C M Y K Nxxx,2020-12-24,A,001,Bs-4C,E1

U(D54G1D)y+\!$!&!$!z

The ups and downs of fashion in 2020,when everyone’s life (and wardrobe)was turned all around. PAGE D4

THURSDAY STYLES D1-6

If Style Were a Stock MarketAmar’e Stoudemire has joined the Nets’staff in a reunion with his Phoenix Sunscolleagues Steve Nash and Mike D’An-toni. It seems weird to him, too. PAGE B8

SPORTSTHURSDAY B8-9

Just Don’t Call Him CoachDespite problems in shelters, the ratesof infection among homeless popula-tions are lower than feared. PAGE A5

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-9

Isolation Buffers the Homeless

A huge production plant in Siberia isexpected to reshape the market for agas that’s essential to industry. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-7

Russia’s Big Plans for HeliumIn Italy, intergenerational householdscan usually look forward to the holidayseason. Not this year. PAGE A10

INTERNATIONAL A10-13

‘No Christmas for Us’

The center-left tried three times to oustBenjamin Netanyahu. Now his formerallies are giving it a try. PAGE A12

Israeli Election, Take 4

The queer Liberian-American designerTelfar Clemens wants to smash the oldfashion system to bits. PAGE D2

Telfar’s Very Good YearThe Hebrew Home in the Bronx startedvaccinating its residents, and delivereda dose of optimism, too. PAGE A9

Some Hope in a Syringe

George Clooney’s new film is on Netflix,but he says Hollywood will be fine. He’snot so sure about Washington. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-6

A Star in ‘The Midnight Sky’

Dolly Parton, Mariah Carey and CarrieUnderwood offer sparkly, heartfeltspecials on streaming services. PAGE C1

Diva-Driven Holiday CheerRevelations about cheating, and theacademy’s reaction, have prompted adebate about integrity and what itmeans to be a cadet. PAGE A14

NATIONAL A14-17

Scandal Shakes West Point Ross Douthat PAGE A19EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19

NICOLE CRAINE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

At Atlanta’s airport on Wednesday. Americans have taken to the skies in large numbers, including more than three million last week-end, despite rising coronavirus infections and official advice for people to postpone travel and simply stay home for the holidays.

Masks On, Bags Packed

AWKA, Nigeria — In the smallfamily portrait gallery hangingabove the television in the cozyhome of the Iloanya family, onlytwo framed photographs remainthat include the youngest son, Chi-jioke.

He disappeared eight years

ago. His parents, Hope and Em-manuel, last saw him in handcuffsin a police station run by thefeared unit known as SARS — theSpecial Anti-Robbery Squad.

They have been searching forhim ever since, along the way en-countering an industry of mer-chants peddling hope: lawyers,human rights groups and thechurches and pastors who askedfor the photographs of Chijioke,

promising to pray over them andhelp bring him back.

“They give you a prophecy thathe will come back,” said Hope, adevout woman of 53, staring at the

gaps on her salmon-pink wall.“Whatever they tell you to do, youdo it.”

The Iloanyas are just one ofmany families in Nigeria whosechildren have disappeared in po-lice custody. For years, police offi-cers in the West African nationhave tortured, killed and extortedyoung people, accusing them ofbeing criminals, according to

Hope Dries Up as Young Nigerians Disappear in Police CustodyBy RUTH MACLEANand BEN EZEAMALU

Con Artists Descend onFamilies Seeking Help

Continued on Page A12

DADO GALDIERI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The pandemic crushed spirits, but people like this Brazilian teacher, right, responded. Page A11.Finally, a Safe Hug

President Trump doled outclemency to a new group of loy-alists on Wednesday, wiping awayconvictions and sentences as heaggressively employed his powerto override courts, juries andprosecutors to apply his ownstandard of justice for his allies.

One recipient of a pardon was afamily member, Charles Kushner,the father of his son-in-law, JaredKushner. Two others who werepardoned declined to cooperatewith prosecutors in connectionwith the special counsel’s Russiainvestigation: Paul Manafort, his2016 campaign chairman, andRoger J. Stone Jr., his longtime in-formal adviser and friend.

They were the most prominentnames in a batch of 26 pardonsand three commutations dis-closed by the White House afterMr. Trump left for his private clubin Palm Beach, Fla., for the holi-day.

Also on the list released onWednesday was Margaret Hunt-er, the estranged wife of formerRepresentative Duncan D. Hunt-er, Republican of California. Bothof them had pleaded guilty tocharges of misusing campaignfunds for personal expenses.

Mr. Hunter was pardoned byMr. Trump on Tuesday, as part of afirst pre-Christmas wave ofgrants of clemency to 20 convicts,more than half of whom did notmeet the Justice Departmentguidelines for consideration ofpardons or commutations. Theyincluded a former Blackwaterguard sentenced to life in prisonfor his role in the killing of 17 Iraqicivilians in 2007.

President AddsMore LoyalistsTo Pardon List

By MAGGIE HABERMANand MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

Continued on Page A15

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Haider Ah-med Rabia was stuck in traffic inBaghdad 13 years ago whenguards with the American securi-ty contractor Blackwater openedfire with machine guns andgrenade launchers, killing orwounding at least 31 Iraqi civil-ians. He still carries some of thosebullets in his legs.

In 2014, he was one of the sur-vivors and family members whoflew to the United States to testifyin the trial of four of those Black-water guards, told that the evi-dence of his injury and his accountof that deadly day could help bring

justice.“I went to America and saw the

killers walking free, wearingsuits,” he said in an interview inBaghdad on Wednesday. “I said,‘Tomorrow I will return to mycountry, but will these killers facejustice?’”

“Today,” he added, “they provedto me it was just theater.”

He was speaking of President

Trump’s pardon this week of thosefour former Blackwater securitycontractors, who were convictedin 2014 in what a U.S. court deter-mined were unprovoked shoot-ings in Nisour Square.

The killings cast a harsh spot-light on how heavily armed Amer-ican security contractors wereacting with impunity after the U.S.invasion of Iraq, angering Iraqi of-ficials whose own investigationalso found no evidence to supportBlackwater’s claims that the con-voy had come under fire first.

It was the first time that manyAmericans began coming to gripswith the growing role that Black-water — founded by Erik D.

Bullets Ravaged Iraqis. Pardons Renew the Pain.By FALIH HASSANand JANE ARRAF

Cries of Injustice AfterTrump’s Decision onBlackwater Guards

Continued on Page A15

With the fate of a federal aidpackage suddenly thrown intodoubt by President Trump, eco-nomic data on Wednesdayshowed why the help is so desper-ately needed.

Personal income fell in Novem-ber for the second straight month,the Commerce Department saidWednesday, and consumer spend-ing declined for the first time sinceApril, as waning government aidand a worsening pandemic contin-ued to take a toll on the U.S. econ-omy.

Separate data from the LaborDepartment showed that applica-tions for unemployment benefitsremained high last week and haverisen since early November.

Taken together, the reports arethe latest evidence that the once-promising economic recovery issputtering.

“We know that things are goingto get worse,” said Daniel Zhao,senior economist with the careersite Glassdoor. “The question ishow much worse.”

The answer depends heavily ontwo factors: the path of the pan-demic, and the willingness of thefederal government to providehelp.

Congress, after months of de-lays, acted on Monday, passing a$900 billion economic relief pack-age that would provide aid to theunemployed, small businessesand most households. Most ur-gently, it would prevent millionsfrom losing jobless benefits at theend of this week.

But on Tuesday evening, Mr.Trump demanded sweepingchanges in the bill, throwing intodoubt whether he would sign it.

Mr. Trump’s criticism of the re-lief effort, which he called a “dis-grace,” was that it was not gener-ous enough: He called on Con-gress to provide $2,000 a person indirect payments to households,rather than the $600 included inthe bill.

Spending DropsAs Income Falls,Spurring Alarm

By BEN CASSELMAN

Continued on Page A6

With four weeks left in Presi-dent Trump’s term, he is at per-haps his most unleashed — and,as events of the past few dayshave demonstrated, at the mostunpredictable point in his presi-dency.

He remains the most powerfulperson in the world, yet he isfocused on the one area in whichhe is powerless to get what hewants: a way to avoid leavingoffice as a loser.

He spends his days flailing forany hope, if not of actually re-versing the outcome of the elec-tion then at least of building acoherent case that he was robbedof a second term.

When he has emerged from hisrelative isolation in recent days,it has been to suggest out of theblue that he would try to blow upthe bipartisan stimulus package,driving a wedge through hisparty in the process, and to grantclemency to a raft of allies andsupporters, mostly outside thenormal Justice Departmentprocess. On Wednesday, he ve-toed a defense bill backed bymost of his party.

He has otherwise sequestered

A Lame DuckOn the LooseAnd on a Tear

By MAGGIE HABERMANand MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

WHITE HOUSE MEMO

President Trump’s term hasless than four weeks to go.

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A16

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump’s denunciation of the $900billion coronavirus relief dealdrove a wedge through the Repub-lican Party on Wednesday, draw-ing harsh criticism from HouseRepublicans and threatening thedelivery of unemploymentchecks, a reprieve on evictionsand direct payments to strugglingAmericans.

His four-minute video on Tues-day night demanding significantchanges to the bill and larger di-rect stimulus checks also compli-cated his party’s push to hold theSenate with victories in two runoffraces in Georgia next month. TheRepublican candidates he pledgedto support went from campaign-ing on their triumphant votes forthe relief bill to facing questionson Mr. Trump’s view that themeasure was a “disgrace.”

Their Democratic rivals ap-peared to turn a liability into a po-litical advantage 13 days beforethe election on Jan. 5, agreeingwith the president’s demand for$2,000 direct payment checks andcalling for Republicans to accedeto his wish. Speaker Nancy Pelosiand top Democrats prepared tomove forward on Thursday with

new legislation that would pro-vide the $2,000 checks, daring Re-publicans to break with the presi-dent and block passage of the billin the House.

But the effect on strugglingAmericans was perhaps the mostprofound: With no deal signed bythe president, some unemploy-ment programs are set to run outthis week, and several other criti-cal provisions are to end thismonth. The uncertainty that Mr.Trump injected into the processcame at a perilous moment for theeconomy, as consumer spendingand personal incomes resumedtheir slides.

“Does the president realize thatunemployment benefits expirethe day after Christmas?” an ex-asperated Senator Mark Warner,Democrat of Virginia and one ofthe key negotiators of the pack-age, wrote on Twitter.

It is not clear whether Mr.Trump, who is furious at congres-sional Republicans who have ac-knowledged his defeat, would ac-tually veto the package. But givenhow late it is in the 116th Congress,

REPUBLICANS SPLITAND AID IMPERILEDBY TRUMP THREATS

Demands for Changes to Relief Bill RippleFrom Capitol Hill to Georgia

This article is by Luke Broadwa-ter, Emily Cochrane, Astead W.Herndon and Maggie Haberman.

Continued on Page A6

SHOWDOWN President Trump’sveto of the military spending billsets up a cliffhanger. PAGE A16

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 58,917 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2020

An antitrust inquiry is part of a push-back by Beijing against Jack Ma, Chi-na’s richest man. PAGE B4

China Investigates Alibaba

Today, cloudy, windy, warm, rainlate, high 57. Tonight, windy, heavyrain, cloudy, low 54. Tomorrow, someheavy rain, cloudy, windy, high 56.Weather map appears on Page A20.

$3.00