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    Biden, on Call With Mayors, Works to Shore Up Democratic Support

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    President Biden held a video call with nearly 200 Democratic mayors on Tuesday night, reiterating that he was staying in the presidential race, reminding the city leaders how best to support his campaign and discussing his second-term agenda.Mr. Biden, his campaign and the White House have been working to dismiss and defuse Democratic criticisms about his viability after his poor debate showing. Those efforts included a gathering of Democratic governors last week at the White House, a television interview with ABC News two days later and calls on Monday to top donors, congressional leaders and a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus.The call with mayors lasted about 40 minutes and Mr. Biden took three questions, according to Mayor Cory Mason of Racine, Wis., a Democrat who participated in the call and provided details about how it went — as did five other mayors who insisted on anonymity to freely discuss the conversation. Mr. Mason described Mr. Biden as “the president that everybody’s used to seeing” and not the one who delivered a halting debate performance nearly two weeks ago.“It was understandable for a time for people to ask if everything is OK,” Mr. Mason said. “It’s four months out from the election, so you can’t have too many of those days, but every day that passes, he’s proving he can recover from a bad debate performance.”The mayors described the call as a somewhat scripted pep rally, with Mr. Biden speaking for about 20 minutes and then taking questions from mayors selected by the moderator, Mayor Kate Gallego of Phoenix.Like many video calls arranged by the Biden campaign and the White House, participants could not see who else was on the call or add comments into the chat screen. They could indicate their feelings about what was being said by adding emojis, and many contributed smiley-face ones as Mr. Biden spoke, according to Mr. Mason.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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      As Gunshots Rang Out, Super Bowl Parade in Kansas City Dissolved Into Chaos

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      The parade on Wednesday to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory brought hundreds of thousands of people to the city’s streets, a sea of fans clad in the team’s trademark red.But when gunfire began near Union Station, a downtown transit center and tourist hub, around 2 p.m. local time, chaos erupted. Many attendees said it was hard to know where to go.At first, the shots sounded like fireworks, said Ian Johnson, who had been selling hot dogs near the main event stage. Only when fans started running — some of them took shelter under his hot dog tent — did he realize that a shooting was underway.Courtney Brown, of Independence, Mo., and her two sons were also near the stage when the gunfire began. She didn’t hear shots, she said. But she did hear someone shout: “Get down.”Her instincts told her to flee, so she told her children to keep moving. “We were almost trampled twice,” she said. The three of them locked arms and huddled near a barricade until the crush of the crowd had eased.Adrian Robinson had traveled to Kansas City from Gary, Ind., to sell T-shirts. He heard what he thought was a few firecrackers popping, and then he saw hundreds of people running down the street. A minute later, the same people were running back in the opposite direction.Christopher Smith for The New York TimesDominick Williams for The New York Times“People were traumatized, man” Mr. Robinson said. “They were crying. Hyperventilating.”The police said that they had detained three people after the shooting. But as the crowds began to disperse, some parade attendees were left stranded.Zachary Dial and his family had traveled from Richmond, Mo., and parked in a garage by Union Station. A few hours after the parade was over, their car was still off limits, stuck behind crime scene tape, he said.Quinton Lucas, the mayor of Kansas City, had also been downtown for the celebration. “I was there with my wife; I was there with my mother,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday afternoon.“We never would have thought that we, along with Chiefs players, along with fans, hundreds of thousands of people, would be forced to run for our safety today.”Traci Angel More