Elections

Live Nation Entertainment, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, faces a fight that could reshape the multibillion-dollar live music industry.The Justice Department and a group of states plan to sue Live Nation Entertainment, the concert giant that owns Ticketmaster, as soon as Thursday, accusing it of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the live entertainment industry, said three people familiar with the matter.The government plans to argue in a lawsuit that Live Nation shored up its power through Ticketmaster’s exclusive ticketing contracts with concert venues, as well as the company’s dominance over concert tours and other businesses like venue management, said two of the people, who declined to be named because the lawsuit was still private. That helped the company maintain a monopoly, raising prices and fees for consumers, limiting innovation in the ticket industry and hurting competition, the people said.The government will argue that tours promoted by the company were more likely to play venues where Ticketmaster was the exclusive ticket service, one of the people said, and that Live Nation’s artists played venues that it owns.Live Nation is a colossus of the concert world and a force in the lives of musicians and fans alike. Its scale and reach far exceed those of any competitor, encompassing concert promotion, ticketing, artist management and the operation of hundreds of venues and festivals around the world.The Ticketmaster division alone sells 600 million tickets a year to events around the world. According to some estimates, it handles ticketing for 70 percent to 80 percent of major concert venues in the United States.Lawmakers, fans and competitors have accused the company of engaging in practices that harm rivals and drive up ticket prices and fees. At a congressional hearing early last year, prompted by a Taylor Swift tour presale on Ticketmaster that left millions of people unable to buy tickets, senators from both parties called Live Nation a monopoly.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

As President Biden’s support among Arab and Muslim Americans withers over his backing of Israel in the war in Gaza, former President Donald J. Trump is making a long-shot push to take advantage.On Tuesday, Richard Grenell, a former high-ranking official in the Trump administration, met for more than two hours with a group of about 40 Arab and Muslim American leaders at an Italian restaurant outside Detroit. Mr. Grenell was joined by the former president’s son-in-law Michael Boulos, who is married to Tiffany Trump and is Lebanese American, though the Trump campaign said it had not organized the meeting.Many Arab and Muslim American voters have said they are so angry with Mr. Biden over his Israel policy that they will sit out the election, despite supporting him in large numbers in 2020. But Mr. Grenell told the group that it had the chance to exercise extraordinary political power by backing Mr. Trump instead, according to six people who attended the meeting.Mr. Grenell argued that if Muslim and Arab Americans publicly swung their support to the former president — and helped him win Michigan, a key battleground state — they would demonstrate to both Republicans and Democrats that they could not be ignored.“The door is open to start to explore,” said Yahya Basha, a Syrian American radiologist from Royal Oak, Mich., who helped organize the meeting. “Let’s go approach and see what Trump has to offer.”Dr. Basha and others present described the meeting as light on policy details and said they needed to hear more before committing to support Mr. Trump. Several others who attended were already Trump supporters, but some had cast their ballots for Mr. Biden in 2020.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

Mike Schmidt, the progressive prosecutor in Portland, Ore., who has held office during a tumultuous period of street protests, drug overdoses and violent crime, lost his seat to a co-worker who has called for more aggressive prosecution of criminals, The Associated Press said on Wednesday.The co-worker, Nathan Vasquez, a deputy district attorney in the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, had mounted a campaign that blamed Mr. Schmidt for the city’s recent problems. Mr. Schmidt, a Democrat, was one of a series of progressive prosecutors around the country who had vowed to reshape the criminal justice system.But in the years since Mr. Schmidt’s election in 2020, voters in Portland have signaled an interest in cracking down on crime and homelessness. As businesses fled the city center, people reported feeling unsafe on the streets. Homicides and overdoses soared.Mike Schmidt in 2020.Sean Meagher/The Oregonian, via Associated PressMr. Vasquez called for a new approach, setting up a bitter campaign against his boss. He promised to take on lawless behavior and petty crimes, differentiating himself from Mr. Schmidt, who had won four years ago with pledges to move away from focusing on low-level crimes.Mr. Schmidt tried to highlight the progress seen in the last year, when car thefts dropped rapidly and homicides were coming down from record highs. He backed an effort to partially roll back Oregon’s drug decriminalization law.Mr. Vasquez, an independent who previously was a registered Republican, is the latest public official in a West Coast city to be elected with a promise to be tougher on crime. In 2021, voters in Seattle elected a Republican as the city prosecutor after she vowed more action on low-level crimes. The next year, voters in San Francisco recalled the progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin.The district attorney position in Portland is nonpartisan, and with only two candidates on the primary ballot Mr. Vasquez’s victory means he is set to take over the office next year. More

New Caledonia, a French territory in the Pacific, is on the brink of civil war as pro-independence activists protest a law that would expand voting rights.President Emmanuel Macron of France has a lot to manage. The European elections are fast approaching, and his party is predicted to lose. There are the frenzied preparations for the Olympic Games in Paris. A manhunt is underway for a convict whose brazen and deadly jailbreak shocked the country.The last place many expected Mr. Macron to be was on a plane to one of France’s territories in the Pacific, where riots have exploded all week. But there he was, arriving in New Caledonia on Thursday with three ministers in tow, on a mission to heal and listen in a territory where many hold him personally responsible for the unrest.“I come here with determination to work toward restoring peace, with lots of respect and humility,” he said when he arrived.The riots were set off by the prospect of a vote last week in the National Assembly in Paris to expand voting rights in the territory. Many in the local Indigenous population worry that the law would hamper the long process toward independence.Mr. Macron planned to meet with local officials and civil-society activists, to thank the police and start a round of dialogue before quickly hopping back on a plane and returning more than 10,000 miles to mainland France.The trip, in many ways, is classic Macron. He feels that any dispute, no matter how heated, can be resolved through personal dialogue with him. But given the local distrust of the government, many believe his trip is not just short, but shortsighted.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

Mayor Eric Adams named 13 people to a prominent city commission that could remake city government. Most are loyalists or have ties to his inner circle.Mayor Eric Adams has long valued loyalty, keeping his allies close as he rose through New York City’s political ranks to become mayor, and rewarding them with top administration jobs.So this week, as the mayor quickly sought to fill out a powerful commission that could reshape city government, possibly for generations to come, he predictably turned to a cadre heavy on loyalists.Roughly half are campaign donors, three are lobbyists with business before the city, and several are longtime allies, including three women who publicly defended the mayor after he was accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit still making its way through the court system.The roster of the Charter Revision Commission was released on Wednesday, just 24 hours after Mr. Adams announced he was creating one. The move may foil an effort by the New York City Council to exert more control over the mayor’s high-level appointments. And although the announcement came as a surprise, the mayor’s spokesman said the commission has long been in the making.“Today marks a significant step forward towards enhancing transparency, responsiveness in city government, and further civic engagement as we appoint all 13 dedicated members of the Charter Revision Commission,” the mayor said in a statement.The formation of the commission and its members outraged some civic leaders and the New York City Council.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

This streaming service collects low-budget, high-creativity movies with outsider status. We single out some of the best on offer.Few words in the cinematic sphere are misappropriated as frequently and as flagrantly as “cult” (no, friends, “Mean Girls,” a pop culture phenomenon as well as critical and commercial success upon its initial release, is not a “cult classic”), so one of the many refreshing pleasures of the streaming service Cultpix is that the titles it streams are honest-to-God cult movies.And what exactly is a cult movie? Definitions and explanations vary, of course; Danny Peary, who literally wrote the book on the subject, defined them as “special films which for one reason or another have been taken to heart by segments of the movie audience, cherished, protected, and most of all, enthusiastically championed.” This is a generously broad definition, however; most blue-blood cinephiles consider low budgets, outsider status, commercial indifference, critical hostility or obscurity to be important factors as well. When the question is posed more directly on Cultpix’s FAQ page, the answer is even simpler: “We decide what is a cult film. This is not a democracy, this is a cult.”Cult movies and the internet have gone hand in hand since the latter’s beginning — in fact, the first feature film ever streamed online was the 1992 cult film “Wax: Or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees” — and while the click-of-a-button ease of online interactions (from streaming to torrenting to disc rental and purchase) has reduced the obscurity factor, it has also allowed online communities of cult film fans to flourish.Our monthly spotlight on lesser-known but worthwhile streaming services has included a fair amount of fringe programming for viewers tired of the same titles rotating between Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Max and Hulu, but Cultpix (which launched in 2021) offers the wildest variety of options to date: long-forgotten crime thrillers, horror oddities, cheapo fantasy flicks, documentaries of dubious merit, women-in-prison pictures, weirdo westerns, drug dramas, kung fu galore, kaiju city-smashers, and erotica of various shapes and styles. (Consider yourself warned: There are plenty of firmly adults-only titles.)Other collections are even more specialized. To honor the recent loss of Roger Corman, the king of exploitation cinema, the service has re-upped its birthday tribute to the filmmaker. There is a spotlight on “Video Nasties,” films of extreme violence targeted and banned in England in the 1980s and 1990s. The “Background Films for Parties” section offers exactly what it promises — collections of trailers, shorts, adult film “loops,” “soundies” (jukebox musical shorts that were, put simply, the first music videos), and other cinematic ephemera. They also boast a wide enough variety to present a handful of genuinely amusing sub-sub-genres, including “Juvenile Delinquent,” “Fake Gorilla Suit,” “Mad Scientist” and “Women in Fur Bikini”; if you don’t have to have those explained to you, well, you’re the target audience.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

Elvis’s granddaughter, the actress Riley Keough, had filed a lawsuit seeking to stop what her lawyers said was a fraudulent auction off her family home.Graceland will not be sold at auction, at least for now.On Wednesday, a Tennessee judge deferred ruling on an apparent attempt to sell Graceland, Elvis Presley’s former home in Memphis, but kept a temporary injunction in place that would prevent the property from going to auction imminently.The bizarre case came into wide public view this week when a lawsuit surfaced that had been filed by Mr. Presley’s granddaughter, the actress Riley Keough. In it, Ms. Keough sued to prevent what her lawyers described as a fraudulent effort to auction the home by a company claiming that Lisa Marie Presley — Ms. Keough’s mother and Mr. Presley’s daughter — had borrowed $3.8 million and put Graceland up as collateral before she died in 2023.At Wednesday’s hearing at Chancery Court in Shelby County, Tenn., the judge, Chancellor JoeDae L. Jenkins, said he needed to continue the case, in part because no one showed up in person to represent the defendants and in part because he said lawyers for Ms. Keough needed to present additional evidence.The defendants included a company, Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC, which had scheduled a sale of Graceland for Thursday, according to court papers. The court said it had received a filing on Wednesday morning from a man named Gregory Naussany who had asked the court to continue the case.It was not clear when the next hearing would take place.Lawyers for Ms. Keough had argued that the company appeared to be a “false entity.” They also claimed that the company had presented fake documents purporting to show that Ms. Presley had borrowed the money and put Graceland up as collateral.Several attempts to reach Naussany Investments through the email addresses and phone numbers listed for the company in the court documents have not been successful.Graceland, a popular tourist attraction, is a major source of income for Elvis Presley Enterprises and the family trust, which Ms. Keough controls. More

A companion to T’s 212 series about New York institutions, the 213 column highlights beloved landmarks in and around Los Angeles.On a dark night in February, east of the 5 Freeway, south of the 134, down the street from the so-called Gentlemen’s Club, glows the blue neon sign: Moonlight Rollerway. These are the industrial hinterlands of Glendale, a tidy enclave in the rambling city-state that is Los Angeles, and here, among plumbing supply warehouses and an Amazon delivery van lot, sits a squat cinder-block building, an unexpected portal.Under the white overhang, signage abounds: “No In & Out Privileges,” “No Fast Wild or Reckless Skating,” “Be Neat & Clean.” A lengthy passage politely, firmly reminds visitors that risk of accident is inherent in the sport. “If you are not willing to assume that risk,” it reads, “please do not roller-skate here.”Like any Los Angeles icon, the rink has its share of screen credits, appearing in TV shows — “Euphoria,” “The Good Life,” “American Horror Story,” “Modern Family” and “GLOW” — and movies like “Beginners,” “Roller Boogie” and “Straight Outta Compton.”Abdi IbrahimRisk assumed, the 30-some customers ahead of me move steadily up the cement ramp to the box office and flash their tickets for the clerk behind the window. Those who’ve brought their own skates — about half the crowd — present them for inspection (no fiberglass wheels, no micro wheels; they can gouge the floor). Then a door slams behind us and we are somewhere else, in the land of motion.Nostalgia comes fast, from all directions — the black carpet patterned with fluorescent zigzags, the buzz and trill of a Ms. Pacman game, a whiff of some sugary confection being heated at the snack bar — but most of all from the rink, where, beneath two disco balls, skaters revolve, some gliding, some wobbling, one pressing herself against the red-carpeted wall while Donna Summers asks, “Could it be magic?”Built in 1942 to manufacture airplane parts during World War II, the 70,000-square-foot building on San Fernando Boulevard was converted to a roller rink in 1956.Abdi IbrahimWe 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