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WASHINGTON — As they huntfor revenue to pay for theirsprawling spending bill and try tounite a fractured caucus, Demo-crats are attempting to rewrite theUnited States tax code in a matterof days, proposing the kind ofsweeping changes to how Amer-ica taxes businesses and individu-als that would normally takemonths or years to enact.

The effort has effectively dis-carded trillions of dollars of care-fully crafted tax increases thatPresident Biden proposed on thecampaign trail and that top Demo-crats have rolled out in Congress.Instead, lawmakers are throwinga slew of new proposals into themix, including a tax on billion-aires, hoping that they can pass

muster both legally and withintheir own party.

The frantic attempt to overhaulthe complex U.S. tax code re-mained in a state of flux onWednesday, with Senator JoeManchin III and some HouseDemocrats expressing reserva-tions about a tax on billionairesthat was proposed earlier in theday by Senator Ron Wyden of Ore-gon. On Tuesday, Mr. Manchinshot down a plan that would havegiven the Internal Revenue Serv-ice more visibility into certain tax-payers’ bank accounts in order tocatch tax cheats, forcing a groupof Senate Democrats who supportthe provision to try to negotiate acompromise.

Mr. Manchin’s opposition to anew federal paid leave program

SEEKING REVENUE,DEMOCRATS RUSHTO REDO TAX CODE

YEARS OF WORK IN DAYS

Effort Discards Proposalsby Biden — Peril for

Paid Leave Plan

By ALAN RAPPEPORTand JIM TANKERSLEY

Senator Ron Wyden of Oregonproposed a tax on billionaires.

OLIVER CONTRERAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Continued on Page A16

KIANA HAYERI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Girls studied for a university entrance exam in Mazar-i-Sharif recently, but in many areas, no female students go to class. Page A4.Uneven Attendance in Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan

Seven months after workersfinished installing solar panelsatop the Garcia family home nearStanford University, the system islittle more than a roof ornament.The problem: The local utility’sequipment is so overloaded thatthere is no place for the electricityproduced by the panels to go.

“We wasted 30,000-somethingdollars on a system we can’t use,”Theresa Garcia said. “It’s justbeen really frustrating.”

President Biden is pushing law-makers and regulators to weanthe United States from fossil fuelsand counter the effects of climatechange. But his ambitious goalscould be upended by aging trans-formers and dated electrical linesthat have made it hard for home-owners, local governments andbusinesses to use solar panels,batteries, electric cars, heat

pumps and other devices that canhelp reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions.

Much of the equipment on theelectric grid was built decades agoand needs to be upgraded. It wasdesigned for a world in which elec-tricity flowed in one direction —from the grid to people. Now,homes and businesses are in-creasingly supplying energy tothe grid from their rooftop solarpanels.

These problems have becomemore urgent because the fastestway to cut greenhouse gas emis-sions is to move machinery, carsand heating equipment that cur-rently run on oil and natural gas toelectricity generated by solar,wind, nuclear and other zero-emission energy sources. Yet thegrid is far from having enough ca-

Outdated Power Grid HampersMove to a Clean Energy Future

By IVAN PENN

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —Gangs blocking Haiti’s ports,choking off fuel shipments. Hospi-tals on the verge of shutting downas generators run dry, risking thelives of hundreds of children. Cell-phone towers going withoutpower, leaving swaths of the coun-try isolated. And an acute hungercrisis growing more severe eachday.

After a presidential assassina-tion, an earthquake and a tropicalstorm, a new crisis is grippingHaiti: A severe fuel shortage ispushing the nation to the brink ofcollapse because gangs, not thegovernment, rule about half of thenation’s capital.

With gangs holding up fueltrucks at will, truck drivers haverefused to go to work, setting off anationwide strike by transporta-tion workers and paralyzing a na-tion dependent on generators formuch of its power.

It is just the latest reflection ofthe security vacuum that has en-veloped Haiti, where 16 Ameri-cans and one Canadian with anAmerican missionary group werekidnapped this month by a gangdemanding a $17 million ransom.The authorities know where thehostages are being held — butcan’t enter the gang-controlledneighborhood because the policeare so outmatched.

In a stark demonstration of howcommon kidnappings are, aHaitian American pastor was re-cently abducted and released onMonday. Even worse, humanrights activists say, the country’sjustice minister is accused of col-luding with a gang to kidnap the

Fear of GangsHinders SupplyOf Fuel in Haiti

By NATALIE KITROEFFand MARIA ABI-HABIB

Continued on Page A8

M. SCOTT BRAUER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The aftermath of a nor’easter in Hingham, Mass. Hundreds of thousands lost electricity. Page A13.Storm Pounds New England

ROUND VALLEY RESERVA-TION, Calif. — They said theywere chasing down horse and cat-tle thieves, an armed pursuitthrough fertile valleys and ever-green forests north of San Fran-cisco. But under questioning in1860 a cattle rancher let slip amore gruesome picture, one of in-discriminate killings of Yuki Indi-ans.

A 10-year-old girl killed for“stubbornness.”

Infants “put out of their misery.”Documented in letters and dep-

ositions held in California’s statearchives, the Gold Rush-era mas-

sacres are today at the heart of adispute at one of the country’smost prominent law schools,whose graduates include genera-tions of California politicians andlawyers like Vice President Ka-mala Harris.

For the past four years, the Uni-versity of California, Hastings Col-lege of the Law has been investi-gating the role of its founder, Ser-

ranus Hastings, in one of the dark-est, yet least discussed, chaptersof the state’s history. Mr. Hastings,one of the wealthiest men in Cali-fornia in that era and the state’sfirst chief justice, mastermindedone set of massacres.

For those involved, including adescendant of Mr. Hastings whosits on the school’s board, the jour-ney into the past has revealed avery different version of the earlyyears of the state than the onetaught in classrooms and etchedinto the popular imagination of in-trepid pioneers trekking into thehills to strike it rich.

Across Northern California —north of Napa’s vineyards, along

School Faces Founder’s Role in Native KillingsBy THOMAS FULLER Massacres in Gold Rush

California Spur Callsfor Name Change

Continued on Page A12

Continued on Page A14

Pamela Council’s “A Fountain for Sur-vivors,” made from 350,000 acrylicnails, provides a serene, dreamy shelterin Times Square. PAGE D5

THURSDAY STYLES D1-6

Offering a Singular OasisThe latest revival of “Caroline, orChange” comes at a moment thatmakes it seem more prescient. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-8

Time Changes ‘Caroline’New technology, iPads and a tutorial canhelp anyone act like a pilot, except fordealing with air traffic control. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-7

Flying, but Not a Pilot

President Biden has said the govern-ment should help people who continueto experience symptoms long after acoronavirus infection. But qualifyingremains a major hurdle. PAGE A11

NATIONAL A11-21

Covid Patients’ Long StruggleAdvanced despite U.S. objections, thehomes on the West Bank would be thefirst approved under Israel’s new primeminister, Naftali Bennett. PAGE A10

INTERNATIONAL A4-10

Israeli Settlement Plans Go On

The company announced a licensingdeal to allow low-cost access to itsanti-Covid pill in 105 nations. PAGE A10

Merck Aids Poor Countries

Many households are being forced toadjust their shopping lists. Even foodbanks are feeling the pinch. PAGE B1

The Toll of Higher Food PricesNetflix’s “My Unorthodox Life” paints adismal picture of what ultra-Orthodoxwomen face. Some disagree. PAGE C2

Truth or Misrepresentation?

An assistant director of the film “Rust”told a detective that he had failed toinspect each round in each chamber ofthe gun that was given to Alec Baldwin,according to an affidavit. PAGE A18

Faulty Gun Check on Film Set

Texas is the latest state to pass a law tokeep transgender girls and women fromcompeting in women’s sports. PAGE B10

SPORTS B8-10

Barring Transgender Athletes

Farah Stockman PAGE A23

OPINION A22-23

Late Edition

VOL. CLXXI . . . . No. 59,225 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2021

BOSTON — Michelle Wu wasweeks away from her first CityCouncil election when she lost hervoice.

Her supporters watched appre-hensively. Wasn’t it enough of achallenge that, in a city of back-slapping, larger-than-life poli-ticians, their candidate was a soft-spoken, Harvard-educated policy

nerd? Or that, in a city of deepneighborhood loyalties, she was anewcomer? Now, at crunchtime,she could barely make herselfheard above a rasp.

But it became clear, when Elec-tion Day arrived, that they neednot have worried.

Ms. Wu, then 28, had put thepieces in place, learning Boston’spolitical ecosystem, engaging vot-ers about policy, cobbling togethera multiracial coalition. This was

not about speeches. She wouldwin in a different way.

On Tuesday, when Ms. Wu, 36,faces off against another citycouncilor, Annissa EssaibiGeorge, in Boston’s mayoral elec-

tion, she could break a barrier na-tionally.

Though Asian Americans arethe country’s fastest-growingelectorate, Asian American candi-dates have not fared well in big-city races.

Of the country’s 100 largest cit-ies, six have Asian American may-ors, all in California or Texas, ac-cording to the Asian Pacific Amer-

Harvard Progressive Makes a Play for Power as Boston’s MayorBy ELLEN BARRY Outsider in City Politics

Rises to Lead Race

Continued on Page A13

WASHINGTON — China’s test-ing of a hypersonic missile de-signed to evade American nucleardefenses was “very close” to a“Sputnik moment” for the UnitedStates, Gen. Mark A. Milley, thechairman of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff, said Wednesday in the firstofficial confirmation of how Bei-jing’s demonstration of its weaponcapabilities had taken Americanofficials by surprise.

The tests, which could revivefears of a Cold War-like arms race,come as Beijing is spending heav-ily to modernize its military andmay be seeking to expand its nu-clear arsenal.

Two separate tests, reportedearlier by The Financial Times,took place this summer, con-ducted in a fashion that Chineseofficials knew would be highly vis-ible to American satellites. ButU.S. officials remained mostly si-lent until General Milley spoke onWednesday, talking about thetests on a Bloomberg Televisioninterview program hosted by Da-vid Rubenstein, the billionaire in-vestor and philanthropist.

“I don’t know if it’s quite a Sput-nik moment, but I think it’s veryclose to that,” General Milley said,making it clear he and other offi-cials were surprised. The tests, hesaid, were a “very significanttechnological event,” and he said“it has all of our attention.”

Hypersonic weapons have along history, going back to the1960s. But while General Milleydid not elaborate, the surprise ap-pears to have arisen from howChina joined two different tech-nologies: the launch of a missilethat completed a partial orbit ofthe earth, and a hypersonic vehi-cle that could plow a suddenlyshifting path, maneuvering inways that would render all cur-rent U.S. missile defenses obso-lete.

At least one of the tests was notcompletely successful; it report-edly missed an intended target bya wide margin. But the advancessuggest that China may one daybe able to arm a hypersonic vehi-cle with a nuclear warhead,launch it into a low orbit, and re-lease it from any place — includ-ing, perhaps, an evasive flightpath over Antarctica.

Existing defenses of the conti-nental United States all point westand north over the Pacific, mean-ing they might fail to defeat an at-tack from the south. Even if therewere antimissile bases pointed

China, TestingNew Weapon,Jolts Pentagon

Missile Is Seen as Closeto ‘Sputnik Moment’

By DAVID E. SANGERand WILLIAM J. BROAD

Continued on Page A9

Today, mostly sunny and season-able, light breeze, high 60. Tonight,partly cloudy, low 49. Tomorrow,cloudy and breezy, rain at night,high 57. Weather map, Page A20.

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