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WASHINGTON — Presidentswho find themselves digging outof recessions have long heededthe warnings of inflation-ob-sessed economists, who fear thatacting aggressively to stimulate astruggling economy will bring areturn of the monstrous price in-creases that plagued the nation inthe 1970s.

Now, as President Bidenpresses ahead with plans for a $1.9trillion stimulus package, he andhis top economic advisers arebrushing those warnings aside, asis the Federal Reserve underChair Jerome H. Powell.

After years of dire inflation pre-dictions that failed to pan out, thepeople who run fiscal and mone-tary policy in Washington havedecided the risk of “overheating”the economy is much lower thanthe risk of failing to heat it upenough.

Democrats in the House plan tospend this week finalizing Mr. Bi-den’s plan to pump nearly $2 tril-lion into the economy, includingdirect checks to Americans andmore generous unemploymentbenefits, with the aim of holding afloor vote as early as next week.The Senate is expected to quicklytake up the proposal as soon as itclears the House, in the hopes ofsending a final bill to Mr. Biden’sdesk early next month. Fed offi-cials have signaled that they planto keep holding rates near zeroand buying government-backeddebt at a brisk clip to stokegrowth.

The Fed and the administrationare staying the course despite agrowing outcry from some econo-mists across the political spec-trum, including Lawrence Sum-mers, a former Treasury secre-tary and top adviser in the Clintonand Obama administrations, who

INFLATION FEARSFALL BY WAYSIDEIN THE BIDEN ERA

A WORRY SINCE THE ’70S

Policymakers See MoreDanger in Passing a

Small Stimulus

By JIM TANKERSLEYand JEANNA SMIALEK

Continued on Page A13

When the Pennsylvania Su-preme Court unanimously re-jected a Republican attempt tooverturn the state’s election re-sults in November, Justice DavidN. Wecht issued his own pointedrebuke, condemning the G.O.P. ef-fort as “futile” and “a dangerousgame.”

“It is not our role to lend legiti-macy to such transparent and un-timely efforts to subvert the will ofPennsylvania voters,” wrote Jus-tice Wecht, a Democrat who waselected to a 10-year term on thebench in 2016. “Courts should notdecide elections when the will ofthe voters is clear.”

Now Pennsylvania Republicanshave a plan to make it less likelythat judges like Justice Wecht getin their way.

Republican legislators, dozensof whom supported overturningthe state’s election results to aidformer President Donald J.Trump, are moving to change theentire way that judges are se-lected in Pennsylvania, in a gam-bit that could tip the scales of thejudiciary to favor their party, or atleast elect judges more inclined toembrace Republican electionchallenges.

The proposal would replace thecurrent system of statewide elec-tions for judges with judicial dis-tricts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. Those dis-tricts could empower rural, pre-dominantly conservative areasand particularly rewire the StateSupreme Court, which has a 5-to-2Democratic lean.

Democrats are now mobilizingto fight the effort, calling it a thinlyveiled attempt to create a new lev-el of gerrymandering — an escala-tion of the decades-old practice ofdrawing congressional and statelegislative districts to ensure thatpolitical power remains in oneparty’s hands. Democrats aremarshaling grass-roots opposi-tion, holding regular town hallevents on Zoom and planning so-cial media campaigns and call-indays to legislators, as well as anenormous voter education cam-

Pushing to TiltState’s Courts

To the G.O.P.

Pennsylvania Bill Aims at Judicial Districts

By NICK CORASANITI

Continued on Page A17

AUSTIN, Texas — A massivewinter storm bulldozed its wayacross the southern and centralUnited States on Monday, leavingmillions of people without poweramid freezing temperatures,sending vehicles crashing intoone another on ice-glazed high-ways and bringing blizzard-likeconditions to places where snow-fall is usually the news from else-where.

The storm was notable for itsenormous reach — 150 millionpeople were under storm warn-ings — and for a particularly per-ilous element it brought nearly ev-erywhere: ice. It left a treacher-

ous varnish on roads across a mid-section of the country, includingplaces where driving on ice is ararity.

It was as confounding a stormas it was punishing. Snow blan-keted Gulf of Mexico beaches andpeople went ice sledding on theroads of southern Louisiana. Ala-bama was warned of brutal icestorms in some places and of pos-sible tornado outbreaks in others.Temperatures were lower inAustin than in Anchorage, Alaska.

“It’s snowing in Houston andit’s going to be raining in Pennsyl-vania,” said Charles Ross, a me-teorologist with the NationalWeather Service in State College,Pa. “When does that ever hap-pen?”

The state of Texas woke up onMonday to the worst winter on-slaught in decades. The state wasblanketed by one of its largestsnowfalls on record and grapplingwith hundreds of thousands ofpower outages, flight cancella-tions and urgent warnings fromgovernment leaders and emer-gency supervisors to stay put andreduce electric consumption. The8 degrees recorded in Austin wasthe lowest in 32 years, forecasterssaid, and the 6.4 inches of snow

Winter’s Icy Grip Wreaks Havoc Across the U.S.This article is by David Mont-

gomery, Campbell Robertson, Clif-ford Krauss and Marie Fazio.

A group of students from the University of Texas at Austin, where snow rarely falls, helped push a car off the road on Monday.TAMIR KALIFA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Southern States Are HitHard by Slick Roads

and Power Losses

Continued on Page A13

WASHINGTON — As the Re-publican Party censures, con-demns and seeks to purge leaderswho aren’t in lock step with Don-ald J. Trump, Adam Kinzinger, thesix-term Illinois congressman,stands as enemy No. 1 — unwel-come not just in his party but alsoin his own family, some of whomrecently disowned him.

Two days after Mr. Kinzingercalled for removing Mr. Trumpfrom office following the Jan. 6 riotat the Capitol, 11 members of hisfamily sent him a handwrittentwo-page letter, saying he was incahoots with “the devil’s army”for making a public break with thepresident.

“Oh my, what a disappointmentyou are to us and to God!” theywrote. “You have embarrassedthe Kinzinger family name!”

The author of the letter wasKaren Otto, Mr. Kinzinger’s cous-in, who paid $7 to send it by certi-fied mail to Mr. Kinzinger’s father— to make sure the congressmanwould see it, which he did. She alsosent copies to Republicans acrossIllinois, including other membersof the state’s congressional dele-gation.

“I wanted Adam to be shunned,”she said in an interview.

A 42-year-old Air NationalGuard pilot who represents a cres-cent-shaped district along the Chi-cago’s suburbs, Mr. Kinzinger is atthe forefront of the effort to navi-gate post-Trump politics. He isbetting his political career, profes-sional relationships and kinshipwith a wing of his sprawling fam-ily that his party’s future lies indisavowing Mr. Trump and theconspiracy theories the former

Lonely QuestTo Repudiate

Trump WingBy REID J. EPSTEIN

Continued on Page A17

Capt. Paris Davis was in thethick of a pre-dawn raid on an ene-my camp in Vietnam when agrenade blasted out several of histeeth and, more troubling, tore offpart of his trigger finger. Then en-emy fire started pelting the Spe-cial Forces team he commanded.His most experienced sergeantwas shot down. Then the demoli-tions specialist. Then the onlymedic.

It was June 18, 1965, and accord-ing to after-action reports, 26-year-old Captain Davis was sud-denly the last American standingwith a ragtag company of 90 SouthVietnamese volunteers, pinneddown by hundreds of enemytroops.

Certain that he was as good asdead, he began fighting withoutfear of consequence, pulling hisM-16 trigger with his pinkie,sprinting repeatedly into openground to rescue teammates, andrefusing to leave the fight, even af-ter being shot several times.

He made it out alive, and wasimmediately nominated for themilitary’s highest award, the Med-al of Honor. But the Army some-how lost the nomination. His frus-

U.S. May Honor a Black Soldier, 56 Years LaterBy DAVE PHILIPPS Veterans Ask Why the

Paperwork Vanished

Capt. Paris Davis, center, showing his camp in South Vietnam to Gen. William Westmoreland, left.VIA RON DEIS

Continued on Page A15

Fifteen-year-old Braden Wilsonwas frightened of Covid-19. Hewas careful to wear masks andonly left his house, in Simi Valley,Calif., for things like orthodontistcheckups and visits with hisgrandparents nearby.

But somehow, the virus foundBraden. It wreaked ruthless dam-age in the form of an inflamma-tory syndrome that, for unknownreasons, strikes some young peo-

ple, usually several weeks afterinfection by the coronavirus.

Doctors at Children’s HospitalLos Angeles put the teenager on aventilator and a heart-lung by-pass machine. But they could notstop his major organs from failing.On Jan. 5, “they officially said he

was brain-dead,” his mother,Amanda Wilson, recounted, sob-bing. “My boy was gone.”

Doctors across the countryhave been seeing a striking in-crease in the number of youngpeople with the condition Bradenhad, which is called MultisystemInflammatory Syndrome in Chil-dren or MIS-C. Even more worri-some, they say, is that more pa-tients are now very sick than dur-ing the first wave of cases, which

Covid Syndrome in Children Growing in SeverityBy PAM BELLUCK Inflammation Malady Is

Still Rare, Doctors Say

Continued on Page A6

LAYLAH AMATULLAH BARRAYN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A line formed before dawn to honor Cicely Tyson, the pioneeringactress and paragon for civil rights who died last month. Page A15.

Harlem Salutes Its ‘Trueborn Queen’

Two weeks after a coup, growing workstoppages are undermining the gener-als’ attempt to assert authority. PAGE A8

INTERNATIONAL A7-11

Myanmar Goes on StrikeThe cancellation of parades was a blow.But Elliott White, above, and others stillhad a plan for the floats. PAGE B1

BUSINESS B1-6

Salvaging Part of Mardi GrasSpring training begins this week asMajor League Baseball and the nationcope with steep challenges. Above,Cubs fans in Mesa, Ariz. PAGE B7

SPORTSTUESDAY B7-9

A (Small) Break in the Clouds

Two House impeachment managershave emerged as the high-profile facesof an increasingly young and diverseDemocratic coalition. PAGE A14

NATIONAL A12-17

Impeachment Trial’s Star TurnsWhether playing a singer (in “Lola”) oran aging lesbian (in “Two of Us”), theactress Barbara Sukowa brings a deter-mined persona to her roles. PAGE C1

ARTS C1-6

As Headstrong as Ever

State antitrust cases have createdopenings for numerous private lawsuitsagainst Google and Apple. PAGE B1

Helping the Little GuysKaliningrad, Russia, searches for mean-ing in a building many see as an egre-gious architectural mistake. PAGE A7

Revamping a Soviet Symbol

A Twitter account that reports sightingsof rare birds in New York City hasexposed a rift among birders. PAGE A12

Upsetting the Pecking Order

This week’s section includes articles onnew research on vaccines, the rise ofcoronavirus variants and efforts to stopthe next pandemic before it starts.

SCIENCE TIMES D1-8

A Changing Virus, and World

The governor said his administration’slack of transparency on the scope ofvirus deaths was a mistake. PAGE A4

TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-6

Cuomo Admits to Data Delay

Bret Stephens PAGE A19

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19

Late Edition

VOL. CLXX . . . . No. 58,971 © 2021 The New York Times Company NEW YORK, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2021

Today, early rain, some heavy, ice in-land, clearing later, high 47. Tonight,partly cloudy, colder, low 23. Tomor-row, mostly sunny, cold, high 32.Weather map appears on Page B10.

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