Hope to a Weary World As Covid Vaccine Offers Britain

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LONDON — In March, theemergency room doctor was bed-ridden with the first case of the co-ronavirus among his colleagues ata hospital in Wales. Within weeks,he was back in scrubs, tending to acrush of ill, breathless patients.

On Tuesday, after havingweathered each turn in Britain’sravaging bout with the coronavi-rus, the doctor, Farbod Babol-havaeji, was given one of theworld’s first shots of a clinicallyauthorized, fully tested vaccine —a step in the long, painstakingcampaign to knock back a diseasethat has killed more than 1.5 mil-lion people worldwide.

Images of the first people to bevaccinated were broadcastaround the country, led by Mar-garet Keenan, 90, a former jew-elry shop assistant in a “MerryChristmas” T-shirt, and an 81-year-old man with the improbablename of William Shakespeare.They quickly became emblems ofthe remarkable race to make avaccine, and the world’s agonizingwait for relief from deaths nownumbering 11,000 a day.

Never before has Britain under-taken such a fiendishly difficultmass vaccination program. Givenpizza-box-like trays of 975 doseseach, hospitals stored them indeep freezers, defrosted themand, on Tuesday, drew them upinto individual syringes andjabbed them into the upper arms

of variously jubilant and needle-shy Britons. Every minute mat-tered: Defrosted doses that werenot given by Friday would bewasted.

“We’re doing it with militaryprecision,” said Fiona Kinghorn,the hospital administrator incharge of vaccines in the Welshcapital, Cardiff, where 225 doses,including Dr. Babolhavaeji’s, wereplanned for Tuesday. “And, in fact,we have had the military helpingour planning.”

For the first recipients, amongthem older Britons and hundredsof doctors and nurses who pulledthe National Health Servicethrough the pandemic, the shotsoffered a glimpse at life afterCovid-19, replete with plans for re-scheduled wedding anniversariesand bus trips to the seaside.

Those hopes were bolstered bythe Food and Drug Administra-tion in the United States, whichsaid on Tuesday that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the same onebeing given in Britain, providedstrong protection against Covid-19within about 10 days after the firstdose, sooner than had previouslybeen believed.

Britain Rolls Up SleevesAs Covid Vaccine OffersHope to a Weary World

Biden Aims for 100 Million Shots in First100 Days as U.S. Approval Nears

By BENJAMIN MUELLER

Margaret Keenan, 90, became the first recipient of a fully tested and approved Covid-19 vaccine on Tuesday in Coventry, England.POOL PHOTO BY JACOB KING

Continued on Page A8

WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s inten-tion to nominate a retired Armygeneral as secretary of defensehas run into bipartisan resistanceon Capitol Hill, where there aregrowing concerns about anotherformer commander leading thePentagon in a nation that has along tradition of civilian control ofthe military.

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, a four-star Army general who retired in2016, was named on Tuesday byMr. Biden as his pick — and wouldbe the first Black defense secre-tary. But General Austin wouldneed a congressional waiver toserve, required for any Pentagonchief who has been retired fromactive-duty military service lessthan seven years.

Rejecting a waiver for such ahistoric nominee could be trickyfor lawmakers, especially thosewho four years ago approved asimilar measure for PresidentTrump’s first defense secretary,Jim Mattis, a retired four-star Ma-rine officer. But many lawmakerssaid Tuesday they do not want thepractice enshrined into Americanpolitical life.

“I have the deepest respect andadmiration for General Austin,”said Senator Richard Blumenthal,a Connecticut Democrat whoserves on the Senate Armed Serv-ices Committee. “His nominationis exciting and historic. But I be-lieve that a waiver of the seven-year rule would contravene thebasic principle that there shouldbe civilian control of a nonpoliticalmilitary.”

Many lawmakers said they re-luctantly voted for a waiver forMr. Mattis to provide a counter-balance to Mr. Trump’s inexperi-ence and bombastic style, andnow question the need to violate acornerstone of American nationalsecurity policy so quickly again.An approval for General Austinwould underscore how deeply Mr.Trump has altered the norms in ci-vilian oversight of the military.

“I supported a one-time waiverin the case of Secretary JamesMattis with the belief that the cir-cumstances at the time warranteda rare exception, not the establish-

Congress FretsOver GeneralIn Civilian JobThis article is by Jennifer Stein-

hauer, Eric Schmitt and LukeBroadwater.

Continued on Page A20

On the afternoon of Sept. 8, As-traZeneca officials had a confer-ence call with the Food and DrugAdministration. The discussioncovered important ground: Whatwould AstraZeneca need to do towin the F.D.A.’s blessing for the co-ronavirus vaccine it was develop-ing with the University of Oxford?

But the AstraZeneca represent-atives neglected to mention a cru-cial development: Two days earli-er, the company had quietly haltedtrials of its vaccine around theworld, including a late-stagestudy in the United States. It actedafter a participant in Britain fell ill.

A few hours after the confer-ence call, the story broke aboutthe halted trials. That was howkey F.D.A. officials heard thenews, according to people withknowledge of the discussions.

The F.D.A.’s commissioner, Dr.Stephen Hahn, was stunned byAstraZeneca’s failure to disclosethe halt to regulators, one of thepeople said. The U.S. governmenthad pledged more than $1 billionto AstraZeneca to finance the de-velopment and manufacturing of

its vaccine and to supply theUnited States with 300 milliondoses if it proved effective. F.D.A.regulators expected to be kept inthe loop.

The episode might have beenchalked up to a simple miscue. Butit was part of a pattern of commu-nication blunders by AstraZenecathat have damaged the company’srelationship with regulators,raised doubts about whether itsvaccine will stand up to intensepublic and scientific scrutiny and,in at least one instance, slowed thevaccine’s development.

The result is that a vaccine thatwas expected to account for a sub-stantial portion — by one metric,as much as 60 percent — of the to-tal vaccine supply in the United

How a Vaccine Front-Runner Fell Far BehindThis article is by Rebecca Rob-

bins, Sharon LaFraniere, Noah Wei-land, David D. Kirkpatrick and Ben-jamin Mueller.

AstraZeneca’s StumblesHave Clouded U.S.

Confidence

Continued on Page A6

DISSONANCE A president, hissuccessor and one killer virus.White House Memo. PAGE A11

When Leticia Peren bade her15-year-old son, Yovany, goodnight in a Texas Border Patrol sta-tion three years ago, he was stillsmall enough that she, standingless than five feet tall, reacheddown a little when she placed herhand on his shoulder and urgedhim to rest.

Earlier that night, the two ofthem had concluded their longjourney from Guatemala by walk-ing for hours in the whistlingdesert wind, losing sight of theirown feet in mud that felt likequicksand. The Border Patrolagents who apprehended themoutside of Presidio, Texas, placedthem in separate cells. Exhausted,Ms. Peren fell into a deep sleep,but woke up to a new nightmare.

Yovany was gone, sent to a shel-ter in Arizona. Ms. Peren had nomoney and no lawyer. When shenext saw him, more than twoyears had passed.

At the time of their reunifica-tion, Yovany was the last remain-ing child in custody who the fed-

eral government considered eligi-ble to be released. The bonds bro-ken during their 26 months apart— when Ms. Peren was a voice onthe phone more than 1,500 milesaway, as Yovany made newfriends, went to a new school,learned to live without her — havebeen slow to regrow.

By the time they were reunited,her son had matured into a youngman, taller than her and with adeepening voice, one he could useto hold a conversation in English.Ms. Peren, frantic during the timeit took to get him back, had lostsome of her hair and developed acondition that, when triggered bystress, caused her face to sag onone side.

Years after the mass separa-tions of migrant families spurred a

Years After Family Separation,Broken Bonds Are Slow to Heal

By CAITLIN DICKERSON

Leticia Peren hugging her son, Yovany, for the first time in morethan two years. They were separated after crossing the border.

RYAN CHRISTOPHER JONES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

For a Mother and Son,a Reunion Brings Joy

but Reveals a Rift

Continued on Page A18

On a Georgia island, Maurice Bailey ismaking sugar cane syrup as a way topreserve a tradition, and the communi-ty, of his enslaved ancestors. PAGE D6

FOOD D1-10

Sweet Salvation, by the StalkBarack Obama had already published abest-selling memoir. That didn’t makewriting his latest any easier. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

A President and His ProcessThe U.S. seized hundreds of acres formilitary bases. Villagers are fighting toregain their property. PAGE A12

INTERNATIONAL A12-15

Land Grabs in Afghanistan

After the birth of their son, Glenn AllenSims and Linda Celeste Sims decided toretire from the dance company. PAGE C1

Ailey Stars Turn to Baby StepsNear-record warming surged across theArctic, shrinking ice cover and fuelingwildfires, a report says. PAGE A13

The Not-So-Frozen North

FireEye, a top cybersecurity firm, saida nation-state stole tools from it thatcould be used in new attacks world-wide. Evidence hints at Russia. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-6

A Bane of Hackers Is HackedEven as President Trump’s legal chal-lenges near an end, his rhetoric isprompting more dangerous behavioramong some supporters. PAGE A22

NATIONAL A16-23

Threat of Violence Rises

With online events proliferating, somecompetitors are trying to manipulatethe race data. One company is trying tofoil them with an app. PAGE B7

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B7-9

Virtual Cycling, Real Cheating

Jamelle Bouie PAGE A25

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A24-25

Senator Tom Udall, a retiring NewMexico Democrat, used his partingspeech to argue for reforms to thefilibuster, for starters. PAGE A20

Senator Calls System ‘Broken’

More than a dozen Army officials havebeen fired or suspended as part of aninvestigation into activities at the mili-tary base in Texas. PAGE A23

Scathing Report on Fort Hood

HOUSING SECRETARY The presi-dent-elect selected RepresentativeMarcia L. Fudge of Ohio. PAGE A21

WASHINGTON — The Su-preme Court on Tuesday refused along-shot request from Pennsyl-vania Republicans to overturn Jo-seph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in thestate, delivering an unmistakablerebuke to President Trump in theforum on which he had pinned hishopes.

The Supreme Court’s order wasall of one sentence, and there wereno noted dissents. But it was none-theless a major setback for Mr.Trump and his allies, who havecompiled an essentially unbrokenlosing streak in courts around thenation. They failed to attract evena whisper of dissent in the court’sfirst ruling on a challenge to theoutcome of the election.

The court now has three jus-tices appointed by Mr. Trump, in-cluding Justice Amy Coney Bar-rett, whose rushed confirmationin October was in large part pro-pelled by the hope that she wouldvote with the president in electiondisputes. But there was no indica-tion that she or the other Trumpappointees were inclined to em-brace last-minute argumentsbased on legal theories that elec-tion law scholars said ranged fromthe merely frivolous to the trulyoutlandish.

Mr. Trump and his Republicanallies have lost about 50 chal-lenges to the presidential electionin the past five weeks, as judges inat least eight states have repeat-edly rejected a litany of unprovenclaims — that mail-in ballots were

Justices RejectClaim by TrumpIn Pennsylvania

By ADAM LIPTAK

Continued on Page A22

Chuck Yeager, the most famoustest pilot of his generation, whowas the first to break the soundbarrier and, thanks to Tom Wolfe,came to personify the death-defy-ing aviator who possessed the elu-sive yet unmistakable “rightstuff,” died on Monday in Los An-geles. He was 97.

His death, at a hospital, was an-nounced on his official Twitter ac-count and confirmed by John Ni-coletti, a family friend.

General Yeager came out of theWest Virginia hills with only ahigh school education and with adrawl that left many a fellow pilotbewildered. The first time he wentup in a plane, he was sick to hisstomach.

But he became a fighter ace inWorld War II, shooting down fiveGerman planes in a single day and13 over all. In the decade that fol-lowed, he helped usher in the ageof military jets and spaceflight. Heflew more than 150 military air-craft, logging more than 10,000hours in the air.

His signal achievement cameon Oct. 14, 1947, when he climbedout of a B-29 bomber as it as-cended over the Mojave Desert inCalifornia and entered the cockpitof an orange, bullet-shaped,rocket-powered experimentalplane attached to the bomb bay.

An Air Force captain at thetime, he zoomed off in the plane, a

CHUCK YEAGER, 1923-2020

Fighter Ace and Test Pilot Embodied ‘the Right Stuff’

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN

Continued on Page A23

U.S. AIR FORCE, VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Chuck Yeager in 1962, 15 years after he broke the sound barrier.

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 58,902 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2020

Today, variably cloudy, snow andrain showers for some, high 39. To-night, partly cloudy, low 35. Tomor-row, mostly sunny, not so chilly, high50. Weather map is on Page B12.

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