AND FALL BEHIND TENANTS PACK IN AS JOBS DRY UP,...2021/02/06 · Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters are...
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U(D547FD)v+"!.!/!?!= The United States remains the most advanced cyber superpower on earth, but the hard truth is that it is also the world’s most targeted country. And hackers are exploiting its hubris. PAGE 1 SUNDAY BUSINESS America the Vulnerable Squabbling among brothers and sisters is to be expected, experts say. Parents, here are some suggestions for limiting the screaming matches. PAGE 6 AT HOME Soothe the Savage Siblings As the walls of the ancient Iraqi city continue to crumble, preservationists are racing to save its past. PAGE 9 INTERNATIONAL 9-12 Babylon’s Battle Against Time Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters are called upon whenever energetic music with joy and gravitas is required. PAGE 6 ARTS & LEISURE Masters of Rock, and Catharsis President Biden wants the vice presi- dent, Kamala Harris, to have a major role. But for now he does not intend to assign her a specific portfolio. PAGE 13 NATIONAL 13-22 Harris, Front and Center Dolly Parton’s working women’s an- them has been reframed for a website builder’s Super Bowl ad. Working “5 to 9” — song of the side hustle. PAGE 1 ‘9 to 5’ for the Gig Economy Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody’s pandemic-era posts led to unlikely social media stardom. PAGE 5 A Marriage Thriving Online The shorter, colder days can be a downer, but some people experience serious seasonal depression. PAGE 4 More Than the Winter Blues The pandemic has pushed many wom- en with families to the brink. They’re tired and want someone to listen. SPECIAL SECTION Who Comforts the Mothers? Widespread poverty is helping to fuel an illegal market for vital organs, a portal to new misery for Afghanistan’s most vulnerable. PAGE 11 Kidney Trade Preys on Afghans Star players have criticized the league’s handling of the pandemic, especially plans for the All-Star Game. PAGE 29 SPORTS 26-29 Boos in the N.B.A. Over Safety Ala. Alaska Ariz. Ark. Calif. Colo. Fla. Ga. Hawaii Idaho Ill. Ind. Iowa Kan. Ky. La. Maine Mich. Minn. Miss. Mo. Mont. Neb. Nev. N.M. N.Y. N.C. N.D. Ohio Okla. Ore. Pa. N.J. Del. R.I. Mass. Conn. N.H. Vt. S.C. S.D. Tenn. Texas Utah Va. Wash. W.Va. Wis. Wyo. Ala. Alaska Ariz. Ark. Calif. Colo. Fla. Ga. Hawaii Idaho Ill. Ind. Iowa Kan. Ky. La. Maine Mich. Minn. Miss. Mo. Mont. Neb. Nev. N.M. N.Y. N.C. N.D. Ohio Okla. Ore. Pa. N.J. Del. R.I. Mass. Conn. N.H. Vt. S.C. S.D. Tenn. Texas Utah Va. Wash. W.Va. Wis. Wyo. –20% Smaller drop Bigger drop Lower Higher –40% –60% –80% Percent drop in average new cases from winter peak Half 1x 2x 3x Average daily new cases compared with previous peak U.S. Coronavirus Cases Are Down but Eclipse Spring and Summer Peaks New coronavirus cases are down 50 percent since the highest peak, on Jan. 8. But some parts of the country are still reporting new cases at a rate higher than during the worst peak they experienced before Oct. 1 last year. Article and chart, Page 7. Note: Changes are based on 7-day rolling average of daily cases. Source: New York Times database of reports from state and local health agencies. | Note: All change figures use 7-day rolling averages. Winter peak is the highest daily case average in each county after Oct. 1. Previous peak is the highest daily case average in each county before Oct. 1. Some parts of the country peaked in the spring, summer or both. THE NEW YORK TIMES At first, the offer seemed gener- ous. Erica Sklar was in a homeless shelter and needed a more stable place to live. Victor Rivera, who oversaw a network of shelters, in- cluding the one where she was staying, said he had a solution: a spare apartment for her at his home in the Bronx. But after Ms. Sklar moved in, she said, she realized that Mr. Ri- vera, whose nonprofit organiza- tion is one of the largest operators of homeless shelters in New York, had other intentions. In Decem- ber 2016, he asked to see a leaking ceiling in her bedroom, then turned off the lights, pushed her against a wall and began fondling her, according to Ms. Sklar and two friends in whom she confided. He demanded she give him oral sex, suggesting he would evict her if she refused, she said. Desperate to hold on to her apartment, she complied. Ms. Sklar is one of 10 women who said they had endured as- sault or unwanted sexual atten- tion from Mr. Rivera, The New York Times found. Even as some women have sounded warnings about Mr. Rivera — including two who were given payments by his organization that ensured their si- lence — his power and influence have only grown during New York’s worst homeless crisis in decades. His organization, the Bronx Parent Housing Network, has re- ceived more than $274 million from the city to run homeless shel- ters and provide services just since 2017. The pandemic has in- tensified Mr. Rivera’s importance: As the coronavirus swept through the homeless population, the city gave his group $10 million to pro- vide rooms where infected people could isolate and recover. Women reported Mr. Rivera’s behavior to a state agency, a city hotline and, in one instance, the police. But he maintained his perch atop the organization. One employee of the Bronx Par- ent Housing Network said that Mr. Rivera, the chief executive, forced her to give him oral sex in 2016 and then fired her, according to police records, interviews and other documents. In 2018, another employee accused Mr. Rivera of groping her and whispering sexu- al comments in her ear. After both women separately complained to a state human rights agency, the Bronx Parent Housing Network paid them a total of $175,000 in set- tlements that prohibited them from speaking publicly about their allegations, according to in- terviews and records reviewed by The Times. Five of the women were living in Mr. Rivera’s homeless shelters, or had recently left, when Mr. Ri- vera approached them for sex, they said. Bronx Shelters’ Boss Rose Despite Claims of Abuse City Gave $274 Million to Nonprofit Led by Man Accused of Sexual Predation By AMY JULIA HARRIS Victor Rivera at the Bronx Parent Housing Network. JASON COHEN/BRONX TIMES Continued on Page 18 Football fans know what old quarterbacks look like as they fade away. It is not like Tom Brady. Old quarterbacks hobble around the field, propped on stiff hips and achy knees, their arms ragged and their faces craggy. They look like survivors, elevated in myth but diminished in stature. Vaults and minds are filled with clips of Johnny Unitas, Joe Na- math, Brett Favre and all the other creaky quarterbacks who tempted the fates of time and tra- dition, shunning retirement until deep — maybe too deep — into Hall-of-Fame careers. When John Elway played his last game, winning a Super Bowl, he was 38. Peyton Manning did the same at 39. Rigid and worn, older quarterbacks usually move as if they might be unable to tie the laces on their cleats. Then there is Brady, a cyborg. He is 43. Does he have a wrinkle on his face? Is his arm bionic? Are his joints made of rubber? He probably can tie his own laces while doing downward dog. “You look at this guy and think, ‘Wow, it’s absolutely incredible,” said Gordon Lithgow, a professor and vice president of the Buck In- stitute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif. “Is he actually aging at a slower rate than other peo- ple?” That is the question football fans are asking ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl LV between Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs. The answer appears to be yes, at least in football terms. The hard question is why. “There’s no way that elite ath- letes are immune to aging,” Lith- gow said. “You can see quite a pre- cipitous drop-off in performance — even though they are way above average, it’s still happening at the same rates.” Brady, who is in his first season with Tampa Bay after 20 years with the New England Patriots, will be the oldest player to partici- A Super Bowl Sideshow: See the Ageless Man! By JOHN BRANCH Tampa Bay’s Tom Brady, 43, is the only quarterback to start a Super Bowl after age 40. He is about to do it for the third time. MARK LOMOGLIO/ASSOCIATED PRESS Continued on Page 28 The red balloons rose over an anxious city. They floated by the hundreds above the golden spire of Sule Pagoda in Yangon, the commercial capital of Myanmar, and drifted over an avenue where, more than a dozen years ago, sol- diers shot citizens marching peacefully for democracy. The balloons hovering over Yangon were released by activ- ists, expressing their hope that the elected leaders detained in a military coup d’état would be free again. The color — later pink, after red balloons sold out — symbol- ized the National League for De- mocracy party, which had, until Monday, led the civilian govern- ment with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi at its head. By Saturday, balloons were not enough, and the familiar footfall of protesters resounded in the city. As armed police officers stood be- hind riot shields, marchers called for “democracy to rise, military dictatorship to fall” and sang pro- test anthems that once brought prison sentences. With the generals’ abrupt seizure of power, the people of Myanmar are again in the mili- tary’s cross hairs — and increas- ingly shut off from the world. Al- though the putsch, led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the army chief, was itself bloodless, the mili- tary has resorted to familiar tac- tics in the days since: dozens of ar- rests, beatings by mysterious Return of Military’s Old Tactics Meets Resistance in Myanmar By HANNAH BEECH Continued on Page 12 LOS ANGELES — President Bi- den’s first immigration crisis has already begun as thousands of families have surged toward the southwestern border in recent weeks, propelled by expectations of a friendlier reception and by a change in Mexican policy that makes it harder for the United States to expel some of the mi- grants. More than 1,000 people who had been detained after crossing have been released into the country in recent days in a swift reversal from the Trump administration’s near shutdown of the border. Many more people are gathering on the Mexican side, aggravating conditions there and testing America’s ability and willingness to admit migrants during a pan- demic. New families every day have been collecting in Mexican border towns, sleeping in the streets, un- der bridges and in dry ditches, ac- cording to lawyers and aid groups working along the border. This past Thursday in Mexicali, across from Calexico, Calif., desperate migrants could be seen trying to scale a border fence. A migrant camp in Matamoros, Mexico, just across a bridge from Texas, has boomed to 1,000 people over the past few weeks. To guard against the coronavi- rus, health authorities in San Diego have arranged housing for hundreds of arriving migrants in a downtown high-rise hotel, where they are being quarantined before being allowed to join family or friends in the interior of the United States. “There has been a significant increase in asylum seekers arriv- ing, and we know that the num- bers are only going to keep rising dramatically,” said Kate Clark, senior director for immigration services at Jewish Family Service of San Diego, which has been pro- viding the families clothes and personal hygiene items and help- ing them arrange onward travel. The surge poses the first major test of Mr. Biden’s pledge to adopt a more compassionate policy along the border with Mexico. The prospect of large numbers of migrants entering the country during a pandemic could create a strong public backlash for Mr. Bi- den as his administration takes steps to undo the strict policies put into place by his predecessor. A New Administration, and a New Border Crisis By MIRIAM JORDAN and MAX RIVLIN-NADLER Thousands Hoping for Looser Policy Arrive Continued on Page 14 In Washington’s respectable circles, Michael T. Flynn, the for- mer national security adviser, is a discredited and dishonored ex- general, a once-esteemed military intelligence officer who went off the rails ideologically and then was fired a mere 24 days into the Trump administration for lying to the F.B.I. about contacts with the Russian ambassador. As if he cared. Where others see disgrace, Mr. Flynn, 62, has found redemption. Recast by former President Don- ald J. Trump’s most ardent sup- porters as a MAGA martyr, Mr. Flynn has embraced his role as the man who spent four years un- justly ensnared in the Russia in- vestigation. He was one of the most extreme voices in Mr. Trump’s 77-day push to overturn the election, a cam- paign that will be under scrutiny as the former president’s second impeachment trial gets underway this coming week. Mr. Flynn went so far as to suggest using the mili- tary to rerun the vote in crucial battleground states. At one point, Mr. Trump even floated the idea of bringing Mr. Flynn back into the administration, as chief of staff or Flynn Is Back, Selling Anger And T-Shirts By MATTHEW ROSENBERG Continued on Page 20 As the pandemic enters its sec- ond year, millions of renters are struggling with a loss of income and with the insecurity of not knowing how long they will have a home. Their savings depleted, they are running up credit card debt to make the rent, or accruing months of overdue payments. Families are moving in together, offsetting the cost of housing by finding others to share it. The nation has a plague of hous- ing instability that was festering long before Covid-19, and the pan- demic’s economic toll has only made it worse. Now the financial scars are deepening and the dis- ruptions to family life growing more severe, leaving a legacy that will remain long after mass vacci- nations. Even before last year, about 11 million households — one in four U.S. renters — were spending more than half their pretax in- come on housing, and overcrowd- ing was on the rise. By one esti- mate, for every 100 very low-in- come households, only 36 afford- able rentals are available. Now the pandemic is adding to the pressure. A study by the Fed- eral Reserve Bank of Philadelphia showed that tenants who lost jobs in the pandemic had amassed $11 billion in rental arrears, while a broader measure by Moody’s An- alytics, which includes all delin- quent renters, estimated that as of January they owed $53 billion in back rent, utilities and late fees. Other surveys show that families are increasingly pessimistic about making their next month’s rent, and are cutting back on food and other essentials to pay bills. On Friday, as monthly jobs data provided new evidence of a stalling recovery, President Biden AS JOBS DRY UP, TENANTS PACK IN AND FALL BEHIND A HOUSING EMERGENCY Affordable Rentals Rare — Eviction Bans Give Only Fleeting Aid By CONOR DOUGHERTY Continued on Page 6 Michael Patrick F. Smith PAGE 4 SUNDAY REVIEW Late Edition VOL. CLXX . . . No. 58,962 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2021 Today, breezy, colder, snow, 3 to 6 inches, slippery travel, high 33. To- night, turning clear, brisk, low 19. To- morrow, sunshine, patchy clouds, high 28. Weather map, Page 16. $6.00
Transcript of AND FALL BEHIND TENANTS PACK IN AS JOBS DRY UP,...2021/02/06 · Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters are...
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C M Y K Nxxx,2021-02-07,A,001,Bs-4C,E2
U(D547FD)v+"!.!/!?!=
The United States remains the mostadvanced cyber superpower on earth,but the hard truth is that it is also theworld’s most targeted country. Andhackers are exploiting its hubris. PAGE 1
SUNDAY BUSINESS
America the VulnerableSquabbling among brothers and sistersis to be expected, experts say. Parents,here are some suggestions for limitingthe screaming matches. PAGE 6
AT HOME
Soothe the Savage SiblingsAs the walls of the ancient Iraqi citycontinue to crumble, preservationistsare racing to save its past. PAGE 9
INTERNATIONAL 9-12
Babylon’s Battle Against Time
Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters are calledupon whenever energetic music withjoy and gravitas is required. PAGE 6
ARTS & LEISURE
Masters of Rock, and CatharsisPresident Biden wants the vice presi-dent, Kamala Harris, to have a majorrole. But for now he does not intend toassign her a specific portfolio. PAGE 13
NATIONAL 13-22
Harris, Front and CenterDolly Parton’s working women’s an-them has been reframed for a websitebuilder’s Super Bowl ad. Working “5 to9” — song of the side hustle. PAGE 1
‘9 to 5’ for the Gig Economy
Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody’spandemic-era posts led to unlikelysocial media stardom. PAGE 5
A Marriage Thriving Online
The shorter, colder days can be adowner, but some people experienceserious seasonal depression. PAGE 4
More Than the Winter Blues
The pandemic has pushed many wom-en with families to the brink. They’retired and want someone to listen.
SPECIAL SECTION
Who Comforts the Mothers?
Widespread poverty is helping to fuelan illegal market for vital organs, aportal to new misery for Afghanistan’smost vulnerable. PAGE 11
Kidney Trade Preys on Afghans
Star players have criticized the league’shandling of the pandemic, especiallyplans for the All-Star Game. PAGE 29
SPORTS 26-29
Boos in the N.B.A. Over Safety
Ala.
Alaska
Ariz.Ark.
Calif. Colo.
Fla.
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Kan.Ky.
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Pa.N.J.
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–20%
Smaller drop Bigger drop
Lower Higher
–40% –60% –80%
Percent drop in average new cases from winter peak
Half 1x 2x 3x
Average daily new cases compared with previous peak
U.S. Coronavirus Cases Are Down but Eclipse Spring and Summer PeaksNew coronavirus cases are down 50 percent since the highest peak, on Jan. 8. But
some parts of the country are still reporting new cases at a rate higher than during the worst peak they experienced before Oct. 1 last year. Article and chart, Page 7.
Note: Changes are based on7-day rolling average of daily cases.
Source: New York Times database of reports from state and local health agencies. | Note: All change figures use 7-day rolling averages. Winter peak is the highest daily case average in each county after Oct. 1. Previous peak is the highest daily case average in each county before Oct. 1. Some parts of the country peaked in the spring, summer or both. THE NEW YORK TIMES
At first, the offer seemed gener-ous. Erica Sklar was in a homelessshelter and needed a more stableplace to live. Victor Rivera, whooversaw a network of shelters, in-cluding the one where she wasstaying, said he had a solution: aspare apartment for her at hishome in the Bronx.
But after Ms. Sklar moved in,she said, she realized that Mr. Ri-vera, whose nonprofit organiza-tion is one of the largest operatorsof homeless shelters in New York,had other intentions. In Decem-ber 2016, he asked to see a leakingceiling in her bedroom, thenturned off the lights, pushed heragainst a wall and began fondlingher, according to Ms. Sklar andtwo friends in whom she confided.
He demanded she give him oralsex, suggesting he would evict herif she refused, she said. Desperateto hold on to her apartment, shecomplied.
Ms. Sklar is one of 10 womenwho said they had endured as-sault or unwanted sexual atten-tion from Mr. Rivera, The New
York Times found. Even as somewomen have sounded warningsabout Mr. Rivera — including twowho were given payments by hisorganization that ensured their si-lence — his power and influencehave only grown during NewYork’s worst homeless crisis indecades.
His organization, the BronxParent Housing Network, has re-ceived more than $274 millionfrom the city to run homeless shel-ters and provide services justsince 2017. The pandemic has in-tensified Mr. Rivera’s importance:As the coronavirus swept throughthe homeless population, the citygave his group $10 million to pro-vide rooms where infected peoplecould isolate and recover.
Women reported Mr. Rivera’sbehavior to a state agency, a cityhotline and, in one instance, thepolice. But he maintained hisperch atop the organization.
One employee of the Bronx Par-ent Housing Network said thatMr. Rivera, the chief executive,forced her to give him oral sex in2016 and then fired her, accordingto police records, interviews andother documents. In 2018, anotheremployee accused Mr. Rivera ofgroping her and whispering sexu-al comments in her ear. After bothwomen separately complained toa state human rights agency, theBronx Parent Housing Networkpaid them a total of $175,000 in set-tlements that prohibited themfrom speaking publicly abouttheir allegations, according to in-terviews and records reviewed byThe Times.
Five of the women were livingin Mr. Rivera’s homeless shelters,or had recently left, when Mr. Ri-vera approached them for sex,they said.
Bronx Shelters’ Boss RoseDespite Claims of Abuse
City Gave $274 Million to Nonprofit Ledby Man Accused of Sexual Predation
By AMY JULIA HARRIS
Victor Rivera at the BronxParent Housing Network.
JASON COHEN/BRONX TIMES
Continued on Page 18
Football fans know what oldquarterbacks look like as theyfade away. It is not like Tom Brady.
Old quarterbacks hobblearound the field, propped on stiffhips and achy knees, their armsragged and their faces craggy.They look like survivors, elevatedin myth but diminished in stature.
Vaults and minds are filled withclips of Johnny Unitas, Joe Na-math, Brett Favre and all theother creaky quarterbacks whotempted the fates of time and tra-dition, shunning retirement untildeep — maybe too deep — intoHall-of-Fame careers.
When John Elway played his
last game, winning a Super Bowl,he was 38. Peyton Manning didthe same at 39. Rigid and worn,older quarterbacks usually moveas if they might be unable to tie thelaces on their cleats.
Then there is Brady, a cyborg.He is 43. Does he have a wrinkleon his face? Is his arm bionic? Arehis joints made of rubber? Heprobably can tie his own laceswhile doing downward dog.
“You look at this guy and think,‘Wow, it’s absolutely incredible,”said Gordon Lithgow, a professorand vice president of the Buck In-stitute for Research on Aging inNovato, Calif. “Is he actually agingat a slower rate than other peo-ple?”
That is the question footballfans are asking ahead of Sunday’sSuper Bowl LV between Brady’sTampa Bay Buccaneers and theKansas City Chiefs.
The answer appears to be yes,at least in football terms. The hardquestion is why.
“There’s no way that elite ath-letes are immune to aging,” Lith-gow said. “You can see quite a pre-cipitous drop-off in performance— even though they are wayabove average, it’s still happeningat the same rates.”
Brady, who is in his first seasonwith Tampa Bay after 20 yearswith the New England Patriots,will be the oldest player to partici-
A Super Bowl Sideshow: See the Ageless Man!By JOHN BRANCH
Tampa Bay’s Tom Brady, 43, is the only quarterback to start aSuper Bowl after age 40. He is about to do it for the third time.
MARK LOMOGLIO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Continued on Page 28
The red balloons rose over ananxious city. They floated by thehundreds above the golden spireof Sule Pagoda in Yangon, thecommercial capital of Myanmar,and drifted over an avenue where,more than a dozen years ago, sol-diers shot citizens marchingpeacefully for democracy.
The balloons hovering overYangon were released by activ-ists, expressing their hope thatthe elected leaders detained in amilitary coup d’état would be freeagain. The color — later pink, afterred balloons sold out — symbol-ized the National League for De-mocracy party, which had, untilMonday, led the civilian govern-ment with Daw Aung San Suu Kyiat its head.
By Saturday, balloons were notenough, and the familiar footfall ofprotesters resounded in the city.As armed police officers stood be-hind riot shields, marchers calledfor “democracy to rise, militarydictatorship to fall” and sang pro-test anthems that once broughtprison sentences.
With the generals’ abruptseizure of power, the people ofMyanmar are again in the mili-tary’s cross hairs — and increas-ingly shut off from the world. Al-though the putsch, led by SeniorGen. Min Aung Hlaing, the armychief, was itself bloodless, the mili-tary has resorted to familiar tac-tics in the days since: dozens of ar-rests, beatings by mysterious
Return of Military’s Old TacticsMeets Resistance in Myanmar
By HANNAH BEECH
Continued on Page 12
LOS ANGELES — President Bi-den’s first immigration crisis hasalready begun as thousands offamilies have surged toward thesouthwestern border in recentweeks, propelled by expectationsof a friendlier reception and by achange in Mexican policy thatmakes it harder for the UnitedStates to expel some of the mi-grants.
More than 1,000 people who hadbeen detained after crossing havebeen released into the country inrecent days in a swift reversalfrom the Trump administration’snear shutdown of the border.Many more people are gatheringon the Mexican side, aggravatingconditions there and testingAmerica’s ability and willingnessto admit migrants during a pan-demic.
New families every day havebeen collecting in Mexican bordertowns, sleeping in the streets, un-der bridges and in dry ditches, ac-cording to lawyers and aid groupsworking along the border. Thispast Thursday in Mexicali, acrossfrom Calexico, Calif., desperatemigrants could be seen trying toscale a border fence. A migrantcamp in Matamoros, Mexico, justacross a bridge from Texas, hasboomed to 1,000 people over thepast few weeks.
To guard against the coronavi-rus, health authorities in SanDiego have arranged housing forhundreds of arriving migrants in adowntown high-rise hotel, wherethey are being quarantined before
being allowed to join family orfriends in the interior of theUnited States.
“There has been a significantincrease in asylum seekers arriv-ing, and we know that the num-bers are only going to keep risingdramatically,” said Kate Clark,senior director for immigrationservices at Jewish Family Serviceof San Diego, which has been pro-viding the families clothes andpersonal hygiene items and help-ing them arrange onward travel.
The surge poses the first majortest of Mr. Biden’s pledge to adopta more compassionate policyalong the border with Mexico.
The prospect of large numbersof migrants entering the countryduring a pandemic could create astrong public backlash for Mr. Bi-den as his administration takessteps to undo the strict policiesput into place by his predecessor.
A New Administration, and a New Border CrisisBy MIRIAM JORDAN
and MAX RIVLIN-NADLERThousands Hoping for
Looser Policy Arrive
Continued on Page 14
In Washington’s respectablecircles, Michael T. Flynn, the for-mer national security adviser, is adiscredited and dishonored ex-general, a once-esteemed militaryintelligence officer who went offthe rails ideologically and thenwas fired a mere 24 days into theTrump administration for lying tothe F.B.I. about contacts with theRussian ambassador.
As if he cared.Where others see disgrace, Mr.
Flynn, 62, has found redemption.Recast by former President Don-ald J. Trump’s most ardent sup-porters as a MAGA martyr, Mr.Flynn has embraced his role asthe man who spent four years un-justly ensnared in the Russia in-vestigation.
He was one of the most extremevoices in Mr. Trump’s 77-day pushto overturn the election, a cam-paign that will be under scrutinyas the former president’s secondimpeachment trial gets underwaythis coming week. Mr. Flynn wentso far as to suggest using the mili-tary to rerun the vote in crucialbattleground states. At one point,Mr. Trump even floated the idea ofbringing Mr. Flynn back into theadministration, as chief of staff or
Flynn Is Back,Selling Anger
And T-ShirtsBy MATTHEW ROSENBERG
Continued on Page 20
As the pandemic enters its sec-ond year, millions of renters arestruggling with a loss of incomeand with the insecurity of notknowing how long they will have ahome. Their savings depleted,they are running up credit carddebt to make the rent, or accruingmonths of overdue payments.Families are moving in together,offsetting the cost of housing byfinding others to share it.
The nation has a plague of hous-ing instability that was festeringlong before Covid-19, and the pan-demic’s economic toll has onlymade it worse. Now the financialscars are deepening and the dis-ruptions to family life growingmore severe, leaving a legacy thatwill remain long after mass vacci-nations.
Even before last year, about 11million households — one in fourU.S. renters — were spendingmore than half their pretax in-come on housing, and overcrowd-ing was on the rise. By one esti-mate, for every 100 very low-in-come households, only 36 afford-able rentals are available.
Now the pandemic is adding tothe pressure. A study by the Fed-eral Reserve Bank of Philadelphiashowed that tenants who lost jobsin the pandemic had amassed $11billion in rental arrears, while abroader measure by Moody’s An-alytics, which includes all delin-quent renters, estimated that as ofJanuary they owed $53 billion inback rent, utilities and late fees.Other surveys show that familiesare increasingly pessimistic aboutmaking their next month’s rent,and are cutting back on food andother essentials to pay bills.
On Friday, as monthly jobs dataprovided new evidence of astalling recovery, President Biden
AS JOBS DRY UP,TENANTS PACK INAND FALL BEHIND
A HOUSING EMERGENCY
Affordable Rentals Rare— Eviction Bans Give
Only Fleeting Aid
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
Continued on Page 6
Michael Patrick F. Smith PAGE 4SUNDAY REVIEW
Late Edition
VOL. CLXX . . . No. 58,962 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2021
Today, breezy, colder, snow, 3 to 6inches, slippery travel, high 33. To-night, turning clear, brisk, low 19. To-morrow, sunshine, patchy clouds,high 28. Weather map, Page 16.
$6.00
