C M Y K Nxxx,2020-02-09,A,001,Bs-4C,E3

MINYA, Egypt — The Egyptianfarmer stood in his dust-blownfield, lamenting his fortune. A fewyears ago, wheat and tomato-filled greenhouses carpeted theland. Now the desert was creepingin.

“Look,” he said, gesturing at thesandy soil and abandoned green-houses. “Barren.”

The farmer, Hamed Jarallah, at-tributed his woes to dwindling ir-rigation from the overtaxed Nile,the fabled river at the heart ofEgypt’s very identity. Already, theNile is under assault from pollu-tion, climate change and Egypt’sgrowing population, which offi-cially hits 100 million people thismonth.

And now, Mr. Jarallah added, afresh calamity loomed.

A colossal hydroelectric dambeing built on the Nile 2,000 milesupriver, in the lowlands of Ethi-opia, threatens to further con-strict Egypt’s water supply — andis scheduled to start filling thissummer.

“We’re worried,” he said.“Egypt wouldn’t exist without theNile. Our livelihood is being de-stroyed, God help us.”

The dispute between Egypt andEthiopia over the $4.5 billionGrand Ethiopian RenaissanceDam — Africa’s largest, with a res-ervoir about the size of London —has become a national preoccupa-tion in both countries, stoking pa-triotism, deep-seated fears andeven murmurs of war.

To Ethiopians, the dam is acherished symbol of their ambi-tions — a megaproject with the po-tential to light up millions ofhomes, earn billions from elec-tricity sales to neighboring coun-tries and confirm Ethiopia’s placeas a rising African power.

After years of bumpy progress,including corruption scandals andthe mysterious death of its chiefengineer, the first two turbines arebeing installed. Officials say thedam will start filling in July.

That prospect induces dread inEgypt, where the dam is seen asthe most fundamental of threats.

Egypt is one of the driest coun-tries on earth, with 95 percent of

RedS ea

Mediter raneanS ea

E G Y P T

S A U D IA R A B I A

J O R D A N

L I B Y A

S U D A N

S O U T HS U D A N

E R I T R E A

E T H I O P I A

Cairo

Khartoum

Port Sudan

Grand EthiopianRenaissance Dam

Egyptians have been the masters of the Nile for 7,000 years. Ninety-five percent of them live along the river or its teeming delta.

For nine years, Ethiopia has been building a giant dam upriver, inciting deep-seated fears about the future of the river.

200 MILES

Nile R

iver

Wh i te N

i le River

B l u e N i l e R i v e r

JEREMY WHITE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

By DECLAN WALSHand SOMINI SENGUPTA

Continued on Page 14

Bitter Struggle for Control of the NileEgypt Sees Ethiopia’s Huge New Dam as Threat to Its Lifeblood

WASHINGTON — Buoyed byhis impeachment acquittal andthe muddled Democratic primaryrace, President Trump and hiscampaign are turning to addresshis re-election bid’s greatestweaknesses with an aggressive,well-funded but uncertain effort towin back suburban voters turnedoff by his policies and behavior.

His campaign is aiming to re-gain these voters in battlegroundstates like Pennsylvania andMichigan, after losing many ofthem to Democrats in the 2018midterms. Advisers hope to ex-pand the electoral map for No-vember by winning moderate-leaning states like Minnesota andNew Hampshire. And the WhiteHouse is gearing up to help withpolicy issues directed at swingstates, such as the new trade dealwith Mexico and Canada and paidfamily leave for federal workers.

Trump campaign officials arealso stockpiling cash to help withthese efforts, with $200 million inthe bank now and fund-raisingcontinuing at a brisk pace. Theyhave put up television ads rela-tively early in the race, allocating$6 million for the final threemonths of 2019 to highlight abooming economy and the low un-employment numbers.

Among the goals is trying to ap-peal to black voters and suburbanand upper-income white voterswith ads such as a spot focusingon criminal justice reform thatfirst aired during the Super Bowland is continuing on cable chan-nels with large female audiences,like Bravo and Lifetime.

Yet Mr. Trump’s messaging, likeso much else about his approachto politics, is contradictory. For allthe focus on appealing to moder-ates, the campaign is also engag-ing the president’s hard-core sup-

PRESIDENT’S TEAMAIMS TO WIN BACKSUBURBAN VOTERS

TAILORING HIS MESSAGE

Ads Target Those TurnedOff by Trump’s Policy

and Personality

This article is by Maggie Ha-berman, Annie Karni and JonathanMartin.

Continued on Page 25

WUHAN, China — President XiJinping strode onstage before anadoring audience in the Great Hallof the People in Beijing less thanthree weeks ago, trumpeting hissuccesses in steering Chinathrough a tumultuous year andpromising “landmark” progressin 2020.

“Every single Chinese person,every member of the Chinese na-tion, should feel proud to live inthis great era,” he declared to ap-plause on the day before the Lu-nar New Year holiday. “Ourprogress will not be halted by anystorms and tempests.”

Mr. Xi made no mention of adangerous new coronavirus thathad already taken tenacious holdin the country. As he spoke, thegovernment was locking downWuhan, a city of 11 million people,in a frantic attempt to stop the vi-rus spreading from its epicenter.

The coronavirus epidemic,which has killed more than 800people in China as of Sunday andsickened tens of thousands,comes as Mr. Xi has struggledwith a host of other challenges: aslowing economy, huge protests inHong Kong, an election in Taiwanthat rebuffed Beijing and a pro-tracted trade war with the UnitedStates.

Now, Mr. Xi faces an accelerat-ing health crisis that is also a polit-ical one: a profound test of the au-thoritarian system he has builtaround himself over the past sev-en years. As the Chinese govern-ment struggles to contain the vi-rus amid rising public discontentwith its performance, the changesthat Mr. Xi has ushered in couldmake it difficult for him to escapeblame.

“It’s a big shock to the legitima-cy of the ruling party. I think itcould be only second to the June 4incident of 1989. It’s that big,” saidRong Jian, a writer about politics

China in Crisis,Xi Backs AwayFrom Spotlight

Limiting His Exposureto Political Risks

By CHRIS BUCKLEYand STEVEN LEE MYERS

Continued on Page 11

MANCHESTER, N.H. — For-mer Vice President Joseph R. Bi-den Jr.’s fourth-place finish inIowa and his wobbly standinghere in New Hampshire are nowtesting the central premise of hiscandidacy — that he is the Demo-crat with the strongest chance todefeat President Trump — andforcing his team to scramble toprove that claim before votersmove on to other candidates.

The sudden reordering of theearly primary race took on aheightened sense of urgency forMr. Biden on Saturday as a pollshowed him sliding to 11 percentsupport in New Hampshire. Cam-paigning in the state just threedays before its primary, Mr. Bidenwent on the offensive against hischief rival for moderate Demo-crats, Pete Buttigieg, belittling hisrecord as the former mayor of asmall city, questioning his supportfrom African-American votersand declaring, “This guy’s not aBarack Obama.”

It’s a striking departure fromMr. Biden’s self-assured posturethroughout most of the campaign.He has said he is “the clear front-runner in the party.” His allies stillcite his strength in general elec-tion polls constantly, and have

even featured them in his televi-sion commercials. He has spentmonths targeting Mr. Trumprather than driving a sustainedmessage at his rival Democrats,and his attempts to do so at Fridaynight’s debate, while aggressive,did not appear to hurt them.

Now Mr. Biden’s campaign isconfronting its greatest momentof peril to date, marked by worri-some polls, jittery donors and ten-sions within the staff.

“If your whole theory of thecase is that I’m the electable oneand I can win, and then you lose in

Wobbly After Outcome in Iowa, Biden Faces a Perilous Moment

By KATIE GLUECKand THOMAS KAPLAN

Former Vice President JosephR. Biden Jr. in Concord, N.H.

ELIZABETH FRANTZ FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 24

For years, a large, richly col-ored painting depicting a momentof sexual violence has stopped vis-itors in Gallery 634 at the Metro-politan Museum of Art.

Once viewed as an image of Tar-quin attacking Lucretia, as in Ro-man legend, the 17th-centurywork attributed to Eustache LeSueur has more recently been de-scribed as a portrayal of the rapeof Tamar from the Old Testament.

Now newly discovered evi-dence suggests the painting’s his-tory is as painful as its theme.

Old court records indicate thepainting, purchased by the Met in1984, is very likely the same one aJewish art dealer, Siegfried Aram,left behind when he fled Germanyas Hitler took power in 1933.

The records, which recount thedealer’s unsuccessful effort to re-claim his painting for more than adecade after the war, were discov-ered by a researcher and photog-rapher, Joachim Peter, who hasspent years studying the historyof Heilbronn, the German citywhere Mr. Aram once lived, in-cluding the treatment of its Jewsand the devastation from Allied

Continued on Page 23

Painful Theme,And Back Story,Of Met Painting

By GRAHAM BOWLEY

Software is being used in the UnitedStates and Europe to set prison sen-tences and probation rules and to pre-dict who’s a welfare fraud risk. Criticswant more human oversight. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Algorithm as Decision MakerThe Academy Awards have made mis-takes before, Wesley Morris writes. Butthis year’s crop of best-picture nomi-nees may be the breaking point. PAGE 14

ARTS & LEISURE

I Love the Oscars. But ...

In a bid to reclaim his Senate seat inAlabama, he is stained by PresidentTrump’s stamp of disapproval. PAGE 18

NATIONAL 18-27

Jeff Sessions’s Second ActNicolás Maduro is letting foreign com-panies take over daily oil operations in abid to keep the economy afloat. PAGE 8

Venezuela Cedes Control of Oil

In Wisconsin, suburban Republicans whoonce tepidly supported President Trumpare energized by his acquittal. PAGE 25

The Impeachment BumpThe U.S. women’s soccer team qualifiedfor the 2020 Olympics with an easy 4-0victory over Mexico. PAGE 2

U.S. Clinches Trip to Tokyo

U(D5E71D)x+z!.!/!$!z

Kim Kardashian West’s shapewearcompany is taking off, even if shapewearcan be hard to take off. PAGE 1

SUNDAYSTYLES

Comfortable in Her SkimsJessica Lessin has kept her onlinetech-focused publication, The Informa-tion, ad-free, charging $399 a year forcomplete access. Her subscribers areeating it up. PAGE 1

A Leading Silicon Valley Voice

Ross Douthat PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

A basketball tournament, a foggy morn-ing, a helicopter ride: how a routineweekend turned into a tragedy. PAGE 1

SPORTSSUNDAY

The Last Flight of Kobe Bryant

VIRUS KILLS AMERICAN The firstU.S. citizen died in China, as thedeath toll surpassed that of SARSfrom 2002 and 2003. PAGE 13

SAKCHAI LALITKANJANAKUL/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Security forces on Saturday in Korat, where a Thai soldier killed at least 26 and injured 57 in a shoot-ing at a military base and a shopping mall, above, before being killed in a raid on Sunday. Page 16.

Shooting Rampage Shocks Thailand

A surge in support for Sinn Fein, theformer political wing of the Irish Repub-lican Army, left Prime Minister LeoVaradkar weakened. PAGE 4

INTERNATIONAL 4-16

Votes for Change in Ireland

Jenna Wortham talks to Dee Rees aboutthe art of surviving as a black femaledirector in the industry. PAGE 42

THE MAGAZINE

Breaking Barriers in Hollywood

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . No. 58,598 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2020

Today, mostly cloudy, high 46. To-night, plenty of clouds, showers inareas late, low 41. Tomorrow, plentyof clouds, periodic rain, high 48.Weather map appears on Page 22.

$6.00