as vaccine refusers dig in many rush to get boosters

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BEIRUT, Lebanon — For a manwho has spent the last decade bat-tling armed rebels, being shunnedin international forums andwatching a brutal civil war dis-mantle his economy, the past fewweeks have been good to Presi-dent Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

Senior officials from Lebanonappealed for his help with chronicelectricity cuts. His economy min-ister rubbed shoulders with hiscounterpart from the United ArabEmirates at a trade expo in Dubai.The United States, which hasheavily penalized him and his as-sociates, backed a plan to revive agas pipeline through his territory.And he spoke by phone with KingAbdullah II of Jordan, his neigh-bor to the south, for the first timein 10 years.

Syria is still shattered — with itspeople mired in poverty, millionsof refugees in neighboring statesstill afraid to go home and largeswaths of territory still beyondthe state’s control. But across theMiddle East there is a sense thatMr. al-Assad — long known for

In Broken Syria,Assad Steps In

From the ColdBy BEN HUBBARD

Years of war have not toppledPresident Bashar al-Assad.

LOUAI BESHARA/A.F.P. — GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page A5

Vaccinated people have beenburning up the phone lines at thecommunity health center in ruralFranklin, La., clamoring for thenewly authorized Covid boostershot.

But only a trickle of people havebeen coming in for their initialdoses, even though the rate of fullvaccination in the area is stillscarcely 39 percent.

The dichotomy illustrates oneof the most frustrating problemsfacing public health officials atthis stage of the pandemic: Al-most all the eligible adults who re-main unvaccinated in the UnitedStates are hard-core refusers, andthe arrival of boosters is makingefforts to coax them as well asthose who are still hesitating evenmore difficult. In the Septembervaccine monitor survey from theKaiser Family Foundation, 71 per-cent of unvaccinated respondentssaid the need for boosters indi-cated that the vaccines were notworking.

“This vaccine has tested me likenothing before and I’ve been do-ing this for 40 years,” said Dr.Gary Wiltz, director of the Frank-lin health center. “I can’t tell youhow many people we’ve tried tocajole into taking it.”

In some ways the Covid vaccinelandscape reflects greatprogress: Millions of holdoutshave decided to get vaccinatedover the past couple months,many prodded at the last minuteby mandates or anxiety over thehighly transmissible Delta vari-ant. (Three unvaccinated peoplewho showed up for shots in Frank-

lin the other morning came be-cause each knew someone whohad recently died from Covid.)The decline of new cases recentlyin many states is another markerof the success of the vaccine cam-paigns, public health officials say.

But millions of adults are notcovered by mandates. Experts invaccine behavior fear that thecountry is bumping up against theceiling of persuadable people, onethat is significantly lower than thethreshold needed for broad immu-nity from Delta and, possibly, fu-ture variants.

“One day we just hit a wall,” saidDr. Steven Furr, who practicesfamily medicine in rural Jackson,Ala., where he has even madehouse calls to give patients theirCovid shots. “We had vaccinatedeverybody who wanted to be vac-cinated and there was nobodyleft.”

About 56 percent of the U.S.population is fully vaccinated, alevel that exceeds some early esti-mates about what it could take toachieve so-called herd immunityagainst the coronavirus. That per-centage will surely rise once theshots are authorized for childrenunder 12. But Delta is so conta-gious that experts have revisedtheir optimum coverage esti-mates to 90 percent or higher.

According to the Kaiser FamilyFoundation’s vaccine surveys,those who say they will never getthe vaccine — the “definitely nots”— have held steady for months be-tween 15 and 12 percent of re-spondents. The rising vaccination

Many Rush to Get BoostersAs Vaccine Refusers Dig In

Health Officials Say That After Months ofStrong Progress, ‘We Just Hit a Wall’

By JAN HOFFMAN

Continued on Page A15

When the Biden administrationlooked for ways to pay for thepresident’s expansive social pol-icy bill, it proposed raising reve-nue by cracking down on $7 tril-

lion in unpaid taxes, mostly fromwealthy Americans and busi-nesses.

To help find those funds, the ad-ministration wants banks to givethe Internal Revenue Service newdetails on their customers andprovide data for accounts with to-tal annual deposits or withdraw-

als worth more than $600. Thathas sparked an uproar amongbanks and Republican lawmak-ers, who say giving the I.R.S. suchpower would be an enormousbreach of privacy and govern-ment overreach.

Banks and their trade groupsare running advertising and let-

ter-writing campaigns to raiseawareness — and concern —about the proposal. As a result,banks from Denver to Philadel-phia say they are being delugedwith calls, emails and in-personcomplaints from both savers andsmall-business owners worried

Banks Rouse Customers Against Biden Plan to Give Data to I.R.S.

By KATE KELLYand ALAN RAPPEPORT

Continued on Page A14

BRENT McDONALD/THE NEW YORK TIMES

To fight the giant Dixie fire, California launched a military-style operation. Experts wonder if the approach is sustainable. Page A10.Costly Battle With a Megafire

HILARY SWIFT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Jubilant runners and spectators celebrated the return of the Boston Marathon on Monday. Page B8.In Boston, ‘We’re Back!’

All Tanisha Johnson wantedwas for the pain to go away.

Doctors had offered little hopefor her intractable migraines. Butat Beth Israel Medical Center inNew York, Ricardo Cruciani, whohad a reputation as a brilliant painphysician, was warm and charm-ing and prescribed powerful opi-oids, Ms. Johnson recalled in aninterview.

When he put his arm aroundher, she thought, “Finally, a doctorwho cares.”

Over the next few months, thedoctor increased the doses andadded medications. As Ms. John-son became dependent on thedrugs, he became more ag-gressive, groping her and mastur-

bating in front of her, she said.Then he forced her to perform oralsex.

When she resisted, he withheldrefills of her prescriptions. “Thefirst week of opioid withdrawalfeels like death,” Ms. Johnsonsaid.

She was not Mr. Cruciani’s onlyvictim. But even as complaintsfrom patients mounted, the doctorwas able to move from job to job,securing positions at hospitals inthree states over the course of a

decade. He was finally chargedwith sexual assault in Pennsylva-nia, registering as a sex offenderand surrendering his medical li-cense in a plea agreement in 2017.

He still faces criminal chargesin New York and New Jersey. Atthe moment, Mr. Cruciani is freeon $1 million bail.

His case illustrates failures thatpermeate oversight of the medicalprofession, in which physicianswield enormous power withinhospitals, misconduct is under-reported and often glossed over,and institutional employers areseldom held to account.

At least 150 young women havesaid they were abused over thecourse of nearly two decades byLawrence Nassar, the doctor for

Years of Abuse Claims, but Doctor Kept WorkingBy RONI CARYN RABIN ‘A Culture of Silence’ at

Hospitals as WomenReported Assaults

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WASHINGTON — On July 28,Diana Toebbe posted a Facebookmessage looking for a babysitterto take care of her children earlyon the coming Saturday morningfor five to six hours.

Later the post, visible only tofriends, was updated with theword “*FOUND*.” And on thatSaturday, Ms. Toebbe accompa-nied her husband, Jonathan, tosouth-central Pennsylvania.

Unbeknown to Ms. Toebbe, sheand her husband were beingwatched by the F.B.I. as they lefttheir home in Annapolis, Md. Andthe bureau’s agents continued towatch in Pennsylvania as Jona-than Toebbe removed from hisshorts pocket a 32-gigabyte mem-ory card hidden in a sealed Band-Aid wrapper, which he then, ac-cording to court papers, placed ina container set up by an under-cover F.B.I. operative.

The Toebbes, accused by theU.S. government of trying to sellsome of America’s most closelyguarded submarine propulsionsecrets to a foreign government,are scheduled to appear in federalcourt in West Virginia on Tuesday.They will face charges related toviolating the Atomic Energy Act’sprohibition on sharing nuclearknow-how.

For now, the big questions sur-rounding the couple — what coun-try they are accused of trying tosell the nuclear secrets to, andwhat motivated them to take therisk — remain unanswered.

Mr. Toebbe was described byacquaintances as a diligent andorganized grad student in nuclearphysics who was commissioned in

Pair Got SitterBefore Arrests

In F.B.I. Sting

This article is by Julian E. Barnes,Brenda Wintrode and JoAnnaDaemmrich.

Continued on Page A14

Sketch artists, true-crime fans and areporter with binoculars watch theTheranos founder in court. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-5

Hidden Scenes at Holmes TrialA new Superman, son of Clark Kent andLois Lane, will soon begin a romanticrelationship with a male friend. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

The Man of Steel Comes OutThe world is very unlikely to eradicatethe new coronavirus, scientists say, andwhat the next few years, and decades,hold is difficult to predict. PAGE D1

SCIENCE TIMES D1-8

The Future of Viral Evolution

Under the duress of negotiations, Presi-dent Biden has shelved a series ofproposals to remake the economy, someof them indefinitely. PAGE A13

NATIONAL A9-15

Fears Over Spending Bill Cuts

Paul Krugman PAGE A19

OPINION A18-19In a play about Reality Winner, wholeaked top-secret information, an F.B.I.transcript provides the drama. PAGE C1

Dry Words, and a Real ThrillerA study finds Black-owned businesseswere disproportionally left out of thePaycheck Protection Program. PAGE B1

Racial Bias in Business Loans

Electric scooters and bikes are trans-forming New York City’s streets, andsafety challenges abound. PAGE A9

E-Mobility Fueled by Pandemic

Richard Schultz’s furniture designs,including a sleek chaise, are models ofmodernism. He was 95. PAGE A16

OBITUARIES A16-17

Creator of a Patio Classic

Jon Gruden stepped down Mon-day as the coach of the Las VegasRaiders football team hours afteremails surfaced in which he hadmade homophobic and misogy-nistic remarks, following an earli-er report of racist statementsabout a union leader.

His resignation was a strikingdeparture from the football leaguefor a coach who had won a SuperBowl, been a marquee analyst onESPN and returned to the N.F.L.in 2018 to lead the resurgentRaiders, which he had coachedyears before.

“I have resigned as Head Coachof the Las Vegas Raiders,” he saidon Twitter in a statement issuedby the team. “I love the Raidersand do not want to be a distrac-tion. Thank you to all the players,coaches, staff, and fans of RaiderNation. I’m sorry, I never meant tohurt anyone.”

Mark Davis, the owner of theRaiders, said in a statement thathe had accepted the resignation.Rich Bisaccia, the Raiders’ specialteams coordinator, was elevatedto interim head coach, the teamsaid.

Gruden’s departure came aftera New York Times report thatN.F.L. officials, as part of a sepa-rate workplace misconduct inves-tigation that did not directly in-volve him, found that Gruden hadcasually and frequently un-leashed misogynistic and homo-phobic language over severalyears to denigrate people aroundthe game and to mock some of theleague’s momentous changes.

He denounced the emergenceof women as referees, the draftingof a gay player and the toleranceof players’ protesting during the

N.F.L. CoachOut Over Slurs

In His EmailsBy KEN BELSON

and KATHERINE ROSMAN

Continued on Page A12

Kyle Schwarber’s mammoth blastsmade him a hero for the curse-breakingCubs. For the Red Sox, he has picked upright where he left off. PAGE B6

SPORTS B6-10

New Team, Same Clutch Hits

The Chinese territory is experiencingits biggest population drop in decadesas residents flee political repression anda new “patriotic” curriculum. PAGE A6

INTERNATIONAL A4-8

Hong Kong Schools Shrinking

Late Edition

VOL. CLXXI . . . No. 59,209 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2021

Today, cloudy, then partly sunny inthe afternoon, mild, high 72. To-night, mild, areas of low clouds, low62. Tomorrow, partly cloudy, high 74.Weather map appears on Page B10.

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