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VOL. CLXIX . . No. 58,633 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, MARCH 15, 2020 $6.00

Trump Stamps EUROPE LOCKS UP

G.O.P. Imprint
On the Courts AND FACES CRISIS
A Wave of Judges Tied
AS VIRUS SPREADS
to the Party’s Causes
France and Spain Restrict Public Life as
This article is by Rebecca R. Ruiz, Countries Rush to Shut Borders
Robert Gebeloff, Steve Eder and
Ben Protess.
As a Republican candidate for This article is by Adam Nossiter, dissipate without sweeping inter-
the Texas Supreme Court, Don R. Raphael Minder and Elian Peltier. vention was over.
Willett flaunted his uncompromis- PARIS — The shutdown of Eu- Until Saturday, the cafes in
ing conservatism, boasting of en- rope expanded drastically on Sat- Paris had been full of revelers and
dorsements from groups with urday, as more countries shut- restaurants had been doing good
“pro-life, pro-faith, pro-family” tered businesses, locked up bor- business, even without tourists.
credentials. ders and chased people off streets But then French officials declared
“I intend to build such a fiercely and into their homes in a race to that the crisis could be disre-
conservative record on the court contain the growing threat of the garded no longer.
that I will be unconfirmable for coronavirus. The time of classic Parisian
any future federal judicial post — Spain became the second coun- nonchalance had come to an end.
and proudly so,” a Republican ri- try in Europe, after Italy, to im- “In France, when you tell peo-
val quoted him telling party lead- ple to stay home, they go to bars to
ers. TWO WOMEN FELL SICK. pose strict limits on public life,
telling everyone to stay indoors, celebrate the closure,” said
Judge Willett served a dozen
years on the Texas bench. But ONLY ONE RECOVERED. with few exceptions. As cases
soared nationwide, the authorities
Hélène Noaillon, a bartender at
Les Pères Populaires, reacting to
rather than disqualifying him, his They were both mothers, just 29. They were healthy medical professionals, who confirmed that the prime min- news of the closings on Saturday
record there propelled him to the ister’s wife had been infected as night while the bar was still open.
very job he had deemed beyond worked long hours on the front lines in Wuhan. Within weeks, they came down well. “Our society is more libertar-
reach. President Trump nomi- with fevers and were hospitalized in critical condition. Page 8. In France, cafes and restau- ian,” she said. “As long as you
nated him to a federal appeals rants — central to the country’s don’t put people under any real
court, and Republicans in the Sen- soul and social life — were or- constraints, they’re going to con-
ate narrowly confirmed him on a dered closed along with most tinue to live the way they want.”
party-line vote. other nonessential businesses. While some European leaders,
As Mr. Trump seeks re-election, In the United States, Vice Presi- like President Emmanuel Macron
his rightward overhaul of the fed- dent Mike Pence widened the of France, have called for intensi-
eral judiciary — in particular, the American travel ban to include fying cooperation across nations,
highly influential appeals courts Britain and Ireland, effectively others are trying to close their
— has been invoked as one of his shutting off travel from nearly 30 countries off.
most enduring accomplishments. European countries, while the From Denmark to Slovakia,
While individual nominees have White House announced that governments went into ag-
drawn scrutiny, The New York President Trump had tested nega- gressive virus-fighting mode with
Times conducted a deep examina- tive for the virus. border closings.
tion of all 51 new appellate judges Across Europe, there was a In Denmark, Prime Minister
to obtain a collective portrait of widespread feeling that the health Mette Frederiksen said all for-
the Trump-populated bench. crisis flaying Italy for weeks had eigners who did not have an es-
The review shows that the arrived at the doorsteps of its sential purpose for visiting the
Trump class of appellate judges, neighbors, and that the time for country would be turned away.
much like the president himself, hoping the threat would somehow Continued on Page 9
breaks significantly with the
norms set by his Democratic and
Republican predecessors, Barack TRACKING AN OUTBREAK
Obama and George W. Bush.
The lifetime appointees — who NEW YORK The state reported its CENSORSHIP DEFIED As China
make up more than a quarter of first two deaths and said two cracks down on virus coverage,
the entire appellate bench — were lawmakers were ill. PAGE 13 journalists are resisting. PAGE 4
more openly engaged in causes
important to Republicans, such as RESILIENCE In locked-down Italy, NEGATIVE The president was
opposition to gay marriage and to song breaks out from rooftops, tested, and the White House
Continued on Page 22 balconies and windows. PAGE 6 doctor says he is healthy. PAGE 10

Uninvited Guest at Mar-a-Lago Birthday Party: The Coronavirus Trump Unveils Health Systems
By PETER BAKER
It was a lavish, festive, carefree
Saturday night at Mar-a-Lago a
physician announced on Saturday
night that the president had tested
actually having one in deference
to public pressure.
Google Project Cut to the Bone
and KATIE ROGERS
WASHINGTON — The lights
week ago in what in hindsight now
seems like a last hurrah for the
negative for the virus, ending a
drama that played out for days as
But either way, the Mar-a-Lago
petri dish has become a kind of Still Incomplete Face Onslaught
end of one era and the beginning Mr. Trump refused repeatedly metaphor for the perils of group
were low and the disco balls spin-
ning as a cake with a fiery of another. In the days since then, even to find out whether he had gatherings in the age of coro-
navirus, demonstrating how By MICHAEL D. SHEAR By JULIE BOSMAN
sparkler shooting flames into the the presidential estate in Florida contracted it after exposure to
and DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI and RICHARD FAUSSET
air was brought out to a robust has become something of a coro- multiple infected people. The re- quickly and silently the virus can
navirus hot zone. A growing num- sult came less than 24 hours after spread. No one is necessarily safe WASHINGTON — It started as CHICAGO — A widespread fail-
rendition of “Happy Birthday,”
ber of Mar-a-Lago guests from the White House put out a mis- from encountering it, not senators a series of conversations this past ure in the United States to invest
joined by President Trump. The
last weekend have said they are leading midnight statement say- or diplomats or even the most week between officials working in public health has left local and
birthday girl, Kimberly Guilfoyle,
infected or put themselves into ing there was no need for such a powerful person on the planet with Jared Kushner, the presi- state health departments strug-
the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr.,
then pumped her fist in the air and quarantine. test at roughly the same time the seemingly secure in a veritable dent’s son-in-law, and the chief ex- gling to respond to the coro-
called out, “Four more years!” A week later, the White House president by his own account was Continued on Page 10 ecutive of Verily, a life sciences navirus outbreak and ill prepared
subsidiary of Google’s parent to face the swelling crisis ahead.
company, about how it might help Many health departments are
the Trump administration in the suffering from budget and staffing
fight against the coronavirus. cuts that date to the Great Reces-
‘Crazy Money’ in a Pandemic, Verily was developing a website
that could let people evaluate
sion and have never been fully re-
stored. Public health departments

Selling $70 Bottles of Sanitizer their symptoms and direct them

to nearby “drive through” loca-
tions for testing. Desperate to tap
across the country manage a vast
but often invisible portfolio of du-
ties, including educating the pub-
the private sector to satisfy the lic about smoking cessation, fight-
By JACK NICAS public’s demands for a more ro- ing opioid addictions, persuading
bust response to the rapidly the reluctant to vaccinate their ba-
On March 1, the day after the lets of even more wipes and sani- spreading virus, Mr. Kushner was bies, and inspecting restaurants
first coronavirus death in the tizer he had ordered, and starting quickly sold on the idea. and tattoo parlors.
United States was announced, to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin But on Friday, President Trump Now, these bare-bones staffs of
brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set said he had posted 300 bottles of inflated the concept far beyond re- medical and administrative work-
out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up hand sanitizer and immediately ality. At a news conference in the ers are trying to answer a sudden
some hand sanitizer. Driving sold them all for between $8 and Rose Garden, he said that the rush of demands — taking phone
around Chattanooga, Tenn., they $70 each, multiples higher than company was helping to develop a calls from frightened residents,
hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, what he had bought them for. To website that would sharply ex- quarantining people who may be
a Staples and a Home Depot. At him, “it was crazy money.” To pand testing for the virus, falsely infected, and tracing the known
each store, they cleaned out the many others, it was profiteering claiming that “Google has 1,700 contacts and whereabouts of the
shelves. from a pandemic. engineers working on this right ill — that accompany a public
Over the next three days, Noah The next day, Amazon pulled now” and adding that “they’ve health crisis few have seen before.
Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip his items and thousands of other DOUG STRICKLAND FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES made tremendous progress.” Nationwide, local and state
across Tennessee and into Ken- listings for sanitizer, wipes and In truth, the project at Verily — health departments have lost
tucky, filling a U-Haul truck with face masks. The company sus-
As a seller on Amazon, Matt Colvin follows trends that he can
which has a total of about 1,000 nearly a quarter of their work
thousands of bottles of hand sani- pended some of the sellers behind turn into profit. When the coronavirus hit, he stockpiled supplies. employees — is in its infancy. A pi- force since 2008, according to the
tizer and thousands of packs of the listings and warned many oth- lot program is planned for the San National Association of County
antibacterial wipes, mostly from ers that if they kept running up for hand sanitizer to protect them- a situation where what I’ve got Francisco area, but a website has and City Health Officials. As the
“little hole-in-the-wall dollar prices, they’d lose their accounts. selves from the spread of the coro- coming and going could poten- yet to be unveiled. Testing loca- nation’s local and state public
stores in the backwoods,” his EBay soon followed with even navirus, Mr. Colvin is sitting on tially put my family in a really tions have not been identified, and health officials confront a pan-
brother said. “The major metro stricter measures, prohibiting any 17,700 bottles of the stuff with little good place financially to ‘What the coronavirus tests themselves demic that has paralyzed much of
areas were cleaned out.” U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer. idea where to sell them. the heck am I going to do with all are not yet widely available. the world, many of them have
Matt Colvin stayed home near Now, while millions of people “It’s been a huge amount of of this?’ ” The president’s effort to sell the made their situation plain: They
Chattanooga, preparing for pal- across the country search in vain whiplash,” he said. “From being in Continued on Page 12 Continued on Page 9 Continued on Page 11

INTERNATIONAL 14-17 SUNDAY BUSINESS ARTS & LEISURE

Saudi Women’s Other Hurdle Your Money and the Pandemic The Genius of Being Alive
Women are finding they have to negoti- Is it time to buy securities? Should I As the celebrated composer Stephen
ate with their male guardians to exer- sell my house now? You asked, experts Sondheim turns 90, we toast Broad-
cise their newly granted legal rights answered. Here’s some advice on way’s master of emotions, mixed and
to work, drive and travel. PAGE 14 stocks, bonds and cash; timing the otherwise. PAGES 11-18
market — and more. PAGE 6
Trying to Heal in Christchurch NATIONAL 19-26 SPORTSSUNDAY SUNDAY STYLES
The attack a year ago that killed 51 at The Upside of a Down Market
two New Zealand mosques made Zulfir- Primary Row Among Friends It’s true that the worth of your savings
The High-Five, Brought Low Got Milk? Not Anymore
man Syah a hero and a victim. PAGE 16 The amicable relationship between has declined as the value of stocks has A staple of sports is now actively dis- Americans have been souring on cow’s
Senator Bernie Sanders and Joseph R. fallen. But that also means that the couraged. But getting athletes to stop milk for decades. In an age of plant-
Biden Jr. may lift party unity. PAGE 20 value you’re getting on any future earn- doing it is harder than you think. PAGE 1 based substitutes, dairy farmers are
THE MAGAZINE trying to win us back. PAGE 1
ings has increased. PAGE 8
The Music That Defines Us Guantánamo’s Secret Prison A Challenge to Our Obsession

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A look at three artists who exemplify It’s called Camp 7, and nobody gets in. SUNDAY REVIEW Sports were supposed to calm us, dis-
what popular music means today, and But by some accounts, conditions have tract us. John Branch asks, will this
25 songs that matter. The Music Issue. eased up from its rough past. PAGE 21 Jon Mooallem PAGE 4 lead to a reboot, a cleanse? PAGE 1