abcde Monday, September 13, 2021

Mayoral hopefuls in final push across city Democrats

Turnout likely to be high
face puzzle
the-vote forces in Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. While the candidates make their final push
Acting Mayor Kim Janey held a large rally in ahead of Tuesday, launching canvass squads and
for preliminary election Grove Hall. Councilor Andrea Campbell criss- other efforts to encourage supporters to head to
crossed the city in a mad-dash tour, making stops the polls, more than 21,000 people have already
By Danny McDonald from Mission Hill to the North End, kicking off voted, according to city authorities. As of Friday,
and Stephanie Ebbert
GLOBE STAFF

Two days before Election Day in Boston’s pre-

liminary mayoral contest, the five major candi-
dates fanned out across the city in a frantic final
push.
City Councilor Michelle Wu rallied her get-out-
neighborhood canvassing efforts in between.
Councilor Annissa Essaibi George shook hands at
a veterans ceremony in South Boston, then head-
ed to a labor union barbecue in Roslindale. John
Barros, the city’s former economic development
chief, went to Mass not once but twice in one
morning.
the city had received more than 16,000 mail-in
ballots while more than 5,000 voters cast ballots
in person at early voting sites.
However, what that means for Tuesday’s turn-
with $3.5t
price tag
out is unclear.
Steve Koczela, the president of The MassINC
TRAIL, Page A12

Leaders grapple with ways

WEEK 1 | DOLPHINS 17, PATRIOTS 16 to fund social, climate bill
By Jim Puzzanghera
GLOBE STAFF

WASHINGTON — How do you raise $3.5

trillion?
Congressional Democrats are working fe-
verishly to figure that out as they draft a bill
that would dramatically expand the social safe-
ty net while ad-
dressing climate ºFor many in business
change and other community, the bill’s
top priorities of benefits come at too high
President Biden. a cost. D3.
The effort to pass
the legislation faces a precarious path with
slim party majorities and pressure from mod-
erates including West Virginia Senator Joe
Manchin to significantly scale back the eye-
popping price tag over the next decade.
“It’s not going to be at 3.5 [trillion], I can as-
sure you,” Manchin said Sunday on CNN’s
“State of the Union” of the final figure.
While Democrats are still wrangling over
exactly how much money to spend and what to
spend it on, an even trickier task lies ahead:
RECONCILIATION, Page A8

A Texas-sized
twist in politics
Stunning shift to the right
could reshape midterms
By Emma Platoff
GLOBE STAFF

New limits on how and when voters can

cast their ballots. A green light for most adults
MATTHEW J. LEE/GLOBE STAFF
to carry handguns in public without undergo-
Patriots quarterback Mac Jones (right) showed good discipline and decision-making throughout his debut. ing training or obtaining a permit. And abor-
tion restrictions that have the potential to up-

A glorious glimpse of the future. The present? Ugh
Dan Shaughnessy onstrated accuracy (29 for 39, 281 yards, no
interceptions), pocket presence, and good de-
cision-making. He took hits, and moved the
Mac Jones, the Future of the Patriots, football downfield. He put the Patriots in posi-
arrived at Gillette Stadium on Sunday and tion to win.
played like a guy who someday may bring grid But the Patriots lost, 17-16. In excruciating
glory back to New England. fashion.
Making his NFL debut against the Miami Late in the game, Kid Jones looked like he
Dolphins, Jones was just about everything was going to lead the Pats to one of those old-
Pats fans were hoping he would be. He dem- timey Tom Brady comeback wins. The Patriots
were storming toward the Miami goal line
with just over three minutes left. They had a
first and 10 from the Miami 11. And then run-
ning back Damien Harris fumbled.
Cam Newton wasn’t around to take the
blame for this one.
Ouch.
It’s as if Tom took all the good karma with
him.
SHAUGHNESSY, Page C7
end Roe v. Wade.
In Texas, the red meat is looking rarer than
ever, and a bitterly divided nation is taking
notice.
With a successful 2020 election behind
them and conservative challengers targeting
them in 2022, top Texas Republicans have
leaned right during this year’s legislative ses-
sions, passing a bevy of far-reaching conserva-
tive priorities. The moves have GOP activists
crowing and other state legislators drafting
copycat bills. But they’ve also caught the eye
TEXAS, Page A9

IN BOSTON, IN JOY
Pope Francis’ speech
on inclusivity was
seen as a criticism of
Novak Djokovic fell
short of a Grand
Slam sweep, losing
Debate on boosters reaches
Hungary’s leader. A4.

A glow-between
the US Open final. C1.
top realm of vaccine field
Monday: Rain early, then sun. High 76-81. FDA advisory panel Sept. 20 to boost immunity.
His protege at Children’s Hospital of
Tuesday: Sun early, then rain. High 70-75. to take up proposal Philadelphia, Dr. Paul Offit, helped edit
Weather and comics, B6-7. Plotkin’s 1,720-page tome, coinvented
By Jonathan Saltzman the vaccine to help prevent rotavirus in-
Obituaries, D7. GLOBE STAFF fections (with Plotkin), and calls his
Dr. Stanley Plotkin is a towering fig- mentor a “God-like figure.”
VOL . 300, NO. 75 ure in the world of vaccines. The Phila- But Offit says it would be premature
* delphia physician invented the rubella to broadly roll out a third dose of either
Suggested retail price vaccine in 1964 and wrote the standard messenger RNA vaccine.
$3.00 textbook on vaccinology, “Plotkin’s Vac- As an advisory panel to the US Food
PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFF
cines.” and Drug Administration prepares to
Performer Dzidzor Azaglo (left) and Nieisha Deed danced
He supports President Biden’s pro- meet Friday to consider Pfizer’s request
during Black Joy Day on a stage Sunday near the Institute posal last month to offer all recipients of for a third dose, the disagreement illus-
of Contemporary Art. The Seaport event was a celebration the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna trates the lack of consensus within the
of Black happiness, creativity, and resilience. B1. COVID-19 vaccines a third shot starting BOOSTERS, Page A6

From Watergate to Spotlight | Sept. 24

Join past and current Globe Spotlight members in marking the team’s 50th anniversary with a live
panel discussion about investigative journalism at the inaugural Globe Summit.

Moderated by Intro by Michael Dick Patricia Stephen J.

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A2
FBI releases 9/11 document that probed Saudis
Victims’ kin laud declassification; more papers to come
By Devlin Barrett
WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON — The FBI
has released the first of what are
expected to be several docu-
ments from its investigation into
whether agents of the Saudi Ara-
bian government provided sup-
port to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror
plot, a move heralded by victims’
families though it yielded no
tangible proof of official involve-
ment.
The Saturday night release
was the result of an executive or-
der issued by President Biden
earlier this month ordering gov-
ernment agencies to review, de-
classify, and release more infor-
mation regarding the investiga-
tion.
Some families of 9/11 victims
have sued the Saudi govern-
ment, alleging the Saudis know-
ingly provided financial and lo-
gistics support to the terrorism
plot, something that country’s
government has long denied. As
part of that lawsuit, lawyers for
the families have fought for
years to force the FBI to share
what it knows about possible
A brush wildfire north of Castaic, Calif., led to the closure of a part of Interstate 5 in Southern California,
Firefighters advance on blaze that shut Calif. highway; new fire erupts
CASTAIC, Calif. — Firefight-
ers were making progress on a
wildfire that jumped across a
Southern California freeway
and spread across dry hillsides
while a new blaze forced resi-
dents of a Northern California
community to evacuate.
The fire broke out Saturday
afternoon near Castaic in
northern Los Angeles County.
Pushed by 10-15mph winds,
the blaze chewed through tin-
Barrett: Court must not be partisan
LOUISVILLE — Supreme
Court Justice Amy Coney Bar-
rett expressed concerns Sun-
day that the public may in-
creasingly see the court as a
partisan institution.
Justices must be “hyper vig-
ilant to make sure they’re not
letting personal biases creep
into their decisions, since
judges are people, too,” Barrett
said at a lecture hosted by the
University of Louisville’s Mc-
Connell Center.
Barrett said the media’s re-
porting of opinions doesn’t
capture the deliberative pro-
cess in reaching those deci-
sions. And she insisted that
“judicial philosophies are not
the same as political parties.”
“To say the court’s reason-
ing is flawed is different from
saying the court is acting in a
partisan manner,” said Barrett,
whose confirmation to the seat
left open by the death of the
liberal Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg cemented conserva-
tive control of the court. “I
think we need to evaluate what
the court is doing on its own
terms.”
Barrett was asked by stu-
dents about the court’s 5-4
vote which allowed a Texas law
connections between the 9/11
hijackers, most of whom were
citizens of Saudi Arabia, and any
Saudi diplomats or intelligence
operatives.
Brett Eagleson, whose father
was killed in the attacks, said it
was “particularly meaningful”
that first document in response
to the executive order was re-
leased on the 20th anniversary
of the attacks. “Today marks the
moment when the Saudis can-
not rely on the US government
from hiding the truth about
9/11,” he said in a written state-
ment pledging to “hold the Sau-
di government fully accountable
for the tremendous pain and
losses we suffered.”
Biden signed the executive
order after families of hundreds
of 9/11 victims said he would
not be welcome at this year’s
events marking the anniversary
unless he declassified evidence.
In 2019, the Trump adminis-
tration said it would share some
of the relevant information with
the families but not other details
about the bureau’s findings, in-
voking the rarely used state se-
Daily Briefing
der-dry brush and jumped
across the busy freeway, spread
across more than a half of a
square mile.
The California Highway Pa-
trol closed a stretch of the inter-
state for several hours as air
tankers dropped retardant on
the flames. A large flareup sent
heavy smoke drifting toward
freeway lanes Sunday after-
noon, the CHP reported.
Two firefighters were taken
TIMOTHY EASLEY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Justice Amy Coney Barrett
spoke at the University of
Louisville on Sunday.
banning most abortions to go
into effect. She was also asked
about another recent decision
by the court in which it re-
fused to block a lower court
ruling ordering the Biden ad-
ministration to reinstate a
Trump-era program informally
known as Remain in Mexico.
Barrett said it would be “inap-
propriate” to comment on spe-
cific cases.
Several supporters of abor-
tion rights demonstrated out-
side the Seelbach Hotel, where
the private event was held.
Barrett described the court
as a “warm, collegial place.”
She said that after she was
confirmed a colleague brought
Halloween candy for her chil-
dren.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
T h e B o s t o n
Nation
crets privilege to argue that
some elements of the investiga-
tion into the 9/11 attacks would
damage national security if re-
vealed.
Justice Department lawyers
said last month they had recent-
ly closed an investigation related
to the attacks, making it easier to
share documents like the one re-
leased Saturday.
That document shows that
FBI agents were still investigating
as recently as 2016 possible ties
between two of the hijackers,
Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-
Midhar, and those who may have
helped them after they arrived in
the United States in 2000.
Investigators were particular-
ly interested in details about the
Saudi government’s connections
to Fahad al-Thumairy, a former
Saudi consulate official, and
Omar al-Bayoumi, a person the
FBI once investigated as a possi-
ble Saudi intelligence officer.
After the 9/11 attacks, Bayou-
mi told investigators that he met
the hijackers by chance in early
2000 in a Los Angeles restaurant
and that they became friends.
to the hospital to treat burn in-
juries, said Andrew Mitchell, a
spokesman for the Angeles Na-
tional Forest.
The fire remained uncon-
tained due to the mountainous
terrain, but firefighters made
progress overnight with the
help of water-dropping aircraft
and an aggressive ground at-
tack, Mitchell said.
He said crews will take ad-
vantage of the beginning of a
Church installs transgender bishop
SAN FRANCISCO — The
Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America installed its first
openly transgender bishop in
a service held in San
Francisco’s Grace Cathedral on
Saturday.
The Rev. Megan Rohrer
will lead one of the church’s 65
synods, overseeing nearly 200
congregations in Northern
California and northern
Nevada.
“My call is ... to be up to the
same messy, loving things I
was up to before,” Rohrer told
Texas, La. brace for Nicholas’s rain
Tropical Storm Nicholas,
which formed Sunday in the
Gulf of Mexico, could bring
heavy rains to coastal Texas
and Louisiana on Monday and
Tuesday as the 14th named
storm of the 2021 Atlantic hur-
ricane season continues to
strengthen, the National Hur-
ricane Center said.
A tropical storm warning is
in effect for the coast of Texas,
from the mouth of the Rio
Grande to Freeport, Texas,
about 60 miles south of Hous-
ton, the center said.
G l o b e
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin AbdulAziz of Saudi Arabia
offered a $10 million check to Rudolph Giuliani, then mayor
of New York City, for the Twin Towers Fund.
Bayoumi said he helped them
navigate their new lives in the
United States, but denied any
knowledge of their terrorist in-
tentions.
The newly released FBI docu-
ment says some of Bayoumi’s
statements in that 2003 inter-
view “are directly contradicted
by eyewitness statements.”
RINGO H.W. CHIU/ASSOCIATED PRESS
cooling trend Sunday to build
containment lines. The cause of
the fire is under investigation.
Meanwhile, a fire that erupt-
ed Sunday afternoon prompted
Mendocino County authorities
to evacuate parts of Calpella, a
community on the Russian Riv-
er north of Ukiah. Video foot-
age posted on Twitter shows the
fire pushing in the direction of
Lake Mendocino.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
worshippers. “But mostly, if
you’ll let me, and I think you
will, my hope is to love you
and beyond that, to love what
you love.”
Rohrer was elected in May
to serve a six-year term as
bishop of the Sierra Pacific
Synod after its current bishop
announced his retirement.
Rohrer previously served as
pastor of Grace Lutheran
Church in San Francisco and a
chaplain coordinator for the
city’s police department.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Nicholas could produce
rainfall totals of 8-16 inches,
with isolated amounts of up to
20 inches, across portions of
coastal Texas on Sunday and
lasting through the middle of
the week, the hurricane center
said.
In southwest Louisiana and
eastern Texas, the storm could
produce rainfall totals of 5-10
inches, which could cause
“considerable flash and urban
flooding,” the hurricane center
said.
NEW YORK TIMES
M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 2 1
AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES/FILE/2001
The 9/11 families suspect
those interactions were not acci-
dental, but directed by a senior
Saudi government official.
The FBI document released
Saturday contains significant re-
dactions, but nevertheless shows
FBI officials were skeptical of
claims by various witnesses that
Saudis in the United States who
Experts warn of
rising suicide rates
among Black girls
New study finds
average increase
of 6.6% per year
By Christina Caron
NEW YORK TIMES
For more than a decade, sui-
cide rates have been increasing
in Black children and adoles-
cents, and a new study says the
sharpest rise occurred among
young girls.
The study, published Thurs-
day in the Journal of the Ameri-
can Academy of Child and Ado-
lescent Psychiatry, found that
more than 1,800 Black children
died by suicide between 2003-
17, and while most of the deaths
were among boys, especially
those ages 15-17, the gender gap
is narrowing. The suicide rate of
the girls increased an average of
6.6 percent each year — more
than twice the increase for boys,
the study said. Nearly 40 percent
of the girls were 12-14 years old,
indicating that this age group
may need additional attention or
different types of interventions.
“That was just like, ‘Whoa’ —
what’s going on with our Black
girls?” said Arielle Sheftall, the
lead author of the study. “It
caught me a little off guard.”
Mortality data show that sui-
cide rates of US teenagers and
young adults remain highest in
boys, particularly whites, Native
Americans, and Alaskan Na-
tives. But in recent years, re-
searchers have found that the
suicide rate of Black youth is in-
creasing. A study published in
May, for example, found that the
suicide rate of Black males ages
15-24 rose by 47 percent be-
tween 2013-19 — and by 59 per-
cent for Black females of the
same age — but it decreased in
white youth.
“I think in the past, suicide —
or suicidal behavior — was just
thought of as a white thing,” said
Sheftall, a principal investigator
at the Center for Suicide Preven-
tion and Research at the Abigail
Wexner Research Institute at
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
in Columbus, Ohio. “And that’s
not the case.”
Another study, also pub-
lished this year, said that over
the last two decades, the biggest
increase in self-reported suicide
attempts was among Black ado-
lescents.
And in 2018, Sheftall and
other researchers revealed that
Black children younger than 13
are dying by suicide at nearly
twice the rate of white children
the same age.
Why is this happening?
There are no definitive answers.
Sheftall and her colleagues
pulled data from a state-based
surveillance system to better un-
met with the two hijackers did
so accidentally.
It was “difficult to reconcile”
the connection between the hi-
jackers and those who gave them
support, the FBI document
states, noting that one individu-
al claimed he met the hijackers
at a 7-Eleven convenience store
in Northern Virginia “during a
‘chance meeting’, in a uniquely
similar fashion to the way Bay-
oumi described his ‘chance
meeting’ with Hazmi and Mid-
har in Los Angeles.”
The report also said Bayou-
mi’s “logistical support to Hazmi
and Midhar included transla-
tion, travel assistance, lodging,
and financing.”
In 2004, the 9/11 Commis-
sion said: “Saudi Arabia has long
been considered the primary
source of Al Qaeda funding, but
we have found no evidence that
the Saudi government as an in-
stitution or senior Saudi officials
individually funded the organi-
zation,” but added, “This conclu-
sion does not exclude the likeli-
hood that charities with signifi-
cant Saudi government
sponsorship diverted funds to Al
Qaeda.”
derstand the characteristics of
those who died and factors that
may have led to their deaths.
They found that most of the
Black children who died by sui-
cide did not have a current men-
tal health concern, but of those
who did, the younger children
were far more likely than the
older kids to have been diag-
nosed with attention deficit hy-
peractivity disorder, or ADHD.
The younger kids were also
more likely to have experienced
problems in school or within
their families.
For the girls, a diagnosis of
depression or anxiety was more
common than for the boys.
About 9 percent of the older girls
experienced a relationship crisis
before the suicide, and nearly 20
percent had an argument within
24 hours of their death, suggest-
ing that conflict resolution skills
and coping mechanisms might
be possible interventions for
Black girls, the authors wrote.
The most common methods
of suicide among youth are
hanging, strangulation, and suf-
focation, which is reflected in
this study as well, Sheftall said.
Earlier examinations of suicide
methodology have suggested
that females are more likely to
attempt suicide using less lethal
means, but “that may not be the
case anymore,” she added.
A limitation of the study was
that one of the data sets con-
tained only 35 states and did not
include information on potential
risk factors including poverty,
exposure to trauma, difficulties
accessing mental health care, or
LGBTQ status and experiences
with racism.
“The experiences of the Afri-
can American child are like none
other in the United States,” said
LaVome Robinson, a clinical
psychologist and professor of
psychology at DePaul University
in Chicago who has studied sui-
cides in Black adolescents. “We
live in a society that marginaliz-
es us — more so probably than
any other group — and has his-
torically for years.”
Certain protective factors, in-
cluding positive messaging and
a sense of pride about one’s ra-
cial and ethnic group, can re-
duce the effects of racism on
mental health, said Kate
Keenan, a clinical psychologist
at the University of Chicago
whose research includes racial
disparities in health.
Suicide is rare in young chil-
dren, but it remains the second
leading cause of death among all
adolescents.
If your child is having thoughts
of suicide, call the National
Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-
800-273-8255 (TALK) or text
TALK to 741741.
M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 2 1 T h e B o s t o n G l o b e A3

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A4
In Hungary, pope lauds value of diversity
Message seen as
critique of leader
By Jason Horowitz
NEW YORK TIMES
BUDAPEST — Pope Francis
used his short time in Budapest
Sunday to urge his bishops to
embrace diversity and send a
message to the country’s hard-
right, anti-migrant leader,
Prime Minister Viktor Orban,
that God is not a strongman
who silences enemies and that
religious roots, while vital for a
country, also allow it to open up
and extend “its arms toward ev-
eryone.”
The seven-hour visit, osten-
sibly a spiritual layover to cele-
brate the concluding Mass of a
weeklong international confer-
ence on the Eucharist, was the
first international trip for Fran-
cis since undergoing major sur-
gery this summer. It opened a
four-day visit to neighboring
Slovakia, and the disparity of
time spent in the two countries
has prompted Hungarian prel-
ates to lobby for a longer stay
and allies of Orban to excoriate
the pope, who regularly criticiz-
es “national populism,” for the
perceived snub.
WRAP IT UP — A man took pictures of the Arc de Triomphe being wrapped early Sunday as part of the “L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped”
project by late artist Christo and Jeanne-Claude. The famed Paris monument will be covered in nearly 30,000 square yards fabric in silvery
blue and 3,200 yards of red rope. The wrapped arch will be on view from Sept. 18 to Oct. 3.
Soldiers join
fight against
wildfire in Spain
JUBRIQUE, Spain — Sol-
diers were deployed Sunday in
southeastern Spain to join the
battle against a major wildfire
that is burning for a fourth day,
invigorated by stray embers that
sparked a new hot spot.
The blaze in Malaga prov-
ince has destroyed nearly
17,300 acres of forest and
prompted fresh evacuations,
bringing the total number of
residents displaced to around
2,500.
Plan Infoca, the Andalusia
region’s agency in charge of fire-
fighting efforts, described Sun-
day as a “key day” for bringing
the blaze under control.
Authorities on Sunday pre-
ventively removed nearly 1,500
residents from the towns of Ju-
brique, Genalguacil, and four
other villages. More than 1,000
other people had been evacuat-
ed before the weekend from ar-
eas around the resort town of
Estepona.
An emergency brigade trav-
eled from the military base of
Morón, in southern Spain, to
join more than 300 firefighters
and 41 water-dropping aircraft
battling the flames.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Orban has portrayed him-
self as a defender of Christian
Europe, and he has ramped up
connections to church tradi-
tionalists, many of whom are
critical of Francis, before ex-
pected elections in April. Some
in the Hungarian church wor-
ried that Orban would exploit
the pope’s visit for electoral
gain. His government, they ar-
gue, has already essentially
bought the independence and
the silence of the church by
showering it with many mil-
lions of dollars in subsidies.
On Sunday, Francis met for
about 40 minutes with Orban
and with other civil authorities
in a gaping hall at the Museum
of Fine Arts. The pope and his
top foreign policy officials sat
without masks and at a consid-
erable distance across from Or-
ban and Hungary’s president,
Janos Ader.
But Orban quickly posted
photographs of his greeting
Francis on his Facebook page,
writing that he had asked the
pope “not to allow Christian
Hungary to perish.” Hungarian
media, where Orban’s govern-
m e n t h o l d s g r e a t s w a y,
splashed the picture of the
handshake on their homepages
Iran reaches deal with IAEA
BRUSSELS — In a last-
minute deal before Iran was
likely to be censured for vio-
lating its agreements with the
International Atomic Energy
Agency, the new government
in Tehran agreed Sunday to
let the organization reset
monitoring devices that help
measure the progress of the
country’s nuclear program.
That deal has been consid-
ered a minimal requirement
for a resumption of talks in
Vienna on trying to restore
compliance with the 2015
Iran nuclear deal, which for-
mer president Donald Trump
abandoned in 2018.
President Biden wants to
rejoin the deal, but talks,
which have not resumed
since June, have been ham-
pered by the desire of Iran
and the United States to alter
Child who was only survivor of crash is now at center of custody fight
ROME — A 6-year-old boy
who was the sole survivor of a
cable car crash in northern Ita-
ly is at the center of a bitter
custody battle between his ma-
ternal grandparents in Israel
and his paternal relatives in It-
aly, who say the child was
flown without their permission
to Israel over the weekend.
T h e B o s t o n
World
VATICAN MEDIA VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pope Francis exchanged gifts with Hungarian Prime
Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest on Sunday.
and reported that Orban, who
has referred to the influx of mi-
grants to Europe in 2015 as an
“invasion,” gave Francis a copy
of a letter sent by a 13th-centu-
ry Hungarian king to the pope
at the time. In the letter, the
king complained that pleas to
the church for help against an
invasion from Mongol armies
had resulted in only empty
words.
The issue of migration ap-
parently did not come up in the
meeting, according to the Vati-
can, but, as anticipated by
some of his confidants, the
Daily Briefing
or enhance it. The nuclear
deal essentially put tough
limits on Iran’s ability to en-
rich uranium in return for
the lifting of punishing eco-
nomic sanctions.
The director general of the
nuclear agency, Rafael M.
Grossi, visited Iran this week-
end and worked out at least a
temporary arrangement with
Mohammad Eslami, the chief
of the country’s Atomic Ener-
gy Organization.
In a joint statement issued
Sunday, they agreed that
IAEA inspectors could service
the monitoring equipment,
which includes cameras, and
replace their storage cards.
But as agreed in a similar
emergency deal in February,
the contents of the storage
cards are kept under seal.
NEW YORK TIMES
Fourteen people, including
Eitan Biran’s parents and
younger sibling, died when the
cable car slammed into a
mountainside on May 23 after
the cable broke. After the boy
was released from a Turin hos-
pital following weeks of treat-
ment, Italian juvenile court of-
ficials ruled that the child
G l o b e
pope addressed the issue head-
on in his subsequent meeting
in the museum with a group of
Hungarian bishops.
“Your country is a place in
which people from other popu-
lations have long lived togeth-
er,” he said. “Various ethnici-
ties, minorities, religions, and
m i g r a n t s h av e a l s o t r a n s -
formed this country into a mul-
ticultural environment.”
Francis said that at the be-
ginning, “diversity always
causes some fear because it
puts at risk the acquired securi-
ty and upsets the achieved sta-
RAFAL YAGHOBZADEH/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Al Qaeda leader is seen in video
BEIRUT — Al Qaeda lead-
er Ayman al-Zawahri ap-
peared in a video marking the
20th anniversary of the Sept.
11, attacks, months after ru-
mors spread that he was dead.
The SITE Intelligence
Group that monitors Muslim
militant websites said the vid-
eo was released Saturday. In
it, al-Zawahri said that “Jeru-
salem Will Never be Juda-
ized,” and praised Al Qaeda
attacks including one that tar-
geted Russian troops in Syria
in January.
SITE said al-Zawahri also
noted the US military’s with-
drawal from Afghanistan after
20 years of war. It added that
his comments do not neces-
sarily indicate a recent record-
ing, as the withdrawal agree-
ment with the Taliban was
signed in February 2020.
could live with a paternal aunt
near Pavia, in northern Italy.
But the aunt, Aya Biran, told
reporters on Sunday that the
previous day, Eitan’s maternal
grandfather took the boy on an
agreed-upon day visit, then
flew him to Israel.
The maternal grandfather
couldn’t immediately be
M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 2 1
bility,” but he added that it was
a great opportunity to reach
out in brotherhood. “In front of
cultural, ethnic, political, and
religious diversity,” the pope
said, “we can have two reac-
tions: close ourselves in a rigid
defense of our so-called identi-
ty, or open ourselves to meet
the other and cultivate together
the dream of a fraternal soci-
ety.”
He said that he wanted the
Hungarian church to build new
bridges of dialogue, to show, he
said, its “true face” and become
a “bright symbol for Hungary.”
In Francis’ public remarks
— in the Heroes’ Square adja-
cent to the museum, which was
spilling over with tens of thou-
sands of people, including Or-
ban in a front-row seat — the
pope seemed to touch on those
issues, if in biblical and reli-
gious terms.
Appearing strong after hav-
ing about 13 inches of his colon
removed in early July, Francis,
84, spoke about how religious
sentiment, with which Orban
imbues much of his political
talk, “not only invites us to be
well rooted, it also raises and
extends its arms towards every-
one.”
Al-Zawahri made no men-
tion of the Taliban’s takeover
of Afghanistan and the capital
Kabul last month, SITE add-
ed. But he did mention a Jan.
1 attack that targeted Russian
troops on the edge of the
northern Syrian city of Raqqa.
Rumors have spread since
late 2020 that al-Zawahri had
died from illness. Since then,
no video or proof of life sur-
faced, until Saturday.
“He could still be dead,
though if so, it would have
been at some point in or after
Jan 2021,” tweeted Rita Katz,
SITE’s director.
Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian,
became leader of Al Qaeda
following the 2011 killing of
Osama bin Laden in Abbotta-
bad, Pakistan by US Navy
SEALs.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
reached for comment. But a
sister of Eitan’s late mother de-
nied that the boy was snatched
away from Italy. “We did not
abduct Eitan,’’ Gali Peleg told
radio station 103 FM in Israel.
“We will not use that word.
What happened is that we
brought Eitan home.’’
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Afghan
women
can study
separately
Taliban putting
in place its vision
By Ezzatullah Mehrdad,
Gerry Shih,
and Miriam Berger
WASHINGTON POST
Women in Afghanistan will
be allowed to study in universi-
ties and postgraduate programs
but only in gender-segregated
classrooms and in Islamic dress,
a senior Taliban official an-
nounced Sunday as the militant
group began to articulate its vi-
sion for the country after form-
ing an all-male Cabinet and rais-
ing its flag over the presidential
palace.
The Taliban intend to “start
building on what existed today,”
the acting minister of higher ed-
ucation, Abdul Baqi Haqqani,
told reporters in Kabul.
He said women would not be
kept out of schools as they were
from 1996 to 2001, when the
Taliban last ruled the country
under a fundamentalist Islamist
code. But he said Taliban offi-
cials would conduct a curricu-
lum review, and suggested the
group would not abandon its
hard line. “We will not allow fe-
male and male students to study
in one classroom,” Haqqani said.
“Coeducation is in opposition to
Sharia law.”
Farzana Sarwari, 21, who is
studying at both a private uni-
versity and Kabul University, lik-
ened that segregation to a pan-
demic. “It will spread to other
parts of the society as well,” she
said.
Questions of how the Taliban
will handle culture, education,
and civic freedoms have loomed
over Afghanistan since the
group defeated government
forces and returned to power
last month. The fate of women,
perhaps more than anything
else, has been a central concern
in the early weeks of Taliban
rule.
Women in the pas t week
have led protests in several ma-
jor cities to demand they be al-
lowed to keep their government
jobs, only to have their demon-
strations broken up forcibly by
Taliban fighters patrolling the
streets. Journalists covering an
unapproved women’s march in
Kabul were detained and
whipped.
Meanwhile, pro-Taliban
women have held a counter-
march, and a group wearing
niqabs — a conservative face veil
showing only their eyes — sat in
a Kabul University lecture hall
on Saturday to hear speakers in-
veigh against the liberal women
who protested earlier in the
week.
The Taliban dismissed wom-
en from government ministries
shortly after seizing Kabul on
Aug. 15, saying the work was not
appropriate for female employ-
ees. And as classes resumed in
the past week for the first time
since the Taliban takeover, some
universities already began im-
posing gender segregation, or
classrooms divided by curtains.
On Tuesday, the Taliban un-
veiled an all-male caretaker Cab-
inet drawn entirely from its own
ranks. That brought criticism
from foreign governments,
which have said they will moni-
tor how the Taliban rolls out its
social policies to determine
whether to extend diplomatic
recognition to the caretaker gov-
ernment.
The Taliban raised its white
flag over the presidential palace
on Saturday, the 20th anniversa-
ry of the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001, to signify it was beginning
the business of governing.
Much of the international
community has yet to recognize
the new government. Qatar’s
foreign minister on Sunday be-
came the most senior foreign of-
ficial to visit Afghanistan since
the Taliban’s takeover. In a brief
trip, Foreign Minister Muham-
mad bin Abdul Rahman Al
Thani met with senior leaders of
the group, according to Taliban
spokesman Bilal Karimi.
M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 2 1 T h e B o s t o n G l o b e Nation/World A5

THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

Experts predict vaccines for kids could be available soon

COVID-19 vaccines for chil- more than 100 employees. Sajid Javid, Britain’s health
dren ages 5-11 could be available About 63 percent of Nebras- secretary, said the passports —
as soon as the end of October, ka’s eligible population has been essentially, documentation prov-
two experts said Sunday. Some fully vaccinated, a level equal to ing vaccination against COVID-
senior officials of the Biden ad- the national average. 19 — were still “a potential op-
ministration have said approval Arkansas Governor Asa tion” for the future. “It should be
for that age group was unlikely Hutchinson, who has encour- looked at in combination with
before the end of the year. aged vaccinations and even other measures,” he told the BBC
At the mo- sought to have the state Legisla- on Sunday.
VIRUS ment, only chil- ture ease a bill banning mask Prime Minister Boris John-
NOTEBOOK d r e n a g e s 1 2 mandates that he signed in son is expected to discuss the de-
and older quali- April, said Biden’s plan “disrupts cision to scrap the passport idea
fy for vaccination. An earlier ap- and divides the country.” Tuesday, and a government
proval for younger children Arkansas has one of the statement said he would also ad-
would be good news for parents, country’s lowest vaccination dress the likelihood that COVID
many of whom are anxious rates; about 39 percent of the eli- booster shots would be rolled
about classroom safety as gible population have not re- out soon and warn of the “re-
schools reopen. ceived even a single shot. newed challenges” to come this
The Food and Drug Adminis- NEW YORK TIMES winter as the flu season threat-
tration recently warned parents ens to increase the strain on the
against trying to get younger Ala. man dies after family country’s health care system.
children vaccinated before an of- says 43 hospitals denied him NEW YORK TIMES
ficial recommendation, saying When Ray DeMonia was hav-
there are unanswered questions ing a cardiac emergency last Slow to start, Japan passes
HOLLIE ADAMS/GETTY IMAGES
about dosing and immunity in month, his Alabama family wait- 50 percent vaccination rate
this age group. Britain has scrapped plans to require vaccine passports for entry into crowded venues like ed anxiously for a nearby hospi- TOKYO — Japan’s govern-
Getting the green light for stores and nightclubs following protests, including at the ITN building in London on Aug. 23. tal with available space in its in- ment says more than 50 percent
younger children will require tensive care unit. of the population has been fully
careful and expeditious review Both Pfizer and Moderna are cades will whisk in dozens of down entourages compared But in a state where coronavi- vaccinated.
of the clinical data, Dr. Scott Got- gathering data on the safety, cor- world leaders to deliver speeches with prepandemic years. rus infections and unvaccinated Japan’s vaccine rollouts be-
tlieb, a former commissioner of rect dose, and effectiveness of in person. A provisional list of speakers patients have overwhelmed hos- gan in mid-February, months be-
the FDA who sits on the board of the vaccines in children. Com- The annual General Assem- provided by UN officials, who pitals in recent months, finding hind many wealthy countries
Pfizer, one of the vaccine mak- pared with adults, children diag- bly, the diplomatic mega-event said it could change up to the an available ICU bed was an or- due to its lengthy clinical testing
ers, said on CBS’s “Face the Na- nosed with COVID are more that was held almost entirely vir- last minute, indicated that Presi- deal. It was so difficult, his fami- requirement and approval pro-
tion.” likely to have mild symptoms or tually last year because of the dent Biden would attend, for ly wrote this month, that the cess. Inoculations for elderly pa-
Still, “in a best-case scenario,” none at all. Children are also far pandemic, will be far more phys- what would be his first address hospital in his hometown of tients, which started in April,
the Pfizer vaccine could be ready less likely to develop severe ill- ical when it convenes Tuesday as president to the 193-member Cullman, Ala., contacted 43 oth- were also slowed by supply
by Halloween, or Oct. 31, for ness, be hospitalized, or die from for two weeks. world body. ers in three states — and all were shortages of imported vaccines,
younger children. the disease. Although strict pandemic NEW YORK TIMES unable to give him the care he but the pace picked up in late
The hope of fall approval But hospitalizations of chil- rules will be enforced, including needed. May and has since achieved 1
comes after two of the nation’s dren are rising as the more con- mandatory mask-wearing for all GOP governors: Vaccination DeMonia, who was eventual- million doses per day.
top public health officials — Dr. tagious Delta variant spreads. participants, required vaccina- should be a personal choice ly transferred to a Mississippi Economy Minister Yasutoshi
Francis Collins, director of the Versalovic said that he and his tions for headquarters staff, and Republicans officials Sunday hospital about 200 miles away, Nishimura, who is in charge of
National Institutes of Health, colleagues are “seeing record limited access to its 16-acre cam- made further threats of legal ac- died at 73 on Sept. 1, three days COVID-19 measures, told NHK
and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the ad- numbers” of infected children, pus, the United Nations is aim- tion against President Biden’s shy of his birthday. public television’s weekly talk
ministration’s chief pandemic as are physicians nationally. ing for at least a partial restora- sweeping plan to get tens of mil- WASHINGTON POST show Sunday that about 60 per-
adviser — backed away from NEW YORK TIMES tion of the person-to-person di- lions of American workers vacci- cent of the population is expect-
that goal last month, instead see- plomacy that its leaders regard nated, with even those who Britain cancels any plan to ed to be fully vaccinated by the
ing the step as more likely in the Many leaders planning to as critical for the organization’s openly urge that people get shots require vaccine passports end of September, on par with
winter. attend UN General Assembly ability to function. claiming that the mandate vio- After months of cries of tyr- current levels in Europe.
On “Face the Nation,” Dr. The cavernous General As- The outgoing annual presi- lated civil liberties. anny and discrimination raised Japan last Friday extended
James Versalovic, interim pedia- sembly hall of the United Na- dent of the General Assembly, Nebraska Governor Pete by speculation that Britain the ongoing state of emergency
trician-in-chief at Texas Chil- tions will have far fewer vacant Volkan Bozkir, a Turkish states- Ricketts said he would do every- would require vaccine passports in Tokyo and 18 other areas until
dren’s Hospital, said he agreed seats. Corridors of the organiza- man, told reporters in his fare- thing in his power to push back for entry into crowded venues Sept. 30. It had been scheduled
with Gottlieb on the feasibility of tion’s iconic New York City head- well news conference recently against Biden’s plan, which re- like stores and nightclubs, au- to end Sunday. The measures fo-
an October approval. “We’re do- quarters, eerily silent for that at least 83 leaders were quires either vaccinations or thorities said Sunday any such cus on requests for eateries to
ing everything we can now to months, will echo with more planning to attend this year’s weekly testing for workers at pri- plans had been scrapped, at least close early and not serve alcohol.
move these trials ahead,” he said. voices and footsteps. Motor- event, albeit with slimmed- vate companies if they have for the moment. ASSOCIATED PRESS

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A6 The Nation
THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
Mandate
resistance
gains GOP
acceptance
Biden move puts
vaccination issue
at party’s center
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON — Like other
Republican governors around
the country, Tate Reeves of Mis-
sissippi reacted angrily to the
coronavirus vaccine mandates
President Biden imposed on pri-
vate businesses. Declaring the
move “terrifying,” he wrote on
Twitter, “This is still America,
and we still believe in freedom
from tyrants.”
There is a deep inconsistency
in that argument. Mississippi
has some of the strictest vaccine
mandates in the nation, which
have not drawn opposition from
most of its elected officials. Not
only does it require children to
be vaccinated against measles,
mumps, and seven other diseas-
es to attend school, but it goes a
step further than most states by
barring parents from claiming
“religious, philosophical, or con-
scientious” exemptions.
Resistance to vaccine man-
dates was once a fringe position
in both parties, more the realm
of misinformed celebrities than
mainstream thought. But the fu-
ry over Biden’s mandates shows
how a once-extreme stance has
moved to the center of the Re-
publican Party. The governors’
opposition reflects the anger and
fear about the COVID-19 vac-
cines among constituents now
central to their base, while ig-
noring long-standing policy and
legal precedent in favor of simi-
lar vaccination requirements.
“Republicans care about get-
ting beyond this pandemic every
bit as much as Democrats do,”
said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the
Brown University School of Pub-
lic Health. But, he added, “politi-
cians are certainly happy to ex-
ploit this issue for political gain,
which is why I think the Repub-
lican governors are up in arms.”
Biden also imposed vaccine
mandates on federal workers
and many health care workers.
But Republican outrage is really
boiling over his plan to require
all private-sector businesses
with more than 100 employees
Debate on boosters reaches highest realm of vaccine field
uBOOSTERS
Continued from Page A1
scientific community over the
role and timing of booster shots.
Some scientists are drawing dif-
ferent conclusions from the lat-
est surge of COVID-19 infections
and studies about declining anti-
body levels in the vaccinated.
Given that a number of medi-
cal experts have expressed reser-
vations about boosters, it’s un-
certain whether the FDA adviso-
ry panel will recommend
endorsing the plan announced
by the Biden administration on
Aug. 18. There are even divi-
sions within the administration,
as some federal health officials
have since urged the White
House to scale its plan back.
That, said Plotkin, would be a
mistake.
“I don’t say this to praise my-
self, but I could have predicted
one would need a third dose in
order to fully evoke the immune
system to raise antibodies to
COVID,” said Plotkin, an 89-
year-old professor emeritus of vi-
rology at the University of Penn-
sylvania. “The evidence is clear
that a third dose raises antibod-
ies and broadens antibodies.”
Plotkin, who has served as a
paid consultant to Moderna on
its two-dose vaccine, objects to
labeling third doses of mRNA
vaccines as booster shots. He
said a third shot — to be admin-
istered several months after the
second — is necessary to fully
arm the immune system, and af-
ter that, recipients might not
need additional doses. (Plotkin
also has advised Johnson &
Johnson on its one-dose vaccine,
which uses different technology.)
Offit, 70, who sits on the FDA
Kristi Noem of South Dakota is among several Republican governors who have vowed to go to
court to challenge the constitutionality of President Biden’s vaccine mandates.
to mandate vaccines or weekly
testing for their workforces.
Governor Greg Abbott of Tex-
as called the president’s move “a
power grab.” Governor Henry
McMaster of South Carolina
promised to fight Biden in court,
to “the gates of hell.” Governor
Greg Gianforte of Montana
called it “unlawful and un-Amer-
ican.” Governor Kay Ivey of Ala-
bama called the move “outra-
geous” and “overreaching.”
But each of these states — in-
deed, every state in the country
— already mandates certain vac-
cinations for children and some-
times for adults, including
health care workers and patients
in certain facilities.
Mississippi, which has one of
the lowest coronavirus vaccina-
tion rates in the nation, has con-
sistently led the United States in
childhood vaccinations — a
point of pride for its health offi-
cials and many of its lawmakers.
Alabama, similar to Mississippi,
also refuses to acknowledge
“philosophical, moral, or ethi-
cal” exemptions to mandatory
childhood vaccinations.
Experts in public health law
agree that Biden is on solid legal
footing because his actions are
grounded in federal workplace
safety laws. They say Republican
governors who insist that vac-
cine mandates are an intrusion
on personal liberty need a re-
fresher on their state policies.
“That is pure hypocrisy,” Law-
rence Gostin, a public health law
expert at Georgetown Universi-
ty, said of Reeves’s remarks.
“Even religious exemptions are
swept away in the state of Mis-
sissippi, so how can he say that
an order that a president makes
advisory committee that will
vote on whether to recommend
third doses, agrees that the Pfiz-
er and Moderna vaccines will
probably turn out to be three-
shot regimens, as is true of some
other vaccines, including one for
hepatitis B. But a third dose of
the two mRNA coronavirus vac-
cines is unnecessary now for
most people, he said.
Although breakthrough in-
fections in fully vaccinated peo-
ple have caused alarm, Offit said,
few of those cases have resulted
in serious illnesses requiring
hospitalization. Most cases have
been asymptomatic or mild.
This proves that the Pfizer and
Moderna vaccines continue to
work as planned, he said, pro-
viding remarkably good protec-
tion despite the spread of the
highly infectious Delta variant.
Offit said federal health offi-
cials should concentrate on vac-
cinating the millions of eligible
Americans who have yet to get
shots. (After Offit’s interview
with the Globe, the Biden ad-
ministration did that Thursday
by mandating shots for 100 mil-
lion Americans, including some
private sector employees and the
vast majority of federal workers.)
Boosting the immunity of people
who already received two shots
can wait at least a year, Offit
said.
“I agree with Dr. Plotkin that
when the dust settles, this will be
a three-dose vaccine and that a
third dose will broaden and ex-
tend the immune response,” said
Offit, who began a fellowship in
pediatric infectious diseases at
Children’s Hospital under Plot-
kin in 1980 and now directs the
Vaccine Education Center there.
T h e B o s t o n
to keep workers safe, with au-
thorization by Congress, is an
overreach or in any way uncon-
stitutional?”
A spokesperson for Reeves,
Bailey Martin, rejected Gostin’s
assertion. “The only people be-
ing hypocritical are President
Biden and his administration,
who for months have said they
would not mandate the vaccine,”
she said in an e-mail, adding
that Reeves would use “every
tool at his disposal” to block the
mandates.
Republican suspicion of vac-
cines was building before the
pandemic; when Donald Trump
was running for president in
2016, he rejected established sci-
ence by raising the debunked
claims that vaccines cause au-
tism. Now some of the governors
argue that given the country’s
outsize divisions and wide-
spread suspicion of Washington,
federal intervention would be
counterproductive. It would be
best, they say, to let state officials
continue making the case that
the vaccines are safe and effec-
tive and to allow people to make
decisions themselves.
“I’m trying to overcome resis-
tance, but the president’s actions
in a mandate hardens the resis-
tance,” Arkansas Governor Asa
Hutchinson, a Republican, said
Sunday on NBC ’s “Meet the
Press.” School mandates, he said,
“have always come at the state
level, never at the national level.
And so this is an unprecedented
assumption of federal mandate
authority that really disrupts
and divides the country.”
Jha said Biden had in fact
done Republicans a favor.
“What the president does is,
“The question is: Why do this
now? Instead of taking on this
massive booster program for the
170 million people who have al-
ready gotten vaccinated, we
should take on a massive pro-
gram for the 60 or 70 million
who haven’t gotten vaccinated
yet.”
Plotkin said the efforts aren’t
mutually exclusive.
“Although I respect Paul very
much, I beg to disagree,” he said.
On Aug. 18, Biden said that if
the FDA approved it, the govern-
ment would start offering boost-
ers the week of Sept. 20 to adults
who had received their second
shot of the Pfizer or Moderna
vaccine eight months earlier.
That would include many health
care workers and nursing home
residents, as well as some people
older than 65, who were general-
ly among the first to receive vac-
cines.
Administration officials said
recipients of the single-dose
Johnson & Johnson vaccine
would probably be offered an ad-
ditional shot soon, too. The FDA
already has already authorized
additional shots for certain peo-
ple with weakened immune sys-
tems, including recipients of or-
gan transplants and some can-
cer patients.
In recent days, however, fed-
eral health officials have recom-
mended the White House tap
the brakes on a broader rollout
of third shots to the general pub-
lic.
Among the reasons for a
postponement is the need for
regulators to have more time to
decide the proper dosage for a
possible third Moderna shot. Dr.
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s lead-
G l o b e
COOPER NEILL/THE NEW YORK TIMES
he creates cover for Republican
leaders, who will scream loudly
because it’s politically expedi-
ent,” he said. “But I think many
of them are actually feeling re-
lieved, because now they don’t
have to do the hard work of con-
vincing their constituents.”
Indeed, when the highly in-
fectious Delta variant began rip-
ping through their communities
and overwhelming hospitals,
many elected Republicans — no-
tably, Senator Mitch McConnell
of Kentucky, the minority leader
— started pleading with people
to get vaccinated. Most of the
Republican governors criticizing
Biden have said much the same.
Even as Reeves blasted Biden
on Twitter, he took care to de-
clare the vaccine itself “lifesav-
ing.” McMaster held a news con-
ference last month to encourage
South Carolinians to take the
shots, saying, “Now is a great
time to do it while we’re getting
ready for the fall.” In Alabama,
Iv e y h a s a d o p t e d t h e s a m e
stance as Biden: “It’s time to
start blaming the unvaccinated
folks” for the deadly coronavirus
surge, she said recently.
Three-quarters of American
adults have had at least one
COVID-19 shot, which suggests
growing acceptance of the vac-
cine. Biden’s move is aimed at
the roughly 80 million Ameri-
cans who are eligible but remain
unvaccinated. Experts call it an
unprecedented exercise of presi-
dential authority.
“It’s really uncharted waters,”
said Claire Hannan, executive
director of the Association of Im-
munization Managers, which
represents state immunization
officials.
MICHELLE GUSTAFSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST/FILE
“The evidence is clear that a third dose raises antibodies and
broadens antibodies,’’ says Dr. Stanley Plotkin.
ing infectious disease expert,
said on CBS’s “Face the Nation”
recently that federal health offi-
cials were hoping to roll out
third shots of the Pfizer and
Moderna vaccines simultane-
ously, but it could be a “few
weeks delay ” for a Moderna
booster.
The FDA also has sought raw
data from Israel, which is al-
ready giving booster shots to
anyone 12 and older. Israeli offi-
cials have said their data indi-
cate that the potency of Pfizer’s
vaccine to protect against severe
disease and hospitalization
wanes over time, but that a third
shot sharply bolsters its effec-
tiveness.
Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of
public health at Israel’s Health
Ministry, said the FDA has asked
her agency to brief the advisory
panel when it meets, according
to a recent Reuters story.
Offit, who as a member of the
M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 2 1
Delta runs wild
in West Virginia
State was once
a national leader
in COVID fight
By Daniel E. Slotnik
NEW YORK TIMES
Coronavirus cases are near-
ing record levels in West Virgin-
ia, and the state’s schools are
closing and its hospitals are
choked with patients stricken by
the Delta variant.
Just seven months ago, as the
COVID vaccine was still being
rolled out, the state was a na-
tional leader. By late June, the
state’s governor, Jim Justice, a
Republican, had removed a
statewide mask requirement.
But West Virginia has since
fallen far behind, and its pan-
demic status has deteriorated, a
situation shared with other
states with large unvaccinated
populations. Just under 48 per-
cent of West Virginia’s 18-and-
older population is fully vacci-
nated, the lowest of any state, ac-
cording to federal data compiled
by The New York Times.
President Biden tried to push
the roughly 80 million eligible
but unvaccinated people in the
United States to be inoculated
when he announced Thursday a
sweeping plan that included vac-
cine requirements he said would
cover some 100 million Ameri-
can workers.
Federally authorized vaccines
greatly decrease the risk of hos-
pitalization and death, even
from the Delta variant, accord-
ing to three studies released by
the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention on Friday.
Justice has been more out-
spoken about vaccinations than
many Republican governors.
“We can stop this, West Vir-
ginia, we can stop it,” Justice
said Friday. “The vaccines are
safe. The vaccines are not an in-
vasion on anyone.”
Even though Justice regularly
beseeches his constituents to get
a shot, vaccine mandates are
“something that I absolutely do
not believe in,” he said. Justice
also suggested that Biden’s an-
nouncement of new vaccine
mandates was a ploy to try to
distract the public from the cha-
otic withdrawal from Afghani-
stan and the crush of migrants at
the southern border.
The latest surge has envel-
oped West Virginia with a feroci-
FDA advisory committee voted
to recommend the agency clear
all three vaccines for emergency
use, wants to review briefing
materials from regulators before
deciding on the booster ques-
tion. But he’s skeptical a third
shot is necessary now. He also
wants to see the wording of the
question that the FDA puts to
the advisory panel.
Offit said it’s possible the
agency will only ask whether a
third Pfizer shot is safe and
boosts the immune response of
recipients; the answer to both, in
his mind, would probably be yes.
The issue of whether the federal
government should actually de-
ploy boosters and who should
get them, he said, may end up in
the hands of a separate panel of
experts that advises the US Cen-
ters for Disease Control and Pre-
vention.
Dr. Eric Rubin, an immunol-
ogist at the Harvard T.H. Chan
ty the virus had not shown be-
fore there, said the official run-
ning the state’s coronavirus re-
sponse, Dr. Clay Marsh.
“The rapid rate of growth and
the level of severity of illness has
really been much greater than
we’ve ever seen before,” Marsh
said.
West Virginia’s seven-day av-
erage of new reported cases has
neared record levels for all of
September, hovering above
1,500 per day for most of the
past week, according to data
c o m p i l e d b y T h e Ne w Yo r k
Times. The state recently sur-
passed a total of 200,000 cases,
more than four times the popu-
lation of Charleston, the capital
and largest city.
Hospitalizations are nearing
the state’s pandemic high, push-
ing its understaffed health cen-
ters near capacity, and record
numbers of COVID patients are
being treated in intensive care
units. Marsh said the state was
reducing the number of elective
procedures and taking steps to
ensure that hospitals were ade-
quately staffed.
And while deaths are averag-
ing just 12 a day, that is more
than 41 percent of the state’s
peak average for the pandemic,
reached in January.
In January, when the state
faced the worst conditions it had
seen up to that point, West Vir-
ginia’s vaccine rollout was the
envy of other states. But demand
for the vaccine fell off, as it did in
much of the country. Since then,
Justice has turned to a number
of incentive programs, including
$100 savings bonds for young
people and a vaccine sweep-
stakes in which West Virginians
can win cash, a scholarship, a
sports car, or a pontoon boat.
Major General Jim Hoyer, a
retired National Guard officer
who leads the task force that co-
ordinates West Virginia’s vacci-
nation efforts, said multiple ap-
proaches were necessary.
“There wasn’t one thing that
worked. There was a whole se-
ries of things,” he said.
Justice said that even with
more West Virginians vaccinat-
ed, there was no guarantee that
the surge was near its peak.
“Maybe we won’t peak until
Halloween or Thanksgiving, and
in all of that, how many more
are going to die, and die a horri-
ble death, a death where you
can’t breathe?” he asked.
School of Public Health and
member of the same FDA advi-
sory committee as Offit, said he
is keeping an open mind. But he,
too, says a lot depends on how
the FDA frames the question.
“If they asked if the risk/ben-
efit analysis is favorable for peo-
ple over 95 years old to get a
third dose, that would be very
different from 12-year-olds,” Ru-
bin, editor in chief of the New
England Journal of Medicine,
said in an e-mail.
But another vaccine expert
was skeptical that a third dose
was needed soon.
Dr. Deepta Bhattacharya, a
professor of immunobiology at
the University of Arizona College
of Medicine who is not on the
FDA panel, said it’s normal for
antibody levels to fall over the
course of several months. Vacci-
nation triggers a “blood-thirsty
competition” among antibodies,
he explained, and only the best
ones survive — “the antibodies
that stick most tightly to the vi-
rus.”
“The actual evidence that
there’s substantial waning of im-
munity” in recipients of the cor-
onavirus vaccines in important
measures “like hospitalization is
very weak,” said Bhattacharya.
He might support offering
booster shots soon for people
over the age of 60 or 70 because
their immune responses may de-
cline faster than those of young-
er people. “Below the age of 60
or for everyone — I don’t see a
whole lot of justification for
that,” he said.
Jonathan Saltzman can be
reached at jonathan.
saltzman@globe.com.
M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 2 1 T h e B o s t o n G l o b e A7

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A8 The Nation
Internet funding rule could favor rural areas over cities
By David A. Lieb
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cities and urban counties
across the country are raising
concerns that a recent rule from
President Biden’s administration
could preclude them from tap-
ping into $350 billion of corona-
virus relief aid to expand high-
speed Internet connections.
Biden has set a goal of deliv-
ering fast, affordable Internet to
every American household. The
massive American Rescue Plan
took a step toward that by in-
cluding broadband infrastruc-
ture among the primary uses for
pandemic aid flowing to each
city, county, and state.
But an interim rule published
by the Treasury Department has
narrowed the broadband eligi-
bility. It focuses on areas that
lack reliable broadband, which
connects devices to the Internet
through a cable or data line, at
download speeds of at least 25
Calif. is
different
this time
around
Electorate is less
Republican than
in previous recall
By Kathleen Ronayne
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SACRAMENTO — It’s a fa-
miliar refrain among California’s
recall watchers: 2021 is not
2003.
Yes, the state again is in the
middle of a recall election that
could remove the Democratic
governor from office. But today’s
California electorate looks far
different than it did 18 years
ago: It’s less Republican, more
Latino and Asian, and younger
— all trends that favor Governor
Gavin Newsom, so long as he
can get his voters to turn out.
“Newsom has always had it
by the numbers, and he knows
that," said Mindy Romero, direc-
tor of the Center for Inclusive
Democracy at the University of
Southern California and an ex-
pert in voters and the electorate.
Early voting has been going
on for weeks and more than 7
million ballots have been cast so
far. The final day to vote is Tues-
day.
There are two questions on
the ballot: Should Newsom be
recalled and, if so, who should
replace him? If a majority wants
him gone, whoever gets the most
support among the 46 names on
the replacement ballot will be-
come governor. It would almost
certainly be a Republican since
no Democrat with political
Democrats face tricky question of dollars and political sense
uRECONCILIATION
Continued from Page A1
Figuring out how to pay for
what would be one of the most
expensive bills ever enacted by
Congress.
After borrowing nearly $6
trillion to fight the pandemic
and bolster the economy since
2020, congressional leaders and
White House officials have said
they want to pay for most if not
all of the so-called reconciliation
bill through a combination of
tax increases, other revenue-
raisers, and government cost
savings.
“I’d like to have it totally paid
for,” House Speaker Nancy Pelo-
si said late last month. “We’ll see
what is possible.”
Even though interest rates
are extremely low, analysts said
eliminating or at least reducing
borrowing to pay for the legisla-
tion is important to avoid signif-
icantly swelling a national debt
that now stands at $28.5 tril-
lion, double what it was just a
decade ago. In addition, with
concerns about rising prices in
recent months, offsetting the
bill’s spending would lower the
risk it would fuel inflation in the
coming years by injecting large
amounts of money into the
economy when it may have re-
covered fully from the pandemic
recession.
“In theory, you want to make
megabits per second and upload
speeds of at least 3 Mbps.
That threshold ensures fund-
ing for remote, rural areas that
have slow or no Internet service,
and it matches the definition of
broadband set by the Federal
Communications Commission
in 2015. But cities contend the
eligibility mark overlooks the re-
alities of today’s Internet needs.
Though most cities already
have broadband available, the
speed still might not be fast
enough to handle multiple peo-
ple in a home trying to work,
study, and stream entertainment
simultaneously — a common
scenario during the coronavirus
pandemic. The price also can be
more than lower-income resi-
dents can afford.
“They’re basically prioritizing
those rural areas over the under-
served urban areas where there
is more population,” said Detta
Kissel, a retired Treasury De-
After his inauguration in 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom, his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom,
and their family greeted voters.
standing is running. Conserva-
tive talk radio host Larry Elder
has been leading in polls.
The recall began as an effort
driven by amateur Republican
political organizers upset by
Newsom’s positions on immigra-
tion, crime, and other issues.
But the coronavirus pandemic,
and frustrations over business
and school closures, got it on the
ballot.
In 2003, Democrat Gray Da-
vis became the first California
governor to get recalled. He had
just begun his second term and
voters were agitated over an en-
ergy crisis that had led to rolling
power outages, looming tax and
fee increases, and a poor econo-
m y. R e p u b l i c a n A r n o l d
Schwarzenegger jumped into
the race and won handily.
Back then, about 9 million of
nearly 15 million registered vot-
ers participated in the race.
sure that your fiscal policy is
paid for when you’re in a world
of full employment,” said Mark
Zandi, chief economist at eco-
nomic research and consulting
firm Moody’s Analytics. “That’s
easy to say. That’s hard to exe-
cute on.”
Manchin cited inflation and
the soaring national debt when
he recently called for a “strategic
pause” on the rush to pass the
$3.5 trillion budget reconcilia-
tion package this month. On
Sunday, he suggested his maxi-
mum is about $1.5 trillion. Fel-
low Senate moderate Kyrsten
Sinema of Arizona also has said
she won’t support a $3.5 trillion
bill.
Even if a $3.5 trillion bill
were fully paid for, Manchin
said, he’s worried the size of the
tax increases needed would hurt
the nation’s global competitive-
ness.
Other moderates have said
their support is contingent on a
bill that is fully paid for.
Facing unanimous Republi-
can opposition to the reconcilia-
tion bill, Democrats can’t afford
to lose any votes in the evenly di-
vided Senate. But progressive
Democrats are pushing to keep
the legislation’s price tag at $3.5
trillion, which they said already
is a compromise from the tril-
lions more they wanted to
spend.
T h e B o s t o n
partment attorney who helped
write agency rules and now ad-
vocates for better Internet ser-
vice in Arlington, Va., a suburb
of Washington, D.C.
Several cities, including
Washington, Los Angeles, Mil-
waukee, and San Antonio, have
submitted public comments to
the Treasury Department urging
it to loosen the eligibility stan-
dard for spending pandemic re-
lief money on broadband. Some
want the Treasury to define un-
derserved areas as anything less
than download and upload
speeds of 100 Mbps.
T hat would increase the
number of locations eligible for
funding from about 11 million
to 82 million households and
businesses nationwide, accord-
ing to a study conducted for
America’s Communications As-
sociation, which represents
small and medium-sized Inter-
net providers.
RICH PEDRONCELLI/ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE
Roughly 4 million backed Davis,
or 44 percent. On the question of
who should replace him,
Schwarzenegger got about 4.2
million votes.
At the time, about 35 percent
of voters were registered Repub-
licans, 43 percent were Demo-
crats, and 16 percent weren’t in
a party.
Today, California has 22 mil-
lion registered voters but the Re-
publican Party claims just a
quarter of the electorate because
registration numbers have re-
mained essentially flat, hovering
above 5 million. Democrats,
meanwhile, have added 3 mil-
lion voters, and 2.6 million more
people are independents.
Latino voters now make up
more than a quarter of regis-
tered voters compared to 17.5
percent in 2003, according to
data provided by Romero. Asian
voters also increased their share,
“It’s a negotiation. He’s lever-
aging low, we’re leveraging high-
er,” said Representative Jimmy
Gomez of California, who added
he’d support borrowing to pay
some of the bill’s costs. “ We
might not get everything we
want, but I think we’re going to
get what we need.”
Still, even some progressives
agree the legislation should be
fully paid for after all the bor-
rowing to fight the pandemic
and to offset the revenue loss
from the 2017 Republican tax
cuts.
“Whatever it takes to fund
these programs, we need to
come up with the revenues to do
it,” said Representative Lloyd
Doggett of Texas.
The legislation is part of a
complicated, two-step dance
Democrats are trying to execute
to enact a cornerstone of Biden’s
domestic agenda.
One piece is a bipartisan bill
the Senate approved last month
to spend $1 trillion -- about half
in new spending -- over five
years on conventional infra-
structure such as highways,
bridges, and airports. Support-
ers said the bill is almost entire-
ly paid for without raising taxes
largely by redirecting money
from other programs, although
the nonpartisan Congressional
Budget Office disputed some of
those accounting moves and
G l o b e
Cities argue that the Treasury
should use a 100/100 Mbps eli-
gibility threshold because that’s
the same speed projects are sup-
posed to achieve if they receive
funding. A separate infrastruc-
ture bill working its way through
Congress is more flexible, allow-
ing some of its $65 billion in
broadband funding to go to “un-
derserved” areas lacking down-
load speeds of 100 Mbps and up-
load speeds of 20 Mbps.
If the Treasury goes forward
with its rule as originally writ-
ten, sparsely populated areas
currently lacking broadband
could leapfrog certain urban ar-
eas in their Internet speeds. That
doesn’t sit well with some may-
ors.
“The inner city of Memphis is
as in a dire need of broadband
connection as rural Tennessee,”
said Memphis Mayor Jim Strick-
land, who wants Treasury De-
partment assurance before
now at 10.4 percent. As those
d e m o g r a p h i c g r o u p s h av e
grown, the overall electorate is
younger.
“It’s not like it’s baby boom-
ers that are Latinos and Asian
Americans moving from another
state to California. These are
people born and bred in this
state and they are aging into the
electorate,” said Sonja Diaz,
founding director of the Latino
Policy & Politics Initiative at the
University of California, Los An-
geles.
All of those trends should
benefit Democrats, who have
only strengthened their hold on
the state over the past two de-
cades. Californians haven't elect-
ed a Republican to elected office
since 2006, when Schwarzeneg-
ger won a second term, and
Democrats today hold superma-
jorities in both houses of the
state Legislature.
said the bill would add about
$256 billion to the deficit over a
decade.
The second piece is legisla-
tion that focuses on human in-
frastructure, including child
care, health care, and education,
while also tackling climate
change. Among other elements,
the bill still being drafted aims
to provide paid family and sick
leave, expanded Medicare bene-
fits like dental and vision cover-
age, free preschool for 3- and 4-
year old children, tuition-free
community college, as well as
billions of dollars worth of tax
breaks for families and renew-
able energy.
“Paying for it is very desir-
able but it ought not to be a veto
as well,” Representative Richard
Neal, the Springfield Democrat
who chairs the House Ways and
Means Committee, told the
Globe Sunday. “There are a lot of
very important things here.”
Because of Republican oppo-
sition to the proposals, Demo-
crats are trying to enact them
through a process called budget
reconciliation that allows a bill
to pass with only a simple ma-
jority in both chambers of Con-
gress.
But with no votes to spare in
the Senate and only three in the
House, Democrats must tread
carefully in crafting the bill.
Neal and Senate Finance Com-
M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 2 1
spending $20 million from the
American Rescue Plan on a
broadband project.
Residents almost anywhere
in Milwaukee already have ac-
cess to at least one Internet pro-
vider offering download speeds
of 25 Mbps and upload speeds of
3 Mbps. But in parts of the city,
fewer than half the households
subscribe to Internet service be-
cause of its cost, said David Hen-
ke, the city’s chief information
officer.
“If you don’t have a job and
you can’t afford broadband,
that’s kind of a cycle,” Henke
said. “You’re locked out of re-
mote learning, remote work,
telemedicine, and participating
basically in a modern society.”
Milwaukee has applied for a
$12.5 million grant from Wis-
consin’s share of the American
Rescue Plan and would chip in
$2.5 million of its own pandemic
relief money to expand afford-
If police lie, should
they be held liable?
The answer is often no.
By Shaila Dewan
NEW YORK TIMES
In 2010, Officer Heather
Weyker of the St. Paul Police De-
partment in Minnesota had the
biggest case of her career: a child
sex-trafficking ring said to have
spanned four states and in-
volved girls as young as 12. Thir-
ty people, almost all of them So-
mali refugees, were charged and
sent to jail, many of them for
years.
Then the case fell apart. It
turned out, the trial judge found,
that Weyker had fabricated or
misstated facts, lied to a grand
jury, and lied during a detention
hearing. When three young
women unwittingly got in the
way of her investigation, accord-
ing to their court filings, she had
them locked up on false charges.
“She took my life away,” said
one of the women, Hamdi Mo-
hamud, who was a senior in high
school at the time.
But there is little that Moha-
mud can do. For decades, the Su-
preme Court and Congress have
declined to close the many legal
loopholes, like qualified immu-
nity, that protect the police from
accountability. Now legal advo-
cates say that an increasingly
conservative Supreme Court has
emboldened lower courts to
close off the few avenues that
plaintiffs once had to seek re-
dress.
“If a federal law enforcement
officer lies, manipulates witness-
es and falsifies evidence, should
the officer be liable for damag-
es?” the US Court of Appeals for
the 8th Circuit wrote of Weyker,
whose investigation ultimately
resulted in no convictions. The
mittee Chairman Ron Wyden of
Oregon each are working on a
package of revenue raisers ex-
pected to include increasing tax-
es paid by corporations and the
wealthy while bolstering the In-
ternal Revenue Service as part
of a crackdown on tax avoid-
ance.
Neal said he would release
his revenue-raising plan Mon-
day and acknowledged it won’t
total $3.5 trillion. But additional
revenue proposals will be com-
ing in consultation with the Sen-
ate, he said, and he predicted
the bill would pass if it is close to
being fully paid for.
“We’re going to get this over
the goal line,” Neal said.
But corporate lobbyists al-
ready are fighting the expected
tax increases, which carry politi-
cal risks of their own for Demo-
crats. Republicans are likely to
use any proposed tax increases
as fodder for next year’s mid-
term elections, though polls
show increasing taxes on the
wealthy, which Democrats have
focused on, is popular.
Still, despite the goal of off-
setting all the bill’s cost, the rec-
onciliation instructions autho-
rize Congress to borrow up to
$1.75 trillion to pay for it.
“ They ’ ve certainly given
themselves a very wide back
door to wiggle out of,” warned
Maya MacGuineas, president of
able broadband into more parts
of the city, Henke said. But the
city wants the Treasury Depart-
ment to broaden “the narrow
wording” of its rule.
Although the public com-
ment period ended in July, the
Treasury has set no date for
when it will publish the rule’s fi-
nal version. A Treasury official
said the department is undertak-
ing a thorough review of the
comments that is likely “to con-
tinue into the fall.”
Broadband industry groups
generally have urged the Trea-
sury to stick with its original
plan of targeting money at areas
with the slowest Internet speeds.
“Rather than reinvesting in
locations that already have
broadband to make it better,” the
pandemic relief money should
go to “places that don’t have any
broadband at all,” said Patrick
Halley, general counsel at US-
Telecom.
answer was no.
More than 20 civil lawsuits
have been filed against Weyker, a
former vice officer who is still
the subject of an internal depart-
ment investigation. Some of the
suits failed because she was
granted qualified immunity, a
doctrine created by the courts
that shields officers from law-
suits unless they violate a “clear-
ly established” right. In others,
the courts found that if the facts
before them were to be believed,
she had indeed violated people’s
rights. But she was shielded by
the even more robust immunity
offered to federal law enforce-
ment officers — even though she
is not one.
The protection extends not
just to federal agents but to state
and local police officers, like
Weyker, who serve on one or an-
other of the numerous joint task
forces that bring state, local, and
federal agents together to fight
problems such as terrorism,
gang violence, and human traf-
ficking.
Federal law allows state and
local officers, but not federal
agents, to be sued for rights vio-
lations, even when their actions
are the same.
A f e w e xc e p t i o n s t o t h i s
broad immunity have been al-
lowed, under a 1971 Supreme
Court case in which federal nar-
cotics officers searched a man’s
house, arrested him in front of
his family, and subjected him to
a strip search, all without a war-
rant. The court said the man
could seek damages for Fourth
Amendment violations even if
Congress had not specifically au-
thorized such lawsuits.
the nonpartisan Committee for
a Responsible Federal Budget.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the for-
mer director of the Congressio-
nal Budget Office, said Neal and
Wyden could find ways to raise
$3.5 trillion over a decade fairly
easily. But politics complicates
the math.
“It’s not hard for you to do.
It’s not hard for me to do,” said
Holtz-Eakin, president of the
conservative-leaning American
Action Forum think tank. “But
it’s hard for us to do and find 50
Democrats who agree with our
choices in the Senate and alien-
ate only four in the House.
That’s the hard part.”
The challenge was clear on
Thursday when Representative
Stephanie Murphy, a moderate
Democrat from Florida, an-
nounced she wouldn’t vote for
any of the bill’s provisions mov-
i n g t h r o u g h t h e Wa y s a n d
Means Committee until she
knows how they would be fund-
ed.
“I cannot assess them if I
don’t know how we’re paying for
them,” Murphy said. “I don’t
think we can afford to do every-
thing.”
Jim Puzzanghera can be
reached at
jim.puzzanghera@globe.com.
Follow him on Twitter:
@JimPuzzanghera.
M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 2 1
Texas abortion
law creates a kind
of ‘bounty hunter’
Rewards citizens
who sue those
involved in process
By Alan Feuer
NEW YORK TIMES
The new law in Texas effec-
tively banning most abortions
has ignited widespread contro-
versy and debate, in part be-
cause of the mechanism it uses
to enforce the restrictions: dep-
utizing ordinary people to sue
those involved in performing
abortions and giving them a fi-
nancial incentive to do so.
The law establishes a kind of
bounty system. If these vigilan-
te plaintiffs are successful, the
law allows them to collect cash
judgments of $10,000 — and
their legal fees — from those
they sue. If they lose, they do
not have to pay the defendants’
legal costs.
The Supreme Court declined
to stop the legislation from tak-
ing effect, and so far, no one
has brought a suit against an
abortion provider because clin-
ics in the state have chosen to
abide by the law, which effec-
tively bars abortions starting
around the sixth week of preg-
nancy.
The enforcement provision
has generated backing from
those seeking to limit abortion
rights but confusion and criti-
cism among supporters of abor-
tion rights.
“ When the law first came
out and I was reading it, I
thought I was missing some-
thing,” said Mary Ziegler, a pro-
fessor at the Florida State Uni-
versity College of Law who spe-
cializes in the history of
reproductive law. “It almost
seemed like anyone could sue
anyone — and that didn’t seem
right. But it was. It really is that
extraordinary.”
Here are some questions
and answers about the enforce-
ment provision.
Are there other laws that
use the same mechanism?
Not really — or at least not
Texas’s rapid shift to the right could reshape ’22 midterms
uTEXAS
Continued from Page A1
of the US Department of Justice
— which sued the state last
week over the abortion restric-
tions — as well as national
Democratic strategists, who ar-
gue Texas conservatives’ machi-
nations have the potential to
backfire for Republicans across
the country.
The question, for national
political watchers and for ever-
optimistic Texas Democrats, is
whether Republicans, in deliv-
ering for their most conserva-
tive voters, have alienated ev-
eryone else — and handed
Democrats a winning national
strategy in the 2022 midterm
elections.
“They’re so worried about
the right in Texas that they’re
making themselves vulnerable
to the center across the coun-
try,” said Ian Russell, a national
Democratic strategist who has
worked on congressional races
in Texas. “They would be in-
credibly naïve to think that
what happens in Texas stays in
Texas. . . . The message to vot-
ers across the country in 2022
will be some version of, ‘If you
vote for Republicans, expect to
see what you’re seeing in Tex-
as.’”
But Republicans see the na-
tional focus on Texas as fleet-
ing. November 2022 is, after
all, more than a year away.
The midterm election will
be less about the policies of any
one state than it will be a refer-
endum on the Biden adminis-
tration, argued Brad Todd, a
GOP consultant who has
worked for the National Repub-
lican Congressional Committee.
The Texas abortion law “is a
mirage. We will not be talking
about it six months from now,”
Todd said. “That’s going to do
nothing but raise money for
Democrats and distract report-
ers.”
The moves by Texas GOP
leaders come as communities
with the same scope as the Tex-
as law.
While giving private citizens
the right to file suit in lieu of —
or in tandem with — criminal
enforcement by state officials is
a staple of medical malpractice
cases and other forms of tort
law, the Texas law is different.
It removes enforcement en-
tirely from state jurisdiction
and vastly expands who can sue
and who can be sued over abor-
‘It almost seemed
like anyone could
sue anyone — and
that didn’t seem
right. But it was. It
really is that
extraordinary.’
MARY ZIEGLER, professor at
the Florida State University
College of Law who specializes
in history of reproductive law
tions. The statute, for example,
permits anyone — even people
who live outside Texas — to file
a complaint in any court in the
state if they believe an abortion
has been performed. It also
m a ke s n e a r l y e v e r y o n e i n-
volved in the procedure — ex-
cept for the woman who re-
ceives the abortion — liable to
suits, meaning that doctors,
nurses, insurance companies,
and even Uber drivers who help
take women to clinics could be
vulnerable.
According to Ziegler, the no-
tion of using lawsuits to curb or
stop abortions first emerged in
the early 1990s, when a Texas
pastor named Mark Crutcher
created a program called Spies
for Life that published manuals
showing people how to use the
legal system to go after abor-
tion clinics and providers. In
1999, Louisiana passed its own
law giving women who had
abortions the right to sue their
providers.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott showed off his signature when he signed a contentious bill on
voting requirements last week.
of color drive the state’s popula-
t i o n g r o w t h , d e m o g ra p h i c
trends that tend to favor Demo-
crats. But the GOP, holding the
pen to redraw the state’s politi-
cal districts in a decennial pro-
cess this fall, has the power to
counteract some of those ef-
fects with advantageous maps
that will stay in place for the
next decade.
It’s no secret that Texas is a
red state — no Democrat has
won statewide there since the
1990s — but as recently as two
years ago, there was no appe-
tite at the Capitol in Austin for
so-called “heartbeat” laws ban-
ning abortions after six weeks
of pregnancy, or permitless car-
ry of handguns. Those mea-
sures were filed, but didn’t gain
traction in the GOP-dominated
Legislature.
Analysts attribute that to the
2018 election, when Democrats
T h e B o s t o n
A rally in Austin on Sept. 1 protested the law, which effectively bars abortions starting around the sixth week of pregnancy.
State Senator Bryan
Hughes, the primary author of
the Texas law, has said his mod-
el for the law, known as SB 8,
was a local ordinance passed in
Waskom, Texas, in 2019 that
empowered residents to sue
anyone who performed an
abortion in the city or helped
someone attain one. Unlike SB
8, however, the Waskom law
was largely symbolic, given that
the city had no clinics that actu-
ally performed abortions.
What legal issues does
private enforcement raise?
T he Justice Depar tment
sued Texas on Thursday, argu-
ing that SB 8 was passed “in
open defiance of the Constitu-
tion” and Supreme Court cases
like Planned Parenthood v.
Casey and Roe v. Wade. But the
department’s 27-page com-
plaint took particular issue
with the law’s reliance on what
it called “bounty hunters,” say-
ing that empowering them to
enforce the law was an “unprec-
edented scheme to insulate the
made major gains in the State
House even as Beto O’Rourke
suffered a narrow loss to Sena-
tor Ted Cruz at the top of the
ticket. It gave way to a 2019 leg-
islative session foc used on
kitchen table issues such as
public education funding and
property tax cuts. Leaders tout-
ed bipartisanship and collabo-
ration; the state’s loudest con-
servative voices decried the
agenda as “purple.”
The opposite pattern
emerged during the Texas’ leg-
islative cycle this year, with
what longtime Texas pollster
Jim Henson called “a hit parade
of conservative causes fulfilled
beyond the wildest dreams of
most conservative activists.”
Solid Republican victories in
the 2020 elections left state
GOP leaders asserting they had
a mandate to pursue conserva-
tive causes. A new speaker took
G l o b e
state from responsibility.”
Moreover, officials claimed,
SB 8 had essentially frozen the
practice of abortion in Texas
and achieved its goal of stop-
ping the procedures without a
single private lawsuit having
been filed. After all, the com-
plaint pointed out, the mere
threat of litigation was enough
“to make it too risky for an
abortion clinic to operate” in
Texas.
The department’s legal case
relies on the argument that or-
dinary people, if and when they
do file suit against abortion
providers, will in effect be act-
ing as agents of the state of Tex-
as. What the government is ask-
ing for in its complaint
amounts to a federal injunction
barring everyone in the entire
state from filing suits against
abortion providers, which some
lawyers say could be a bit far-
fetched. Then again, it may not
be any more far-fetched than
SB 8 itself, which empowered
everyone in the entire state to
file suit.
LM OTERO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
control of the Texas House, the
Legislature’s more moderate
chamber, and was willing to
consider measures that had
been scuttled in the past. And
perhaps most important, ana-
lysts say, the prospect of prima-
r y challengers in 2022 had
some Republicans zealously
guarding their right flank.
Look no further than Re-
publican Governor Greg Ab-
bott, a sometimes inscrutable
and politically cautious former
judge and attorney general who
for decades has won his seats,
and avoided serious primary
challenges, by stockpiling tens
of millions of dollars in his
campaign war chest and taking
care to alienate few.
But his handling of the pan-
demic has brought constant
criticism from those on the left,
who want him to do more, and
those on the right, who say he’s
JAY JANNER/AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN VIA AP/FILE
Ultimately, legal scholars
said, SB 8 is also likely to be
challenged in another way. At
some point, an abortion provid-
er or someone else involved in
the process — say, a group that
funds abortions — could step
forward and willingly violate
the law as a calculated test case.
But that could take time and
have uncertain results.
“Whatever happens, it’s go-
ing to take a while,” Ziegler
said. “And in the meantime,
this law will be the status quo.”
Are other states adopting
similar laws?
In recent days, lawmakers
and executives in at least seven
states have said they are con-
sidering similar statutes. Last
week, Governor Kristi Noem of
South Dakota, a Republican,
said she had directed lawyers in
her office to review SB 8 “to
make sure we have the stron-
gest pro-life laws on the books.”
Around the same time, Wilton
Simpson, the Republican lead-
er of the Florida state Senate,
already done too much to shut-
ter the state. As Abbott shuns
new restrictions, banning gov-
ernment vaccine mandates and
fighting school mask require-
ments, more than 5,000 Texans
died of COVID-19 in a recent
one-month period.
Now, Abbott faces multiple
primary challengers, including
a former state senator who has
promised to “shut down the
border” and a former Florida
congressman and Texas GOP
chairman who in October led a
protest over COVID-19 restric-
tions on the lawn of the Gover-
nor’s Mansion.
Abbott has had to shift right
to defend himself — and poten-
tially to gear up for a 2024 pres-
idential bid, political watchers
said.
“He is somebody who shifts
based on the political circum-
stances of the day,” said Luke
Macias, a conservative political
consultant who is supporting
one of Abbott’s challengers.
Spokespeople for Abbott did
not respond to requests for
comment.
Texas Democrats had little
power to fight conservative pri-
orities, an impotence best dem-
onstrated by their dramatic,
improbable quorum break to
Washington, D.C., which de-
layed, but could not defeat, the
new voting restrictions.
They hope that Republicans
are punished at the ballot box
for that right turn. But it will be
hard for Democratic backlash
to crest without a credible can-
didate to carry it. So far, no ma-
jor Democrat has emerged to
run in the governor’s race.
Though state Democratic
leaders say the near-total abor-
tion ban will help them fund-
raise across the country, it re-
mains to be seen how voters in
the state will respond. The law
has ignited an uproar among
liberals, but does not appear far
out of step with the state’s Re-
publican primary electorate;
The Nation A9
said that members of his cham-
ber were already working on a
statute similar to the one in
Texas.
The private enforcement
mechanism was also inserted
into a new gun law in Missouri
that grants residents the power
to sue local law departments
for giving “material aid and
support” to federal agents for
perceived violations of the Sec-
ond Amendment. Under the
law, which the Justice Depart-
ment has challenged, Missouri-
ans could file suit to stop local
police officers from sharing da-
ta or conducting joint opera-
tions with federal agents work-
ing on gun cases.
While some on the left have
t a l ke d a b o u t t h e n o t i o n o f
drafting laws empowering peo-
ple to sue over issues they hold
dear — like stricter gun regula-
tions, for example — it has not
risen much so far beyond social
media chatter. For now, at least,
Democrats have not seized on
private civil enforcement as a
legal strategy.
April polling showed that 49
percent of registered Texas vot-
ers “somewhat” or “strongly”
support making abortion illegal
after six weeks of pregnancy ex-
cept in the case of a medical
emergency. Support for the re-
striction was even stronger
among Republicans.
Democrats hope that re-
gardless of how the law plays in
Texas, it will be enough to gal-
vanize voters in suburban
swing districts next year, when
control of the US House is at
stake.
“It will backfire for Republi-
cans in the midterms, but it
might be more on the national
level than in Texas,” said MJ
Hegar, an Air Force veteran
who was the 2020 Democratic
nominee for US Senate and lost
to John Cornyn.
Indeed, the ripple effects are
already being felt in Florida,
Arkansas, and South Dakota,
where some lawmakers hope to
put similarly constructed abor-
tion laws in place. The Texas
statute prohibits abortions af-
ter six weeks of pregnancy, be-
fore many people even know
they are pregnant, and empow-
ers private citizens to enforce it,
an odd legal structure that
makes it difficult to challenge
in court.
State Representative James
White, a Republican from reli-
ably Republican East Texas,
said his support for this year’s
conservative measures was less
about politics than about long-
held principles.
“I just follow the old Sam
Houston logic,” he said, refer-
ring to the maxim attributed to
the Texas Revolution leader:
“Do right and risk the conse-
quences.”
Still, White acknowledged,
in evaluating a vote, “the first
thing you always think about is,
‘Will I get reelected?’”
Emma Platoff can be reached at
emma.platoff@globe.com.
A10 Editorial T h e B o s t o n G l o b e M O N D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 1 3 , 2 0 2 1

Inbox

Removal of virtual school option would

Opinion
BOSTONGLOBE.COM/OPINION
force cruel choice on many parents
Your Sept. 7 editorial, “Approach virtual schooling with
care,” asserts that the risk of returning to in-person school-
ing is low because “children remain very unlikely to get seri- Editorial
ously ill or die.” For many par-
ents, especially those like us
Like countless who have children who are at
other parents,
we must now
high risk from COVID-19, this
statistical assurance is cold
comfort. It also ignores recent
It’s on the federal government
decide between
putting our
developments caused by the
more contagious Delta variant.
During the last week of August
to fix the problems at the
Bedford VA
alone, more than 250,000 US
child in harm’s children contracted COVID,
representing more than a quar-
way or losing ter of new cases. Schools across
her seat at the the country have been closing
epresentative Seth Moulton is right. It’s almost two weeks to respond to a voicemail request

due to outbreaks of the corona-
school. virus.
For 18 months, families
across the Commonwealth
worked in partnership with teachers to keep kids healthy
and safe while allowing them to stay connected to their
peers and school community. It was incredibly challenging,
but we did it. According to the Boston Public Schools’ own
data, many families still want a remote option, including a
higher percentage in the disability community and commu-
nities of color, which have borne a disparate burden from
the virus.
Last week, our 7-year-old told us she had a scary dream
in which students were sitting too close together in the class-
room. We share her fears, which are only heightened due to
her history of pulmonary disease. Like countless other par-
ents, we must now decide between putting her in harm’s way
or losing her seat at the school where she has been loved and
well supported since she was 3. This is a cruel choice to force
on parents, especially given that it rests on the false premise
that kids are not in real danger from COVID.
ROY KARP AND COURTNEY FEELEY KARP
Roslindale
The writers are founding members of MA Parents for Re-
mote Learning Options.
Housing equity bill is urgent to hold
pandemic-related suffering at bay
I applaud Timothy Scalona’s urgent call for the Legislature to
pass the COVID-19 housing equity bill (“The eviction crisis is
upon us — the Legislature must act,” Opinion, Sept. 9).
Action for Boston Community Development has worked
feverishly to meet the needs of our most vulnerable commu-
nities throughout a pandemic that has ravaged their health
and stability. While some area residents have emerged from
the worst of this protracted public health emergency, lower-
income people of color continue to be affected severely,
struggling with loss and trauma and facing crushing debt.
This legislation has several provisions that will hold suf-
fering at bay. That’s a critical point, because billions of dollars
in assistance is available, but shockingly, it has not made its
way to the people who need it.
An answer to this operations failure already exists. States
and localities scrambling to disburse these funds should turn
to the national network of community action agencies such
as ABCD and other housing nonprofits and antipoverty agen-
cies, which have programs in place to serve those in need
quickly, efficiently, and effectively.
The Legislature must pass this bill so that together we can
prevent the kind of anguish that will affect families for gener-
ations.
JOHN J. DREW
President and CEO
Action for Boston Community Development
Boston
Menino was committed
to lifting Boston’s schools
While the Globe’s recent editorial endorsing Andrea Camp-
bell for mayor of Boston was thoughtful and well-reasoned, it
got Boston history wrong when it implied that former mayor
Tom Menino was like other politicians in steering clear of the
problems in the city’s schools.
Menino stated in an early state of the city speech that he
wanted to be judged on progress in the schools. Unlike many
cities in the country, he made sure we held on to top-notch
superintendents, including the late Thomas Payzant. The de-
cade-long partnership of Menino and Payzant saw school
choice expand, arts programming and test scores soar, pilot
schools launched, high schools redesigned, safety increased,
dropout rates decreased, and the beginnings of universal pre-
school.
While the work of school system transformation was by
no means completed by the time Menino stepped down, as
someone who worked for him and who sent my three chil-
dren to the Boston Public Schools, I was continually amazed
at his bold, tenacious, and passionate commitment to educa-
tion.
Let us celebrate new leadership coming to the city while
we also honor those who took risks to lead for justice in the
past.
LAURIE SHERMAN
Brookline
R
“on the federal government” to fix the bu-
reaucratic blindness, poor management,
and cruel indifference to a missing-person
report that was brought to light by the
death last year of Tim White, a resident of the Bedford
Veterans Quarters. The incident should also prompt the
Biden administration to take a hard look at how to im-
prove the special police forces that patrol Veterans Af-
fairs centers, which count about 4,000 officers nation-
wide and had been singled out for poor governance
even before White’s death.
White, 62, went missing on May 13, 2020. His body,
clad in the clothes in which he disappeared — a Red Sox
jersey, jeans, and a baseball cap — was eventually found
by another resident on June 12, in an emergency exit
stairwell, about 60 feet from the
room in which he lived. Follow-
ing news reports about the inci- The findings show what
dent, Moulton, then joined by
Representatives Lori Trahan and happens when bureaucracy
Katherine Clark, and Senators Ed loses touch with common-
Markey and Elizabeth Warren,
called on the Department of Vet- sense thinking, not to
erans Affairs Office of the Inspec- mention basic law
tor General to investigate the cir-
cumstances of White’s death. enforcement principles.
The findings show what hap-
pens when bureaucracy loses
touch with common-sense thinking, not to mention ba-
sic law enforcement principles. Because White was not
a patient of the VA medical center — but a resident of a
VA-owned building that was leased and run by a non-
profit organization — the VA police force in charge of
security at the campus did not search the building
where he went missing. According to the report, this
was largely due to a decision made several months be-
fore by Shawn Kelley, then chief of the Bedford VA po-
lice, that the residential property did not fall under VA
police purview. So the chief instructed his officers to
stop patrolling it.
According to the IG’s report, that decision was
wrong — with deadly consequences for White. “Mr.
White’s disappearance did not receive the attention it
deserved from VA, an agency that is required by federal
law to provide for the protection of all persons on its
property,” wrote assistant inspector general Katherine
Smith in a report issued by the VA Office of Inspector
General.
According to the report, White began living at the
Bedford Veterans Quarters in January 2020. The facility
is operated by a nonprofit, Caritas Communities Inc.,
under a VA lease program. Caritas first reported his dis-
appearance to the Bedford Police Department. No one
— including Caritas management, Bedford police, and
VA police and staff — ever searched the emergency
stairwell in which White was later found dead. After be-
ing notified of White’s disappearance, the VA police de-
partment’s effort to locate him was limited to posting a
photo of White on a department bulletin board and
sending an e-mail to officers. It took the VA police chief
from the Bedford town police to use police dogs
to search for White, and no such search was ever con-
ducted.
What’s really damning is that the VA knew long be-
fore White’s death that VA police forces in general were
often poorly managed, and that the police force at Bed-
ford VA in particular had a history of problems. Previ-
ous issues with the Bedford VA police department, re-
ported by the Globe’s Andrea Estes in 2019, include a
captain who staggered drunk into a Herb Chambers
dealership, which former VA police officers said was
symptomatic of a dysfunctional workplace: “The place
is just chaos, the worst place I ever worked in my life”
one former officer told Estes. “I’d rather go back into
combat and worry about getting shot than go back to
work there.” A 2015 report found
rampant policy violations under
Kelley, who resigned in February
2021. In addition, a former chief
was imprisoned for plotting to rape
and kill women and children. Trag-
edies like what happened to White
are what can occur when officials
ignore blinking red lights that sig-
nal an agency isn’t up to the job.
Concerning the disappearance
of White, the IG report concluded,
“there was widespread confusion
regarding the physical area covered by the Caritas lease
and VA’s related obligations.” To address it, the report
offers seven recommendations. They include the imple-
mentation of policies and procedures that require VA
police and other VHA staff to conduct searches for all
persons who are reported missing; clarification of VA
police responsibilities when it comes to searches for
anyone reported missing; the need to get approval to
exclude a building or area from search; and making
sure leases with the VA are clear on maintenance and
security obligations; the details on-site and discussed
with staff; and an annual performance review.
Moulton, who is a veteran, believes even more over-
sight is needed. He is cosponsoring legislation with
Representative Kathleen Rice of New York that would
extend subpoena power of the inspector general to peo-
ple who no longer work at the VA (such as Kelley, the
former police chief) and another bill that would require
the VA to publish regular activity summaries, statistics,
and contact information. He is also talking to the VA
about implementing policies that would give local po-
lice jurisdiction over VA police in life and death situa-
tions and funding for such investigations.
The fact that any of this is needed illustrates the very
sorry state of the VA police, which Moulton said raises
serious questions about whether that force should even
exist. However, given the entrenched state of the federal
bureaucracy, eliminating the VA police force might be
harder than fixing it. So it is now up to Secretary of Vet-
erans Affairs Denis McDonough not only to order up
such an overhaul, but also make sure it happens —
starting at the Bedford VA.
A resident went missing at the Bedford
Veterans Affairs Hospital in 2020. His
body was eventually found in an
emergency exit stairwell, about 60 feet
from the room in which he lived.

MATTHEW J. LEE/GLOBE STAFF

It’s been a Boston mayoral contest

with many positives
No matter what happens on Tuesday in the Boston mayoral
race, I’d like to thank the candidates and wish them well. I
abcde Fou n d e d 1 8 7 2
SENIOR DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR
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I’ve especially enjoyed this race because it is one of the few President, Organizational Design and Strategic
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Boston candidates can so easily descend. I hope whoever Editor Editorial Page Editor SENIOR ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITORS Peggy Byrd Chief Marketing Officer
wins in the two-person contest in November will look first to Cynthia Needham Express Desk Tom Brown Vice President, Consumer Analytics

his or her fellow mayoral hopefuls to fill appointed leader- JENNIFER PETER JASON M. TUOHEY Gregory H. Lee Jr. Talent and Community

ship jobs. I want them all helping to steer our city into its fu- Managing Editor Managing Editor, Digital Mary Creane Production
Alan Wirzbicki Editorial Page
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KAREN CORD TAYLOR Charles H. Taylor Founder & Publisher 1873-1921 William O. Taylor Publisher 1978-1997 P. Steven Ainsley Publisher 2006-2009 Laurence L. Winship Editor 1955-1965
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