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A single-family home in San Diego fromthe 1950s is now a rental complex. Thebuilding also serves as a vision of Cali-fornia’s future. PAGE 6

SUNDAY BUSINESS

Where the Suburbs EndWe talked to three New York City Balletdancers in the months leading up totheir return to the stage after the longhiatus caused by the pandemic. PAGE 10

ARTS & LEISURE

Oh, to Dance AgainWorried about their future under aTaliban-controlled government, fiveAfghans reflect on the end of 20 yearsof fighting. PAGE 4

INTERNATIONAL 4-12

Uncertainty and Fear Ezra Klein PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — Threeweeks before he died, Sam Antho-ny, 52, mailed his last wishes to aman he had never met.

He was dying, he wrote in a let-ter postmarked Aug. 2, of an ag-gressive cancer in his mouth andthroat that he had been strugglingwith since 2005. He enclosed acopy of a college alumni magazinearticle about his high-ranking jobat the National Archives. He waswriting, he explained, because thetwo men shared ancestors, a facthe had learned from DNAmatches and public records.

He had recently learned that hisbiological father’s name was CraigNelson.

“I am wondering,” Mr. Anthonywrote, “if you are that Craig.”

In Green Valley, Ariz., on Aug. 9,Mr. Anthony’s letter found its wayinto the hands of a 78-year-old re-tired airline worker.

Craig Nelson’s first thought,

holding the envelope and seeingthe return address, was that hedidn’t know anybody in FallsChurch, Va. Then he read the con-tents.

And started to tremble.It had been decades since Mr.

Nelson had given up hope of find-ing the biological son he fathered

With DNA and Friend’s Help,A Dying Son Finds His Father

By REID J. EPSTEIN

Sam Anthony, left, with hisbiological father, Craig Nelson.

PAT BOECK

Continued on Page 15

BOSTON — The mayoral candi-date Annissa Essaibi George wasamping up her supporters, whohad gathered in an Italian restau-rant on the waterfront, a littlepunchy after a long day of gettingout the vote.

As she built toward the climaxof her speech, a pledge to be “theteacher, the mother and the may-or” the city needs, her accent un-

furled like a banner. Those in thecrowd were in high spirits, so theychanted it together a second time,then a third.

“I will be the teachah!” theyshouted, to raucous celebration.“The mothah!” (Cheers.) “And themayah!” (sustained cheers) “toget it done!”

In that catch phrase, which shealso featured in two television ad-vertisements, Ms. Essaibi Georgemakes several things clear: thatthough she identifies as Arab

American, she was born and bredin the heart of Irish American Bos-ton; that amid an influx of affluentprofessionals, she would stand upfor Boston’s working class — notjust police officers and firefight-ers, but electricians and construc-tion workers; and that her neigh-borhood, Dorchester, is stampedin her DNA.

Boston is a city that cherishesits accent — one that ignores R’s insome places, inserts them in oth-

Candidate for ‘Mayah’ Puts Patois on the BallotBy ELLEN BARRY

Annissa Essaibi George, in Hyde Park last month, is playing up her Boston roots in her mayoral run.M. SCOTT BRAUER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 17

GREENSBORO, N.C. — To un-derstand the problems Democratshope to solve with their super-sized plan to make child care bet-ter and more affordable, considerthis small Southern city wheremany parents spend more for carethan they do for mortgages, yetteachers get paid like fast foodworkers and centers cannot hireenough staff.

With its white pillars and soar-ing steeple, the Friendly AvenueBaptist Church evokes an illusorypast when fathers left for work,mothers stayed home to mother,and education began when chil-dren turned 5. But its sought-afterpreschool illuminates the dilem-mas of modern family life.

Until their elder son started kin-dergarten this fall, Jessica andMatt Lolley paid almost $2,000 amonth for their two boys’ care —roughly a third of their incomeand far more than their paymentson their three-bedroom house.But one of the teachers whowatched the boys earns so little —$10 an hour — that she spends halfher time working at Starbucks,where the pay is 50 percent higherand includes health insurance.

The center’s director wants to

raise wages, but has little room topass along costs to parents whoare already stretched. She hasbeen trying since February to re-place a teacher who quit withoutwarning; four applicants ac-cepted the job in turn, but noneshowed up.

“I’ve been an administrator for30 years, and I’ve never seen any-thing like this,” said the director,Sandy Johnson. “It’s very difficultto maintain a level of quality. Di-rectors are at the point wherethey’re willing to hire anyone whowalks through the door. The chil-dren deserve far more than that,and the families deserve far morethan that.”

Democrats describe the prob-lem as a fundamental market fail-

The Child Care Paradox Democrats Aim to FixBy JASON DePARLE Crippling Expenditure

for Families, Yet LowPay for Teachers

Melissa Robertson with her son Soren at preschool. She and her wife pay twice as much for child care as they pay for their mortgage.TRAVIS DOVE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 16

WASHINGTON — “Facebookand Big Tech are facing a Big To-bacco moment,” Senator RichardBlumenthal, Democrat of Con-necticut, said this week when awhistle-blower testified abouthow the social media company’sproducts harmed teenagers.

“I think that that’s an appropri-ate analogy,” Senator CynthiaLummis, Republican of Wyoming,added later.

The whistle-blower’s testimony,and the thousands of internal doc-uments she shared with lawmak-ers, generated unusual bipartisanbonhomie in a divided Washing-ton. Senators said it was time forCongress to coalesce around newregulations to rein in the companyand perhaps the technology in-dustry as a whole.

But if what faces Big Tech isanything like what happened toBig Tobacco — a reckoning overthe industry’s harms to society,and children in particular — whatlies ahead is likely to be a years-long, complicated path towardnew rules and regulations, with noguaranteed result.

Washington is weighing numer-ous proposals to curtail the indus-try and hold it more accountable.Some lawmakers have urged re-working a law that shields techcompanies from lawsuits, chang-ing it so that the firms could beheld responsible if their softwareamplifies harmful speech. An-other idea would force social me-dia companies to share far moreinsight about their software,which is often a black box, anddata on how people interact withtheir services.

Lawmakers have proposed cre-ating a new federal agency dedi-cated to oversight of the tech com-panies, or expanding the power ofthe Federal Trade Commission.They have pushed stronger lawsfor child privacy and security andto regulate the behavioral adver-tising business models of Face-book and Google. And a handful ofbills to overhaul antitrust laws,with an eye toward making thepublic less reliant on a small num-ber of tech companies, have pro-gressed out of a House committee.

Tobacco BattleLends Example

As Tech FaltersBy CECILIA KANG

Continued on Page 18

The 25 Chinese fighter jets,bombers and other warplanesflew in menacing formations offthe southern end of Taiwan, ashow of military might on China’sNational Day, Oct. 1. The incur-sions, dozens upon dozens, contin-ued into the night and the daysthat followed and surged to thehighest numbers ever on Monday,when 56 warplanes tested Tai-wan’s beleaguered air defenses.

Taiwan’s jets scrambled to keepup, while the United Stateswarned China that its “provoca-tive military activity” under-mined “regional peace and stabil-ity.” China did not cower. When aTaiwanese combat air traffic con-troller radioed one Chinese air-craft, the pilot dismissed the chal-lenge with an obscenity involvingthe officer’s mother.

As such confrontations intensi-fy, the balance of power aroundTaiwan is fundamentally shifting,pushing a decades-long impasseover its future into a dangerousnew phase.

After holding out against unifi-cation demands from China’s com-munist rulers for more than 70years, Taiwan is now at the heartof the deepening discord betweenChina and the United States. Theisland’s fate has the potential toreshape the regional order andeven to ignite a military conflagra-tion — intentional or not.

“There’s very little insulationleft on the wiring in the relation-ship,” Danny Russel, a former as-sistant secretary of state, said,“and it’s not hard to imagine get-ting some crossed wires and thatstarting a fire.”

China’s military might has, forthe first time, made a conquest ofTaiwan conceivable, perhapseven tempting. The United Stateswants to thwart any invasion buthas watched its military domi-nance in Asia steadily erode. Tai-wan’s own military preparednesshas withered, even as its peoplebecome increasingly resistant tounification.

All three have sought to showresolve in hopes of averting war,only to provoke countermovesthat compound distrust and in-crease the risk of miscalculation.

China MilitaryTaunts Taiwan,Testing the U.S.

Fear of Conflict as thePower Balance Shifts

By CHRIS BUCKLEYand STEVEN LEE MYERS

Continued on Page 8

Moderna, whose coronavirusvaccine appears to be the world’sbest defense against Covid-19, hasbeen supplying its shots almostexclusively to wealthy nations,keeping poorer countries waitingand earning billions in profit.

After developing a break-through vaccine with the financialand scientific support of the U.S.government, Moderna hasshipped a greater share of itsdoses to wealthy countries thanany other vaccine manufacturer,according to Airfinity, a data firmthat tracks vaccine shipments.

About one million doses of Mod-erna’s vaccine have gone to coun-tries that the World Bank classi-fies as low income. By contrast, 8.4million Pfizer doses and about 25million single-shot Johnson &Johnson doses have gone to thosecountries.

Of the handful of middle-incomecountries that have reached dealsto buy Moderna’s shots, mosthave not yet received any doses,and at least three have had to paymore than the United States orEuropean Union did, according togovernment officials in thosecountries.

Thailand and Colombia are pay-ing a premium. Botswana’s dosesare late. Tunisia couldn’t get intouch with Moderna.

Unlike Pfizer, Johnson & John-son and AstraZeneca, which havediverse rosters of drugs and otherproducts, Moderna sells only theCovid vaccine. The Massachu-setts company’s future hinges onthe commercial success of its vac-cine.

“They are behaving as if theyhave absolutely no responsibilitybeyond maximizing the return oninvestment,” said Dr. TomFrieden, a former head of the Cen-ters for Disease Control and Pre-vention.

Moderna executives have saidthat they are doing all they can tomake as many doses as possible

MODERNA LEAVESPOOREST NATIONSWAITING FOR SHOT

IRE FROM WHITE HOUSE

Orders Unfilled as OtherMakers Send Doses

Across the Globe

By REBECCA ROBBINS

Continued on Page 14

After insisting he would stay in officeamid accusations that public moneywas used to produce favorable polling,Sebastian Kurz said he would go. PAGE 12

INTERNATIONAL

Austria’s Chancellor Resigns

Late Edition

VOL. CLXXI . . . No. 59,207 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2021

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