VOL. CLXVIII . . . No. 58,442 © 2019 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2019

C M Y K Nxxx,2019-09-06,A,001,Bs-4C,E2

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CHARLESTON, S.C. — After itsdeadly rampage across the Baha-mas and brush of Florida, Hurri-cane Dorian pounded the Car-olinas on Thursday as its centerclosed in on Cape Fear, N.C., sow-ing fear and worry from the ele-gant streets of downtown Charles-ton to the jigsaw puzzle that isNorth Carolina’s barrier islands.

Though thousands of residentshad evacuated the region at theurging of government officials,many others stayed behind,where they endured tornadoes,power failures, flooding and tree-toppling winds. In low-lyingCharleston, the water was knee-high in some streets, though bylate afternoon, Shannon F. Scaff,the director of emergency man-agement, said that the city of136,000 had largely avoided majorcatastrophe.

“We got hit more than we havein other storms, but anybody fa-miliar with Charleston wouldprobably agree that we got veryfortunate yet again,” Mr. Scaffsaid.

Farther north, where the Cate-gory 2 hurricane’s bands were juststarting to be felt, there was lin-gering concern over winds thatreached 105 miles per hour, as wellas a kind of war-weariness for aregion still rebuilding from lastyear’s Hurricane Florence.

In the South Carolina coastalfishing village of McClellanville,the oysterman and bartenderPete Kornack was taking Dorianseriously as it churned closer tohim Thursday morning. But thistime, he decided to stay put.

“I’m not running anymore,”said Mr. Kornack, 52, whosemother-in-law is in her 80s anddoes not travel as well as she usedto. It was tiresome, he said, to liveconstantly in the cross hairs. Hehad lived through so many stormshe mixed up their names, saying,“It’s like someone points a cannonat you and says, ‘We might pull thetrigger, we might push the button.’It’s a bad feeling. It’s just trauma.”

In the Bahamas, where someneighborhoods were reduced torubble, the trauma was even moreacute, with 30 deaths confirmedand authorities fearing manymore. The death count “could bestaggering,” Duane Sands, theminister of health, said on Thurs-day.

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Floridadeclared Dorian a “close call” onThursday, and the storm became aCarolina problem.

Hurricanes are the great, grim,incessant force of the coast of theCarolinas, a recurring source ofheartbreak and death that haveinfluenced the course of the re-gion’s history. From 1851 until lastyear, 382 “tropical cyclone events”affected North Carolina alone, ei-ther making landfall or signifi-cantly affecting the state without

CHURNING NORTH, HURRICANE DRUBS WEARY CAROLINAS

TORNADOES AND FLOODS

Worry but Some Relief ina Region Accustomed

to Storm Trauma

By RICHARD FAUSSET and NICHOLAS BOGEL-BURROUGHS

Continued on Page A14

LONDON — They have thesame shock of blindingly blondand slightly disheveled hair. Theygrew up in the same hypercom-petitive, overachieving familythat held dinner table debateswhere cleverness was the coin ofthe realm. They were on opposite

sides of the 2016 Brexit referen-dum but patched things up after-ward, as the right sort of peopledo.

In short, the brothers Johnson,Boris and Jo, always had each oth-er’s back. Until Thursday, anyway,when Jo Johnson announced hisresignation, both from his seat inthe British Parliament and fromthe Conservative government

that his brother leads.His resignation, coming near

the end of a disastrous week forhis brother, Prime Minister BorisJohnson, seemed timed to inflictmaximum pain.

It felt Shakespearean, evenFreudian, but in the end it mayhave been a simple act of con-science.

“In recent weeks I’ve been torn

between family loyalty and the na-tional interest,” Jo Johnson, 47,wrote in a Twitter post. “It’s an un-resolvable tension & time for oth-ers to take on my roles as MP &Minister.”

The resignation punctuatedwhat has been, by some meas-ures, one of the most miserable

Et Tu, Jo? A Painful Twist as Johnson’s Brother Quits ParliamentBy STEPHEN CASTLE

Continued on Page A8

NASSAU, the Bahamas — Theroof had blown clean off. Outside,the ocean surged, swallowing theland. Brent Lowe knew he had toescape — and take his 24-year-oldson, who has cerebral palsy andcan’t walk, with him.

But Mr. Lowe had another prob-lem. He’s blind.

So he put his grown son on hisshoulders, then stepped off hisporch, he said. The swirling cur-rent outside came up to his chin.

“It was scary, so scary,” said Mr.Lowe, 49.

Clutching neighbors, he said hefelt his way to the closest homestill standing. It was five minutes— an eternity — away.

Stories of unlikely survivalhave slowly emerged in the dayssince Hurricane Dorian hit the Ba-hamas, pummeling the islands of

Grand Bahama and Abaco fordays before moving toward theAtlantic Seaboard.

While the damage has been vis-ible from above, the full humantoll is still far from certain, with 30deaths confirmed so far and theauthorities warning that the realnumber may be much higher.

The death count “could be stag-gering,” Dr. Duane Sands, theminister of health, said on Thurs-day.

Some neighborhoods have beenreduced to rubble, almost entirelyflattened by the storm. In others,95 percent of homes have been

damaged or destroyed.Thousands of people are now

homeless, taking refuge in gym-nasiums or churches, and the au-thorities are bracing for an influxof bodies as the extent of the de-struction becomes clear.

“We are embalming bodies sothat we have more capacity asnew bodies are brought in,” Dr.Sands said. “We need to get cool-ers into Abaco and Grand Baha-ma, because we believe that wemay not have the capacity to storethe bodies.”

Sandra Cooke, a resident ofNassau, the capital, said her sis-ter-in-law had been trapped undera collapsed roof in the Abaco Is-lands.

At first, her brother couldn’tfind his wife — then the family dogdetected her in the rubble. Whenthere was a break in the storm,

Blind and Wading, Son in Tow, to Relative SafetyBy RACHEL KNOWLES

Recovering items in the Abaco Islands of the Bahamas. Hurricane Dorian pounded the area for days before moving toward the U.S.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Continued on Page A5

Harrowing Stories ofSurvival Seep Out of

Ravaged Bahamas

WASHINGTON — PresidentTrump’s decision to renew talkswith China in the coming weekssent financial markets soaring onThursday, as investors seized onthe development as a sign thatboth sides could still find a wayout of an economically damagingtrade war.

The rally sent the S&P 500 upmore than 1 percent, underscoringjust how much financial marketsare subsisting on hopes and fearsabout the trade war. Shares fellthrough most of August, as Mr.Trump escalated his fight withChina and imposed more tariffs,only to snap back on Thursday af-ter news of the talks.

But expectations for progressremain low, and many in theUnited States and China see thebest outcome as a continued stale-mate that would prevent a col-lapse in relations before the 2020election. Both Mr. Trump andPresident Xi Jinping of China areunder pressure from domestic au-diences to stand tough, and thetalks will happen after Mr.Trump’s next round of punishingtariffs take effect on Oct. 1.

“Continuing to talk soothesmarkets a little bit,” said EswarPrasad, the former head of theChina division at the InternationalMonetary Fund. “But the politicalcost to making major concessionsis, I think, too high for either side.”

The skepticism stems in partfrom what is emerging as a famil-iar pattern for Mr. Trump, forwhom China is both a source ofleverage and a potential vulnera-bility heading into an electionyear. The president has so far im-posed tariffs on more than $350billion worth of Chinese goods androutinely shifts from blastingChina and threatening additionalpunishment to trying to calm thewaters in the face of jittery mar-kets and negative economic news.

Over two weeks, Mr. Trump hascalled Mr. Xi an enemy of Amer-ica, ordered companies to stop do-ing business in China and sug-gested the United States was in norush to reach a trade deal. On Sun-day, he moved ahead with histhreat to eventually tax every golfclub, shoe and computer Chinasends into the United States, plac-ing tariffs on another $112 billionof Chinese goods.

Stock investors have zeroed inon the threat the trade war posesto the economy, buying and sellingin tandem with Mr. Trump’s tradewhims. Thursday’s rally was thefifth positive performance for themarket in the past six sessions. It

Continued on Page A6

Investors TakeSolace in News Of China Talks

Stocks Soar, but HopesDim for Trade Deal

By ANA SWANSONand MATT PHILLIPS

WASHINGTON — For almosttwo decades, families at FortCampbell, the sprawling Armybase along the Kentucky-Tennes-see border, have borne the bruntof the country’s war efforts as asteady clip of troops with the 101stAirborne Division and from Spe-cial Operations units deployed toAfghanistan and Iraq.

This week, the families discov-ered that they would not get thenew middle school they were ex-pecting so that President Trumpcould build his border wall. Theschool is on the list of 127 projects,touching nearly every facet ofAmerican military life, that will besuspended to shift $3.6 billion tothe wall.

The Pentagon’s decision to di-vert $62.6 million from the con-struction of Fort Campbell’s mid-dle school means that 552 stu-dents in sixth, seventh and eighthgrades will continue to cramthemselves in, 30 to a classroom insome cases, at the base’s agingMahaffey Middle School. Teach-ers at Mahaffey will continue touse mobile carts to store theirbooks, lesson plans and home-work assignments because thereis not enough classroom space.Students stuffed into makeshiftclassrooms-within-classrooms

Aging SchoolLoses FundingTo Border Wall

By HELENE COOPER

Continued on Page A12

The first stop on the pope’s African visitwas Mozambique, where the RomanCatholic Church is growing fast. PAGE A4

INTERNATIONAL A4-10

Pope Gets Glimpse of FutureHonda workers are building a $50,000Acura sports sedan that comes only inValencia red. Wheels. PAGE B6

BUSINESS B1-7

A Red Army in OhioWe take a look at some young photogra-phers who are trying to give a broaderview of black lives. Above, “Untitled(Twins II)” by Tyler Mitchell. PAGE C11

WEEKEND ARTS C1-20

A More Diverse OutlookAn Education Department investigationdetermined the school failed to reportand address claims of sexual abuse by aformer team doctor. PAGE A13

Michigan St. Fined $4.5 Million

As always, the city is teeming with rats.In Brooklyn, they’re trying a new wayto get rid of them. PAGE A18

NEW YORK A17-19

Declaring War on Rats. Again.

President Trump gave the Lakers starJerry West a Medal of Freedom, hon-oring a long-retired standout from aleague whose current stars have re-fused to visit his White House. PAGE B9

Trump Honors N.B.A. Great

David Brooks PAGE A23

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A22-23

A jury acquitted one man and could notreach a decision on a second man’s rolein a deadly warehouse blaze. PAGE A13

NATIONAL A11-16

Acquittal in Ghost Ship Trial

Joichi Ito gave himself some ad-vice in 2008: “Reminder to self,”he wrote on Twitter. “Don’t investwith or take money from creeps,”although he used an earthierterm.

Then, over the next decade, heaccepted about $1.7 million fromJeffrey Epstein.

That money from Mr. Epstein,the disgraced financier who killedhimself in jail last month while fac-ing federal sex-traffickingcharges, was split between Mr.Ito’s own investment funds andthe prestigious center he leads atM.I.T., the Media Lab. His apologylast month prompted two academ-ics to announce plans to leave andled to calls for Mr. Ito to step downfrom the lab, an institution that is

proudly indifferent to scholarlycredentials and seeks a futuremarrying technology and socialconscience.

On Wednesday, at a meetingbilled in an email as the start of “aprocess of dialogue and recovery”that two attendees said had begunwith a group breathing exercise,the rift was unexpectedly pulledopen just as it appeared to be clos-ing.

Roughly 200 people gathered toaddress the lingering anger at Mr.Ito — a tech evangelist whose net-working skills landed him in theWhite House to discuss artificialintelligence with PresidentBarack Obama and prompted thepsychedelic proselytizer TimothyLeary to call him his godson. Mr.Ito, who has helped the lab raise atleast $50 million, revealed that hehad taken $525,000 from Mr. Ep-

Epstein Donations Create SchismAt M.I.T.’s Prestigious Media Lab

This article is by Tiffany Hsu,Marc Tracy and Erin Griffith.

Continued on Page A16

In a tight labor market, companies arerecruiting stay-at-home parents, retir-ees and people with disabilities. PAGE B1

Everybody Into the PoolAfter rioters in Johannesburg targetedAfrican immigrants, South Africa hasbeen hit with boycotts. PAGE A10

Backlash Against South Africa

The congratulatory (or consoling)moment at the end of a match has, formany tennis players, evolved from acool, formal handshake into an elabo-rate show of affection. PAGE B8

SPORTSFRIDAY B8-11

The New Handshake Is a Hug

CHANG W. LEE/THE NEW YORK TIMES

At the U.S. Open, Serena Williams closed in on a record-tying 24th major singles title. Page B8.One Win From History

Late EditionToday, mostly cloudy, a bit of after-noon rain, breezy, high 70. Tonight,cloudy, evening rain, breezy, low 60.Tomorrow, partly to mostly sunny,high 78. Weather map, Page B12.

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