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In California, countless redwoods, giant sequoias and Joshua trees have perished in wildfires this year. The blackened wreckage sends

a clear message: These trees are in the fight of their lives.

They Are Among the World’s Oldest Living Things. The Climate Crisis Is Killing Them.

By JOHN BRANCH | Photographs by MAX WHITTAKER | Page A21

ADEM ALTAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Graves at a burial site for Covid-19 victims in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, amid the virus’s resurgence.A Pandemic’s Landscape of Death

The pandemic is pummelingNew York City’s commercial realestate industry, one of its maineconomic engines, threateningthe future of the nation’s largestbusiness districts as well as thecity’s finances.

The damage caused by theemptying of office towers and thepermanent closure of many storesis far more significant than manyexperts had predicted early in thecrisis.

The powerful real estate indus-try is so concerned that the shiftsin workplace culture caused bythe outbreak will become long-lasting that it is promoting a strik-ing proposal: to turn more thanone million square feet of Manhat-tan office space into housing.

Nearly 14 percent of officespace in Midtown Manhattan isvacant, the highest rate since2009. On Madison Avenue in Mid-town, one of the most affluent re-tail stretches in the country, morethan a third of all storefronts areempty, double the rate from fiveyears ago.

The collapse of commercial realestate is another major burden forNew York, since the industry pro-vides a significant portion of thecity’s tax revenues.

Filings to erect new buildings inthe city, a key indicator of industry

Hard QuestionsFor a MidtownLeft Withering

By MATTHEW HAAGand DANA RUBINSTEIN

A shuttered business in Mid-town, where offices lay vacant.

GABBY JONES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A7

HOUSTON — Over the last 135years, Exxon Mobil has survivedhostile governments, ill-fated in-vestments and the catastrophicExxon Valdez oil spill. Through itall, the oil company made bundlesof money.

But suddenly Exxon is slippingbadly, its long latent vulnerabili-ties exposed by the coronaviruspandemic and technological shiftsthat promise to transform the en-ergy world because of growingconcerns about climate change.

The company, for decades oneof the most profitable and valu-able American businesses, lost$2.4 billion in the first nine monthsof the year, and its share price isdown about 35 percent this year.In August, Exxon was tossed outof the Dow Jones industrial aver-age, replaced by Salesforce, a soft-ware company. The change sym-bolized the passing of the batonfrom Big Oil to an increasinglydominant technology industry.

“Is Exxon a survivor?” askedJennifer Rowland, an energy ana-lyst at Edward Jones. “Of coursethey are, with great global assets,great people, great technicalknow-how. But the question reallyis, can they thrive? There is a lot ofskepticism about that right now.”

Exxon is under growing pres-sure from investors. D.E. Shaw, alongtime shareholder that re-cently increased its stake in Exx-on, is demanding that the com-pany cut costs and improve its en-vironmental record, according toa person briefed on the matter. An-other activist investor, Engine No.1, is pushing for similar changes inan effort backed by the CaliforniaState Teachers Retirement Sys-tem and the Church of England.And on Wednesday, the New YorkState comptroller, Thomas P. Di-Napoli, said the state’s $226 billionpension fund would sell shares inoil and gas companies that did notmove fast enough to reduce emis-sions.

Of course, every oil company isstruggling with the collapse in en-

As Oil DemandDeclines, ExxonIs at Crossroads

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

Continued on Page A25

DALLAS — Lillian Blancas wasa fighter, a proud daughter of im-migrants, part of the first genera-tion in her family to attend collegeand a lawyer in El Paso who wason the brink of fulfilling her dreamof becoming a judge.

Instead, Ms. Blancas, 47, diedalone in her hospital room thisweek, just before a runoff electionon Saturday in which she was thefavorite, becoming part of a grimcascade of Americans who havedied from the coronavirus as itrages out of control. More than3,000 deaths were reported onWednesday for the first time sincethe pandemic began.

“We’re completely devastated.Heartbroken. We can’t find a rea-son,” said her sister, Gabriela Tie-

mann, who recalled staringthrough the glass doors of Ms.Blancas’s hospital room, wishingthat she could stroke her hair onelast time.

The new daily death record —3,055 individuals who blew outbirthday candles, made mistakes,laughed and cried before suc-cumbing to the virus — far sur-passed the spring peak of 2,752deaths on April 15 and amountedto a stunning embodiment of thepandemic’s toll. In a single day, thecountry, numbed and divided, lostmore Americans to the coronavi-rus than were killed in the Sept. 11

terror attacks or the attack onPearl Harbor.

Catherine Troisi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at theUTHealth School of Public Healthin Houston, said she had criedwatching the faces of coronavirusvictims on “PBS NewsHour” andexpected the death toll to acceler-ate, in part because current num-bers likely do not reflect infectionsfrom Thanksgiving gatherings.

“The worst is yet to come in thenext week or two or three,” shesaid. “What happens after that isgoing to depend on our behaviortoday.”

The most recent deaths come asthe country is recording more newcases and hospitalizations thanever before. More than 290,000people have died in the UnitedStates during the pandemic.

With a current average of morethan 2,200 deaths per day,

Record U.S. Deaths Create a Wave of DevastationThis article is by Sarah Mervosh,

Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio andNeil MacFarquhar.

Daily Toll Tops 3,000,but Experts WarnWorst Is to Come

Continued on Page A8

Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccinepassed a critical milestone onThursday when a panel of expertsformally recommended that theFood and Drug Administrationauthorize the vaccine. The agencyis likely to do so within days, giv-ing health care workers and nurs-ing home residents first priority tobegin receiving the first shotsearly next week.

The F.D.A.’s vaccine advisorypanel, composed of independentscientific experts, infectious dis-ease doctors and statisticians,voted 17 to 4, with one member ab-staining, in favor of emergencyauthorization for people 16 andolder. With rare exceptions, theF.D.A. follows the advice of its ad-visory panels.

With this formal blessing, thenation may finally begin to slowthe spread of the virus just as in-fections and deaths surge, reach-ing a record of more than 3,000daily deaths on Wednesday. TheF.D.A. is expected to grant anemergency use authorization onSaturday, according to people fa-miliar with the agency’s planning,though they cautioned that last-minute legal or bureaucratic re-

quirements could push the an-nouncement to Sunday or later.

The initial shipment of 6.4 mil-lion doses will leave warehouseswithin 24 hours of being clearedby the F.D.A., according to federalofficials. About half of those doseswill be sent across the country,and the other half will be reservedfor the initial recipients to receivetheir second dose about threeweeks later.

The arrival of the first vaccinesis the beginning of a complex,monthslong distribution plan co-ordinated by federal and localhealth authorities, as well as largehospitals and pharmacy chains,that if successful, will help returna grieving and economically de-pressed country back to somesemblance of normal, maybe bysummer.

“With the high efficacy andgood safety profile shown for ourvaccine, and the pandemic essen-tially out of control, vaccine intro-duction is an urgent need,”Kathrin Jansen, a senior vicepresident and the head of vaccineresearch and development at Pfi-zer, said at the meeting.

The vote caps a whirlwind yearfor Pfizer and its German partner

PFIZER’S VACCINECLEARS A BIG STEPTOWARD APPROVAL

F.D.A. Authorization Is Expected Soon,as Caseloads Continue to Soar

This article is by Katie Thomas,Noah Weiland and Sharon LaFraniere.

Continued on Page A8

The president-elect chose Su-san Rice to lead the Domestic Pol-icy Council and Denis McDon-ough for V.A. secretary. Page A19.

Two More Biden Picks

WASHINGTON — President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is facingpressure from congressionalDemocrats to cancel student loandebt on a vast scale, quickly andby executive action, a campaignthat will be one of the first tests ofhis relationship with the liberalwing of his party.

Mr. Biden has endorsed cancel-ing $10,000 in federal student debtper borrower through legislation,and insisted that chipping away atthe $1.7 trillion in loan debt held bymore than 43 million borrowers isintegral to his economic plan. ButDemocratic leaders, backed bythe party’s left flank, are pressingfor up to $50,000 of debt relief perborrower, executed on Day 1 of hispresidency.

More than 200 organizations —including the American Federa-tion of Teachers, the N.A.A.C.P.and others that were integral tohis campaign — have joined thepush.

The Education Department iseffectively the country’s largestconsumer bank and the primarylender, since 2010, for higher edu-cation. It owns student loans total-ing $1.4 trillion, so forgiveness ofsome of that debt would be a rapidinjection of cash into the pocketsof many people suffering from theeconomic effects of the pandemic.

“There are a lot of people whocame out to vote in this electionwho frankly did it as their last shotat seeing whether the govern-ment can really work for them,”said Representative PramilaJayapal, Democrat of Washingtonand the chairwoman of the Con-gressional Progressive Caucus.“If we don’t deliver quick relief, it’sgoing to be very difficult to get

Left Is PushingBiden to Slash

Student Debts

This article is by Erica L. Green,Luke Broadwater and Stacy Cowley.

Continued on Page A19

Without government aid, dire predic-tions of economic strife are comingtrue. Now, the virus surge’s toll on jobsis what one economist calls “a slow-moving disaster.” PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-6

Jobless Claims JumpHealth officials warned that the numberof daily cases could soon reach recordhighs, and said the latest wave was byfar the hardest to control. PAGE A4

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-8

South Korea Is Battling a SurgeOver 70 farm workers were killed byBoko Haram militants, who claimedthey were informers. PAGE A16

INTERNATIONAL A10-16

A Massacre in Nigeria

Town squares in Germany stand emptyof the usual lights as the pandemic hasquashed Christmas markets. PAGE A10

A Holiday Less BrightTwo shows by Futura, who initially wonfame by painting subway cars, are hisfirst in New York in 30 years. PAGE C1

Graffiti King Returns to Roots

Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin andGeorgia urged the Supreme Court to re-ject a bid to undo the election. PAGE A18

NATIONAL A17-25

Blue States Attack G.O.P. Suit Federal and state cases against thesocial network are far from a slamdunk. The standards of proof and thecomplexities of antitrust laws are formi-dable. PAGE B1

Facebook’s Antitrust Fortress

The federal tax investigation into hisson will test Biden’s commitment toindependent law enforcement. PAGE A20

Political Peril or Distraction?

Paul Krugman PAGE A26

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

Breaking with Olympic guidelines, theU.S. federation announced it would notpenalize athletes who participate inpeaceful demonstrations. PAGE B8

No Longer Protesting Protests

Looking for ideas for the voraciousreaders on your gift list? Our editorshave some great suggestions. PAGE C12

WEEKEND ARTS C1-14

10 Can’t-Miss BooksDr. Vivek Murthy, the nominee forsurgeon general, played a decisive rolein the decision to cancel the N.C.A.A.basketball tournaments in March as thepandemic struck. PAGE B8

SPORTSFRIDAY B8-9

A Steady Hand in a Crisis

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 58,904 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2020

Today, partly sunny skies, mild.High 54. Tonight, partly cloudy. Low46. Tomorrow, mostly cloudy, stay-ing mild, periodic light rain. High 54.Weather map appears on Page B12.

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