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After city officials approved drastic cutsto the force, its top officer, Carmen Best,said she “can’t do it.” PAGE A19

NATIONAL A13-23

Seattle Police Chief ResignsJonathan Majors stars in HBO’s horrorseries “Lovecraft Country,” which isn’tafraid to take on racial injustice. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-6

A Full-Body Scream

The country is the first to approve apossible vaccine against the virus,despite warnings from global authori-ties against cutting corners. PAGE A6

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-9

Putin Says Russia Has a VaccineBergamo, a proud Italian city hit hardby the coronavirus, has found unity andsolace in its overachieving and title-chasing soccer team. PAGE B8

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B8-10

Finding Refuge in a GameIn the Mexican state of Sonora, carneasada is a weekly ritual, a tight-knitgathering of friends and family. PAGE D1

FOOD D1-8

Far More Than Grilled Meat

A Black nurse who saved lives in 19thcentury California may now be saving apiece of art in San Francisco. PAGE C1

Rescuing a W.P.A. MuralThe president’s call to cut taxes thatfund Social Security has opened a lineof attack for Democrats. PAGE A20

Smelling Blood on Payroll Tax

There’s no indoor dining yet, but theMiami chef Niven Patel has opened aCaribbean-inspired restaurant. PAGE D1

Not Giving Up on 2020

Frank Bruni PAGE A25

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A24-25

Thousands of young people are chan-neling Harry Potter as they call on thearmy to get out of politics. PAGE A10

INTERNATIONAL A10-12

Thai Students Protest Military

Bars and restaurants have become afocal point for clusters of Covid-19 infec-tions across the country. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-7

The Risk of Eating Out

Zomato, a global food-delivery companybased in India, drew praise for introduc-ing paid leave for periods. PAGE B6

Taking On a Workplace Taboo

Restaurants and stores are closing inthe city, which has been emptied ofoffice workers and tourists. PAGE A8

Retail Chains Exit Manhattan

WASHINGTON — For some ofPresident Trump’s loudest cheer-leaders, it was a story too good tocheck out: Black Lives Mattersprotesters in Portland, Ore., hadburned a stack of Bibles, and thentopped off the fire with Americanflags. There was even a video toprove it.

The story was a near-perfect fitfor a central Trump campaigntalking point — that with liberalsand Democrats comes godlessdisorder — and it went viralamong Republicans within hoursof appearing this month. The NewYork Post wrote about it, as didThe Federalist, saying that theprotesters had shown “their truecolors.” Senator Ted Cruz, theTexas Republican, said of the pro-testers, “This is who they are.”Donald Trump Jr., the president’sson, tweeted that antifa hadmoved to “the book burningphase.”

The truth was far more mun-dane. A few protesters among themany thousands appear to haveburned a single Bible — and possi-bly a second — for kindling to start

a bigger fire. None of the otherprotesters seemed to notice orcare.

Yet in the rush to paint all theprotesters as Bible-burning zeal-ots, few of the politicians or com-mentators who weighed in on theincident took the time to look intothe story’s veracity, or to figureout that it had originated with aKremlin-backed video newsagency. And now, days later, thePortland Bible burnings appear tobe one of the first viral Russiandisinformation hits of the 2020presidential campaign.

With Election Day drawingcloser, the Russian efforts to influ-ence the vote appear to be well un-derway. American intelligence of-ficials said last week that Russiawas using a range of techniques todenigrate Democrats and theirpresumptive presidential nomi-

Bible-Burning Video Goes Viral,A Win for Russia Disinformation

By MATTHEW ROSENBERGand JULIAN E. BARNES

Early Evidence MoscowHas 2020 Campaign

Up and Running

Continued on Page A22

Two of the nation’s wealthiest,most powerful college footballconferences, the Big Ten and thePac-12, abandoned their plans toplay this fall over coronavirusconcerns, a move that fracturedthe season and promised reper-cussions far beyond the playingfield, even as other top leagueswere publicly poised to begingames next month.

The decisions by the two confer-ences extended the greatest crisisin the history of college athletics, amultibillion-dollar industry thatdepends heavily on football to un-derwrite lower-profile sports andwhich provides universities with anational profile they use to recruitstudents and attract donations.

By canceling games this au-tumn, the two conferences defiedcalls by coaches, players andPresident Trump to mount a sea-son in the face of the virus’s large-ly unchecked spread. The plans ofother leading leagues to startplaying by late September couldnow quickly change, and the BigTen and Pac-12 may ultimatelymove their seasons to the spring.

Playing at this stage of the pan-demic, though, presented “toomuch uncertainty, too much risk,”Kevin Warren, the Big Ten com-missioner, said in an interview onTuesday.

“You have to listen to your med-ical experts,” Warren said.“There’s a lot of emotion involvedwith this, but when you look at thehealth and well-being of our stu-dent-athletes, I feel very confidentthat we made the right decision.”

The moves by both leaguescame after intense deliberationsamong university presidents andchancellors, but the decisionswere not universally supported byadministrators, coaches and play-ers.

“This is an incredibly sad dayfor our student-athletes, who haveworked so hard and been so vig-ilant fighting against this pan-

Two Leagues Decide Not to Play,Roiling College Football Season

By ALAN BLINDERand BILLY WITZ

Other Top ConferencesPlanning to Competein the Fall, for Now

Continued on Page A9

CHICAGO — The old guard ofthis city’s Roseland neighbor-hood, a community on the SouthSide famous for molding a youngBarack Obama and infamous forits current blight, has never for-gotten the fruit trees.

Back in the 1970s, before the fullexodus of white residents, the ero-sion of local businesses, the crackepidemic of the 1980s and the dis-investment that followed, it wasthe trees that signaled the societalelevation of Black families — sep-arating those who moved herefrom the urban high rises theyfled. An apple tree greeted An-toine Dobine’s family in 1973, hesaid. The tree meant a yard. Ayard meant a home. And a homemeant a slice of the Americandream, long deferred for BlackAmericans.

“Pear trees, peaches, apples, itwas beautiful,” Mr. Dobine re-called. “Before the white peopleleft.”

Today, as activism against ra-cial inequities raises questions ofwhether anything will actuallychange for many Black Ameri-cans, Mr. Dobine’s street in Rose-

land tells a different story aboutthat same American dream, andthe place for Black people withinit. The fruit trees have been re-placed with overgrown lots. Resi-dents say gangs use the aban-doned areas to stockpile weapons,which children sometimes find.The police are omnipresent, asource of comfort for those whobelieve they deter crime, and aninstigator for others who say theyperpetuate abuse.

But more than anything, it’s theconsistency of the neighborhood’sstruggle that bothers its tight-knitgroup of activists, who are skepti-cal that the nation’s current focuson racial injustice will mean tangi-ble improvements in the lives ofthose who most need it.

White Democrats have oftenbeen the opponents of these localleaders in the deep-blue world of

In a Black Chicago Community,Doubt Defies Hope for Change

By ASTEAD W. HERNDON Historic Shift on Raceor Just ‘the Topic of

the Moment’?

Continued on Page A21

WASHINGTON — In namingKamala Harris as his runningmate, Joseph R. Biden Jr. made agroundbreaking decision, pickinga woman of color to be vice presi-dent and, possibly, a successor inthe White House someday. Yet insome ways, Mr. Biden made aconventional choice: elevating asenator who brings generationaland coastal balance to the Demo-cratic ticket and shares his cen-ter-left politics at a time of pro-gressive change in the party.

Unlike Barack Obama andGeorge W. Bush, who selectedveteran Washington hands astheir vice presidents, Mr. Biden,77, is opting for a time-honoredmodel in which running matesare not just governing partnersbut political understudies ofsorts. Pegged as a rising star fora decade, but with less than fouryears of experience in the Senate— she was 8 years old when Mr.Biden was first elected to thechamber — Ms. Harris, 55, re-flects a traditional archetype inan election year that has beenanything but normal.

She is also a thoroughly estab-lishment-friendly figure, as is Mr.Biden: Both have hewed closelyto their party’s mainstream foryears, shifting left with the timesbut always with an eye on thebroader electorate and higheroffice. He long said he wantedsomeone “simpatico” with himand, in Ms. Harris, he found thatperson, at least when it comes toideology.

Progressive Democrats nowfind themselves led by two mod-erates with relatively cautiouspolitical instincts, even as activ-ist energy courses through theparty and left-wing challengersunseat some incumbents. Themostly young protesters fillingthe streets of nearly every Amer-ican city to decry police brutalityand President Trump are repre-sented by two figures who haveoffered sympathetic words andproposals but whose careershave been shaped by their rela-tionship with law enforcement.

“She’s not of the far left of theparty, she’s a former prosecutor,”Janet Napolitano, the formerArizona governor and HomelandSecurity secretary, said of Ms.

Senator Kamala Harris, an establishment-friendly Democrat, has long been considered a rising star.DANIEL ACKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Pick Seen as Safebut Energizing

By JONATHAN MARTINand ASTEAD W. HERNDON

Continued on Page A15

NEWS ANALYSIS

Kamala Harris’s first act as apolitical candidate was knockingout a former boxer: the progres-sive San Francisco district attor-ney who had been her boss.

Her freshman Senate term hasbeen defined by committee per-formances so lacerating thatTrump administration officialshave complained of her lawyerlyvelocity. “I’m not able to be rushedthis fast,” a flustered Jeff Sessionsonce said to her. “It makes me ner-vous.”

And in Ms. Harris’s most memo-rable turn as a presidential con-tender, speaking with practicedprecision to the man who on Tues-day chose her as his runningmate, she began with a less thancharitable disclaimer — “I do notbelieve you are a racist” — beforeflattening him with the “but . . . ”

“It was a debate,” she has saidrepeatedly since then, offering noapology for campaign combat.

That is San Francisco politics,friends say. That is Kamala DeviHarris.

In announcing Ms. Harris, 55,as his vice-presidential nominee,Joseph R. Biden Jr. told support-ers she was the person bestequipped to “take this fight” toPresident Trump, making spacein a campaign premised on restor-ing American decency for a will-ing brawler who learned early inher career that fortune would notfavor the meek among Blackwomen in her lines of work.

“She had to be savvy to find away,” said Senator Cory Booker ofNew Jersey, who has known Ms.Harris for more than two decades.“There was no path laid out forher. She had to find her waythrough the kind of set of obsta-cles that most people in the posi-tions that she’s held have not hadto ever deal with.”

It is this dexterity, people closeto her say, that has most poweredMs. Harris’s rise — and can bemost frustrating to those whowish her electoral fearlessnesswere accompanied by policy au-dacity to match.

Caustic when she needs to bebut cautious on substantive issuesmore often than many liberalswould like, Ms. Harris has spenther public life negotiating dis-parate orbits, fluent in both activ-

Political WarriorShaped by Life

In 2 Worlds

Continued on Page A16

By MATT FLEGENHEIMERand LISA LERER

Joseph R. Biden Jr. selectedSenator Kamala Harris of Califor-nia as his vice-presidential run-ning mate on Tuesday, embracinga former rival who sharply criti-cized him in the Democratic pri-maries but emerged after endingher campaign as a vocal supporterof Mr. Biden’s and a prominent ad-vocate of racial-justice legislationafter the killing of George Floyd inlate May.

Ms. Harris, 55, is the first Blackwoman and the first person of In-dian descent to be nominated fornational office by a major party,and only the fourth woman in U.S.history to be chosen for a presi-dential ticket. She brings to therace a far more vigorous cam-paign style than Mr. Biden’s, in-cluding a gift for capturing mo-ments of raw political electricityon the debate stage and else-where, and a personal identityand family story that many findinspiring.

Mr. Biden announced the selec-tion over text message and in a fol-low-up email to supporters: “JoeBiden here. Big news: I’ve chosenKamala Harris as my runningmate. Together, with you, we’regoing to beat Trump.” The two areexpected to appear together inWilmington, Del., on Wednesday.

After her own presidential biddisintegrated last year, manyDemocrats regarded Ms. Harrisas all but certain to try for anotherrun for the White House in the fu-ture. By choosing her as his politi-cal partner, Mr. Biden, if he wins,may well be anointing her as thede facto leader of the party in fouror eight years.

A pragmatic moderate whospent most of her career as a pros-ecutor, Ms. Harris was seenthroughout the vice-presidentialsearch as among the safestchoices available to Mr. Biden.She has been a reliable ally of theDemocratic establishment, withflexible policy priorities thatlargely mirror Mr. Biden’s, andher supporters argued that shecould reinforce Mr. Biden’s appealto Black voters and women with-out stirring particularly vehe-ment opposition on the right orleft.

While she endorsed a number of

HARRIS JOINS BIDEN TICKET, ACHIEVING A FIRST

By ALEXANDER BURNSand KATIE GLUECK

Continued on Page A14

Woman of Colorin No. 2 Slot of

Major Party

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,783 © 2020 The New York Times Company WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2020 Printed in Chicago $3.00

Sunny to partly cloudy. Highs in 80s.Patchy clouds tonight. Lows in up-per 50s to lower 60s. Sunshine andpatchy clouds tomorrow. Highs in80s. Weather map is on Page A26.

National Edition