Elections

Follow our live coverage of the college protests at U.C.L.A. and other universities.As protesters chanted and sprayed fire extinguishers at them, police officers moved in on the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the early hours of Thursday, tearing down its barricades, arresting dozens of people and clearing out the tents that had dominated the center of campus for days.The chaotic scenes were part of a tense, hourslong back-and-forth between protesters and police that had been building after violent clashes a day earlier — involving counterprotesters who attacked the encampment — prompted administrators to call in law enforcement. On Wednesday night, the authorities issued a warning to pro-Palestinian demonstrators: Leave the encampment outside Royce Hall or face arrest.As the night wore on, officers in riot gear tried to approach the encampment through one of its entrances but were turned back several times.Demonstrators appeared to try several tactics to fend them off. At one point, they blocked an entrance with wooden pallets and homemade shields. They surrounded police officers, chanting “Free, free Palestine!” and “Peaceful protest!” At another point, they opened umbrellas and began flashing lights and taking photos of the police officers. Then, at around 3 a.m. Thursday, officers breached one of the barricades at the encampment and began to pull apart plywood and other materials that demonstrators had used to build a wall. Some demonstrators sprayed fire extinguishers in response, briefly forcing some officers to fall back.But an hour into the raid, the encampment’s main barricade had been dismantled. A line of students linking arms took its place.Officers gave another dispersal warning to protesters. They corralled those who refused to leave and began arresting them, zip-tying their wrists and leading them away from the encampment.Police pulled up tents — one removed a Palestinian flag and tossed it aside — and at several points fired devices at demonstrators. It was not clear what the officers were using, but Erik Larsen, an officer for the California Highway Patrol, said in a telephone interview that its officers were equipped with a variety of “nonlethal” tools, including flash-bang devices.By dawn, the camp had been cleared of all but a final group of demonstrators, some of whom chanted, “We’ll be back, and we’ll be stronger — you cannot ignore us any longer.” Some were detained and marched away with their hands zip-tied behind their back.The C.H.P. — which, in addition to patrolling state highways is responsible for the safekeeping of state property, including public universities like U.C.L.A. — said that 132 demonstrators had been arrested and would be handed over to the university’s police department. At least 250 C.H.P. officers were involved in clearing the encampment, Mr. Larsen said.Other law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the U.C.L.A. university police, were also on the scene, he said. More

Two days after former President Donald J. Trump was held in contempt and fined for violating the gag order placed on him in his criminal trial in Manhattan, the judge overseeing the case conducted a hearing to determine if Mr. Trump had broken the rules again.Justice Juan M. Merchan did not reach a decision on the question during the 40-minute proceeding that took place on Thursday in Manhattan Criminal Court, where Mr. Trump is being tried on charges of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election.But during the hearing — the second in the past two weeks concerning violations of the gag order — Justice Merchan heard arguments from prosecutors and Mr. Trump’s lawyers about whether the former president should be sanctioned again for ignoring the protective measure four more times. The allegations stem from Mr. Trump’s recent remarks in interviews and news conferences, including one that took place outside the same courtroom where his trial is being held.On Tuesday, Justice Merchan fined Mr. Trump $9,000 for nine earlier violations. In that ruling, the judge bemoaned the fact that he lacked the authority to issue steeper fines and warned the former president that continued disobedience could land him in jail.The two contempt hearings were the latest reminder of the extraordinary measures that judges have taken to keep Mr. Trump from lashing out at participants in the wide array of legal matters in which he is embroiled.Christopher Conroy, a prosecutor, opened Thursday’s hearing by asking Justice Merchan to fine Mr. Trump $1,000 for each of the four new violations of the gag order that he said took place in recent days as the jury heard evidence.Mr. Conroy reminded the judge that he had imposed the gag order to begin with “because of the defendant’s persistent and escalating rhetoric,” adding that Mr. Trump’s “statements are corrosive to this proceeding and the fair administration of justice.”Mr. Conroy went on to say that Mr. Trump had violated the gag order not only repeatedly, but also willfully.“The defendant thinks the rules should be different for him,” he said.Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, reprised arguments he made last week. He sought to persuade Justice Merchan that his client’s statements had been made merely in response to political attacks from others — including President Biden.Referring to the rows of reporters behind him in the courtroom, Mr. Blanche said that in a case that has attracted such immense publicity, it was unfair that Mr. Trump was constrained from reacting to verbal assaults.While Justice Merchan seemed open to the idea that Mr. Trump should not be defenseless against attacks from enemies or rivals, he pointed out that the gag order did not bar him from saying whatever he wished about Mr. Biden.The judge also noted that no one has forced Mr. Trump to speak daily to reporters who gather in a courtroom hallway at every break in the proceeding.“The former president of the United States is on trial, and he’s the leading candidate of the Republican Party,” Justice Merchan said. “It’s not surprising we have press in the courtroom.”The first incident the judge was asked to consider took place on April 22 as testimony began. Mr. Trump went after one of the state’s main witnesses, Michael D. Cohen, describing him as a liar to reporters outside the courtroom. Mr. Cohen, who was once a lawyer and fixer for Mr. Trump, is expected to take the stand in the coming weeks and describe how he paid $130,000 to the porn star, Stormy Daniels, on his boss’s behalf to keep her from going public with her story of a sexual encounter with him.Later that same day, Mr. Trump made disparaging remarks about jurors during a telephone interview with a right-wing media outlet, Real America’s Voice. The jury, he said, was “mostly all Democrat,” adding, “It’s a very unfair situation.”The next morning — just before he was scheduled to appear in court for a hearing on his previous violations of the gag order — Mr. Trump attacked Mr. Cohen again during a television interview with an ABC affiliate in Pennsylvania.“Michael Cohen is a convicted liar,” Mr. Trump said, “and he’s got no credibility whatsoever.”Another incident took place on April 25 when Mr. Trump, appearing at a news conference in midtown Manhattan, made a comment to reporters about David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer. Later that morning, Mr. Pecker would continue his testimony about deals he had reached with the former president to “catch and kill” negative stories about him.“He’s been very nice,” Mr. Trump said. “I mean, he’s been — David’s been very nice. A nice guy.” More

After firing about 10,000 mortar rounds during four years of training, one soldier who joined the Army with near-perfect scores on the military aptitude test was struggling to read or do basic math.Another soldier started having unexplained fits in which his internal sense of time would suddenly come unmoored, sending everything around him whirling in fast-forward.A third, Sgt. Michael Devaul, drove home from a day of mortar training in such a daze that he pulled into a driveway, only to realize that he was not at his house but at his parents’ house an hour away. He had no idea how he got there.“Guys are getting destroyed,” said Sergeant Devaul, who has fired mortars in the Missouri National Guard for more than 10 years. “Heads pounding, not being able to think straight or walk straight. You go to the medic. They say you are just dehydrated, drink water.”All three soldiers fired the 120-millimeter heavy mortar — a steel tube about the height of a man, used widely in training and combat, that unleashes enough explosive force to hurl a 31-pound bomb four miles. The heads of the soldiers who fire it are just inches from the blast.The military says that those blasts are not powerful enough to cause brain injuries. But soldiers say that the Army is not seeing the evidence sitting in its own hospital waiting rooms.In more than two dozen interviews, soldiers who served at different bases and in different eras said that over the course of firing thousands of mortar rounds in training, they developed symptoms that match those of traumatic brain injury, including headaches, insomnia, confusion, frayed memory, bad balance, racing hearts, paranoia, depression and random eruptions of rage or tears.Troops of the First Armored Division fire rounds from a carrier-mounted mortar during a training exercise in New Mexico in 2017.Killo Gibson/U.S. Army, via Department of DefenseThe military is confronting growing evidence that the blasts from firing weapons can cause brain injuries. So far, though, the Pentagon has identified a potential danger only in a few unusual circumstances, like firing powerful antitank weapons or an abnormally high number of artillery shells. The military still knows little about whether routine exposure to lower-strength blasts from more common weapons like mortars can cause similar injuries.Answering that question definitively would take a large-scale study that follows hundreds of soldiers for years, and it is impossible to draw sweeping conclusions from a handful of cases. But the soldiers interviewed by The New York Times have experienced problems similar enough to suggest a disturbing pattern.Most soldiers said they had fired at least 1,000 rounds a year in training, often in bursts of hundreds over a few days. When they were new at firing, they said, they felt no lasting effects. But with each subsequent training session, headaches, mental fogginess and nausea seemed to come on quicker and last longer. After years of firing, the soldiers experienced problems so severe that they interfered with daily life.Nearly all of the soldiers interviewed for this article never saw combat, but they were nonetheless haunted by nightmares, anxiety, panic attacks and other symptoms usually attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder. Nearly all sought medical help from the Army or the Department of Veterans Affairs and were screened for traumatic brain injury, but did not get a diagnosis. Instead, doctors treated individual symptoms, prescribing headache medicine, antidepressants and sleeping pills.That is in part because of how traumatic brain injuries, known as T.B.I.s, are diagnosed. There is no imaging scan or blood test that can detect the swarms of microscopic tears that repeated blast exposure can cause in a living brain. The damage can be seen only postmortem.So, doctors screening for T.B.I.s ask three questions: Did the patient experience an identifiable, physically traumatic event, like a roadside bomb blast or car crash? Did the patient get knocked unconscious, see stars or experience other altered state of consciousness at the time? And is the patient still experiencing symptoms?For a T.B.I. diagnosis, the answer has to be yes to all three.U.S. Army paratroopers fire a mortar barrage at a training area in Germany in 2022. Kevin Payne/Department of DefenseThe problem is that people who are repeatedly exposed to weapons blasts often cannot pinpoint a specific traumatic event or altered state of consciousness, according to Stuart W. Hoffman, who directs brain injury research for the V.A. With career mortar soldiers, he said, “if you’re not feeling the effects at the time, but you’re being repeatedly exposed to it, it would be difficult to diagnose that condition with today’s current standards.”That means injuries that seem obvious to soldiers go unrecorded in official records and become invisible to commanders and policymakers at the top. As a result, weapons design, training protocols and other key aspects of military readiness may fail to account for the physical limits of human brain tissue.An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, said in a statement that for decades the Army has been studying how to make weapons safer to fire and is “committed to understanding how brain health is affected, and to implementing evidence-based risk mitigation and treatment.”Asked if the Army plans to phase out the use of the 120-millimeter mortar, a mobile weapon that nearly all infantry units use to rain down bombs on enemy positions, Colonel Lodewick said no.Still, there are signs that the Army sees problems with the mortar. It is developing a cone for the muzzle to deflect blast pressure away from soldiers’ heads. And in January, the Army issued an internal safety warning, drastically limiting the number of rounds that soldiers fire in training to no more than 33 rounds a day using the weakest charge, and no more than three rounds a day using the strongest.That warning, though, makes no mention of brain injury; the stated purpose is to protect troops’ hearing.The military measures the force of blast waves in pounds of pressure per square inch, and the current safety guidelines say that anything below 4 PSI is safe for the brain. The blast from firing a 120-millimeter mortar officially measures at 2.5 PSI. But the guidelines do not take account of whether a soldier is exposed to a single blast or to a thousand.There are roughly 9,000 mortar soldiers in the Army — and, in all service branches, there are thousands more troops who regularly use weapons that deliver a similar punch: artillery, rockets, tanks, heavy machine guns, even large-caliber sniper rifles.Justin Andes, 34, launched about 10,000 mortar rounds in Army training at Fort Johnson, La., between 2018 and 2021.He began to experience migraines, dizziness and confusion, to such a degree that his job of keeping accurate counts of weapons in his unit’s armory became a struggle. Eventually he had an emotional breakdown with thoughts of suicide, and he left the Army in dismay when his enlistment ended.Justin Andes launched about 10,000 mortar rounds in Army training at Fort Johnson, La., between 2018 and 2021.Chase Castor for The New York Times“We had to keep a count of every round we fired, and get the mortar tubes inspected each year, because all those blasts can take a toll on the weapons system,” he said in an interview. “But no one was doing that for us.”Mr. Andes joined the Army with a college degree and top scores on the military aptitude test. He had planned to get a graduate degree in political science, but after firing so many mortar rounds, he had trouble reading. Today, Mr. Andes, who now lives in Jefferson City, Mo., speaks with a slight slur, sometimes puts the milk in the kitchen cupboard instead of the refrigerator, and spends much of his time in his basement.“His voice is different, he acts different, he is a different person from the man I married,” his wife, Kristyn Andes, said. “I didn’t start to connect the dots that this might be mortars until some of the other wives said they were having the same issues.”The first sergeant in charge of Mr. Andes’ platoon, she said, was having trouble, too. He was forgetting words, struggling to remember his responsibilities and had a stammer in his speech and a tremor in his hand.Another soldier in his platoon, James Davis, 33, started having near-daily panic attacks in uniform, as well as balance problems, migraines and sensitivity to light. He went to a specialty clinic for traumatic brain injury at Fort Johnson in 2022. “I was told that with time, the symptoms would disappear,” said Mr. Davis, who now lives in Colorado Springs, in an interview. “I am still waiting for that to happen.”The 120-millimeter mortar is a widely used weapon among American combat troops. Marines fired mortar rounds in Afghanistan in 2017.Lucas Hopkins/U.S. Marines, via Department of DefenseMr. Andes, Mr. Davis and their first sergeant all left the Army without any official record that their brains may have been injured by mortar blasts. All three went to the V.A. for help. All three were found to be substantially disabled by issues that can be caused by traumatic brain injury, like vertigo, headaches, anxiety and sleep apnea. But not one was diagnosed with a brain injury.Former soldiers who fired mortars in the 1980s and 1990s say their experiences show that the problems are not new and may not improve with time.“It’s hard for me to piece together, because my memory has gotten so bad, but things are definitely getting worse,” said Jordan Merkel, 55, who joined the Army in 1987 and fired an estimated 10,000 mortar rounds over four years.In uniform, Mr. Merkel started experiencing strange fugue states, where he would be awake but barely responsive and would retain little memory afterward of what had happened.After the Army, he tried college but spent most of the time struggling through remedial classes. He married and divorced three times and said that he remembers very little about those relationships.For years he worked testing security software — a job with a predictable routine that allowed him to get by. But in 2016, he forgot how to do his work: Procedures he’d been following for years drew a blank.He was soon laid off, got a similar job and was laid off again. He has recently noticed trouble reading an analog clock.“I’m really concerned,” said Mr. Merkel, who now lives in Harrisburg, Pa. “This is not normal aging, this is something else.”He went to the V.A. this spring seeking help. The medical staff asked whether he had ever hit his head or been knocked unconscious, but they seemed dismissive when he brought up mortars, he said.“They weren’t the least bit interested in discussing anything related to blast concussion,” he said.Todd Strader had a similar experience. He fired mortars in the 1980s and 1990s at a U.S. base in Germany, and he developed headaches so severe that he would collapse on the ground and vomit. He was hospitalized in the Army for unexplained intestinal problems — a common issue among people with traumatic brain injuries. As a civilian, he struggled with fractured concentration, fatigue and anxiety.Todd Strader fired mortars in the 1980s and 1990s at a U.S. base in Germany. He developed headaches so severe that he would collapse on the ground and vomit.Matthew Callahan for The New York Times“I had plans for myself after the Army,” said Mr. Strader, 54, who now lives in Hampton, Va. “I wanted to travel the world but just ended up working a string of dead-end jobs.”He went to the V.A. in 2019 and was told that there was nothing in his record to suggest a military service-associated brain injury. Instead he was diagnosed with PTSD, even though he had never been in combat.Frustrated that the V.A. would not recognize what seemed obvious to him, he started a Facebook group, hoping to find other mortar soldiers with the same symptoms. The group now has nearly 2,500 members.The Pentagon has repeatedly assured Congress that the military is giving new attention to blast exposure, but ordinary soldiers say they have seen little change.Sergeant Devaul, who drove home to the wrong house, is now trying to get the Army to recognize that years of firing mortars injured his brain. He hasn’t had much luck.At his kitchen table in Kansas City, Mo., on a recent morning, he described how for 18 years he fired mortars, and how his life slowly fell apart.He started in the active-duty Army in 2006 and transferred to the National Guard in 2010. He deployed twice but never saw combat.After years of firing, he started to have trouble thinking. He had a civilian job doing carpentry but struggled with the math and organizational skills and left in frustration. He worked as a security guard for several years, but he developed headaches and concentration problems, and had outbursts of rage.Then he got a break from firing. For much of 2017 and 2018 he was in Qatar on a mission with no mortars and then in training away from the mortar range. He began feeling clearer and calmer. He studied to become an emergency medical technician and, in 2019, got a job with his local fire department.A slow-motion video provided by Sgt. Michael Devaul shows the training in 2021 that left him so dazed that he drove home to the wrong house.But that summer he resumed firing mortars. He started struggling to remember where supplies were kept in his ambulance. Other firefighters told him that he seemed to spend much of his time staring at nothing. The department asked him to learn to drive a fire truck, but he doubted that he could pass the test.In the fall of 2021 he was firing mortars in a training exercise and suddenly felt as though a seam had split in his head. He was dizzy and sick. For weeks afterward, he said, his skull was throbbing, and he was confused and angry.“I felt worthless and stupid,” he said. “I was so exhausted I could barely get off the couch. I didn’t see it getting better.”His wife filed for divorce. He became suicidal and spent five days in a program for PTSD.At his next National Guard training, it took only a few blasts to put him on the ground with the world spinning.The Guard now lists him as temporarily disabled by what it calls “post-concussion syndrome.” He is not allowed to fire mortars or even rifles.Since Sergeant Devaul can’t do his military job, the Guard has begun the process of discharging him. If it decides his injuries are service-related, he’ll be medically retired with lifetime benefits. If not, he’ll be forced out with next to nothing.Sergeant Devaul met recently with his brigade’s surgeon to be evaluated for traumatic brain injury. He said the doctor seemed skeptical that firing mortars could cause his symptoms.“I kept asking, ‘What else could have caused it?’ He didn’t have an answer,” he said. “I’ve got every single symptom of a traumatic brain injury. I just don’t have a diagnosis.” More

In states that will help decide control of the White House and Congress, Democrats are campaigning furiously alongside ballot measures to protect abortion rights, putting Republicans on their heels.As Democrats confront a presidential race against a resurgent and resilient Donald J. Trump as well as a brutally challenging Senate map, they believe they have an increasingly powerful political weapon: ballot measures to protect abortion rights.Two crucial presidential and Senate battlegrounds, Arizona and Nevada, are expected to put such measures directly before voters. So are other states with top Senate races, including Maryland and potentially Montana. And abortion rights measures are set or could appear on ballots in states like New York, Florida and Nebraska, where competitive contests could help determine whether Democrats win back the House.Hopeful Democrats — and worried Republicans — are acutely aware that in all seven states where abortion has been put directly to voters since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the abortion rights side has won, in both red states like Ohio and Kansas as well as swing states like Michigan. Those measures have sometimes fueled surges in liberal turnout that have lifted Democratic candidates to victory, as well.So in every state where an abortion measure is already on the 2024 ballot or could yet appear, Democratic candidates, state parties and allied groups are campaigning furiously alongside the ballot initiatives, running ads, helping pour money behind them and bringing up the measures in speech after speech.In Arizona, where Democrats are trying to flip the Legislature, the party’s candidates have gone so far as to collect signatures for the state’s ballot measure as they knock on voters’ doors.“When the abortion petition initiative came out, it was a no-brainer that I would carry it with me,” said Brandy Reese, a Democrat running for the Arizona House who said she had gathered dozens of signatures while campaigning. “I introduce myself as a pro-choice candidate running, and you can instantly tell in people’s body language that they’re excited to hear that.”The wave of abortion referendums — some of which are not officially on the ballot yet but most of which have enough signatures to get there, according to organizers — is adding new unpredictability to an election season already convulsed by Mr. Trump’s criminal cases and wrenching questions about the future of the country’s democracy.With polls showing that a majority of Americans think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, the measures could serve as a political life raft at a time when President Biden faces stubbornly low approval ratings and skepticism within his party. Democrats hope the ballot initiatives will increase turnout among core voters like suburban women, young people and African Americans.“The ballot initiatives are well-funded and well-organized efforts,” said Christina Freundlich, a Democratic strategist. “It’s creating a tremendous sense of energy not only within the Democratic Party but with voters across the board.”Party leaders are echoing that message.“Momentum is on our side,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at an abortion rights event on Wednesday in Jacksonville, Fla. “Just think about it: Since Roe was overturned, every time reproductive freedom has been on the ballot, the people of America voted for freedom.”Beyond electoral politics, the ballot initiatives regarding abortion have driven huge interest and turnout because of their direct impact on voters’ lives. In Florida, for example, a newly enforced ban on nearly all abortions in the state has cut off a critical access point to patients across the Southeast. In Arizona, lawmakers this week repealed a near-total ban on abortions — but the state is now set to enforce a 15-week ban with no exceptions for rape or incest.Medical practitioners have also expressed concerns about facing criminal penalties under the bans.“The fear of that is just devastating,” said Mona Mangat, board chair of the Committee to Protect Health Care, an advocacy group that is supporting ballot initiatives in several states. “It’s going to be devastating for practitioners and devastating for patients.”Ms. Mangat said the restrictions could affect whether doctors wanted to move to those states to practice medicine or attend residency programs.In Nevada, abortion is legal within the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. Organizers there are collecting signatures to place an amendment on the ballot that would establish a right to an abortion in the State Constitution. Key Democrats in the state, including Senator Jacky Rosen, who is facing a close re-election fight, have signed onto the petition.Representative Dina Titus, another Nevada Democrat, said in an interview that the amendment would still motivate voters to turn out, especially young people, even without the driving force of overturning far-reaching restrictions. “We’ll talk about it in terms of how this will really protect women,” Ms. Titus said. “And we’ll use it to attract young women and just young people generally to the polls, because they will suddenly realize something they took for granted is not going to be available.”Representative Dina Titus and other Nevada Democrats believe that the state’s proposed amendment to enshrine abortion rights in its Constitution will drive up liberal turnout.Elizabeth Frantz/ReutersRepublican candidates and their allies have appeared reluctant to directly campaign against ballot measures to protect abortion rights, though some G.O.P. leaders have voiced opposition. In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine recorded a video opposing the state’s initiative last year, and in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has said the current ballot measure is too broad. “To nuke parental consent for minors is totally unacceptable,” he said at an event last month.Some Republicans openly worry that restrictive measures like Florida’s may play into the hands of Democrats, given how abortion referendums in recent cycles have unfolded.“Kansas and Ohio to me is what everyone should be looking at,” said Vicki Lopez, a state representative from Miami who was one of a handful of Republican legislators to vote against Florida’s six-week ban. Voters will now decide in November whether to add a right to an abortion to the State Constitution, with a question known as Amendment Four. “This will be a test.”But Ms. Lopez added that it would be a mistake to assume that “everyone who votes for Amendment Four is actually going to then vote for Biden.”Regardless, Democrats believe they have the advantage. In a memo last month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wrote that “reproductive freedom will remain a driving issue for voters this November” and that the group would “ensure that House Republicans’ efforts to ban abortion nationwide are top of mind as voters head to the polls.”The D.C.C.C. said it had identified 18 competitive House seats in states where abortion measures are likely to be on the ballot. Republicans are trying to protect a slim House majority.Money for the ballot measures has cascaded in from both major liberal groups and small donors. Some so-called dark money organizations, whose donors are not disclosed, have contributed millions, including the Open Society Policy Center, the Sixteen Thirty Fund and the Fairness Project. Other advocacy groups, like Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, have also contributed seven figures.Think Big America, an abortion rights group started by Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, has spent heavily to support abortion initiatives. After dropping $1 million in Ohio last year, it has already spent $1 million in Arizona and Nevada and has made what it called a “quick investment” of $500,000 in Montana, where the issue is not yet on the November ballot.“This has a power to not only turn out Democrats but also make sure that folks that are on the fence — swing voters, independents, persuadable voters — are coming over to the side that has had a longstanding belief in reproductive freedom,” said Michael Ollen, the executive director of Think Big America.In Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs has directed her well-funded state political action committee, Arizona Communities United, to focus heavily on the ballot initiative.Ms. Hobbs, who has navigated slim Republican majorities in the Legislature for the first two years of her term, has made flipping both chambers a main goal for 2024, and she views the ballot measure as a central part of that effort.Gov. Katie Hobbs of Arizona has directed her state political action committee to focus heavily on the state’s ballot measure. Mark Henle/The Republic, via USA Today NetworkIn Nevada, the Biden campaign has invited ballot initiative organizers to collect signatures at events featuring Jill Biden and Ms. Harris.Giving a speech in the state last month, Ms. Harris thanked the signature gatherers in the audience. They responded by holding up their clipboards and cheering.“We’re going to win this ballot initiative,” the vice president said. “And Joe Biden and I are going back to the White House.”Patricia Mazzei More

On a day off from court, Donald J. Trump on Wednesday flew to Michigan and Wisconsin for campaign rallies in front of thousands of supporters. On Thursday, he returned to a Lower Manhattan courthouse, where a single supporter stood outside waving a Trump 2024 flag.“I don’t feel lonely because my heart is with Trump,” said the flag-holder, Lily Qi, 62, of Wilmington, Del., as she stood in the park across from the New York City Criminal Court.She had ridden a train to New York City and is staying with friends, saying that she could not afford a hotel room on her office-cleaner salary. Born and raised in China, Ms. Qi said she had attended a dozen Trump rallies.At around 9 a.m. on Thursday, she stood alone at Collect Pond Park but was soon joined by two demonstrators in T-shirts featuring a cartoon of Mr. Trump in jail. They are “troublemakers,” she said.One of the protesters, Barrett Cobb, carried a sign that read “Jail Trump.”“I’m extremely upset they haven’t put him in jail yet,” said Ms. Cobb, a classical musician who lives in Manhattan.Since the start of the hush-money trial, Mr. Trump has complained that his supporters have not been allowed closer to the steps of the courthouse. The police have erected barricades around the courthouse for security.On Tuesday, Mr. Trump arrived there with his son Eric Trump, the first family member to attend the trial in person. More

The two companies reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that kept some of pop’s biggest stars off the platform.TikTok and Universal Music Group have reached a new licensing deal, ending a three-month stalemate that had blocked songs from some of pop’s biggest stars from the influential social media platform.In a joint announcement early Thursday, the two companies said that they had agreed to a “multi-dimensional” new deal that included “improved remuneration” for Universal’s roster of artists and songwriters, and would address the label’s concerns over the growth of A.I.-generated content on the app.In statements that accompanied the announcement, Shou Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, called music “an integral part of the TikTok ecosystem.” Lucian Grainge, the chief executive of Universal — the world’s biggest music company, with a roster of artists including Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Drake and U2 — called the deal a “new chapter in our relationship with TikTok” that “focuses on the value of music, the primacy of human artistry and the welfare of the creative community.”The agreement ends the music industry’s biggest and most contentious dispute with a tech platform in years. Both companies hurled public accusations at each other, and artists from across the spectrum worried about whether their careers would be hurt by the absence of their music from TikTok, which has become a vital promotional platform and boasts more than 170 million users in the United States alone.But the deal also comes amid wider uncertainty for TikTok as the app faces a possible ban or sale in the United States because of national security concerns over the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance. Last month, President Biden signed a bill that would allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States if it was sold in nine months, though the company is expected to challenge the law in court.Universal began to withdraw permission for its music from TikTok on Feb. 1, after an impasse in negotiations to renew its previous licensing agreement. At the time, Universal said that TikTok “attempted to bully us into accepting a deal worth less than the previous deal, far less than fair market value and not reflective of their exponential growth.”Millions of videos that included Universal music — including many artists’ own official music videos — were muted on the platform. TikTok said that by withdrawing its songs, Universal had “put their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”TikTok and Universal have not commented on their negotiations since then. But the dispute seemed to shift three weeks ago, when Swift — the biggest and most influential artist on Universal’s roster — broke ranks with the label and returned her music to TikTok, ahead of the release of her most recent album.Her move may have weakened Universal’s leverage. But since the ban took effect, fans noticed that songs from many other Universal artists, including Grande and Camila Cabello, had returned, often in sped-up or slowed-down versions that may have been uploaded to the platform by fans.In their announcement, TikTok and Universal did not offer any specifics about the financial terms of their deal. The companies’ statement says they will work together to “realize new monetization opportunities” through e-commerce, and that TikTok will “invest significant resources” in building tools like data analytics and ticketing.The companies added that they were “working expeditiously” to return Universal’s music to the platform. That could take a matter of days or weeks. More

Barry McCarthy took over as C.E.O. in February 2022 to revive Peloton from its late-pandemic slump, but the company has struggled to become profitable.Peloton said on Thursday that its chief executive, Barry McCarthy, was stepping down and it would lay off more workers, as it continued to struggle in the fitness market.The connected-fitness company announced disappointing quarterly earnings on Thursday, with revenue down 4 percent from last year. The company, which has not turned a profit since December 2020, is also looking to refinance more than $1 billion in debt.Peloton had a spectacular rise at the start of the pandemic, when gyms and fitness centers closed and consumers were hungry for at-home workout options. But after gyms reopened, Peloton began to face stiffer competition from companies like Bowflex and Lululemon.Barry McCarthy, a former Spotify and Netflix executive, joined Peloton in 2022.Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesIt is reducing its head count by 15 percent, or 400 workers, in an effort to cut its costs this year by $200 million. Peloton has had several other rounds of job cuts in the past couple of years, most recently in October 2022, when it laid off about 12 percent of employees, or about 500 people.“Hard as the decision has been to make additional head count cuts, Peloton simply had no other way to bring its spending in line with its revenue,” Mr. McCarthy said in a statement.Investors appeared optimistic about the news; Peloton’s stock price rose about 9 percent in premarket trading.The company said it was looking to reduce its retail footprint and instead invest in “software, hardware and content portfolio and in improvements” for paying subscribers. Mr. McCarthy, a former Spotify and Netflix executive, joined Peloton in February 2022, taking over from the company’s founder, John Foley. Two board members, Karen Boone and Chris Bruzzo, will serve as interim co-chief executives. More

The production is to begin performances Aug. 29 at the Booth Theater.Mia Farrow and Patti LuPone, longtime friends, had no intention of returning to Broadway until a script about two women sharing a house caught their eye.The play, called “The Roommate,” was written by Jen Silverman, and had a 2017 run, with a different cast, at the Williamstown Theater Festival, where the New York Times critic Jesse Green called it “a kind of chemistry experiment. Can two women of utterly different temperaments and backgrounds help each other? Can they help each other too much?”Farrow, 79, and LuPone, 75, met in 1979 while working on Broadway — Farrow in “Romantic Comedy” and LuPone in “Evita” — and then they were reconnected via a mutual friendship with Stephen Sondheim. (Farrow and LuPone both have houses in western Connecticut, as did Sondheim.)Farrow, in a telephone interview, said she had been sent the script for “The Roommate” and was intrigued. And she said she wanted to work with LuPone.“I would normally have said no, had I not been swept away,” she said. “This play is very funny, and odd. I’ve never read anything quite like it. It’s about secrets, and there are a lot of surprises in it.”Now a Broadway production is to begin performances Aug. 29 and to open Sept. 12 at the Booth Theater, where “Kimberly Akimbo” closed last weekend. It will be directed by Jack O’Brien, a three-time Tony winner (for “Hairspray,” “Henry IV” and “The Coast of Utopia”), and also a friend of Farrow.Farrow, best known for her work on film, has done occasional stage work over the years, starting at age 18 in a production of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” but it’s been a while. Most recently she spent a month in a 2014 Broadway production of “Love Letters.”She said she was both excited and nervous about returning to the stage. “Unlike some people, I really enjoy my retirement,” she said. “I’m never bored. So this takes a bit of a push for me, but I got on board.”She added, “I don’t know that I’ll ever do it again, but if this is the last thing that I do, then I’m lucky to be involved.”LuPone is a Broadway veteran and three-time Tony winner, for productions of “Evita,” “Gypsy” and “Company.” In 2022 she said she had given up her membership in Actors’ Equity Association, saying, “I knew I wouldn’t be onstage for a very long time.” In a statement announcing “The Roommate,” LuPone said, “I certainly had no intention of being back on Broadway so fast. But when I read the play and heard Mia was attached, it became the easiest decision of my life.”The production said it expected that LuPone would be able to work on Broadway. When asked about LuPone’s ability to do so, Equity said in a statement, “It is Actors’ Equity Association’s policy to not comment on the membership status of individual workers.”“The Roommate” is being produced by Chris Harper, who produced the revival of “Company” in which LuPone starred (that revival had a first preview in early 2020, but then didn’t open until late 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic). More