Into Recession OVER FOOD STAMPS A Sharp Slide G.O.P ... · been predicted to grow by 1.2 per-cent this year. In 2009, at the back of the global financial crisis, it shrank by 4.5

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TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

New York shut down subways for cleaning for the first time in 115 years on Wednesday, closing the24-hour backbone of the city for overnight disinfection of trains, stations and equipment. Page A14.

Emergency Stop

HILARY SWIFT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

HILARY SWIFT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON — Tempera-tures in Phoenix are expected tohit 105 this week. Sacramento hasalready broken heat records re-cently, as have Salt Lake City;Galveston, Texas; and Fort My-ers, Fla.

But the usual strategy that cit-ies rely on to protect the most vul-nerable from the heat — encour-aging people to gather and cooldown in public buildings like li-

braries or recreation centers —doesn’t work in an era of the coro-navirus and social distancing. Socities across the country are rush-ing to test other ideas.

In Phoenix, officials plan to

start renting hotel rooms to helphomeless people stay out of theheat. New York City is looking tohelp residents pay their electricitybills, in order to make air-condi-tioning more affordable.

Others are considering handingout free air-conditioners to peoplewhose homes lack them. And inAustin, Texas, officials may soonbe dispatching air-conditionedcity buses to serve as cooling cen-ters in neighborhoods where theneed for relief is greatest.

Cities Test Ideas to Keep People Cool, and ApartBy CHRISTOPHER FLAVELLE Air-Conditioned Buses

and Hotel Rooms toShield Vulnerable

Continued on Page A10

BAARLE-HERTOG-NASSAU —With the border dividing theNetherlands and Belgium cuttingstraight through the entrance ofher studio and art gallery, SylviaReijbroek was confused overwhich country’s rules to followwhen the coronavirus upendedEurope.

Playing it safe, Ms. Reijbroekdecided to follow Belgian law,since her gallery is legally regis-tered there, and she closed downher business. But it has beenfrustrating, she said, seeingcustomers walking in and out ofthe health and beauty supplyshop right next door — in theNetherlands.

“There is only one shop on thisstreet that had to adhere to Bel-gian law and closed,” she saidsourly. “Mine.”

As European countries beginto ease their restrictions onpublic life at a varied pace, withsome allowing businesses toreopen while others remain onlockdown, the different rules aresowing confusion for travelersand the many people who live inborder areas and regularly crossback and forth.

And nowhere, it seems safe tosay, are these divergent strat-egies more visible and perplex-ing than in the border-straddlingtown of Baarle-Hertog-Nassau,where the rules can differ fromstreet to street, door to door andeven within buildings, withDutch law in force in one spotand Belgium’s applied just a few

Locked Down,But Next Door

Is Wide OpenBy THOMAS ERDBRINK

EUROPE DISPATCH

Continued on Page A8

WASHINGTON — Confrontedwith America’s worst publichealth crisis in generations,President Trump declared him-self a wartime president. Now hehas begun doing what past com-manders have done when a wargoes badly: Declare victory andgo home.

The war, however, does notseem over. Outside New York,the coronavirus pandemic in theUnited States is still growing, notreceding. The latest death tollestimates have more than dou-bled from what Mr. Trump pre-dicted just weeks ago. And pollsshow the public is not ready torestore normal life.

But Mr. Trump’s cure-can’t-be-worse-than-the-disease logic isclear: As bad as the virus maybe, the cost of the virtual nationallockdown has grown too high.With more than 30 million peopleout of work and businesses col-lapsing by the day, keeping thecountry at home seems unsus-tainable. With the virus stillspreading and no vaccine avail-able until next year at the earli-est, though, the president hasdecided that for life to resume formany, some may have to die.

“Hopefully that won’t be thecase,” Mr. Trump said onWednesday when asked if deathswould rise as a result of reopen-ing, but added, “It could verywell be the case.”

“But we have to get our coun-try open again,” he continued.“People want to go back, and

Trump Moving Past OutbreakDespite Alarms

By PETER BAKER

NEWS ANALYSIS

Continued on Page A11

WASHINGTON — A companycreated just six weeks ago by apair of Republican operatives re-ceived hundreds of millions of dol-lars in payments from desperatestate and local governments forcoronavirus supplies, but is nowfacing a federal criminal investi-gation and a rising chorus of com-plaints from customers who saytheir orders never arrived.

The company, Blue Flame Med-ical, had boasted that it couldquickly obtain coveted test kits,N95 masks and other personalprotective equipment through aChinese government-owned com-pany with which it had partnered,according to documents obtainedby The New York Times.

Blue Flame was started by apair of Republican political con-sultants, Mike Gula and JohnThomas, who did not have muchexperience in the medical supplyfield. Mr. Gula’s fund-raising firmhas been paid more than $36 mil-lion since 2008 by a range of topRepublican politicians and politi-cal committees, while Mr. Thomashas served as a general consultantto a number of campaigns.

Mr. Thomas had said in an inter-view in late March that the pairhad developed “very, very largenetworks” through their work inpolitics that would enable them tosecure supplies from manufactur-ers, and connect to customers,such as government offices, largemedical systems and law enforce-ment agencies around the world,including in the Middle East.

The company’s pitch — whichwas accompanied by an endorse-

Republican PairFacing ScrutinyIn Virus Venture

By KENNETH P. VOGEL

Continued on Page A10

BRUSSELS — The good newsfor Europe is that the worst of thepandemic is beginning to ease.This week, deaths in Italy hit anearly two-month low. And theGerman leader Angela Merkel an-nounced that schools, day carecenters and restaurants would re-open in the next few days.

But the relief could be short-lived.

The European Commission re-leased projections on Wednesdaythat Europe’s economy will shrinkby 7.4 percent this year. A top offi-cial told residents of the EuropeanUnion, first formed in the after-math of the Second World War, toexpect the “deepest economic re-cession in its history.”

To put this figure in perspective,the 27-nation bloc’s economy hadbeen predicted to grow by 1.2 per-cent this year. In 2009, at the backof the global financial crisis, itshrank by 4.5 percent.

It’s a grim reminder that even ifthe virus dissipates, the economicfallout could pressure the worldeconomy for months, if not years.

In China, where the outbreakhas subsided in recent weeks, thefactories that power the globalsupply chain have been fired up.But with few global buyers for itsgoods, its economy has been slowto recover.

In the United States, where thegrowth of new cases in the hard-est-hit areas shows signs of slow-ing and there is a push to lift lock-downs, there are also signs that arecovery may be elusive. The gov-ernment on Friday is set to re-lease the monthly employment re-port, and some forecasts predict aloss of more than 20 million jobs in

E.U. Forecasts A Sharp SlideInto Recession

7.4% Dip Would PinchU.S. Economy, Too

By MATINA STEVIS-GRIDNEFFand JACK EWING

Continued on Page A7

WASHINGTON — As a pad-locked economy leaves millions ofAmericans without paychecks,lines outside food banks havestretched for miles, promptingsome of the overwhelmed chari-ties to seek help from the NationalGuard.

New research shows a rise infood insecurity without modernprecedent. Among mothers withyoung children, nearly one-fifthsay their children are not gettingenough to eat, according to a sur-vey by the Brookings Institution,a rate three times as high as in2008, during the worst of theGreat Recession.

The reality of so many Ameri-cans running out of food is analarming reminder of the eco-nomic hardship the pandemic hasinflicted. But despite their supportfor spending trillions on other pro-grams to mitigate those hard-ships, Republicans have balked ata long-term expansion of foodstamps — a core feature of thesafety net that once enjoyed broadsupport but is now a source of ahighly partisan divide.

Democrats want to raise foodstamp benefits by 15 percent forthe duration of the economic cri-sis, arguing that a similar moveduring the Great Recession re-duced hunger and helped theeconomy. But Republicans havefought for years to shrink the pro-gram, saying that the earlier liber-alization led to enduring caseloadgrowth and a backdoor expansionof the welfare state.

For President Trump, a person-al rivalry may also be in play: Inhis State of the Union address in

February, he boasted that fallingcaseloads showed him besting hispredecessor, Barack Obama,whom Newt Gingrich, the formerRepublican House speaker, hadderided as “the food stamp presi-dent.” Even as the pandemic un-folded, the Trump administrationtried to push forward with newwork rules projected to removemore people from aid.

Mr. Trump and his congres-sional allies have agreed to only ashort-term increase in food stampbenefits that omits the poorest re-cipients, including five millionchildren. Those calling for abroader increase say Congresshas spent an unprecedentedamount on programs invented onthe fly while rejecting a provenway to keep hungry people fed.

“This program is the singlemost powerful anti-hunger toolthat we have and one of the mostimportant economic developmenttools,” said Kate Maehr, the head

AS HUNGER GROWS, G.O.P. PUSHES BACK OVER FOOD STAMPS

Millions Struggling During Pandemic —Democrats Seek to Raise Benefits

By JASON DePARLE

A rising need for help is over-whelming some food banks.

RUTH FREMSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A12

Our critic Michael Kimmelman exploresa city icon and nearby neighborhoodsfor a virtual architectural tour. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-7

Crossing the Brooklyn BridgeSuits in California and Texas claim thategg producers or grocers have beenprice gouging in the pandemic. PAGE B3

BUSINESS B1-7

Taking Egg Prices to Court

As we shelter in place in the pandemic,more employers are using software totrack our work — and us. PAGE B1

Watching You Work, Remotely

A New York Times analysis of C.D.C.data begins to show how many lives arebeing lost in each state, and how manyare beyond the norm. PAGE A13

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-18

Calculating the Human Toll

Poonam Sharma Mathis went into laborin New York City just as hospitaliza-tions and deaths were rising. PAGE A16

Delivering During a Pandemic

The pandemic poses the greatest threatyet to President Recep Tayyip Erdo-gan’s grip on fiscal policy. PAGE A19

INTERNATIONAL A19-21

Turkey’s Economic Ailment

Education Secretary Betsy DeVosreleased final rules for schools dealingwith sexual misconduct. PAGE A24

NATIONAL A22-25

Rules on Schools’ Sex Cases

Young Republicans say they oftendisagree with the party line and lead-ers, but one issue above all keeps themfrom breaking away. PAGE A22

Tepid on Trump, Not Abortion

Financial fears have led teams at thebottom of the Premier League to balk atproposals to return to action. PAGE B8

SPORTSTHURSDAY B8-10

The Last Won’t Play First

With salons in New York closed sincelate March, some scraggly-haired peo-ple have been furtively seeking outprofessional grooming. PAGE D3

Visiting the Barber on the Sly

Amol S. Navathe and Ezekiel J. Emanuel PAGE A27

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

We asked the residents of one buildingin Jamaica, Queens, what they’velearned in quarantine and what theyare looking forward to once the pan-demic has passed. PAGE D1

THURSDAY STYLES D1-6

The People Down the Hall

Late Edition

VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,686 © 2020 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2020

Today, a mix of clouds and sunshine,dry, warmer, high 67. Tonight,mainly clear, dry, low 47. Tomorrow,cloudy, cooler, occasional rain, driz-zle, high 56. Weather map, Page C8.

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