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How the director Barry Jenkins and hisband of indie filmmakers made “TheUnderground Railroad,” which istelevision’s most ambitious take onslavery since “Roots.” PAGE 8

ARTS & LEISURE

Shooting a Harrowing Tale

Dr. Rachel Levine, the assistant healthsecretary, intends to advocate on behalfof youth hurt by culture wars. PAGE 25

Voice for Transgender RightsWas a huge blast at a Czech weaponsdepot sabotage by Russian operatives?Nearby residents aren’t sure. They justwant things to stop blowing up. PAGE 11

New Twist in a Spy Thriller

Most musicians say streaming doesn’tpay, and their complaints about thesituation are growing louder. But canthe industry change? PAGE 7

A Downbeat Tune

Ewan McGregor spoke with MaureenDowd about his new series, in which heplays the fashion designer. PAGE 1

SUNDAY STYLES

Haunted by Halston

As vaccinations rise and guidelines areeased, what should we now do with allthese face coverings? PAGE 1

A Second Life for Masks

Nationalists fell just one seat short of anoutright majority in parliamentaryelections, keeping hopes alive for a newvote on independence. PAGE 14

INTERNATIONAL 11-18

Scotland’s Breakaway Push

Elizabeth Bruenig PAGE 4

SUNDAY REVIEW

Child care was once ignored in eco-nomic discussions. But school closings,and the effect of mothers leaving thework force, shifted perceptions. PAGE 1

SUNDAY BUSINESS

A Topic Has Found Its Time

A 10-year-old girl traveled 2,500 milesand crossed the southern border aloneto reunite with her mother. PAGE 19

NATIONAL 19-26

‘Will I Recognize You?’Even with vaccines, many older peopleand their relatives are weighing how tomanage at-home care for those who canno longer live independently. PAGE 4

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK 4-10

Opting Out of Nursing Homes

HANOVER, N.H. — SireyZhang, a first-year student atDartmouth’s Geisel School ofMedicine, was on spring break inMarch when he received an emailfrom administrators accusing himof cheating.

Dartmouth had reviewed Mr.

Zhang’s online activity on Canvas,its learning management system,during three remote exams, theemail said. The data indicated thathe had looked up course materialrelated to one question duringeach test, honor code violationsthat could lead to expulsion, theemail said.

Mr. Zhang, 22, said he had notcheated. But when the school’sstudent affairs office suggested he

would have a better outcome if heexpressed remorse and pleadedguilty, he said he felt he had littlechoice but to agree. Now he facessuspension and a misconductmark on his academic record thatcould derail his dream of becom-ing a pediatrician.

“What has happened to me inthe last month, despite not cheat-ing, has resulted in one of the mostterrifying, isolating experiences

of my life,” said Mr. Zhang, whohas filed an appeal.

He is one of 17 medical studentswhom Dartmouth recently ac-cused of cheating on remote testswhile in-person exams were shutdown because of the coronavirus.The allegations have prompted anon-campus protest, letters of con-cern to school administrators

Cheating Charges at Dartmouth Show Pitfalls of Tech TrackingBy NATASHA SINGERand AARON KROLIK

Continued on Page 21

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — TheUniversity of Miami has long beenable to make a glossy pitch to thestudents it hopes will star on itssports teams: an exceptional ath-letic tradition, respected academ-ics, South Florida’s sun-kissedglamour.

For months, though, coaches atMiami — and every other collegein Florida — have had a new sell-ing point: Play here and, thanks toa new state law, maybe makesome money off your athleticfame.

Florida and four other statesare poised to allow players tomake endorsement deals startingthis summer, and with universi-ties in other states anxious aboutlosing recruits, the N.C.A.A. ismoving anew toward extendingsimilar rights to college athletesacross the country.

In an interview with The NewYork Times on Friday, theN.C.A.A.’s president, Mark Em-mert, said he would recommendthat college sports’ governingbodies approve new rules “before,or as close to, July 1,” when thenew laws are scheduled to go intoeffect in Florida, Alabama, Geor-gia, Mississippi and New Mexico.

The changes together promiseto reshape a multibillion-dollar in-dustry and to test the N.C.A.A.’s

As States Act,N.C.A.A. Chief

Budges on PayBy ALAN BLINDER

Continued on Page 33

A report takes a look at expanding the many possibilities of your home, giving every square foot a job. A special section.Design Panorama

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MATTHEW MILLMAN

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The voiceon the 911 call is a teenage girl’s,and it is quavering, as if she hasbeen crying.

“I want to leave this fosterhome,” she tells the dispatcher. “Iwant to leave this foster home.”

When two police officers ar-rived at the home in Columbus,Ohio, they reported later, they metan agitated ninth grader, Ja’NiahBryant, who told them that thefighting at 3171 Legion Lane wasgetting worse and worse.

They said there was nothing

they could do, and this seemed topush her over an edge. She be-came “irate,” the officers wrote intheir report, and told them that ifshe was not allowed to leave, “shewas going to kill someone.”

Twenty-three days later, Ja-’Niah called 911 again, telling thepolice that she and her older sisterwere being threatened by twoyoung women who used to live atthe house. Officers arrived in the

middle of a melee outside thehouse, and one of them fatally shotJa’Niah’s 16-year-old sister,Ma’Khia Bryant, who was lungingat one of the women, brandishinga steak knife.

The shooting, which occurredmoments before a jury in Minne-apolis convicted Derek Chauvin ofmurdering George Floyd, re-leased a new wave of anger overshootings by the police. To calmthe furor, the Columbus policequickly released body camerafootage, which showed some ofthe fight outside the house and,they said, demonstrated that theofficer had acted to protect theother woman.

But Ms. Bryant’s tragic death

was also preceded by a turbulentjourney through the foster caresystem, which had cycledMa’Khia through at least fiveplacements in two years — afterher own mother was found to benegligent — despite efforts bytheir grandmother to reunite thefamily.

Ohio places children in fostercare at a rate 10 percent higherthan the national average, andchild welfare officials here areconsiderably less likely than in thecountry as a whole to place chil-dren with their relatives. Blackchildren, like Ma’Khia and her sis-ter, account for nearly a third of

Teenage Girl Killed by Officer in Columbus Ached to Go HomeThis article is by Nicholas Bogel-

Burroughs, Ellen Barry and WillWright.

Stuck in Foster System,Living With Chaos

Continued on Page 22

As a water crisis builds in Russian-occupied Crimea, a dried-up canal inUkraine is becoming one of the mostsensitive flash points in Europe. PAGE 12

Gulf Widens Over a Canal

One of the nation’s largest pipe-lines, which carries refined gaso-line and jet fuel from Texas up theEast Coast to New York, wasforced to shut down after being hitby ransomware in a vivid demon-stration of the vulnerability of en-ergy infrastructure to cyber-attacks.

The operator of the system, Co-lonial Pipeline, said in a vaguelyworded statement late Friday thatit had shut down its 5,500 miles ofpipeline, which it says carries 45percent of the East Coast’s fuelsupplies, in an effort to contain thebreach. Earlier Friday, there weredisruptions along the pipeline, butit was not clear at the timewhether that was a direct result ofthe attack or of the company’smoves to proactively halt it.

On Saturday, as the F.B.I., theEnergy Department and theWhite House delved into the de-tails, Colonial Pipeline acknowl-edged that its corporate computernetworks had been hit by a ran-somware attack, in which criminalgroups hold data hostage until thevictim pays a ransom. The com-pany said it had shut the pipelineitself, a precautionary act, appar-ently for fear that the hackersmight have obtained informationthat would enable them to attack

Major Pipeline Forced to Close By Cyberattack

This article is by David E. Sanger,Clifford Krauss and Nicole Perlroth.

Continued on Page 23

Locked out of Facebook, ma-rooned in Mar-a-Lago andmocked for an amateurish newwebsite, Donald J. Trump re-

mained largely outof public sight lastweek. Yet the Re-publican Party’s

capitulation to the former presi-dent became clearer than ever,as did the damage to Americanpolitics he has caused with his liethat the election was stolen fromhim.

In Washington, Republicansmoved to strip RepresentativeLiz Cheney of her House leader-ship position, a punishment fordenouncing Mr. Trump’s falseclaims of voter fraud as a threatto democracy. Lawmakers inFlorida and Texas advancedsweeping new measures thatwould curtail voting, echoing thefictional narrative from Mr.Trump and his allies that theelectoral system was riggedagainst him. And in Arizona, thestate Republican Party started abizarre re-examination of theNovember election results thatinvolved searching for traces ofbamboo in last year’s ballots.

The churning dramas cast intosharp relief the extent to whichthe nation, six months after theelection, is still struggling withthe consequences of an assaultby a losing presidential candi-date on a bedrock principle ofAmerican democracy: that thenation’s elections are legitimate.

They also provided stark evi-dence that the former presidenthas not only managed to squelchany dissent within his party buthas persuaded most of the G.O.P.to make a gigantic bet: that thesurest way to regain power is toembrace his pugilistic style,racial divisiveness and beyond-the-pale conspiracy theoriesrather than to court the subur-ban swing voters who cost theparty the White House and who

Trump KeepsAn Iron GripOn the G.O.P.

Party Is Banking onPushing Election Lie

By LISA LERER

POLITICALMEMO

Continued on Page 20

KABUL, Afghanistan — Power-ful explosions outside a highschool in Afghanistan’s capital onSaturday killed at least 30 peopleand wounded dozens more, manyof them teenage girls leavingclass, in a gruesome attack thatunderscored fears about the na-tion’s future after the impendingAmerican troop withdrawal.

The blast — and the targeting ofgirls as they left the Sayed Ul-Shuhada high school — came asrights groups and others were ex-pressing alarm that the Americantroop withdrawal would leavewomen, and their educational andsocial gains, particularly vulnera-ble.

The hope surrounding the U.S.deal with the Taliban on the troopwithdrawal was that it might openthe way for a lasting cease-fireand a respite for civilians who arebeing killed in horrific numbers.But the reality as American troopsdepart is being driven home bymassacres like the one on Satur-day — there has been more chaosthan accord, and more fear thanhope.

Details of the attack weremurky. It was unclear if it was acoordinated assault or if it had in-volved car bombs or a suicide vest— or a combination of all three.But ambulances raced across thecity toward the site into theevening.

In recent weeks, the Taliban’spublic statements have mostlybeen triumphal, leaving manyfearing that the insurgents will tryto seize power through a bloodymilitary victory with the Ameri-can and international forces gone.

Even if some peace deal were to

EXPLOSIONS ROCKSCHOOL IN KABUL,

LEAVING 30 DEAD

DOZENS ARE WOUNDED

Streets Were Full as GirlsLeft Class for Day —

Details Still Murky

By THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFFand NAJIM RAHIM

A boy searching for his sister retrieved her backpack from a pile outside the high school bombed in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday.KIANA HAYERI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page 14

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . No. 59,053 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, SUNDAY, MAY 9, 2021

Today, some sunshine early, turningcloudy, rain late, high 63. Tonight,overcast, rain, low 51. Tomorrow,morning showers, mainly cloudy,high 62. Weather map, Page 24.

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