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The retirement of a moderate Republi-can senator and conservative infightingmay have created an opening. PAGE 16

Democrats See a Way in Ohio

Residents seeking a respite from urbanlife are trekking to far corners of thecity, mobbing parks and trails. PAGE 10

INTERNATIONAL 10-15

Wild for Nature in Hong KongDaniel Kaluuya uses deep preparationand a layer of spontaneity to bring hischaracters to life. PAGE 6

ARTS & LEISURE

An Important Actor Arises

With performances on hold, dancers arereconsidering questions of extremethinness and healthy living. PAGE 10

What Is a Ballet Body?

Cameras with heat- or motion-triggeredshutters can let you know what visitorsare munching on your plants and add tothe sense of awe in your garden. PAGE 8

AT HOME

Window on Backyard Wildlife

Seth Rogen, the Hollywood player withan Everydude persona, has stayed busyduring the pandemic with ceramics andexpanding his cannabis brand. PAGE 1

SUNDAY STYLES

He’s All About Pot and Pots

Jay Caspian Kang PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

White-collar jobs are feeling the pinchof automation as unassuming softwareprograms are becoming the star em-ployees at many American companiesand transforming workplaces. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Bots Climb Corporate Ladders

The Work Friend columnist writesabout what the absence of day-to-dayconnections showed us about how wespent our days. PAGE 1

A Year Without Office Life

Off the coast of Los Angeles,more than two dozen containerships filled with exercise bikes,electronics and other highlysought imports have been idlingfor as long as two weeks.

In Kansas City, farmers arestruggling to ship soybeans tobuyers in Asia. In China, furnituredestined for North America pilesup on factory floors.

Around the planet, the pan-demic has disrupted trade to anextraordinary degree, driving upthe cost of shipping goods andadding a fresh challenge to theglobal economic recovery. The vi-rus has thrown off the choreogra-phy of moving cargo from one con-tinent to another.

At the center of the storm is theshipping container, the workhorseof globalization.

Americans stuck in their homeshave set off a surge of orders fromfactories in China, much of it car-ried across the Pacific in contain-ers — the metal boxes that movegoods in towering stacks atopenormous vessels. As householdsin the United States have filledbedrooms with office furnitureand basements with treadmills,the demand for shipping has out-stripped the availability of con-tainers in Asia, yielding shortagesthere just as the boxes pile up atAmerican ports.

Containers that carried millionsof masks to countries in Africa andSouth America early in the pan-demic remain there, empty anduncollected, because shippingcarriers have concentrated theirvessels on their most popularroutes — those linking NorthAmerica and Europe to Asia.

And at ports where ships docall, bearing goods to unload, theyare frequently stuck for days infloating traffic jams. The pan-demic and its restrictions havelimited the availability of dock-workers and truck drivers, caus-ing delays in handling cargo fromSouthern California to Singapore.Every container that cannot beunloaded in one place is a con-tainer that cannot be loaded some-where else.

“I’ve never seen anything likethis,” said Lars Mikael Jensen,head of Global Ocean Network at

Logjam at SeaAs Virus Roils

Global TradeThis article is by Peter S. Good-

man, Alexandra Stevenson, NirajChokshi and Michael Corkery.

Ships waiting to unload outside the congested Port of Los Angeles, one of the main arrival points for products manufactured in Asia.COLEY BROWN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 9

WASHINGTON — A year ago,President Donald J. Trump de-clared a national emergency,promising a wartime footing tocombat the coronavirus. But asCovid-19 spread unchecked, send-ing thousands of dying people tothe hospital, desperate pleas forprotective masks and other medi-cal supplies went unanswered.

Health workers resorted towearing trash bags. Fearful hospi-tal officials turned away sick pa-tients. Governors complainedabout being left in the lurch. Todaythe shortage of basic supplies,alongside inadequate testing andthe slow vaccine rollout, stands asa symbol of the broken federal re-sponse to a worldwide calamitythat has killed more than a half-million Americans.

Explanations about what wentwrong have devolved into parti-

san finger pointing, with Mr.Trump blaming the Obama ad-ministration for leaving the cup-board bare, and Democrats inCongress accusing Mr. Trump ofnegligence.

An investigation by The NewYork Times found a hidden expla-nation: Government purchasesfor the Strategic National Stock-pile, the country’s emergencymedical reserve where suchequipment is kept, have largelybeen driven by the demands andfinancial interests of a handful ofbiotech firms that have special-ized in products that address ter-rorist threats rather than infec-tious disease.

Chief among them is EmergentBioSolutions, a Maryland-based

company now manufacturingCovid-19 vaccines for As-traZeneca and Johnson & John-son. Last year, as the pandemicraced across the country, the gov-ernment paid Emergent $626 mil-lion for products that includedvaccines to fight an entirely differ-ent threat: a terrorist attack usinganthrax.

Throughout most of the lastdecade, the government has spentnearly half of the stockpile’s half-billion-dollar annual budget onthe company’s anthrax vaccines,The Times found. That left thegovernment with less money tobuy supplies needed in a pan-demic, despite repeatedly beingadvised to do so.

Under normal circumstances,Emergent’s relationship with thefederal stockpile would be of littlepublic interest — an obscure con-tractor in an obscure corner of thefederal bureaucracy applying the

Preparing for Bioterror, Neglecting Virus ThreatBy CHRIS HAMBY

and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Continued on Page 22

U.S. Stockpiled a Firm’s Anthrax Vaccines

SAVANNAH, Ga. — Sundaysare always special at the St. PhilipMonumental A.M.E. church. Butin October, the pews are oftenmore packed, the sermon a bitmore urgent and the congregationmore animated, and eager forwhat will follow: piling intochurch vans and buses — thoughsome prefer to walk — and head-ing to the polls.

Voting after Sunday churchservices, known colloquially as“souls to the polls,” is a tradition inBlack communities across thecountry, and Pastor BernardClarke, a minister since 1991, hasmarshaled the effort at St. Philipfor five years. His sermons onthose Sundays, he said, deliver amessage of fellowship, responsi-bility and reverence.

“It is an opportunity for us toshow our voting rights privilegeas well as to fulfill what we knowthat people have died for, and peo-ple have fought for,” Mr. Clarkesaid.

Now, Georgia Republicans areproposing new restrictions onweekend voting that could se-verely curtail one of the Blackchurch’s central roles in civic en-gagement and elections. Stung bylosses in the presidential race andtwo Senate contests, the stateparty is moving quickly to push

through these limits and a raft ofother measures aimed directly atsuppressing the Black turnoutthat helped Democrats prevail inthe critical battleground state.

“The only reason you have

these bills is because they lost,”said Bishop Reginald T. Jackson,who oversees all 534 A.M.E.churches in Georgia. “Whatmakes it even more troubling than

Georgia Bills Target Black Church Voting DrivesBy NICK CORASANITIand JIM RUTENBERG

Israel Small spent most of last fall helping parishioners at GreaterGaines Chapel A.M.E. navigate the absentee voting process.

STEPHEN B. MORTON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 17

When Gov. Andrew M. Cuomocame under fire just a few weeksago over his handling of nursinghome deaths in the pandemic, heand his top advisers followed theirusual playbook to stem the fall-out: They worked the phones,pressing his case in private callsto legislators and other New YorkDemocrats.

Then came a crisis that Mr. Cuo-mo’s signature blend of threats,flattery and browbeating couldnot mitigate. And he seemed toknow it.

As three women stepped for-ward with claims of sexual har-assment and other unwanted ad-vances by Mr. Cuomo, the mostvisible governor in America effec-tively went dark.

After one of the women detailedher accusations against the gover-nor in a Medium post, State Sena-tor Liz Krueger, a Manhattan

Democrat, decided that she wouldcome out with a statement callingfor an independent investigation— an implicit rebuke of Mr.Cuomo. She reached out to thegovernor’s team to alert them,aware of the typical angry re-sponse.

No call came, she said.“None of my colleagues have

said they have heard from thegovernor on this,” Ms. Kruegersaid of the harassment accusa-tions.

At the greatest moment of polit-ical peril for Mr. Cuomo in his dec-ade in power, interviews withnearly two dozen Democratic law-makers, strategists and Albanyveterans paint a portrait of a gov-ernor who is increasingly isolated.

Mr. Cuomo faces a federal inqui-ry into his administration’s han-dling of nursing home deaths dur-

Cuomo, Shaken and Isolated,Feels His Grip on New York Slip

By KATIE GLUECK

Continued on Page 26

A long-planned goal to expand Amtrakservice nationwide has run into opposi-tion from some local politicians. PAGE 20

NATIONAL 16-26

All Not Aboard on Rail Routes

Francis, meeting with the country’s topayatollah and other leaders, tries toforge closer bonds among faiths. PAGE 12

Pope Appeals to Iraq for Unity

WASHINGTON — PresidentBiden’s extensive $1.9 trillionstimulus bill passed a deeply di-vided Senate on Saturday, asDemocrats pushed through a pan-demic aid plan that includes an ex-traordinary increase in safety netspending in the largest antipov-erty effort in a generation.

The package, which still mustpass the House before it heads toMr. Biden’s desk to be signed intolaw, is the first major legislativeinitiative of his presidency. Themeasure seeks at once to curtailthe coronavirus pandemic, bolsterthe sluggish economy and protectthe neediest people within it. Re-publicans voted unanimouslyagainst it and assailed it as unnec-essary and unaffordable.

It would inject vast amounts offederal resources into the econ-omy, including one-time directpayments of up to $1,400 for hun-dreds of millions of Americans,jobless aid of $300 a week to lastthrough the summer, money fordistributing coronavirus vaccinesand relief for states, cities, schoolsand small businesses strugglingduring the pandemic.

Beyond the immediate aid, thebill, titled the American RescuePlan, is estimated to cut povertyby a third this year and wouldplant the seeds for what Demo-crats hope will become an incomeguarantee for children. It wouldpotentially cut child poverty inhalf, through a generous expan-sion of tax credits for Americanswith children — which Democratshope to make permanent — in-creases in subsidies for child care,a broadening of eligibility underthe Affordable Care Act, and anexpansion of food stamps andrental assistance.

Its eye-popping cost is just shyof the $2.2 trillion stimulus meas-

SENATE APPROVES$1.9 TRILLION IN AID

FOR AILING NATIONPartisan Vote After

All-Night Session

By EMILY COCHRANE

President Biden after the vote.STEFANI REYNOLDS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 18

WASHINGTON — To jump-start the ailing economy, Presi-dent Biden is turning to thelowest-paid workers in America,and to the people who are cur-

rently unable towork at all.

Mr. Biden’s $1.9trillion economic

relief package, which cleared theSenate on Saturday and could beheaded for the president’s signa-ture in a matter of days, wouldoverwhelmingly help low earnersand the middle class, with littledirect aid for the high earnerswho have largely kept their jobsand padded their savings overthe past year.

For the president, the plan ismore than just a stimulus pro-posal. It is a declaration of hiseconomic policy — one thatcaptures the principle Democratsand liberal economists haveespoused over the past decade:that the best way to stoke fastereconomic growth is from thebottom up.

Mr. Biden’s approach in hisfirst major economic legislationis in stark contrast to PresidentDonald J. Trump’s, whose initialeffort in Congress was a tax-cutpackage in 2017 that largelybenefited corporations andwealthier Americans.

The “American Rescue Plan”advanced by Mr. Biden includesmore generous direct benefits forlow-income Americans than therounds of stimulus passed lastyear under Mr. Trump, eventhough it will arrive at a timewhen economic and coronavirusvaccine statistics suggest thebroad economy is poised to takeflight. It is more focused on peo-ple than on businesses and isexpected to help women andminorities in particular, becausethey have taken an outsize hit inthe pandemic recession.

Researchers predict it couldbecome one of the most effectivelaws to fight poverty in a genera-tion. Columbia University’s Cen-ter on Poverty and Social Policyestimates that the plan’s provi-sions, including a generous ex-pansion of tax credits for low-income Americans with children,would reduce the poverty rate by

Biden Lifts Up Poorto Jolt the Recovery

By JIM TANKERSLEY

Continued on Page 19

NEWSANALYSIS

NO BIPARTISANSHIP Despite thepresident’s wishes, the parties arefar apart. News Analysis. PAGE 19

Bianca Smith, recently hired by the RedSox as the first Black female coach inpro baseball, learned the game from hermother, an ardent Yankees fan. PAGE 30

SPORTS 30-32

A Family Allegiance to Baseball

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . No. 58,990 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2021

Today, mostly sunny, still cold, high38. Tonight, mainly clear, ratherchilly, low 25. Tomorrow, plenty ofsunshine, not as cold, high 44.Weather map appears on Page 25.

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