publichealth or the billions spent on ven-ues and stagecraft and other con-cessions to the InternationalOlympic Committee.

Too late. The Summer Olympicsare happening, amid a spikingpandemic and in mostly emptyvenues. The opening ceremony onFriday will bring curiosity and aquestion that might be aimed notjust at the Tokyo Games, but at theentire Olympic movement:

Has the Time Come to Let the Games Be Gone?By JOHN BRANCH In Olympics, Critics See

a System Doing MoreHarm Than Good

Continued on Page 28

Steve Rosenthal escaped withhis life when his condo building inFlorida crumbled and left himhomeless last month, but he stillowes more than $100,000 on hismortgage.

Mr. Rosenthal, a 72-year-oldrestaurant advertising executive,soon received two small insur-ance checks for living expensesand personal property, but he wasstill waiting for his big payout. Heexpects it to be over six figures,but it will probably go to the bankto pay off the mortgage on a condothat no longer exists.

“We’re all freaking out,” he said

of survivors of the partial collapseof Champlain Towers South inSurfside. “I don’t want to dip intosavings that I wasn’t supposed totouch until I’m 80.”

For Mr. Rosenthal and othersurvivors of the collapse, sortingout complicated insurance pay-outs is but one part of startingover after a catastrophic loss. Andhis fellow Floridians may soon befeeling the shock waves from thetragedy, as spooked insurancecompanies begin scrutinizing thebuildings they are covering, rais-ing rates that are already amongthe highest in the nation, or can-celing coverage altogether.

The Surfside collapse, whichkilled at least 97 people, is causing

Condo Cave-In Spooks InsurersAlready Rattled by Hurricanes

This article is by ChristopherFlavelle, Patricia Mazzei and GiuliaHeyward.

Continued on Page 20

Some of Europe’s richest coun-tries lay in disarray this week-end, as raging rivers burstthrough their banks in Germanyand Belgium, submerging towns,slamming parked cars againsttrees and leaving Europeansshellshocked at the intensity ofthe destruction.

Only days before in the North-western United States, a regionfamed for its cool, foggy weather,hundreds had died of heat. InCanada, wildfire had burned avillage off the map. Moscowreeled from record temperatures.And this weekend the northernRocky Mountains were bracingfor yet another heat wave, aswildfires spread across 12 statesin the American West.

The extreme weather disastersacross Europe and North Amer-ica have driven home two essen-tial facts of science and history:The world as a whole is neitherprepared to slow down climatechange, nor live with it. Theweek’s events have now ravagedsome of the world’s wealthiestnations, whose affluence hasbeen enabled by more than acentury of burning coal, oil andgas — activities that pumped thegreenhouse gases into the atmos-phere that are warming theworld.

“I say this as a German: Theidea that you could possibly diefrom weather is completelyalien,” said Friederike Otto, aphysicist at Oxford Universitywho studies the links betweenextreme weather and climatechange. “There’s not even arealization that adaptation is

something we have to do rightnow. We have to save people’slives.”

The floods in Europe havekilled at least 170 people, most ofthem in Germany, Europe’s mostpowerful economy. Across Ger-many, Belgium and the Nether-lands, hundreds have been re-ported as missing, which sug-gests the death toll could rise.Questions are now being raisedabout whether the authoritiesadequately warned the publicabout risks.

The bigger question is whetherthe mounting disasters in thedeveloped world will have abearing on what the world’s mostinfluential countries and compa-nies will do to reduce their own

Climate Change ComesFor the Wealthy Nations

Brutal Heat and Deadly Floods Show WorldUnprepared to Cope With Extreme Weather

NEWS ANALYSIS

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

Parched farmland in California, which is experiencing its most severe drought since the 1970s.AUDE GUERRUCCI/REUTERS

Flooding from heavy rain killed at least 170, mostly in Germany, last week. Hundreds are missing.GORDON WELTERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A wildfire in California duringa record heat wave this month.

NOAH BERGER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Continued on Page 9

Cinemas are open, A.O. Scott writes.But with a new screen culture takingshape, what are movies now? PAGE 1

Popcorn and PossibilitiesRecent violence against older Asianmen and women has spurred differingreactions in the community. PAGE 13

Attacks in San Francisco

When it comes to theaters reopening,Andrew Lloyd Webber is a thorn in theBritish government’s side. PAGE 8

ARTS & LEISURE

His New Stage: ActivismSolar power benefits the environmentbut doesn’t always deliver rewards forthe workers who help harness it. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Greeting Green Jobs WarilyHow can a 12-year-old become a grand-master? Through hard work, and bycutting deals with opponents. PAGE 26

SPORTS 26-29

The Dark Side of ChessAs Taliban fears mount, regional powerbrokers have returned to recruitingmilitias. But some worry that the quickfix will cause a wider crisis. PAGE 4

INTERNATIONAL 4-12

Afghans Take Up Arms AgainThe documentary uses a voice thatmimics Anthony Bourdain using artifi-cial intelligence. Is it ethical? PAGE 22

NATIONAL 13-22

Bourdain in A.I.

Two coronavirus wards have burned inthree months, adding to Iraqis’ unre-lenting despair. PAGE 12

Hospital Fires Spur Outrage

Black Rifle Coffee doubled sales byleaning into America’s culture war. Nowit’s distancing itself from customers.

THE MAGAZINE

The Starbucks of the RightMichelle Goldberg PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

IBM’s supercomputer once made head-lines, and seemed ready to changeindustries. It hasn’t happened. PAGE 1

What’s Up With Watson?

THE TOLL 12 residents of a carehome were among the dead fromthe flooding in Germany. PAGE 8

Biz Markie, whose unlikely crossover1989 hit “Just a Friend” led one critic tocall him (favorably) “the father of mod-ern bad singing,” was 57. PAGE 23

OBITUARIES 23-25

Hip-Hop’s Brilliant Goofball

The young Americans Collin Morikawaand Jordan Spieth were close behindthe veteran Louis Oosthuizen. PAGE 29

A U.S. Bid at the British Open

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . No. 59,123 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2021

Today, cloudy, not as warm, still hu-mid, stray thunderstorms, high 82.Tonight, some clearing, muggy, low70. Tomorrow, clouds and sunshine,high 82. Weather map, Page 21.

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