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      Secret Service Director Resigns After Trump Assassination Attempt

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      Kimberly A. Cheatle gave up her post Tuesday after security failures that allowed a gunman to shoot at former President Donald J. Trump at an open-air rally.The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly A. Cheatle, resigned on Tuesday, after security failures surrounding the attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump and calls for her to step down from prominent Republican lawmakers.In an email to Secret Service agents on Tuesday, Ms. Cheatle said that one of the Secret Service’s foremost duties is to protect the nation’s leaders and that the agency “fell short of that mission” in failing to secure a campaign rally from a gunman on July 13.“I do not want my calls for resignation to be a distraction from the great work each and every one of you do towards our vital mission,” Ms. Cheatle said in the email, which was reviewed by The New York Times.She said she was deeply committed to the agency but added that, “in light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director.”President Biden, in a statement Tuesday, thanked Ms. Cheatle for answering his call to lead the agency. “As a leader, it takes honor, courage and incredible integrity to take full responsibility for an organization tasked with one of the most challenging jobs in public service.”Mr. Biden said he would appoint a new director soon.The resignation is a rapid fall for the agency veteran who protected Dick Cheney and Mr. Biden in their vice-presidential tenures and was publicly supported by Biden administration officials after the gunman shot at Mr. Trump. The glaring security mistakes before the shooting, however, and the heated criticism that Ms. Cheatle faced in the days since had left her position increasingly in doubt.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

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      Kamala Harris Rapidly Picks Up Democratic Support as 2024 Race Is Reborn

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      Powerful leaders of the Democratic establishment quickly embraced Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday after President Biden’s shocking exit from the race, hoping that a seamless succession could end a month of damaging chaos and transform a contest widely believed to be tipping toward Republicans.By Sunday evening, Ms. Harris appeared to have a glide path to the nomination: No other top Democrats announced plans to challenge her, though some stopped short of an endorsement, including the party’s top congressional leaders and former President Barack Obama.With breathtaking speed, she took control of Mr. Biden’s enormous political operation and contacted Democratic leaders in Congress and state houses to ask for their support. The Biden campaign formally renamed itself “Harris for President,” giving her immediate access to an account that had $96 million in cash at the end of June. On an internal call, the Biden campaign’s leaders told staff members that they would now work for Ms. Harris.“I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party — and unite our nation — to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda,” Ms. Harris said in a statement. “We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”The rapid turn of events plunged the party and the nation into unfamiliar political territory, giving unelected Democratic officials the final say over the party’s nominee. Complicated decisions loom. Ms. Harris must choose a running mate, take charge of the campaign with little time before early voting begins in some states in September, rebuild support among voters who had fled Mr. Biden and prepare to withstand a full-blown Republican assault.Speculation immediately turned to her potential running mate, with many Democrats privately arguing that Ms. Harris should pick a white man to widen her appeal and provide demographic balance to the ticket. A flotilla of governors — including Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Tim Walz of Minnesota — as well as Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona have been frequently mentioned by donors, officials and other lawmakers.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

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      Aaron Sorkin: How I Would Script This Moment for Biden and the Democrats

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      The Paley Center for Media just opened an exhibition celebrating the 25th anniversary of “The West Wing,” the NBC series I wrote from 1999 to 2003. Some of the show’s story points have become outdated in the last quarter-century (the first five minutes of the first episode depended entirely on the audience being unfamiliar with the acronym POTUS), while others turned out to be — well, not prescient, but sadly coincidental.Gunmen tried to shoot a character after an event with President Bartlet at the end of Season 1. And at the end of the second season, in an episode called “Two Cathedrals,” a serious illness that Bartlet had been concealing from the public had come to light, and the president, hobbled, faced the question of whether to run for re-election. “Yeah,” he said in the third season opener. “And I’m going to win.”Which is exactly what President Biden has been signaling since the day after his bad night.Because I needed the “West Wing” audience to find President Bartlet’s intransigence heroic, I didn’t really dramatize any downward pull that his illness was having on his re-election chances. And much more important, I didn’t dramatize any danger posed by Bartlet’s opponent winning.But what if the show had gone another way?What if, as a result of Bartlet revealing his illness, polling showed him losing to his likely opponent? And what if that opponent, rather than being simply unexceptional, had been a dump truck of ignorance and bad intentions? What if Bartlet’s opponent had been a dangerous imbecile with an observable psychiatric disorder who related to his supporters on a fourth-grade level and treated the law as something for suckers and poor people? And was a hero to white supremacists?We’d have had Bartlet drop out of the race and endorse whoever had the best chance of beating the guy.The problem in the real world is that there isn’t a Democrat who is polling significantly better than Mr. Biden. And quitting, as heroic as it may be in this case, doesn’t really put a lump in our throats.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

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      President of Florida A&M Resigns Amid Donation Controversy

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      Larry Robinson took responsibility for accepting a $237 million gift that is now on hold and under investigation.The president of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University is stepping down from the top post two months after he acknowledged that he had mishandled a large donation that a donor had promised to the university but has since been put on hold.During commencement festivities in early May, Florida A&M, a historically Black public university in Tallahassee, announced that a business executive was making a donation worth more than $237 million. Questions soon arose over whether the source of the donation had been properly vetted, The Tallahassee Democrat reported.President Larry Robinson did not give a reason for his resignation in his open letter announcing his resignation or in a news release on July 12. But two months earlier, at a board of trustees meeting on May 15, Mr. Robinson took responsibility for “mishandling” the proposed donation and decided to “cease the engagement agreement” with the donor, according to the meeting’s minutes log.“He apologized to all parties involved and acknowledged the missteps in the University’s approach,” the log said.The gift had been promised by a business executive named Gregory Gerami and a family trust. Mr. Gerami was invited to speak in May at commencement, during which the donation was promoted. Photographs show Mr. Gerami, Mr. Robinson and others posing behind a large, ceremonial check for the amount of $237,750,000.But just four days later, Mr. Robinson told the university’s board that he had “received information suggesting the gift was not as it appeared,” according to minutes from the May 15 meeting. Mr. Robinson and Shawnta Friday-Stroud, who at the time was the school’s vice president, then “contacted the donor to cease the engagement agreement.”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

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      Reagan Arthur Returns to Hachette

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      Arthur, the former publisher of Knopf, is joining Hachette Book Group to start and run a new imprint.Reagan Arthur, the former publisher of Knopf, is joining Hachette Book Group to start and run a new imprint, Hachette said Thursday.Her appointment comes weeks after Arthur was let go from her position as publisher of Knopf, one of the most prestigious imprints at Penguin Random House, a move that surprised many in the publishing industry.At Hachette, Arthur will launch and oversee a new publishing line within Grand Central Publishing Group, and will also edit prominent authors at other imprints. Arthur’s own imprint, as yet unnamed, will release between four and six books a year.In an interview, Arthur said she envisioned her new imprint as a place to further develop the kinds of books she’s long published, putting out a selective list of literary and commercial fiction and narrative nonfiction.“I get to build something that will have a lot of care and focus,” she said. “I’m excited about bringing in new voices as well as writers that I’ve admired for a long time.”Arthur is known for her keen commercial instincts. Before moving to Knopf, she was the publisher of Little, Brown, a Hachette imprint, where she edited and published a string of best-selling and award-winning works, including books by Elin Hilderbrand, Michael Connelly, Malcolm Gladwell, James Patterson, Kate Atkinson, Eleanor Catton and David Sedaris.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

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      Iran’s 2024 Presidential Election: What to Know

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      Iran will hold a special election later this month to replace former President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.Iran’s election for its next president will take place a year early, on June 28, after President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash last month. The vote will usher the Islamic republic into new leadership amid domestic discontent, voter apathy and regional turmoil.While the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has the final say on all state matters, the Iranian president sets domestic policy and has some influence over foreign policy.Watching a presidential debate on a screen this month in Tehran.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesWhy is this election important?The election gives the Iranian leadership the chance to show it can handle a disaster like the unexpected death of a president without destabilizing the country, even as it grapples with internal protests and tension with the United States and Israel.The election also allows the leadership to remind people that while Iran is a theocracy, it also holds elections for government positions such as president, members of Parliament and councils.That said, who is allowed to run for president is carefully controlled. And if, as expected, one of the more conservative candidates, close to the clerical leadership, wins, the government will most likely claim it as a victory for its brand of politics — despite the sharp constraints placed on the competition.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

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      BAM Announces Artistic Director and Fall Season Lineup

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      BAM, which has faced cutbacks in recent years, unveiled a reorganization as it announced its Next Wave Festival for the fall.The Brooklyn Academy of Music, a haven for international artists and the avant-garde that has been forced to reduce its programming and lay off workers in recent years, unveiled plans for a reorganization on Thursday as it announced its fall season.The institution said that Amy Cassello, who has been with BAM for more than a decade, would officially become its artistic director, a position she had been holding on an interim basis. And it announced a new strategic plan that calls for programming more works that are still in development, establishing more partnerships with other presenting institutions and hiring a new community-focused “resident curator.”BAM executives said they hoped that the plan would help usher in a new era for the institution after an exceptionally difficult period.Like many nonprofit arts organizations, BAM has struggled financially since the pandemic, and its annual operating budget dropped. It has also been buffeted by leadership churn in recent years after decades of stability in its senior leadership ranks.“I’m feeling really confident about our future,” said Gina Duncan, BAM’s president since 2022. “We were able to gain alignment across all of BAM’s communities and really arrive at a point in which we had a shared understanding of our history and what the future holds for us.”The upcoming Next Wave Festival in the fall will have 11 events, up from eight in 2023, a difficult year when BAM laid off 13 percent of its staff to help fill what officials called a “sizable structural deficit.” But it will still not be as robust as it was in earlier eras, when the festival regularly staged many more programs.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

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      Christy Goldsmith Romero Is Front-Runner to Lead F.D.I.C.

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      The front-runner for the bank regulatory job is Christy Goldsmith Romero, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.Three weeks after President Biden vowed to pick a new leader for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the bank regulator shaken by a vast workplace abuse scandal, a front-runner has emerged: Christy Goldsmith Romero, who sits on the five-member Commodity Futures Trading Commission, according to two people with knowledge of the administration’s thinking.Ms. Goldsmith Romero is a lawyer who, after the financial crisis, spent more than 12 years in an office created by Congress to investigate fraud and other misconduct by banks that received money from the government’s roughly $450 billion crisis rescue package, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. From 2011 to 2022, Ms. Goldsmith Romero led the office as the special inspector-general for the program.Her work exposing fraud, which often put her at odds with not only bankers but also some government officials who were concerned about the potential damage it would do to overall public opinion of the bailout, has made her especially appealing for the job of cleaning up the F.D.I.C., said the people, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter.Mr. Biden has not made a final decision. Ms. Goldsmith Romero’s position as the front-runner for the job was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.Ms. Goldsmith Romero declined to comment for this article.Republicans and Democrats both want a new leader for the bank regulator as soon as possible. Managers there were routinely sexually harassing junior employees and working to silence anyone who complained, according to reports last fall by The Wall Street Journal. The fact that Ms. Goldsmith Romero is a woman and a member of the L.G.B.T.Q. community — she is bisexual — is also seen as a plus, the people said, because she may be better able to build trust and restore morale among embattled junior employees.And there’s another advantage to her candidacy: Ms. Goldsmith Romero has been unanimously confirmed by the Senate — twice. Her most recent confirmation, for the C.F.T.C. post, was in 2022, recently enough that the paperwork she submitted to the Senate as part of her nomination process, as well as the background check she underwent at the time, are likely to still be valid.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