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      Bill Ackman and Mark Zuckerberg Fail to Land Candidates on Harvard’s Board of Overseers

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      The candidates had promised to challenge the university’s leadership, but failed to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot for the board.It’s hard to get into Harvard, even if you’ve done it before.Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta, and Bill Ackman, head of the Pershing Square hedge fund, discovered as much, in their failed push to get dissident candidates onto the Harvard Board of Overseers, one of the university’s two governing bodies.The candidates — a slate of four backed by Mr. Ackman and one candidate backed by Mr. Zuckerberg — said on Friday that they had not collected enough petition signatures to get on the April ballot for election to the board.“We are disappointed but greatly appreciate all the support,” Zoe Bedell, an assistant U.S. attorney, who ran on the Ackman slate, said in a statement on Friday. “We look forward to trying again next year.”Their failure raised the question of how much support existed for Mr. Ackman’s persistent campaign against Harvard’s leadership over the past few months.Mr. Ackman touted the candidates’ military experience, and Mr. Zuckerberg’s candidate, Sam Lessin, is a venture capitalist and a former employee of Facebook (as Meta was formerly known).But they could not surmount the first hurdle: collecting the 3,238 signatures from Harvard alumni to get their names on the ballot for the April election.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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      Why Democrats Are Using Personal Abortion Stories

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      Plus: A Taylor Swift endorsement is Biden’s wildest dream.When Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Dallas, learned that her 11-week-old fetus had a fatal medical condition in July 2022, she immediately understood the medical implications.What she didn’t know was that she would soon land in the middle of a lawsuit against the state of Texas — and in the midst of the presidential campaign.Dennard is starring in a new political ad for President Biden’s re-election campaign, in which she describes her diagnosis and having to leave Texas and its restrictive abortion law to get an abortion.Democrats like Biden are increasingly having women describe, in stark, emotional detail, the personal impact of the abortion bans championed by their Republican opponents. In 2023, Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat seeking re-election in Kentucky, ran an ad featuring a woman who said she was raped as child by her stepfather, criticizing a state abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest.Abortion rights have emerged as one of the Democrats’ strongest arguments with voters. Campaign aides in Kentucky said the Beshear ad helped sway some independent and conservative voters. The issue led to victories in the 2022 midterms and in other races in 2023. Now, the issue is a centerpiece of Biden’s re-election bid, part of an argument that abortion rights are one of many personal freedoms that will be taken away if Donald Trump is once again elected president.Dennard supported Biden and generally votes for Democratic candidates, she said, but never considered herself particularly political.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?  More

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      Biden Wins New Hampshire Democratic Primary

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      President Biden won the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, carried by his supporters’ write-in campaign after he declined to appear on the state’s ballot.The victory, called by The Associated Press, was good, if expected, news for Mr. Biden. But votes were still being counted, and the final margin of his win will be closely watched.As an incumbent president facing a list of long-shot challengers, anything short of a decisive victory would be perceived as bruising for Mr. Biden, even though he did not try to compete in the primary.Mr. Biden skipped the state after a dispute over the timing of its primary, as he and the Democratic National Committee sought to push New Hampshire’s contest later in the nominating process. Granite Staters, deeply protective of their first-in-the-nation tradition, refused to comply.His allies in the state eventually stepped in, and the write-in effort, supported by top Democrats there, generated the kind of grass-roots energy for Mr. Biden that has not yet materialized in other states — and that he did not enjoy in New Hampshire’s primary in 2020, when he came in fifth place.“Despite President Biden’s absence from the ballot, Granite Staters still turned out in robust numbers to show their support for the great work that the Biden-Harris administration has done,” Ray Buckley, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party — and an ardent critic of the calendar changes — said in a statement, praising the success of the write-in campaign. “Once again, New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary made history — and we are proud as ever.”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?  More

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      How Trial Delays Could Pay Off for Trump

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      Former President Donald J. Trump faces four criminal trials this year, but delays are already underway. The odds are that no more than one or two will finish before voters choose the next president. Trump’s trials are unlikely to happen as scheduled The trials, which may require a couple of months or more, are unlikely […] More

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      When Will We Get Results for the New Hampshire Primary?

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      The very first results in the New Hampshire primary became available within minutes of midnight on Tuesday. But beyond Dixville Notch, where polling opened at midnight for the small town’s six registered voters and closed soon afterward, voting locations in most of the rest of the state will be open until 7 p.m. Eastern time. Initial results will most likely become available soon after that.David Scanlan, the secretary of state, said he expected that most votes would be counted on Tuesday night. News media outlets are likely to call the race before all ballots are counted, whenever a winner becomes apparent.The Associated Press does not expect to make a call before 8 p.m., when the last polls close. But in 2016, its call in the Republican primaries came right at 8 p.m.Results in the Democratic race might come in later because it will take election workers extra time to count the write-in votes for President Biden, who is not on the ballot after New Hampshire fought his decision to push the state back on the party’s nominating calendar. The results may be slightly delayed, but state officials expect them to be counted before the end of the night.“Several of the larger communities have recruited extra volunteers to help with the process, so we are not expecting huge delays,” said Anna Sventek, the communications director for the New Hampshire Department of State. More

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      The End of Economic Pessimism?

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      Seven reasons Americans are down on the economy. By many measures, the U.S. economy is strong right now. Unemployment is near its lowest point in decades. Inflation has slowed down. Wages have grown faster than prices since last year. Stock prices have surged.But many Americans are not feeling it, and say the economy is in bad shape. The persistent pessimism has baffled many economists.The situation may be changing. American confidence in the economy has picked up in recent months, surveys show. And President Biden’s campaign hopes the turnaround will boost his re-election prospects.Still, measures of consumer confidence remain lower than normal. Why have Americans resisted the good economic news? Experts have tried to answer that question for months. Today’s newsletter will cover seven of their leading explanations.1) InflationThe first, and most obvious, explanation is rising prices. Historically, Americans hate high inflation. For one, it is universal; high prices affect everyone. In comparison, high unemployment directly affects only a minority, even during recessions.“When prices rise, it feels like something is taken away from you,” my colleague Jeanna Smialek, who covers the economy, told me.Inflation More

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      New Hampshire Street Signs Tell the Story of the Republican Primary

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      This street corner tells the tale of the Republican primary.If you want to understand the New Hampshire primary, stand at the corner of West Broadway and Valley Street in Derry, N.H.There are two huge yard signs — one for Nikki Haley and one for Donald Trump — on adjacent houses. Perhaps a neighbor-on-neighbor feud?Not exactly: When my colleague Michael Bender headed there recently, neighbors told him that the pro-Haley house had been vacant for years, and that political campaigns often planted their signs there. And the pro-Trump house was actually owned by an absentee landlord who lives in Florida.It felt like one big metaphor for this campaign. The race looks like a real contest, with yard signs and all the usual campaign events. Yet when you dig a little deeper, there’s far less going on than it may seem.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?  More

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      California Senate Candidates Face Off in First Debate

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      The race to replace Dianne Feinstein features three Democratic members of Congress and a former major-league baseball star.Shawn Hubler, Jill Cowan and It’s Monday. The leading candidates vying for a U.S. Senate seat from California are facing off today. Plus, an update on a plan by tech billionaires to build a city from the ground up in Solano County.Steve Garvey, center, during a visit to the Skid Row area of Los Angeles this month. He joined the Senate race to fill the late Senator Dianne Feinstein’s seat.Richard Vogel/Associated PressWhen Dianne Feinstein died in September, she left vacant the U.S. Senate seat that she had held for more than three decades.Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly appointed Laphonza Butler, president of Emily’s List and a former labor leader, to serve as California’s newest senator until an election could be held this year to fill the seat. Butler announced within weeks that she wasn’t interested in running in the 2024 election.That decision opened the way for a competitive primary race. Dozens of candidates jumped into the race, but four have emerged as the leading candidates: three Democratic members of Congress and a former major-league baseball star. They are scheduled to appear onstage together for the first time this evening, for a debate at the University of Southern California, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.The foursome includes Adam Schiff, 63, Democrat of Burbank, currently the front-runner in polls and well known for having served as the lead prosecutor in the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump; Katie Porter, 50, an Orange County Democrat who has regularly polled in second place; Barbara Lee, 77, Democrat of Oakland and a longtime progressive; and Steve Garvey, 75, a former first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres and the only Republican among the four.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?  More