G.O.P. LEADERS BEGIN TO BREAK WITH TRUMP

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 58,937

? 2021 The New York Times Company

NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2021

Late Edition

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G.O.P. LEADERS BEGIN TO BREAK WITH TRUMP

McConnell Is Said to Welcome Effort to Impeach -- Cheney to Vote Yes

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

With days left in his term, President Trump visited a section of the border wall under construction near Alamo, Texas, on Tuesday.

U.S. Hastens Rioters May Face Sedition and Murder Charges

Vaccinations

As Toll Rises

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and ABBY GOODNOUGH

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration, racing a surging Covid-19 death toll, instructed states on Tuesday to immediately begin vaccinating every American 65 and older, as well as tens of millions of adults with medical conditions that put them at higher risk of dying from coronavirus infection.

The federal government will release all available doses of the vaccine instead of holding about half in reserve for second doses, Alex M. Azar II, the health secretary, said, adding that states should start allowing pharmacies and community health centers, which serve largely poor populations, to administer the shots.

The announcement came with a cudgel: States will lose their allocations, Mr. Azar said, if they do not use up doses quickly. And starting in two weeks, state vaccine allocations will be based on the size of a state's population of people 65 and older, not on its general adult population. It was unclear, however, whether that would hold past Jan. 20, when President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office.

"This next phase reflects the urgency of the situation we face," Mr. Azar said. "Every vaccine dose that is sitting in a warehouse rather than going into an arm could mean one more life lost or one more hospital bed occupied."

Mr. Biden's transition team had said just days ago that the incoming administration would release almost all doses from the government's reserves. Mr. Azar responded at the time that doing so would jeopardize the system set up to ensure second doses would be available.

Tuesday's reversal reflected the slow start of the vaccine rollout, though the pace has picked up considerably over the past week. Some states, including Florida, Alaska, Michigan and Texas, have already begun vaccinating people 65 and older -- who number more than 50 million nationwide -- leading to long lines and confusion over how to receive a shot.

The new policy could exacer-

Continued on Page A5

This article is by Michael D. Shear, Adam Goldman and Katie Benner.

WASHINGTON -- Federal law enforcement officials vowed on Tuesday to accelerate a nationwide manhunt for hundreds of people who committed serious crimes during last week's assault on the Capitol, even as new evidence surfaced that the F.B.I., police and White House were warned of potential violence that day.

Michael R. Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, called the investigation into the attack on the Capitol "unmatched" in scope and said it had already resulted in more than 170 cases involving 100,000 digital tips. He pledged that prosecutors could

Agencies Had Warnings

Mob Planned Violent

Action, F.B.I. Says

file charges of seditious conspiracy, murder and other serious felonies in the weeks ahead.

"The Capitol grounds outside and inside are essentially a crime scene," Mr. Sherwin said during a news conference in Washington, adding that "we have literally thousands of potential witnesses" around the country.

His remarks came as evidence mounted that before the grim events at the Capitol -- in which lawmakers and others hid from an angry, surging mob and five peo-

ple died in the riot and nearby tumult -- top officials in government had reason to be deeply concerned about the possibility of violence. The indications included a pair of F.B.I. reports that warned of war and blowing up a building at a Midwest statehouse, and a White House meeting where President Trump and top military officials discussed deploying the National Guard.

In one case, F.B.I. officials acknowledged that agents in Virginia warned a day earlier about a threat of violent attacks aimed at lawmakers at the Capitol. The warning, which officials said was shared with police and others in Washington included reports of violent language, mentioned people sharing a map of tunnels and

Continued on Page A17

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KIANA HAYERI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Masouma Tajik, 22, a student in Kabul, carries a note that starts, "If anything happens to me."

In Kabul, Slips of Paper to Avert Nameless Death

By DAVID ZUCCHINO and FATIMA FAIZI

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Tareq Qassemi, a bookseller, lost a close friend to a suicide bombing that killed 80 civilians in Kabul one scorching summer day. Four years later, he still mourns his friend, but also the nameless Afghans who perished with him.

"Their bodies were shattered -- the only thing that remained was a shoe or a bag or a pen," he recalled.

Mr. Qassemi, 28, now carries a

Preparing for Random and Routine Carnage

special slip of paper, known as a pocket note, that contains his full name, his blood type and the phone numbers of family members -- like a homemade, civilian version of a soldier's dog tags. He knows too well how fragile and ephemeral life in Kabul can be, and he refuses to become an unidentified victim.

"I could get killed on my way to work or in a car or anywhere, and no one knows about me and they will look for my body everywhere," he said. "I could just vanish."

The bearers of pocket notes hope the slips of paper will help emergency medical workers identify an injured person's blood type for a lifesaving transfusion. They might also help authorities quickly summon family members for precious final moments with a mortally wounded loved one. And they could help identify a badly

Continued on Page A10

This article is by Jonathan Martin, Maggie Haberman and Nicholas Fandos.

WASHINGTON -- Senator Mitch McConnell has concluded that President Trump committed impeachable offenses and believes that Democrats' move to impeach him will make it easier to purge Mr. Trump from the party, according to people familiar with Mr. McConnell's thinking.

The private assessment of Mr. McConnell, the most powerful Republican in Congress, emerged on the eve of a House vote to formally charge Mr. Trump with inciting violence against the country for his role in whipping up a mob of his supporters who stormed the Capitol while lawmakers met to formalize President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory.

In a sign that the dam could be breaking against Mr. Trump in a party that has long been unfailingly loyal to him, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 Republican in the House, announced her intention to support the single charge of high crimes and misdemeanors, as other party leaders declined to formally lobby rank-and-file lawmakers to oppose it.

"The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack," Ms. Cheney said in a statement. "There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution."

Even before Mr. McConnell's position was known and Ms. Cheney had announced her plans, advisers to the Senate Republican leader had already privately speculated that a dozen Republican senators -- and possibly more -- could ultimately vote to convict Mr. Trump in a Senate trial that would follow his impeachment by the House. Seventeen Republicans would be needed to join Democrats in finding him guilty. After that, it would take a simple majority to disqualify Mr. Trump from ever again holding public office.

In the House, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader and one of Mr. Trump's

SHELDON ADELSON, 1933-2021

Casino Mogul

Who Lavished

Cash on G.O.P.

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Sheldon G. Adelson, a cabdriver's son who built the world's largest empire of casinos and resort hotels in Las Vegas, Macau, Singapore and other gambling meccas and used his vast wealth to promote right-wing political agendas in America and Israel, died on Monday at his home in Malibu, Calif. He was 87.

The cause was complications of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of blood cancer, his company, Las Vegas Sands, said on Tuesday in a statement.

Mr. Adelson grew up tough, a Depression-era street urchin who hawked newspapers and fought roughnecks in Boston. Unfazed by risks, rivals or the law, he built a fortune estimated by Forbes in 2014 at $36.6 billion and by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $40.8 billion, making him the world's eighth or ninth wealthiest person.

By March 2016, Forbes said Mr. Adelson's net worth had dropped to $25.2 billion, largely because of gaming revenue declines at his giant casino in Macau, on China's south coast, where the swarms of

Continued on Page A24

most steadfast allies in Congress, has asked other Republicans whether he ought to call on Mr. Trump to resign in the aftermath of last week's riot at the Capitol, according to three Republican officials briefed on the conversations. While he has said he is personally opposed to impeachment, he and other party leaders did not mount an official effort to defeat the push, and Mr. McCarthy was working on Tuesday to build support for a censure resolution to rebuke the president for his actions.

Taken together, the stances of Congress's two top Republicans -- neither of whom has said publicly that Mr. Trump should resign or be impeached -- reflected the politically fraught and fast-moving nature of the crisis the party faces. After four years of backing the president at nearly every turn and

STEFANI REYNOLDS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Senator Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in Congress.

refusing to condemn even his most extreme behavior, party leaders were racing to distance themselves from a president many of them now regard as a political and constitutional threat.

Mr. McCarthy backed the electoral challenges Republicans lodged last week during Congress's electoral count, voting twice to overturn Mr. Biden's victory in key swing states even after the siege at the Capitol. Mr. McConnell had broken with Mr. Trump just as the rioters were breaching the building, warning of a descent into a "death spiral" for democracy if the efforts were to prevail.

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$5 Million Haul Lifts Executive In Mayor's Race

By JEFFERY C. MAYS As thousands of restaurants, Midtown office towers and Broadway theaters lay empty last summer, leaders of New York's business community decided enough was enough: They wrote a scathing letter expressing no confidence in Mayor Bill de Blasio, and intensified efforts to find someone of their liking to replace him. They drafted Raymond J. McGuire, one of the longest-serving and highest-ranking Black executives on Wall Street, to run for mayor, and promised their assistance. Now, three months after announcing his candidacy, that support has come: Mr. McGuire's campaign will report this week that it has already raised just over $5 million. It was an unusually high sum for such a short period, approaching the fund-raising totals of established candidates like Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president. The amount is likely to jolt the race, pushing Mr. McGuire to the forefront of the free-for-all Democratic primary contest, placing pressure on Mr. Adams and Mr.

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TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-8

Cultural Crisis for Tribes

The virus is robbing American Indians

of precious bonds and repositories of

language and tradition.

PAGE A6

Doctor's Death Is Investigated

A Florida physician developed an unusual blood disorder shortly after he received the Pfizer vaccine. PAGE A4

NATIONAL A12-23

Abortion Restriction Revived

The Supreme Court reinstated a re-

quirement that women seeking medica-

tion abortions must pick up a pill in

person.

PAGE A22

Possible Charges Over Flint

Rick Snyder, the governor of Michigan during the water crisis, faced reports that charges were imminent. PAGE A22

INTERNATIONAL A9-11

Land Rights in South Korea

Hundreds of families revived a town after the Korean War. Years later, they still dream of owning the land. PAGE A9

BUSINESS B1-7

Locked Out of Their Millions

Bitcoin owners are getting rich. But what happens when they can't tap that wealth because they forgot the password to their digital wallet? PAGE B1

Power He's Not Afraid to Use

As Budget Committee chairman, Senator Bernie Sanders will help shepherd Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s agenda. PAGE B1

SPORTSWEDNESDAY B8-11

Strange Year, Familiar Champ

Alabama's victory on Monday night

gave Coach Nick Saban a record for

college football titles.

PAGE B9

FOOD D1-8

Sizing Up a Chilly Experience

Pete Wells tries outdoor dining in January, eating hot chicken in a greenhouse and pot roast in a beach cabana. PAGE D1

A Delightful Taste of Miami

Plaza Seafood, in the city's Little Santo Domingo neighborhood, offers great food and a sense of community. PAGE D4

ARTS C1-6

He's Still Got the Moves

Mads Mikkelsen, once a professional dancer, ends the film "Another Round" with a wild, drunken dance. PAGE C1

New York's Plan for the Arts

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said the cultural scene must be revived to ensure the city remains a vital destination. PAGE C1

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

Jamelle Bouie

PAGE A27

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