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When someone in the grip of amental health emergency be-haves erratically in New YorkCity, it is the Police Departmentthat is often called in. When thereare serious disciplinary problemsin the schools, or when homelesspeople are found sleeping in thesubways, police officers are askedto take over.

The Police Department’spurview is so vast that elite offi-cers trained for hostage situationssometimes find themselves as-signed to animal control duties,chasing a runaway deer throughthe Bronx or corralling an es-caped boa constrictor, as they didrecently at the height of the coro-navirus pandemic.

For decades, a succession ofcity governments have turned tothe department as a catchall fix

for many of society’s ills, outsideof traditional crime-fighting. Thathas meant deploying a force of36,000 officers with a paramilitaryapproach that at times can be un-necessarily confrontational.

Now, after weeks of protests

against police brutality spurredby the killing of George Floyd inMinneapolis, a political move-ment has gathered momentum tocurtail the New York Police De-partment’s size and missioncreep.

Calls to “defund the police”have resonated with the CityCouncil, where the speaker hasproposed cutting $1 billion fromthe department’s $6 billion budget

Does N.Y.P.D. Get Too Much? Perhaps It’s Asked to Do Too MuchBy MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ

and ALI WATKINSMoney to Fight Crime,

and to Chase Deer

Continued on Page A18

ROGELIO V. SOLIS/ASSOCIATED PRESS

State senators embraced after passing a bill to remove an emblem of the Confederacy. Page A19.Retiring a Flag in Mississippi

WASHINGTON — UnitedStates intelligence officers andSpecial Operations forces in Af-ghanistan alerted their superiorsas early as January to a suspectedRussian plot to pay bounties to theTaliban to kill American troops inAfghanistan, according to officialsbriefed on the matter. They be-lieved at least one U.S. troop deathwas the result of the bounties, twoof the officials said.

The crucial information that ledthe spies and commandos to focuson the bounties included the re-covery of a large amount of Amer-ican cash from a raid on a Talibanoutpost that prompted suspicions.Interrogations of captured mili-tants and criminals played a cen-tral role in making the intelligencecommunity confident in its as-sessment that the Russians hadoffered and paid bounties in 2019,another official has said.

Armed with this information,military and intelligence officialshave been reviewing Americanand other coalition combat casu-alties over the past 18 months todetermine whether any were vic-tims of the plot. Four Americanswere killed in combat in early2020, but the Taliban have not at-tacked American positions since aFebruary agreement to end thelong-running war in Afghanistan.

The details added to the pictureof the classified intelligence as-sessment, which The New YorkTimes reported Friday has beenunder discussion inside theTrump administration since atleast March, and emerged as theWhite House confronted a grow-ing chorus of criticism on Sundayover its apparent failure to autho-rize a response to Russia.

Mr. Trump defended himself bydenying the Times report that hehad been briefed on the intelli-gence, expanding on a similarWhite House rebuttal a day earli-er. But leading congressionalDemocrats and some Republicansdemanded a response to Russiathat, according to officials, the ad-ministration has yet to authorize.

The president “needs to imme-diately expose and handle this,and stop Russia’s shadow war,”Representative Adam Kinzinger,Republican of Illinois and a mem-ber of the House Foreign AffairsCommittee, wrote on Twitter.

Appearing on the ABC program“This Week,” Speaker NancyPelosi said she had not beenbriefed on the intelligence assess-ment and had asked for an imme-diate report to Congress. She ac-cused Mr. Trump of wanting “to ig-nore” any charges against Russia.

“Russia has never gotten overthe humiliation they suffered inAfghanistan, and now they aretaking it out on us, our troops,” shesaid of the Soviet Union’s bloody

CASH DISCOVERYTIPPED OFF SPIES

ABOUT BOUNTIES

WARNINGS IN EARLY 2020

Russian Plot Is Suspectedin at Least One U.S.

Military Death

This article is by Eric Schmitt,Adam Goldman and Nicholas Fan-dos.

Continued on Page A12

CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

People celebrated a milestone for Pride in the pouring rain, though festivities were scaled back because of the pandemic. Page A13.50 Years of Pride

Just after Donald J. Trump waselected president, Barack Obamaslumped in his chair in the OvalOffice and addressed an aidestanding near a conspicuouslyplaced bowl of apples, emblem of ahealthy-snacking policy soon tobe swept aside, along with somuch else.

“I am so done with all of this,”Mr. Obama said of his job, accord-ing to several people familiar withthe exchange.

Yet he knew, even then, that a

conventional White House retire-ment was not an option. Mr.Obama, 55 at the time, was stuckholding a baton he had wanted topass to Hillary Clinton, and sad-dled with a successor whose fixa-tion on him, he believed, wasrooted in a bizarre personal ani-mus and the politics of racial back-lash exemplified by the birther lie.

“There is no model for my kindof post-presidency,” he told theaide. “I’m clearly renting space in-side the guy’s head.”

Which is not to say that Mr.Obama was not committed to hispre-Trump retirement vision — a

placid life that was to consist ofwriting, sun-flecked fairways, pol-icy work through his foundation,producing documentaries withNetflix and family time aplenty ata new $11.7 million spread onMartha’s Vineyard.

Still, more than three years af-ter his exit, the 44th president of

the United States is back on a po-litical battlefield he longed toleave, drawn into the fight by anenemy, Mr. Trump, who is hellbenton erasing him, and by a friend,Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is equallyintent on embracing him.

The stakes of that re-engage-ment were always going to behigh. Mr. Obama is nothing if notprotective of his legacy, especiallyin the face of Mr. Trump’s many at-tacks. Yet interviews with morethan 50 people in the former presi-dent’s orbit portray a conflictedcombatant, trying to balance deep

Obama Is Drawn Back to a Political Battlefield He Wanted to QuitBy GLENN THRUSH and ELAINA PLOTT

Tougher Line on TrumpMarks New Phase inUnique Retirement

Continued on Page A16

WASHINGTON — Sidney Pow-ell, a firebrand lawyer whose pug-nacious Fox News appearanceshad earned her numerous privatephone conversations with Presi-dent Trump, sent a letter last yearto Attorney General William P.Barr about her soon-to-be new cli-ent, Michael T. Flynn.

Asking for “utmost confidenti-ality,” Ms. Powell told Mr. Barrthat the case against Mr. Flynn,the president’s former national se-curity adviser who had pleadedguilty to lying to the F.B.I.,smacked of “corruption of our be-loved government institutions forwhat appears to be political pur-poses.” She asked the attorneygeneral to appoint an outsider toreview the case, confident thatsuch scrutiny would justify end-ing it.

Mr. Barr did what she wanted.He appointed a U.S. attorney sixmonths later to scour the Flynncase file with a skeptical eye fordocuments that could be turnedover as helpful to the defense. Ulti-mately, Mr. Barr directed the de-partment to drop the charge, oneof his numerous steps undercut-ting the work of the Russia inves-tigation and the special counsel,Robert S. Mueller III.

The private correspondence be-tween Ms. Powell and Mr. Barr,disclosed in a little-noticed courtfiling last fall, was the first step to-

Flynn’s LawyerEnlisted Allies

In High PlacesThis article is by Mark Mazzetti,

Charlie Savage and Adam Gold-man.

Continued on Page A14

Kim Victory was paralyzed on abed and being burned alive.

Just in time, someone rescuedher, but suddenly, she was turnedinto an ice sculpture on a fancycruise ship buffet. Next, she was asubject of an experiment in a labin Japan. Then she was being at-tacked by cats.

Nightmarish visions like theseplagued Ms. Victory during herhospitalization this spring for se-vere respiratory failure caused bythe coronavirus. They made herso agitated that one night, shepulled out her ventilator breath-ing tube; another time, she fell offa chair and landed on the floor ofthe intensive care unit.

“It was so real, and I was soscared,” said Ms. Victory, 31, nowback home in Franklin, Tenn.

To a startling degree, many co-ronavirus patients are reporting

As Body Fights,Virus SplintersPatients’ Minds

By PAM BELLUCK

Delirium overtook Kim Victoryduring a 3-week hospital stay.

WILLIAM DeSHAZER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A7

HOUSTON — Melissa Estradahad tried to be so careful about thecoronavirus. For months she kepther three children at home, andshe always wore a mask at thegrocery store. She and her daugh-ter even stitched face coveringsfor relatives and friends.

But over the weekend Ms.Estrada, 37, was fighting the virusat Houston Methodist Hospital af-ter a week of treatments that in-cluded an experimental drug,steroids, intensive care and highdoses of oxygen. She probablycontracted the virus while attend-ing a dinner with relatives whohad also been cautious, she said.Within days, all four adults andseveral children who had been atthe gathering tested positive forthe coronavirus.

“It was really, really scary,” Ms.Estrada said of her illness. Sheworried constantly about leavingher children motherless. “Youhear about it and you think it’s theolder people or the people with un-derlying issues,” she said. “AndI’m healthy. I don’t understandhow I got this bad.”

Coronavirus cases are risingquickly in Houston, as they are inother hot spots across the Southand the West. Harris County,which includes most of Houston,has been averaging more than1,100 new cases each day, amongthe most of any American county.Just two weeks ago, HarrisCounty was averaging about 313new cases daily.

Measures to cope with thesurge and to plan for its peak wereevident over the weekend atMethodist, which called nurses towork extra shifts, brought newlaboratory instruments on line totest thousands more samples aday and placed extra hospitalbeds in an empty unit about to be

Houston SurgeFills HospitalsWith the Young

Race to Find Bed SpaceBefore the Peak Hits

By SHERI FINK

Continued on Page A8

A new documentary followed the cam-paigns of female politicians of color andfound much reason for hope. Above,Representative Rashida Tlaib. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Change at the Ballot BoxFlorida workers are nervous as DisneyWorld and other destinations start toreopen amid surging infections. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-9

Hoping for MagicThe Indigenous leader and activistAllan Adam’s beating by the policespurred outrage in Canada. PAGE A9

INTERNATIONAL A9-12

‘They Did It to the Chief’

The president later deleted the tweet,which showed a heated exchange be-tween retirees, with one Trump sup-porter yelling “White power!” PAGE A15

NATIONAL A13-19

Trump Retweets Racist PostMajor League Baseball is set to have a60-game schedule. But that is not likelyto help with labor strife or with ques-tions of a sport’s relevance. PAGE D1

SPORTSMONDAY D1-6

A Season Under Dark Clouds

Worldwide racism protests have fo-cused attention on the country’s long-held biases over skin tone. PAGE A10

India Grapples With ColorismThe flights, which could begin as soonas Monday, are a major step in gettingBoeing’s plane flying again. PAGE B1

737 Max Will Get Test Flights

Li Zhensheng’s powerful photographsremain a rare visual testament to thebrutality of Mao Zedong’s CulturalRevolution. He was 79. PAGE B10

OBITUARIES B10-11

He Captured Horrors in China

Jamelle Bouie PAGE A20

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A20-21A fivefold increase over two weeksprompted officials to impose limits forthe coming July 4 holiday. PAGE A7

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-8

‘Scary’ Surge in Florida

President Trump has used judicialappointments to his advantage. ShouldDemocrats run on the courts? PAGE A15

Leveraging Judges

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,739 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, MONDAY, JUNE 29, 2020

Today, clouds and sunshine, thun-derstorms, high 88. Tonight, partlycloudy, low 70. Tomorrow, partlysunny, showers or thunderstormshigh 83. Weather map, Page B12.

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