Elections

The tossup districts currently held by Republican Representatives David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani will play a key role in the fight for control. They got their Democratic challengers this week.Primary elections in Arizona this week set the fields for two House races that could help determine which party wins control of Congress in November, as Democrats target two vulnerable Republican incumbents.In Arizona’s Sixth District, which stretches from Tucson to the state’s border with New Mexico, Representative Juan Ciscomani overcame a primary challenge from Kathleen Winn. Ms. Winn had run to his right and argued that Mr. Ciscomani, who had the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump, was too willing to work across the aisle with Democrats.Mr. Ciscomani is now set for a November rematch of his 2022 contest with Kirsten Engel, a former state senator who lost two years ago by just 1.4 percent of the vote and ran unopposed in the Democratic primary on Tuesday.Republican leaders in Congress celebrated Mr. Ciscomani’s primary win, and he indicated on social media that he intended to focus his general-election campaign on border security and inflation. Ms. Engel is on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” list of candidates whom the party has deemed most promising, and she has the backing of abortion rights groups.The tighter competition was in the First District, in northeastern Phoenix and Scottsdale, where a crowded field of Democrats vied for the chance to face Representative David Schweikert. Amish Shah, a former member of Arizona’s House of Representatives, came out on top, with about 24 percent of the vote.Mr. Shah beat a field that included Andrei Cherny, a former state party chair; Marlene Galán-Woods, a former broadcast journalist; and Conor O’Callaghan, an investment banker.Mr. Schweikert won in 2022 by less than a percentage point. More

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said there was “overwhelming evidence” that Edmundo González had won, despite President Nicolás Maduro’s claim of victory.The United States on Thursday night recognized Venezuela’s opposition presidential candidate, Edmundo González, as the winner of the country’s disputed presidential election. The announcement, by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, comes despite a claim by the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, and by the government-controlled electoral body, that Mr. Maduro won the vote.Mr. Maduro has yet to produce clear evidence of a victory, and election officials have failed to provide a vote count. Mr. González’s campaign says that it has receipts from more than 80 percent of voting machines that indicate that he won the election by an insurmountable margin.While some leaders have voiced support for Mr. González in recent days, the United States is the largest nation to recognize him as the winner in Sunday’s vote. The decision is sure to anger Mr. Maduro, who has long characterized Washington as a meddling imperialist power. But it’s unclear if the announcement will have any effect on Mr. Maduro’s grip on power.Mr. Blinken, in a statement, said that “given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes.”“We congratulate Edmundo González Urrutia on his successful campaign,” Mr. Blinken continued. “Now is the time for the Venezuelan parties to begin discussions on a respectful, peaceful transition in accordance with Venezuelan electoral law.”The candidacy of Mr. González, who is backed by a popular opposition leader, María Corina Machado, represented the most significant electoral threat to Mr. Maduro’s power since he took office in 2013. The movement that Mr. Maduro leads, known as Chavismo, has controlled the country for 25 years, since the election of President Hugo Chávez. Under their leadership the government has become increasingly authoritarian, arresting dissidents, crushing protests through force and crafting elections in favor of the ruling party.In Venezuela in recent days, angry supporters of Mr. González have taken to the streets to protest, leading to a crackdown by security forces and armed pro-government gangs. At least 17 people died, according to a human rights group, Foro Penal, and interviews conducted at a morgue by The New York Times. About 750 people have been arrested, according to the country’s attorney general.i More

Kate Chin Park offers a challenging puzzle.FRIDAY PUZZLE — It has been a while since I’ve written a First Pass Friday, the occasional feature in which I show readers how I forged my way into the dreaded, second-hardest puzzle of the week (the hardest is on Saturday). I had trouble finding a way into Kate Chin Park’s entertaining, formidable puzzle, so I thought that some of you who are just starting to play the crossword might be interested in seeing how even an experienced solver can be tripped up. Based on the reader responses to earlier First Pass Fridays, it is also an excellent opportunity to feel smarter than me before the solving even begins. No, don’t thank me; that’s what I’m here for.The best way to break into a grid, in my opinion, is to scan the clue list and find the gimmes. Fill in the answers you definitely know first, and you’re in.Your gimmes may not be the same as my gimmes, and your knowledge base will be different from mine, and that’s OK. Work the crossings if you are having trouble with an entry. And don’t forget to take breaks when you’re stuck. That way, you can come back to the crossword with a refreshed brain. Keep a bag of chocolates nearby for when the going gets tough.But don’t be afraid of what’s ahead. A good late-week puzzle should make your heart sink a little.Fortunately for me, there were a couple of entries that I had committed to memory over the years because they appeared frequently and were usually clued in similar ways. For example, if there is a three-letter slot that is clued as [Adornment for a kimono], or that has anything to do with a kimono, the answer is invariably going to be OBI, a wide sash that wraps around the wearer’s waist. Similarly, if a five-letter slot is clued as [First name in cosmetics], you can bet that the answer will be ESTÉE, as in ESTÉE Lauder. The clue for 36D was a fill-in-the-blank of sorts, [Rae of “American Fiction”], which tripped the pop culture wire in my brain, and I was able to write in ISSA.Also, in the past, readers have asked why I solve using Autocheck. The answer is that I work on deadline and have to solve the puzzles quickly. This is how far I got during my first pass through the clues, and I’ve been doing this for 13 years.The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

One officer was shot in the leg and the other in the groin after they responded to a report of an armed robbery at a mahjong parlor. Both are in stable condition.A gunman shot two police sergeants who were trying to arrest him minutes after an armed robbery in a mahjong parlor on the Lower East Side in Manhattan on Thursday, Police Department officials said.One officer was shot in the groin, and the other was grazed by a bullet in the leg, Joseph Kenny, the chief of detectives, said at a news conference on Thursday at Bellevue Hospital, where the officers were being treated for their wounds. Both were in stable condition, said Chief Kenny, who was joined at the news conference by Mayor Eric Adams.The sergeant who was grazed will be released from the hospital on Thursday night, and the sergeant who was shot in the groin will be held overnight for observation. A man, Joshua Dorsett, 22, was taken into custody at the scene, Chief Kenny said.Around 4:15 p.m., the police responded to a 911 call regarding a man on the second floor of a building on Canal Street near Eldridge Street, Chief Kenny said. The man, whom the police later identified as Mr. Dorsett, had pulled out a gun and pointed it at several women at the mahjong parlor, a popular neighborhood spot where people gather and bet money on mahjong games, he said.Mr. Dorsett demanded that the women hand over their purses. He grabbed a number of purses, ran out of the building and fled north on foot, Chief Kenny said. Seven minutes later, police officers on Delancey Street saw Mr. Dorsett, who fit the description of the gunman.A footchase ensued. Francisco Huayta, who works on the Lower East Side, was on the corner of Delancey and Eldridge Streets shortly after 4 p.m. when he saw a man sprinting away from police officers, he said. The two sergeants grabbed Mr. Dorsett and pushed him up against a vehicle, Chief Kenny said. The sergeants demanded that he show his hands. As they did, Mr. Dorsett began to pull a loaded gun out of his front pants pocket, Chief Kenny said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The law firm hired by the Harris campaign to investigate potential vice-presidential candidates has completed its work, leaving the final decision — the most important yet of the still-new campaign — squarely in Vice President Kamala Harris’s hands.Covington & Burling, the Washington law firm tasked with the vetting, completed the job on Thursday afternoon and turned over its findings to Ms. Harris, according to two people briefed on the process.Ms. Harris has blocked off several hours on her calendar this weekend to meet with the men being considered to join the ticket, according to two people who had viewed her schedule and who, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private process. The Harris campaign has suggested it will announce the decision by Tuesday evening, when the vice president and her to-be-named running mate begin a five-day tour of presidential battleground states, starting in Philadelphia.Several of the contenders, including Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Andy Beshear of Kentucky, canceled events this weekend, reflecting both a desire to be available for those conversations and to avoid drawing additional speculation from the news media about their chances. The choice of a running mate is one of the most consequential decisions of Ms. Harris’s political career, one that can pay dividends in votes and years of counsel or backfire disastrously. In some ways, Ms. Harris is setting a direction for the future of the party, a reality she intimately understands given her own head-spinning ascension to the top of the ticket.But unlike previous nominees, who spent months considering candidates, she must make her decision on a compressed timeline. The shortened process clashes with what some former aides described as her typically deliberative decision-making approach.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The decision, five weeks after a jury awarded $4.7 billion in damages in an antitrust case, is a reprieve for the league.The $4.7 billion verdict against the National Football League for colluding to raise prices for its Sunday Ticket television package was overturned late Thursday by a federal judge, who disqualified expert testimony used by the jury to determine damages.The judge, Philip Gutierrez of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, ruled a day after lawyers for the N.F.L. had asked him to exclude testimony from key witnesses for plaintiffs representing thousands of customers who bought Sunday Ticket, a season-long package that showed all out-of-town games and was sold by DirecTV.The jury’s verdict five weeks ago in favor of those plaintiffs threatened to upend the league’s strategy of selling exclusive television packages to broadcasters.In his 16-page decision, Judge Gutierrez said the plaintiffs’ two economic witnesses had used flawed methodology in their attempts to show that the league overcharged Sunday Ticket customers. The jury’s calculations of damages were thrown out because they were based on the witnesses’ testimony, which included comparisons to how college games are broadcast and unsubstantiated speculation on how the N.F.L. might sell games individually, the judge said.“The court finds that the jury’s damages awards were not based on the ‘evidence and reasonable inferences’ but instead were more akin to ‘guesswork or speculation,’” he wrote.Judge Gutierrez also said the jury had not followed his instructions for calculating damages, which in antitrust cases like this one are tripled and would have led to a $14.1 billion verdict against the league.“We are grateful for today’s ruling in the Sunday Ticket class action lawsuit,” the league said in a statement. “We believe that the N.F.L.’s media distribution model provides our fans with an array of options to follow the game they love, including local broadcasts of every single game on free over-the-air television.”Calls and text messages to Bill Carmody, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, were not immediately returned.Before the judge’s decision, the N.F.L. said it was prepared to appeal the jury’s verdict. The plaintiffs can potentially appeal the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.The monthlong trial featured testimony from the N.F.L.’s commissioner, Roger Goodell; Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys; and Sean McManus, who recently retired as the chairman of CBS Sports.Last season, the N.F.L. ended its relationship with DirecTV and sold the rights to the Sunday Ticket package to YouTube for as much as $2.5 billion annually. More

El secretario de Estado, Antony Blinken, dijo que existían “abrumadoras pruebas” de que el candidato de la oposición había ganado los comicios, a pesar de que Nicolás Maduro se adjudicó la victoria.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Estados Unidos reconoció el jueves por la noche al candidato presidencial de la oposición venezolana, Edmundo González, como ganador de las polémicas elecciones presidenciales del país.El anuncio, realizado por el secretario de Estado, Antony Blinken, se produce a pesar de que el presidente autoritario del país, Nicolás Maduro, y el organismo electoral controlado por el gobierno afirman que Maduro ganó la votación.Maduro aún no ha presentado pruebas claras de su victoria, y las autoridades electorales no han difundido un recuento de votos. La campaña de González afirma que tiene actas de más del 80 por ciento de las máquinas de votación que indican que ganó las elecciones por un margen insalvable.En un comunicado, Blinken indicó que “dadas las abrumadoras pruebas, está claro para Estados Unidos y, lo que es más importante, para el pueblo venezolano, que Edmundo González Urrutia ganó la mayoría de los votos en las elecciones presidenciales” de Venezuela del domingo.“Felicitamos a Edmundo González Urrutia por el éxito de su campaña”, continuó Blinken. “Ahora es el momento de que los partidos venezolanos inicien conversaciones sobre una transición respetuosa y pacífica de acuerdo con la ley electoral venezolana”.Con certeza, el anuncio causará molestia a Maduro, quien ha estado en el poder desde 2013, afianzando su control mediante la detención de disidentes, la represión a las protestas y la manipulación de las elecciones a su favor.La candidatura de González, quien cuenta con el apoyo de una popular líder de la oposición, María Corina Machado, representaba la amenaza electoral más importante para el poder de Maduro desde que asumió el cargo.Julie Turkewitz es jefa del buró de los Andes, ubicado en Bogotá, Colombia. Cubre Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú. Más de Julie Turkewitz More

Demographers say that a growing number of Americans identify as more than one race, and that the number will continue expanding in the decades ahead.When former President Donald J. Trump questioned Vice President Kamala Harris’s racial identity in Chicago on Wednesday, he neglected a reality: that the country’s demographics have changed in recent decades, as more than 12 percent of Americans now identify as multiracial.Beneath that fact is another, lesser-known shift. The number of Americans whose identities include being both Black and Asian has tripled over the past 15 years to more than 600,000, according to a New York Times analysis, a group that includes Ms. Harris, whose mother emigrated from India and father emigrated from Jamaica.They are part of a jump in multiracial Americans that demographers have tracked for decades, a marked rise that reflects the steadily increasing diversity of the U.S. population. The numbers of Latino and Asian people have risen sharply since the 1990s, and so has the rate of marriage between people of different races. This has resulted in more multiracial children. More