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RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

The six-block police-free area, which was seized after George Floyd’s death, was the site of at least four shootings in June. Page A20.Seattle Protest Zone Cleared

For some, the disenchantmentstarted almost as soon as DonaldJ. Trump took office. For others,his handling of the coronavirusand social unrest turned themaway. For all of them, it’s highlyunlikely they will vote for himagain.

These voters, who backed Mr.Trump in 2016 but say there’s “notreally any chance” they will thisyear, represent just 2 percent of allregistered voters in the six statesmost likely to decide the presiden-

cy, according to New York Times/Siena College polls. But they helpexplain why the president faces asignificant deficit nationwide andin the battleground states.

“I think if he weren’t such an ap-palling human being, he wouldmake a great president, because Ithink what this country needs issomebody who isn’t a politician,”said Judith Goines, 53, a financeexecutive at a home building com-

They Backed Trump in 2016. But Not This Year.This article is by Claire Cain

Miller, Kevin Quealy and NateCohn.

Defectors Say ConductHas Been ‘Appalling’

Continued on Page A22

Ashley Daily Stegall hated howthe plywood looked covering thesmashed windows at her parents’jewelry store in Peoria, Ill. So sheasked a local artist to paint flow-ers on the boards. “The goal is tomake people happy,” Ms. Stegallsaid.

For Janet Davis, the reality ofwhat happened in Peoria cannotbe easily painted over. She erectedplywood to protect her clothingstore from looting that followedpeaceful protests over the killingof George Floyd. A month later,Ms. Davis still hasn’t fully re-opened because she worries moreviolence is ahead.

Big retailers are struggling, too.The Dollar General, near a largesubsidized housing development,dumped all of its food last weekbecause the vandalized store islikely to stay closed six moreweeks for repairs. “They arethrowing out food in a fooddesert,” said Denise Moore, a CityCouncil member.

A city of about 111,000 in the cen-tral part of the state, Peoria hashistorically been a bellwether forthe Midwest and, at times, the na-tion. It is a place where marketerstested products, politicians honedtheir slogans and rock starskicked off tours. “Will it play in Pe-oria?” the saying went.

But it has been many yearssince companies like Pampersand Folgers coffee debuted prod-ucts in Peoria before rolling themout nationally.

Some residents and local lead-ers say Peoria is now emblematic

for a different reason. It is a citywhere many Black residents, whomake up about 27 percent of thepopulation, and white residentsexperience starkly different eco-nomic realities, leading to years of

frustration and despair.On May 30, there were peaceful

protests throughout the city. Butthe next night, Peoria experi-enced a burst of looting, vandal-

City That Once Guided Nation Shows Its CracksBy MICHAEL CORKERY

Janet Davis with her husband, George, in their Peoria, Ill., cloth-ing shop. They pleaded on a local radio station for looting to stop.

EVAN JENKINS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A20

WASHINGTON — Inside thesprawling American Embassycompound in Riyadh, Saudi Ara-bia, a coronavirus outbreak wasspreading. Dozens of embassyemployees became sick lastmonth, and more than 20 otherswere quarantined after a birthdaybarbecue became a potential vec-tor for the spread of the disease.

A Sudanese driver for the topdiplomats died.

A bleak analysis from within theembassy that circulated in closedchannels in Riyadh and Washing-ton late last month likened the co-ronavirus situation in Saudi Ara-bia to that of New York City inMarch, when an outbreak was setto explode. The assessment saidthe response from the Saudi gov-ernment — a close partner of the

Trump White House — was insuf-ficient, even as hospitals were get-ting overwhelmed and health careworkers were falling ill.

Some in the embassy even tookthe extraordinary step of convey-ing information to Congress out-side official channels, saying thatthey did not believe the State De-partment’s leadership or theAmerican ambassador to thekingdom, John P. Abizaid, weretaking the situation seriouslyenough, and that most AmericanEmbassy employees and theirfamilies should be evacuated. TheState Department took thosesteps months ago at missions else-where in the Middle East, Asiaand Russia.

The episode, based on accounts

Embassy Crisis in Riyadh ShowsPerils of Diplomacy in Pandemic

By MARK MAZZETTI and EDWARD WONG

Continued on Page A7

In Queens, the borough with themost coronavirus cases and thefewest hospital beds per capita,hundreds of patients languishedin understaffed wards, often un-watched by nurses or doctors.Some died after removing oxygenmasks to go to the bathroom.

In hospitals in impoverishedneighborhoods around the bor-oughs, some critically ill patientswere put on ventilator machineslacking key settings, and others

pleaded for experimental drugs,only to be told that there werenone available.

It was another story at the pri-vate medical centers in Manhat-tan, which have billions of dollarsin endowments and cater largelyto wealthy people with insurance.Patients got access to heart-lungbypass machines and specializeddrugs like remdesivir, even asthose in the city’s community hos-pitals were denied basic treat-ments like continuous dialysis.

In its first four months in NewYork, the coronavirus torethrough low-income neighbor-hoods, infected immigrants and

essential workers unable to stayhome and disproportionatelykilled Black and Latino people, es-pecially those with underlyinghealth conditions.

Now, evidence is emerging ofanother inequality affecting low-income city residents: disparitiesin hospital care.

While the pandemic continues,it is not possible to determine ex-actly how much the gaps in hospi-tal care have hurt patients. Manyfactors affect who recovers fromthe coronavirus and who does not.Hospitals treat vastly differentpatient populations, and expertshave hesitated to criticize anyhospital while workers valiantlyfight the outbreak.

Still, mortality data from threedozen hospitals obtained by TheNew York Times indicates that thelikelihood of survival may dependin part on where a patient istreated. At the peak of the pan-

A Stark Factor in Beating Covid: Which Hospital You Can Afford

This article is by Brian M. Rosen-thal, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Ot-terman and Sheri Fink.

Mortality Data SuggestsPoorer New Yorkers

Face Gap in Care

Continued on Page A8

HONG KONG — The HongKong police moved swiftly onWednesday to enforce China’snew national security rules withthe first arrests under the law, asthe city immediately felt the chill-ing effect of Beijing’s offensive toquash dissent in the semiautono-mous territory.

The law was proving effectivein tamping down the antigovern-ment demonstrations that haveracked Hong Kong for more than ayear. On Wednesday, the anniver-sary of Hong Kong’s return to Chi-nese control — usually observedby huge pro-democracy marches— a scattered crowd of thousandsprotested, only to be corralled bythe police and risk arrest forcrimes that did not exist a day ear-lier.

Deploying pepper spray andwater cannons to force protestersoff the streets, the police arrestedabout 370 people, including 10over new offenses created by thesecurity law that takes aim at po-litical activity challenging Beijing.One of the 10 was a 15-year-old girlwaving a Hong Kong independ-ence flag, the police said.

Far-reaching and punitive, thelaw threatens the freewheelingcultural scene and civil societythat make the fabric of life in HongKong so distinct from the rest ofChina. While officials insist thatthe law will affect only a smallgroup of offenders, many fear thegovernment could use the law’sexpansive definitions to target awide array of people and organi-zations, prompting many to takedefensive action.

A museum that commemoratesthe 1989 Tiananmen Square mas-sacre is rushing to digitize its ar-chives, afraid its artifacts could beseized. Booksellers are nervouslyeyeing customers, worried theycould be government spies. Writ-ers have asked a news site to de-

Law Sets OffA CrackdownIn Hong Kong

Swift Arrests ConfirmResidents’ Fears

By VIVIAN WANGand ALEXANDRA STEVENSON

Continued on Page A14

Officials cited spikes in cases elsewhereand poor compliance on wearing masksand distancing in the city. PAGE A10

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-11

No Indoor Dining in New York

With “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” CarlReiner created a self-referential master-piece, James Poniewozik writes. PAGE C1

A Television Visionary

The elaborate spectacle of public affir-mation in a plebiscite on extending hisrule was vital to the Russian president’slegitimacy. PAGE A18

INTERNATIONAL A12-18

Putin’s Theatrical ReferendumFirst came Gap x Telfar. Then, YeezyGap. The designer Telfar Clemens sayseveryone has the story wrong. PAGE D1

THURSDAY STYLES D1-6

Deal Falls Through Cracks

Filming Bravo’s hit reality franchiseabout yachts and yachties is a complexlogistical operation. PAGE D1

The Real View ‘Below Deck’

Hundreds of millions of dollars went tobogus applications, causing long re-views for others as scammers hide in atorrent of benefit requests. PAGE B1

Fraud Slows Jobless Claims

A view that racism is a faraway prob-lem keeps the country from confrontingentrenched discrimination. PAGE A12

Protests in Japan Face Denial

Farhad Manjoo PAGE A27

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

By attacking a program to stop racialdisparity, the president may be aimingto shore up suburban support. PAGE A23

NATIONAL A19-23

Trump Targets Housing Policy

MIDDLEMAN An Afghan contrac-tor handed out Russian cashbounties, officials say. PAGE A18

The governor ordered closures. Sepa-rately, President Trump said the viruswould “sort of just disappear.” PAGE A11

California Takes a U-Turn

As a kid, Amanda Hess identified withGarth Algar, learning how to be a realperson in a branded world. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Shy Side of ‘Wayne’s World’

The intelligence finding thatRussia was most likely paying abounty for the lives of Americansoldiers in Afghanistan hasevoked a strange silence fromPresident Trump and his topnational security officials on thequestion of what to do about theKremlin’s wave of aggression.

Mr. Trump insists he neversaw the intelligence, though itwas part of the President’s DailyBrief just days before a peacedeal was signed with the Talibanin February.

The White House says it wasnot even appropriate for him tobe briefed because the presidentonly sees “verified” intelligence— prompting derision from offi-cials who have spent years work-ing on the daily brief and say it ismost valuable when filled withdissenting interpretations andalternative explanations.

The administration’s defensestook a new turn on Wednesday,when the national security advis-er, Robert C. O’Brien, told FoxNews that the C.I.A. officer whodelivered in-person intelligencesummaries to the president had

not flagged it for his attention.But it doesn’t require a top-

secret clearance and access tothe government’s most classifiedinformation to see that the list ofRussian aggressions in recentweeks rivals some of the worstdays of the Cold War.

There have been new cyber-attacks on Americans workingfrom home to exploit vulnerabili-ties in their corporate systemsand continued concern aboutnew playbooks for Russian ac-tors seeking to influence theNovember election. Off the coastof Alaska, Russian jets have beentesting American air defenses,sending U.S. warplanes scram-bling to intercept them.

It is all part of what SenatorMitch McConnell of Kentucky,the majority leader, said on Mon-day was “the latest in a series ofescalations from Putin’s regime.”

Yet missing from all this is astrategy for pushing back —

PUTIN ON OFFENSEAS TRUMP STANDS ON THE SIDELINES

Russia’s Hostility Is Clear.A U.S. Strategy Isn’t.

By DAVID E. SANGERand ERIC SCHMITT

Continued on Page A17

President Trump says he neversaw intelligence on bounties.

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

NEWS ANALYSIS

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . . No. 58,742 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JULY 2, 2020

Jonathan Irons was released from aMissouri prison after a campaign by theW.N.B.A. star Maya Moore. PAGE B9

SPORTSTHURSDAY B8-10

Set Free, With a Star’s Help

A new report tells of a broad campaignto target Uighurs in the country, begin-ning as early as 2013. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-7

Stalking Muslims in China

Today, mostly sunny, warm, high 88.Tonight, partly cloudy, warm, low 74.Tomorrow, Some sunshine, thenclouds, thunderstorms late, warm,high 88. Weather map, Page A16.

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