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He dominates as a hitter and a pitcher,and the Los Angeles Angels see noreason to limit him to one role. PAGE B7

SPORTSFRIDAY B7-10, 12

Shohei Ohtani Unleashed

Some 23 productions have set Broad-way reopening dates, and audienceswill see some changes. PAGE C1

WEEKEND ARTS C1-12

Shows Plot Their Return

The fast-food giant is raising pay onlyat its company-owned restaurants, andnot up to $15 an hour. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-6

McDonald’s to Increase Wages

Randi Weingarten, the president of thenation’s second-largest teachers’ union,is aiming for a normal fall. PAGE A8

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-8

Pushing to Fully Open Schools

In Barry Jenkins’s adaptation of “TheUnderground Railroad,” the pain is real,James Poniewozik writes. PAGE C1

An Epic Vision on TVStudies suggest that the Pfizer andModerna vaccines are safe and effectiveand may even protect infants. PAGE A4

Shots Shield Pregnant Women

A man went all in on Dogecoin, a spoofcryptocurrency, and turned memes intoprofits, Kevin Roose writes. PAGE B1

His Millions Are No Joke

A private school’s records are subpoe-naed as investigators examine tuitionpayments made on behalf of the TrumpOrganization’s finance chief. PAGE A19

Perks From Trump ScrutinizedDavid Cameron, a former British primeminister, begged officials to steer gov-ernment business to a struggling com-pany that employed him. PAGE A10

INTERNATIONAL A9-13

Awkward Pressure Campaign Jessica Valenti PAGE A23

OPINION A22-23

Ahead of the Preakness Stakes, thecredibility of horse racing may be downto the wire, Joe Drape writes. PAGE B8

A Troubling Track Record

WASHINGTON — The opera-tor of a critical fuel pipeline on theEast Coast paid extortionistsroughly 75 Bitcoin — or nearly $5million — to recover its stolendata, according to people briefedon the transaction, clearing theway for gas to begin flowing againbut complicating President Bi-den’s efforts to deter future at-tacks.

Colonial Pipeline made the ran-som payment to the hackinggroup DarkSide after the cyber-criminals last week held up thecompany’s business networkswith ransomware, a form of mal-ware that encrypts data until thevictim pays, and threatened to re-lease it online. DarkSide is be-lieved to operate from EasternEurope, possibly Russia.

The company pre-emptivelyshut down its pipeline, whichstretches from Texas to New Jer-sey and delivers nearly half of thetransport fuels for the AtlanticCoast, setting off a cascading cri-sis that forced some airlines tomake fuel stops on long-haulflights and led to emergencymeetings at the White House, ajump in gas prices and panic buy-ing at gas pumps.

With Republicans blaming Mr.Biden for soaring fuel prices andscenes of panicked motoristsswarming gas stations, the presi-dent on Thursday embraced newsthat the 5,500-mile pipeline wasresuming service. But he cau-tioned it would take time to re-solve shortages and warned gasstations not to engage in pricegouging.

“They should be reaching fulloperational capacity as we speak,

as I speak to you right now,” Mr.Biden said in remarks from theRoosevelt Room. “That is goodnews. But we want to be clear: Wewill not feel the effects at thepump immediately. This is not likeflicking on a light switch.”

Mr. Biden did not rule out thepossibility that the administrationwould target the criminals with aretaliatory strike, saying that theUnited States would pursue “a

Pipeline Said to Have Paid $5 Million to HackersThis article is by Michael D.

Shear, Nicole Perlroth and CliffordKrauss.

Gas lines in Charlotte, N.C. President Biden urged Americansagainst panic buying and warned stations about price gouging.

LOGAN CYRUS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page A18

LOD, Israel — The Arabs andJews of Lod, one of the mostclosely mixed cities in Israel, havebeen through many upheavals.But they had never before seenthe kind of intercommunity vio-lence that unfolded here over thepast three days.

Angry Arab youths rioted thisweek after police violence in Jeru-salem spilled over into conflictwith Gaza. They began burningsynagogues and cars, throwingstones and letting off sporadicrounds of gunfire. Gangs of Jew-ish extremist vigilantes, somecalled in from out of town, starteda counterattack, setting their ownfires.

Not even during the intifadas,the mass Palestinian uprisings ofthe past, did Israelis experiencethis kind of mob violence. Andthough unrest started in Lod, itspread quickly to the mixed Is-raeli cities of Acre and Haifa, longproud of their intercommunal re-lations, and to the Arab towns ofthe Galilee. Jews beat a driverwho was presumed to be Arab al-

most to death in a Tel Aviv suburbon Wednesday. Bedouins setablaze and ambushed Jewish carswith stones in the southern Negevdesert.

“We ran out of the house with-out clothes on. It was burning,”said Shirin al-Hinawi, a 33-year-old Arab resident of Lod whosehouse was charred by a Molotovcocktail on Wednesday night. Herfamily called for police help, butno one came, she said.

“We are not living in Gaza,” shesaid, distraught. “I’m an Israelicitizen, and we didn’t do any-thing.”

The detritus of burned-out cars,shattered glass and charred build-ings on both sides bore witness toa national nightmare. Prime Min-ister Benjamin Netanyahupleaded for calm and an end of“lynchings,” and went to Lod onThursday, saying he might sendtroops in. Some Israelis beganworrying about the possibility of acivil war breaking out.

The authorities have declared a

Violence Rends Fabric of CitiesJew and Arab Proudly Shared

By ISABEL KERSHNER

Israeli artillery firing at the Gaza border on Thursday. WithinIsrael, unrest has quickly spread to several mixed cities.

DAN BALILTY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A12

WASHINGTON — A network ofconservative activists, aided by aBritish former spy, mounted acampaign during the Trump ad-ministration to discredit per-ceived enemies of PresidentTrump inside the government, ac-cording to documents and peopleinvolved in the operations.

The campaign included aplanned sting operation againstMr. Trump’s national security ad-viser at the time, H.R. McMaster,and secret surveillance opera-tions against F.B.I. employees,aimed at exposing anti-Trumpsentiment in the bureau’s ranks.

The operations against theF.B.I., run by the conservativegroup Project Veritas, were con-ducted from a large home in theGeorgetown section of Washing-ton that rented for $10,000 permonth. Female undercover opera-tives arranged dates with theF.B.I. employees with the aim ofsecretly recording them makingdisparaging comments about Mr.

Trump.The campaign shows the obses-

sion that some of Mr. Trump’s al-lies had about a shadowy “deepstate” trying to blunt his agenda— and the lengths that some werewilling to go to try to purge thegovernment of those believed tobe disloyal to the president.

Central to the effort, accordingto interviews, was Richard Sed-don, a former undercover Britishspy who was recruited in 2016 bythe security contractor ErikPrince to train Project Veritas op-eratives to infiltrate trade unions,Democratic congressional cam-paigns and other targets. He ranfield operations for Project Veri-tas until mid-2018.

Last year, The New York Timesreported that Mr. Seddon ran anexpansive effort to gain access tothe unions and campaigns and leda hiring effort that nearly tripledthe number of the group’s opera-tives, according to interviews and

McMaster Was Said to Be TargetIn Plot to Vilify Trump ‘Enemies’

By ADAM GOLDMAN and MARK MAZZETTI

Continued on Page A15

Federal health officials onThursday advised Americanswho are fully vaccinated againstthe coronavirus that they couldstop wearing masks or maintain-ing social distance in most set-tings, the clearest sign yet that thepandemic might be nearing anend in the United States.

The new recommendationscaught state officials and busi-nesses by surprise and raised ahost of difficult questions abouthow the guidelines would be car-ried out. But the advice came aswelcome news to many Ameri-cans who were weary of restric-tions and traumatized by the pastyear.

“We have all longed for this mo-ment,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky,the director of the Centers for Dis-ease Control and Prevention, saidat a White House news conferenceon Thursday. “If you are fully vac-cinated, you can start doing thethings that you had stopped doingbecause of the pandemic.”

Masks had come to symbolize abitter partisan divide. Settingthem aside in restaurants andsidewalks, in museums and shops,would represent not just the be-ginning of the end of the pandemicbut hope for a return to normalcy.

Permission to stop using masksalso offers an incentive to themany millions who are still hold-ing out on vaccination. As ofWednesday, about 155 million peo-ple had received at least one doseof a Covid-19 vaccine, but onlyabout one-third of the nation, 119million people, had been fully vac-cinated.

And the pace of vaccination hasslowed: Providers are adminis-tering about 2.09 million doses perday on average, about a 38 per-cent decrease from the peak of3.38 million reported in mid-April.

At the White House on Thurs-day, President Biden hailed thenew recommendations as a “mile-stone” in the nation’s effort to beatback the pandemic and urgedAmericans to roll up their sleevesfor vaccinations.

Still, Mr. Biden urged Ameri-cans not to turn on those who werenot yet vaccinated. “Please treatthem with kindness and respect,”

Fully Vaccinated Can Shed Masks, C.D.C. Says

This article is by Roni Caryn Ra-bin, Apoorva Mandavilli and NoahWeiland.

Change in GuidanceIs Surprise to States

and Businesses

Damarcus Crimes, 13, getting the Pfizer vaccine, which was approved this week for children 12 to 15.TAMIR KALIFA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A6

Israeli ground forces carriedout attacks on the Gaza Strip earlyFriday in an escalation of a con-flict with Palestinian militantsthat had been waged by airstrikesfrom Israel and rockets fromGaza.

It was not immediately clear ifthe attack was the prelude to aground invasion against Hamas,the Islamist militant group thatcontrols Gaza.

An Israeli military spokesman,Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, ini-tially said that “there are groundtroops attacking in Gaza,” but lat-er clarified that Israeli troops hadnot entered Gaza, suggesting thepossibility of artillery fire from theoutside. He provided no furtherdetails.

The surge in fighting high-lighted the unprecedented posi-tion Israel finds itself in — battlingPalestinian militants on its south-ern flank as it seeks to head off itsworst civil unrest in decades.

It followed another day ofclashes between Arab and Jewishmobs on the streets of Israeli cit-ies, with the authorities calling upthe army reserves and sending re-inforcements of armed border po-lice to the central city of Lod to tryto head off what Israeli leadershave warned could become a civilwar.

Taken together, the two the-

aters of turmoil pointed to a stepchange in the grinding, decades-old conflict between Israel and thePalestinians. While violent escala-tions often follow a predictabletrajectory, this latest bout, theworst in seven years, is rapidlyevolving into a new kind of war —faster, more destructive and capa-ble of spinning in unpredictablenew directions.

In Gaza, an impoverishedcoastal strip that was the crucibleof a devastating seven-week warin 2014, Palestinian militants firedsurprisingly large barrages of en-hanced-range rockets — some1,800 in three days — that reachedfar into Israel.

Israel intensified its campaignof relentless airstrikes againstHamas targets there on Thursday,pulverizing buildings, offices andhomes in strikes that have killed103 people including 27 children,according to the Gaza health au-thorities.

Six civilians and a soldier havebeen killed by Hamas rockets in-side Israel.

Egyptian mediators arrived inIsrael Thursday in a sooner-than-usual push to halt the spiralingconflict.

Most alarming for Israel,though, was the violent fermenton its own sidewalks and streets,

ISRAEL INTENSIFIESITS GAZA BARRAGEFROM THE GROUND

Forces in South Fire on Militants AcrossBorder as Urban Unrest Surges

By DECLAN WALSH

Continued on Page A12

A sprawling system meant to policetrillions of dollars in pandemic aid isbeing challenged as watchdogs warn ofwaste, fraud and abuse. PAGE A16

NATIONAL A14-21

Strain on Stimulus Oversight

The two leading candidates inthe New York City mayor’s racebattled to protect their advan-tages in a hard-hitting Democraticdebate on Thursday eveningwhile their six rivals grasped forbreakout moments, sought to re-define the stakes of the contestand put forth their own visions forthe struggling city.

The contenders clashed overgovernment experience, ideologyand public safety in confronta-tions that sometimes devolvedinto acrid personal attacks.

They sketched out their planson an array of city issues, takingdivergent stances on policing, ed-ucation and managing the city’seconomic revival. Policingemerged as the most-talked aboutproblem, with proposals rangingfrom reimagining plainclothesunits to expanding the use of men-tal health professionals in tradi-tional law enforcement situations.

Andrew Yang, one of the front-runners, was the target of an on-slaught of criticism, which hesought to defuse by reaching forareas of common ground ratherthan engaging with equal force.But the sharpest direct clasheswere between the other leadingcandidate, Eric Adams, the Brook-lyn borough president, and MayaD. Wiley, a former counsel to May-or Bill de Blasio.

Ms. Wiley sought to cast Mr. Ad-ams as a conservative former Re-publican who embraced stop-and-frisk policing tactics, while Mr.Adams dismissed her criticismsas ill-informed.

“Every time you raise thatquestion, it really just shows yourfailure of understanding law en-forcement,” Mr. Adams said aftershe questioned how he could betrusted to “keep us safe from po-lice misconduct.” Mr. Adams ar-gued that he was a “leading voiceagainst the abuse of stop-and-frisk.”

Ms. Wiley shot back that “hav-ing chaired the New York City Ci-vilian Complaint Review Board, Icertainly understand miscon-duct.”

The debate arrived less than sixweeks before the June 22 Demo-cratic primary that is virtuallycertain to determine the nextmayor. The contest is shaping upto be the most significant city elec-tion in decades, one that will de-termine how and whether NewYork will recover from the eco-nomic devastation of the pan-demic as the city also confronts

Rivals ThumpFront-RunnersIn Mayor Race

By KATIE GLUECK

Continued on Page A21

Former President Donald J. Trumpundermined confidence in elections.Republicans now cite that lack of confi-dence as they restrict voting. PAGE A18

Falsehoods Fuel Voting Limits

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . No. 59,058 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, FRIDAY, MAY 14, 2021

Today, partly sunny, seasonabletemperatures, high 74. Tonight,patchy clouds, low 55. Tomorrow,sunshine and clouds, showers, high74. Weather map is on Page B12.

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