Nov. 24, 2021, 7:37 a.m. ETNov. 24, 2021, 7:37 a.m. ETDemonstrators outside the Glynn County Courthouse during jury deliberations.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesJurors are expected to return to Glynn County Superior Court on Wednesday to deliberate for a second day in the trial of three men charged with killing Ahmaud Arbery.The jury is tasked not just with finding the defendants guilty or not guilty on one charge, but with sorting through several complicated charges and different forms of culpability that can depend on one another.The group of 12 deliberated for more than five hours on Tuesday after Linda Dunikoski, the lead prosecutor, rested her case on Tuesday morning.The indictment charges the defendants, Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan, individually and as “parties concerned in the commission of a crime.” If the jury finds that one of the men committed a felony, it can convict all of them of that crime, on the basis that they were acting together.To convict the men on the charge of malice murder, the jury would have to find that they had deliberately intended to kill, without considerable provocation.The men are accused of four other felonies besides murder, but those charges could also lead to a murder conviction. In Georgia, causing a person’s death in the course of committing another felony is murder, regardless of whether the death was intentional or accidental. To convict the men of felony murder would not require jurors to find that the men intended to kill Mr. Arbery.The judge told jurors that in the case of Mr. Bryant, the defendant who recorded the video of Mr. Arbery’s killing, they can also consider the lesser offenses of simple assault, reckless conduct and reckless driving instead of aggravated assault.In Georgia those are misdemeanors, not felonies, so a conviction on one of the reduced charges would not expose Mr. Bryan to a felony murder charge in connection with that count.On Monday, after about five and a half hours of deliberating, jurors told the judge that they wanted to continue deliberating. They soon changed their minds and decided to conclude deliberations for the day. Nov. 24, 2021, 7:36 a.m. ETNov. 24, 2021, 7:36 a.m. ETDemonstrators in Brunswick, Ga., last month. In the 1960s, the city was recognized for its strides toward racial equity.Octavio Jones/ReutersThe murder trial of three white men accused of chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery has renewed interest in race relations in the coastal city of Brunswick, Ga.Community leaders have cast the high-profile trial as a gauge of racial inequities in Brunswick, a port city of 16,000 between Savannah and Jacksonville, but they also invoke the city’s distinct but largely forgotten role in civil rights history.“What happened was an ugly encounter and an aberration,” Robert E. Griffin, a veteran civil rights activist, said. “I would never say racism doesn’t exist here, because it does. But we also have a history of Blacks and whites being able to sit down, talk and work together peacefully when other places didn’t.”In the early 1960s, Brunswick, like many other Southern cities, bore the scars of Jim Crow laws. At one point, local officials were so firmly against integrating a public pool that they filled it with dirt rather than allowing Black and white children to swim together, Mr. Griffin said.But change was quietly brewing. A coalition of Black and white Brunswick residents, led by faith leaders, was working together to integrate public spaces — without violence or publicity.“We were meeting at night in the back of a bank. Black people and white people,” said Mr. Griffin, 84, who attended the meetings as part of the local N.A.A.C.P. “We would talk about the best ways we could make progress.”He said the group met with white business leaders and persuaded them to hire Black workers and to integrate their establishments. “It wasn’t easy, particularly during that time period,” Mr. Griffin said, “but most of the people we worked with were reasonable and didn’t want bloodshed.” Brunswick’s unlikely efforts earned the city national praise and a reputation as a “model Southern city.” The city’s approach was even profiled in a documentary called “The Quiet Conflict.”Despite those early victories, stubborn economic, racial and social divides remain, serving as a backdrop to the trial.Mr. Arbery’s fatal shooting in February 2020 — along with the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor that year — was central to major protests and the national attention to systemic racism and policing.“This is about the inequality of justice and conditions for minorities and especially for African Americans here in Glynn County,” said the Rev. Darren West, 52, who led rallies and marches after Mr. Arbery’s death. “In some ways, the city’s ‘quiet conflict’ legacy has masked the long history of inequality and injustice.”Nov. 23, 2021, 4:14 p.m. ETNov. 23, 2021, 4:14 p.m. ETJudge Timothy R. Walmsley of Glynn County Superior Court acknowledged that many Black jurors were excused by the defense. The jury is made up of 11 members who are white and one who is Black.Pool photo by Elijah NouvelageThe jury that will decide the fate of the three white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery is composed of 11 members who are white and one who is Black.The lopsided balance — especially in a case that has been widely perceived as an act of racial violence — has been a cause of concern for civil rights activists. And it prompted legal experts in recent days to speculate that the racial makeup of the jury played a role in prosecutors’ decision not to make racial animus part of their case against Mr. Arbery’s assailants.How did such a jury get chosen?Even as he approved the selection of jurors earlier this month, Judge Timothy R. Walmsley of Glynn County Superior Court, who is presiding in the trial, declared that there was an appearance of “intentional discrimination” at play.But Judge Walmsley also said that defense lawyers had presented legitimate reasons, unrelated to race, to justify unseating eight Black potential jurors.And that, the judge said, was enough for him to reject the prosecution’s effort to reseat them.What may have seemed like convoluted logic to non-lawyers was actually the judge’s scrupulous adherence to a 35-year-old Supreme Court decision that was meant to remove racial bias from the jury selection process — but has come to be considered a failure by many legal scholars.The guidelines established by that ruling, Batson v. Kentucky, were central to the intense legal fight that erupted in court over the issue. The argument raised fundamental questions about what it means to be a fair and impartial juror, particularly in a high-profile trial unfolding in a small community where nearly everyone has opinions about the case.Defense lawyers told Judge Walmsley there were numerous reasons to unseat several Black candidates for the jury. One man, they said, had played high school football with Mr. Arbery. Another told lawyers that “this whole case is about racism.”But the resulting makeup of the jury profoundly dismayed some local residents who already had concerns about whether the trial will be fair.“This jury is like a black eye to those of us who have been here for generations, whose ancestors labored and toiled and set a foundation for this community,” said Delores Polite, a community activist and distant relative of Mr. Arbery.More broadly, the racially lopsided jury, in a county that is about 27 percent Black and 64 percent white, underscores the enduring challenges that American courts face in applying what seems to be a simple constitutional principle: that equal justice “requires a criminal trial free of racial discrimination in the jury selection process,” as Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh put it in a ruling from 2019.Nov. 23, 2021, 8:29 a.m. ETNov. 23, 2021, 8:29 a.m. ETGov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, second from left, and Calvin Smyre, a state representative, display a copy of the state’s new hate-crime bill after Mr. Kemp signed it into law in June 2020.Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressRegardless of the jury verdict in the state of Georgia’s prosecution of the men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery, all three will face hate-crime charges in federal court in February.The suspects — Travis McMichael; his father, Gregory McMichael; and William Bryan, known as Roddie — were each charged by the Justice Department last spring with interfering with Mr. Arbery’s right to use a public street because of his race, and with attempted kidnapping.Travis and Gregory McMichael were also charged with using, carrying and brandishing a firearm. Travis McMichael is accused of shooting Mr. Arbery.The men intimidated Mr. Arbery “because of Arbery’s race and color,” the eight-page federal indictment said. The McMichaels and Mr. Bryan are white; Mr. Arbery was Black.Mr. Bryan told investigators that he heard Travis McMichael use a racial slur after shooting Mr. Arbery, fueling the notion that the killing was motivated by race. Mr. McMichael’s defense team has denied the claim.The men did not face hate-crime charges at the state level because Georgia had no such law at the time of Mr. Arbery’s death. The state Supreme Court struck down a hate-crime statute in 2004 for being too vague, making Georgia one of the few states without such a statute.But Mr. Arbery’s killing united Republican and Democratic lawmakers, leading them to pass a new hate-crime law months afterward.Georgia’s new statute allows for extra penalties for people who commit crimes against others based on their race, gender, sexual orientation and other identities. Law enforcement officials are required to file reports of these kinds of crimes so the state can track them.Hate-crime cases can be difficult to prosecute because of the need to prove that the motive is directly tied to a victim’s identity. Still, the application of the laws often provides reassurance to victims and their families because it acknowledges the distinct nature of those crimes.“There’s a feeling it wasn’t just an ordinary crime, there was something particularly egregious about this offense, and hate-crime laws offer us a way of recognizing that and offer sort of an official way for our society to say these behaviors are particularly awful,” said Phyllis B. Gerstenfeld, a criminal justice professor at California State University, Stanislaus, with expertise in hate crimes.The first test of Georgia’s law may be the trial of Robert Aaron Long, the man facing the death penalty for a shooting rampage at three spas in the Atlanta area in March. The use of the law in a case that has drawn national attention, however, does not mean its use will become widespread.“Just because the law is seen as valid and has been used in a high-profile case or two, it still doesn’t mean that it’s going to necessarily have a lot of practical use,” Ms. Gerstenfeld said.Nov. 22, 2021, 8:02 a.m. ETNov. 22, 2021, 8:02 a.m. ETTwo of the three defendants on trial for murder are Gregory McMichael, center, and Travis McMichael, his son, left.Pool photo by Elijah NouvelageThe indictment handed up by the grand jury in Glynn County lists nine criminal counts against each of the three defendants in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. For each count, they are charged individually and as “parties concerned in the commission of a crime.”Taken together, the charges provide a number of different ways that the defendants, Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William Bryan, could wind up facing life in prison if they are convicted. All have pleaded not guilty.Here are the charges in the order listed in the indictment:Count 1Malice murderThis crime is defined in Georgia law as causing a person’s death with deliberate intention, without considerable provocation, and “where all the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart.” It is punishable by death, or by life imprisonment with or without possibility of parole.Counts 2, 3, 4 AND 5Felony murderThis charge applies when a death is caused in the course of committing another felony, “irrespective of malice” — in other words, whether or not the killing was intentional and unprovoked.The other felonies in this case are listed in Counts 6 through 9 of the indictment; one count of felony murder is linked to each. If prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants committed one or more of those crimes and also caused Mr. Arbery’s death in the process, the basis would be laid for a conviction for felony murder.Like malice murder, felony murder is punishable by death, or by life imprisonment with or without possibility of parole.Count 6Aggravated assaultOne way Georgia law defines this crime is as an assault using a deadly weapon. This count charges the three men with attacking Mr. Arbery with a 12-gauge shotgun. It is punishable by imprisonment of one to 20 years.Count 7Aggravated assaultAnother way Georgia law defines this crime is as an assault using “any object, device, or instrument which, when used offensively against a person, is likely to or actually does result in serious bodily injury.” This count charges the defendants with using two pickup trucks to assault Mr. Arbery. It is punishable by imprisonment of one to 20 years.Count 8False imprisonmentThis charge applies when a person without legal authority “arrests, confines, or detains” another person “in violation of the personal liberty” of that person. Specifically, the defendants are charged with using their pickup trucks to chase, confine and detain Mr. Arbery “without legal authority.”False imprisonment is punishable by one to 10 years in prison.Count 9Criminal attempt to commit a felonyGeorgia law defines criminal attempt as performing “any act which constitutes a substantial step” toward the intentional commission of a crime — in this case, the false imprisonment charged in Count 8. A defendant can be convicted either of completing a particular crime or of attempting it, but not both.Because false imprisonment is a felony, attempting it is also a felony, punishable by half the attempted crime’s maximum sentence: in this case, one to five years in prison.

“All three of these defendants did everything they did based on assumptions,” a prosecutor, Linda Dunikoski, said during opening arguments on Friday. “Not on facts, not on evidence — on assumptions.”Octavio Jones/ReutersThe lead prosecutor in the trial of the three white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery said in her opening statement on Friday that Mr. Arbery was plainly “under attack” by the defendants when they chased him in trucks through their neighborhood — a chase that ended with one of the defendants, Travis McMichael, fatally shooting Mr. Arbery with his pump-action shotgun.The prosecutor, Linda Dunikoski, said that the men had “assumed the worst” about Mr. Arbery but had no “immediate knowledge” of him committing a crime when they decided to chase him in their trucks through their neighborhood.“A very wise person once said, ‘Don’t assume the worst of another person’s intentions until you actually know what’s going on with them,’ ” Ms. Dunikoski told the 12-person jury, of which 11 are white and one is Black. But, she said, “all three of these defendants did everything they did based on assumptions. Not on facts, not on evidence — on assumptions. And they made decisions in their driveways based on those assumptions that took a young man’s life. And that is why we’re here.”Ms. Dunikoski walked the jurors through the details of the afternoon of Feb. 23, 2020.She said that Mr. Arbery, an avid runner, had gone into a house under construction in the Satilla Shores subdivision, outside of Brunswick, Ga., and noted that he had been recorded on video cameras inside the house numerous times before. But there was no evidence that he ever took anything.The owner of the house, Larry English, had had some belongings stolen out of his boat, which was sometimes on the property. But Ms. Dunikoski said that Mr. English ended up suspecting a different man and woman — who were also captured on video — of those thefts.The three defendants had been concerned about neighborhood break-ins. On Jan. 1, she noted, Travis McMichael’s handgun was stolen from his truck.Ms. Dunikoski argued to the jury that Gregory McMichael, Travis’s father and a fellow defendant, had merely seen Mr. Arbery running down the street after leaving Mr. English’s house. When asked by police later if Mr. Arbery had broken into the house, Mr. McMichael said, “I don’t know.” He added, “My intention was to stop this guy so that he could be arrested or be identified at the very least.”The prosecution’s assertion that none of the men had immediate knowledge that a crime was committed appears to be in anticipation of the likelihood that the defense will argue that the men were making a legal arrest under Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which was largely repealed by the state legislature after widespread outcry over Mr. Arbery’s killing. That law previously stated that a private person may arrest someone “if the offense is committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge.”Ms. Dunikoski also described in detail how the two McMichaels and the third defendant, their neighbor William Bryan, chased Mr. Arbery for five minutes as he ran through their neighborhood, trying to evade them — the McMichaels in one pickup truck and Mr. Bryan in another. She said that in the midst of the chase, Travis McMichael stopped and asked Mr. Arbery, “Where you running from? What are you doing?” Mr. Arbery ignored him.At some point during the pursuit, she said, Gregory McMichael, who was armed with a handgun, said to Mr. Arbery, “Stop or I’ll blow your fucking head off,” language, she said, that indicated an intent to harm Mr. Arbery, not simply talk to him.She said that Mr. Bryan tried to hit Mr. Arbery four times with his pickup truck, at one point forcing him into a ditch.And Ms. Dunikoski played the video that Mr. Bryan recorded on his cellphone, showing the moments when the two trucks had pinned Mr. Arbery in. She said that Gregory McMichael later claimed that Mr. Arbery had been “trapped like a rat.”Ms. Dunikoski said the video showed Travis McMichael pointing the shotgun at Mr. Arbery as he ran toward the McMichaels’ truck. She noted that Travis McMichael had stepped out of the truck in one lane of the two-lane street, by the driver’s side door, with the truck blocking the second lane. The video shows Mr. Arbery running to the passenger side of the truck in an attempt to evade him. The two men appear to meet head on in front of the truck. “What did McMichael do with that shotgun?” Ms. Dunikoski said. “He stepped around that open door and moved toward Mr. Arbery. He’s got a shotgun and he’s moving toward him to intercept him.”Several shots are fired as the men struggle. Mr. Arbery falls to the ground after the last. Ms. Dunikoski said that in interviews with police, Travis McMichael said that Mr. Arbery attacked him and that he was acting in self-defense. But she also said that when police asked him if Mr. Arbery grabbed his shotgun, he said, “I want to say he did, but I honestly cannot remember.”The prosecutor asked the jury to find the men guilty on all of the counts on which they were indicted — including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. Using security footage, cellphone video, 911 calls and police reports, The Times has reconstructed the 12 minutes before Ahmaud Arbery was shot dead in Georgia on Feb. 23.Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesFrom left, Jason Sheffield, Laura Hogue and Robert Rubin, all defense attorneys, spoke to Linda Dunikoski, a prosecutor, during a break in jury selection.Pool photo by Elijah NouvelageSeveral lawyers will be at the center of the action as the trial over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery begins: defense attorneys for the three men accused in Mr. Arbery’s death, and the lead prosecutor in the case.Gregory McMichael, 67; Travis McMichael, 35, his son; and their neighbor William Bryan, 52, are accused of murder. Here is a breakdown of the lawyers who will help jurors decide their fate.FOR THE PROSECUTIONLinda DunikoskiLinda Dunikoski, Cobb County’s senior assistant district attorney, was not the initial choice for lead prosecutor. Jackie Johnson, the former district attorney in Glynn County, Ga., recused herself, as did George E. Barnhill of the Waycross Judicial Circuit. A third prosecutor from a smaller county office was removed after the state attorney general determined he was not equipped to handle the sprawling case.Ms. Dunikoski graduated from Indiana University in Bloomington and studied law at Georgia State University. She began working in 2002 for the district attorney’s office. Her tenure there included a major case for Cobb County: the 2016 trial of Justin Ross Harris, who was found guilty of murder in the death of his 22-month-old son, who died of heatstroke while strapped in a car seat for hours.FOR THE DEFENSELaura and Franklin J. HogueLaura and Franklin J. Hogue, who are married, will represent the elder Mr. McMichael. Both criminal defense attorneys, they studied law at Mercer University in Macon, Ga. They are partners at a Macon-based firm that has handled several high-profile criminal cases in the state, including those involving Donnie Rowe and Ronnie Adrian Towns. Mr. Rowe, a prison inmate, was convicted of murdering two corrections officers. Mr. Towns was accused of killing an Atlanta-area married couple.Robert G. Rubin and Jason SheffieldRobert G. Rubin, the former public defender for Fulton County, Ga., will defend the younger Mr. McMichael. He started his private criminal-defense practice in 1991. He studied law at Emory University, where he is also an adjunct law professor. He worked on the Atlanta Public Schools cheating case, the longest criminal trial in state history.Jason Sheffield, an Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney, will also represent the younger Mr. McMichael. He studied law at Georgia State University, and is an adjunct professor at Emory University’s School of Law. He is a partner at the Peter, Rubin, Sheffield & Hodges law firm. Kevin GoughKevin Gough, who studied law at the University of Georgia, will represent Mr. Bryan. He worked as an assistant district attorney and as a public defender for the Brunswick Judicial Circuit. He now has his own practice in Brunswick.Protestors outside the Glynn County Courthouse on Thursday, the day after a nearly all-white jury was chosen for the trial of three white men charged in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man.Octavio Jones/ReutersOpening arguments in the trial over the killing of Ahmaud Arbery began on Friday morning in Brunswick, Ga., a community made uneasy this week by the selection of a nearly all-white jury to hear the case.Three white men — Gregory McMichael, 65, a former police officer; Travis McMichael, his son, 35; and their neighbor William Bryan, 52 — are accused of killing Mr. Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man who was chased through a suburban neighborhood before being fatally shot by one of his pursuers in February 2020 Each faces up to life in prison for his role in Mr. Arbery’s death. In her opening statement, Linda Dunikoski, the lead prosecutor, stressed that none of the defendants were currently law enforcement officers and that all three had assumed the worst about Mr. Arbery. “We are here because of assumptions and driveway decisions,” Ms. Dunikoski told the jury. “All three of these defendants did everything they did based on assumptions — not on facts, not on evidence.” After lunch, Robert G. Rubin, the lawyer for Travis McMichael took the stand, the first of three presentations expected from the defense.Among those watching the proceedings in the courtroom were Wanda Cooper-Jones, Mr. Arbery’s mother; Marcus Arbery Sr., his father; and Leigh McMichael, Gregory McMichael’s wife.After Mr. Arbury was fatally shot on Feb. 23, 2020, the defendants told authorities that they suspected that Mr. Arbery had committed a series of break-ins in their neighborhood. Their lawyers are expected to argue that they were carrying out a legal “citizen’s arrest” under a state statute that has since been largely repealed. They have pleaded not guilty to charges that include murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment. Ahmaud Arberyvia ReutersMs. Dunikoski noted that on the day Mr. Arbery was killed, none of the defendants talked about the concept of a citizen’s arrest. “Not one single person used those words,” she said.The jury, which is made up of residents from Glynn County, where more than a quarter of the population is Black, includes 11 white people and one Black person. Anxiety over the jury’s racial makeup was palpable among observers and participants during the more than two weeks that the jurors were being chosen.Lawyers have said the trial could last a month. The extraordinarily long jury selection process, a grueling process that took two and a half week and included the seating of four alternate jurors, has already underscored the explosive nature of this case. That is particularly true in coastal Glynn County, where many of the 85,000 residents are connected by bonds of family, school or work, and where racial tension and harmony are deeply laced.Inside the Glynn County Courthouse — a red brick building with imposing ionic columns fronting a park full of moss-covered oaks — lawyers spent days subjecting scores of potential jurors to intense rounds of questions about how much they knew about the case, whether they had formed opinions about the defendants’ guilt and their preferred news sources and social media networks.Judge Timothy Walmsley, left, during the jury selection process at Gwynn County Superior Court, in Brunswick, Ga.Pool photo by Octavio JonesDuring the selection process, Ms. Dunikoski said that she was hoping for jurors who were a “blank slate.” But the killing was one of the most notorious in South Georgia in decades, and many prospective jurors — the court system sent out 1,000 jury notices — said they had already formed opinions about it.The lengthy process stood in stark contrast to the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, an 18-year-old who is now on trial in Wisconsin for the deaths of two men and the wounding of another in the aftermath of protests in August 2020 over a police shooting. It took one day to seat a jury for that trial.Two of the three defendants on trial for murder are Gregory McMichael, center, and Travis McMichael, his son, left.Pool photo by Elijah NouvelageThe indictment handed up by the grand jury in Glynn County lists nine criminal counts against each of the three defendants in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. For each count, they are charged individually and as “parties concerned in the commission of a crime.”Taken together, the charges provide a number of different ways that the defendants, Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William Bryan, could wind up facing life in prison if they are convicted. All have pleaded not guilty. Here are the charges in the order listed in the indictment:Count 1Malice murderThis crime is defined in Georgia law as causing a person’s death with deliberate intention, without considerable provocation, and “where all the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart.” It is punishable by death, or by life imprisonment with or without possibility of parole.Counts 2, 3, 4 AND 5Felony murderThis charge applies when a death is caused in the course of committing another felony, “irrespective of malice” — in other words, whether or not the killing was intentional and unprovoked.The other felonies in this case are listed in Counts 6 through 9 of the indictment; one count of felony murder is linked to each. If prosecutors prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants committed one or more of those crimes and also caused Mr. Arbery’s death in the process, the basis would be laid for a conviction for felony murder.Like malice murder, felony murder is punishable by death, or by life imprisonment with or without possibility of parole.Count 6Aggravated assaultOne way Georgia law defines this crime is as an assault using a deadly weapon. This count charges the three men with attacking Mr. Arbery with a 12-gauge shotgun. It is punishable by imprisonment of one to 20 years.Count 7Aggravated assaultAnother way Georgia law defines this crime is as an assault using “any object, device, or instrument which, when used offensively against a person, is likely to or actually does result in serious bodily injury.” This count charges the defendants with using two pickup trucks to assault Mr. Arbery. It is punishable by imprisonment of one to 20 years.Count 8False imprisonmentThis charge applies when a person without legal authority “arrests, confines, or detains” another person “in violation of the personal liberty” of that person. Specifically, the defendants are charged with using their pickup trucks to chase, confine and detain Mr. Arbery “without legal authority.”False imprisonment is punishable by one to 10 years in prison.Count 9Criminal attempt to commit a felonyGeorgia law defines criminal attempt as performing “any act which constitutes a substantial step” toward the intentional commission of a crime — in this case, the false imprisonment charged in Count 8. A defendant can be convicted either of completing a particular crime or of attempting it, but not both.Because false imprisonment is a felony, attempting it is also a felony, punishable by half the attempted crime’s maximum sentence: in this case, one to five years in prison.Two defense attorneys, Robert Rubin and Franklin Hogue, during jury selection in the murder trial of Gregory McMichael, Travis McMichael and William Bryan.Octavio Jones/ReutersRobert Rubin, a lawyer for Travis McMichael, was the first defense lawyer for any of the three men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery to argue that his client was trying to make a citizen’s arrest permitted under state law.The law in question had existed in Georgia since 1863 and was partly repealed after Mr. Arbery was killed. It allowed residents to arrest each other if they had reasonable suspicion that someone had committed a felony and the police were not present.All of the defense teams for the three defendants are expected to invoke the law. The defendants have said they thought Mr. Arbery was guilty of burglaries in the area when they chased him. No evidence has been produced to show that to be true.The jury will have to consider if the men reasonably suspected that Mr. Arbery had committed a felony.These kinds of laws exist in many states, but they are not uniform. Similar to “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” laws that allow people to use force to protect themselves or their homes, citizen’s arrest laws have come to national attention over the years. Critics argue that they enable people to act out of pre-existing biases and help foment environments where extrajudicial killings happen.“This is based on racism,” said Ira P. Robbins, a law professor at American University who wrote an academic paper on the issue. “You look at the Georgia law, for example. This is a law that was used for white people to help catch escaping slaves. There is a close connection between citizen’s arrest laws in the South and lynchings.”Among the criticisms of these kinds of laws is the belief that ordinary citizens are not well-versed in the complexities of the law when they take things into their own hands. “It’s scary because it allows for vigilante injustice,” Mr. Robbins said.Georgia lawmakers partly dismantled the citizen’s arrest law last spring in response to Mr. Arbery’s killing, repealing the portion of the law that allowed a private person to arrest someone if that person witnessed — or was told about — a crime, or if someone suspected of committing a felony was trying to escape. The legislation carved out some exceptions for business owners, who can detain people on “reasonable grounds” if they are suspected of shoplifting or other thefts. Other exceptions apply to licensed private detectives and security guards.Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, called the former statute “an antiquated law that is ripe for abuse.”Using security footage, cellphone video, 911 calls and police reports, The Times has reconstructed the 12 minutes before Ahmaud Arbery was shot dead in Georgia on Feb. 23.Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesThe final minutes of Ahmaud Arbery’s life were captured in a cellphone video taken by one of three men now accused of killing him last year while he was on a jog in a suburban Brunswick, Ga., neighborhood.The video clip is about 30 seconds long and shows Mr. Arbery, 25, running along a two-lane road on Feb. 23, 2020, when he is confronted by Gregory McMichael and his son Travis McMichael, armed and in a white pickup truck. They would later tell police that they suspected Mr. Arbery of neighborhood break-ins.In the video, Mr. Arbery dashes around their truck and disappears from view. Then there is muffled shouting, followed by Mr. Arbery reappearing in the frame. He and Travis McMichael scuffle over Travis’s shotgun. Then, the sound of the weapon firing pierces the air. A second shot is heard as the two are out of view. Next comes the third and final blast. Mr. Arbery staggers a few steps forward then falls into the street.The video, taken by William “Roddie” Bryan, a third man who joined the McMichaels in the chase, became public on May 5, 2020, the same day that officials announced the case would be presented to a grand jury. Two days later, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations secured arrest warrants for the McMichaels.The video, which captures a large part of the fatal encounter, helped shape the broad — and divergent — understanding of what happened that Sunday afternoon in the Satilla Shores neighborhood. Lawyers on both sides say the clip bolsters their opposing claims of self-defense, and it played a part in the opening arguments of the murder trial of the two McMichaels and Mr. Bryan. After the explosive footage emerged, it went viral, driving national and international interest and becoming part of a collection of videos that have served as critical evidence in police or vigilante violence against African Americans — and that often have challenged the official narrative.Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, an online racial justice organization, said when the public sees such incidents with their own eyes, it helps to form their “understanding of real-world harms” and to strengthen the demands of civil rights movements.One of the first examples of violence that was captured on video and seen widely was in the case of Rodney King, a motorist who was beaten by four Los Angeles police officers after a high-speed chase in 1991. A man used a Sony video camera to record the beating from his nearby apartment balcony. The video showed officers striking Mr. King with batons more than 50 times and forced a national conversation about race and police brutality.In 2015, cellphone video taken by a bystander led to murder charges being filed against a North Charleston, S.C., police officer for shooting Walter Scott in the back as he fled from what had started as a traffic stop over a broken taillight.Five years later, on May 25, 2020, a teenager filmed the murder of George Floyd in the street as a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him to the ground with his knee.The graphic documentation of Mr. Floyd’s and Mr. Arbery’s deaths, along with the killing of Breonna Taylor (hers was not recorded with a cellphone), led to demonstrations across the country over racial injustice and policing.John Davis Perry II, a local minister, center, with other clergy members at Glynn County Superior Court on Friday. “We want to acknowledge that we hear and that we see your disappointment with some of the discoveries in the process of justice that have taken place,” the pastor said.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesA group of clergy members gathered outside the Glynn County Superior Court in Brunswick, Ga., on Friday morning, urging the community to remain peaceful and united despite their unhappiness that a nearly all-white jury had been seated in the trial of the white men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man.“We want to acknowledge that we hear and that we see your disappointment with some of the discoveries in the process of justice that have taken place,” said John Davis Perry II, a local minister. “Despite all of those disappointments, as faith leaders we stand together declaring to not forget that we serve a God who is not asleep.” He added: “We want to encourage you to keep the faith and to continue to walk in the spirit of unity because God has promised that he will be with us through the process.” Mr. Arbery’s aunt, Thea Brooks, said that having clergy members present had brought a measure of peace to the Arbery family and the Brunswick community.Ms. Brooks said she anticipated that having to see the video of Mr. Arbery’s killing, which occurred on Feb. 23, 2020, would be especially difficult for her family. Mr. Arbery’s mother, who is in the courtroom, had not yet seen the video, she said. But Ms. Brooks said she was ready for the trial to begin.“It’s been almost two years that we’ve been here, we’ve been having to watch the video, hear the motions, go through preliminary hearings, in and out of court for motions and that takes a toll on you,” she said. “Now that we’re here, we just want this to be a smooth situation, get it done, get it over with, get justice served so we can move on and close this chapter of our lives.”Judge Timothy R. Walmsley of Glynn County Superior Court acknowledged that many Black jurors were excused by the defense. The jury includes 11 white people and one Black person.Pool photo by Elijah NouvelageEven as he approved the selection of a nearly all-white jury this week to hear the murder case against three white men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery, the presiding judge declared that there was an appearance of “intentional discrimination” at play.But Judge Timothy R. Walmsley of Glynn County Superior Court also said that defense lawyers had presented legitimate reasons unrelated to race to justify unseating eight Black potential jurors. And that, he said, was enough for him to reject the prosecution’s effort to reseat them.What may have seemed like convoluted logic to non-lawyers was actually the judge’s scrupulous adherence to a 35-year-old Supreme Court decision that was meant to remove racial bias from the jury selection process — but has come to be considered a failure by many legal scholars.The guidelines established by that ruling were central to the intense legal fight that erupted in court late Wednesday over the racial composition of the jury in the trial of the three defendants. The argument raised fundamental questions about what it means to be a fair and impartial juror, particularly in a high-profile trial unfolding in a small, interconnected community where nearly everyone has opinions about the case.Defense lawyers told Judge Walmsley there were important, race-neutral reasons to unseat several Black candidates for the jury. One man, they said, had played high school football with Mr. Arbery. Another told lawyers that “this whole case is about racism.”But the fact that the jury will be composed of 11 white people and one Black person in a Deep South trial over the killing of a Black man has profoundly dismayed some local residents who already had concerns about whether the trial will be fair.“This jury is like a black eye to those of us who have been here for generations, whose ancestors labored and toiled and set a foundation for this community,” said Delores Polite, a community activist and distant relative of Mr. Arbery, who was fatally shot last year after being chased by three men who suspected him of a series of break-ins.More broadly, the racially lopsided jury, in a county that is about 27 percent Black and 64 percent white, underscores the enduring challenges that American courts face in applying what seems to be a simple constitutional principle: that equal justice “requires a criminal trial free of racial discrimination in the jury selection process,” as Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh put it in a ruling from 2019.Judge Timothy R. Walmsley is presiding over the trial of three white men in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Stephen B. Morton/Associated PressJudge Timothy R. Walmsley, who is presiding over the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial, ruled on a number of legal motions ahead of opening statements, including allowing into evidence video images from the body camera of a responding police officer who hovered over Mr. Arbery after he was shot.Judge Walmsley also ruled against the defense’s request to bring a “use of force” expert into trial, and refused to allow into evidence a toxicology report showing that Mr. Arbery had THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in his system when he died.At one point, one of the lawyers representing Travis McMichael asked that certain portions of the body camera video not be played, because some of its content is inflammatory. The lawyer, Jason Sheffield, argued that the prosecution should use evidence “that is not going to incite the jury in a way.”“I am asking the court to engage in a balancing test over whether or not that particular portion of the video needs to be played,” Mr. Sheffield said, bringing up photographs and testimony from the medical examiner and other witnesses that could also be used as evidence.The lead prosecutor, Linda Dunikoski, argued in favor of using the body-cam video. “This is real, and to tell the jury ‘Oh, we’re not going to show you what really the results of pointing a shotgun at someone is,” she said, then interrupted herself to recount a sequence of events. “Travis McMichael left his house with a shotgun. Then he got out of his car, with the shotgun, and pointed it at this young man. And then he shot him with it.”Judge Walmsley also denied a defense request to keep a photograph of Mr. Arbery, in a ball cap and polo shirt, from appearing in court.“If there are more recent in-life photographs, then what would be the point of presenting one nine years ago?” argued Kevin Gough, a lawyer for William Bryan. “Other than to try to suggest to the jury that he was a jogger that day because he wears athletic clothing and a ball cap?”After some back-and-forth with the defense over legal precedent, Judge Walmsley ruled, saying, “The court will permit the state’s use of that photograph that was described.”On Friday morning, before the jury was seated, Judge Walmsley briefly ruled on two other motions in favor of the prosecution. One ruling denied the defense’s motion to block jurors from knowing that Travis McMichael’s pickup truck had a vanity decorative license plate with the old Georgia state flag on it. This flag incorporates in its design the Confederate battle flag.Defense attorneys feared that prosecutors would bring up the flag — often interpreted as a symbol of racism — to argue that Mr. Arbery, who was being chased by Travis McMichael and his father, Greg McMichael, in the truck, would have seen the vanity plate and feared for his safety.Judge Walmsley also granted prosecutors’ motion to prevent jurors from knowing that Mr. Arbery was on probation on the afternoon Feb. 23, 2020, when the three men chased him through their subdivision.

Eric Adams gives his victory speech at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge on election night.James Estrin/The New York TimesEric Adams, a former New York City police captain whose attention-grabbing persona and keen focus on racial justice fueled a decades-long career in public life, was elected on Tuesday as the 110th mayor of New York, and the second Black mayor in the city’s history.The Associated Press declared victory for Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, 10 minutes after the polls closed at 9 p.m.At his campaign celebration, held at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, just around the corner from his office at Brooklyn Borough Hall, Mr. Adams urged unity.“Today we take off the intramural jersey and we put on one jersey, Team New York,” he told supporters.Mr. Adams, who will take office as mayor on Jan. 1, faces a staggering set of challenges as the nation’s largest city grapples with the enduring consequences of the pandemic, including a precarious and unequal economic recovery and continuing concerns about crime and the quality of city life.His victory signaled the start of a more center-left Democratic leadership that he has promised will reflect the needs of the working- and middle-class voters of color who delivered him the party’s nomination and were vital to his general election coalition.He will begin the job with significant political leverage: Mr. Adams was embraced by both Mayor Bill de Blasio, who sought to chart a more left-wing course for New York, and by centrist leaders like Michael R. Bloomberg, Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor. Mr. Adams was the favored candidate of labor unions and wealthy donors. And he and Gov. Kathy Hochul have made clear that they intend to have a more productive relationship than Mr. de Blasio had with Andrew M. Cuomo when he was governor.He has made clear that large companies have a role to play in shepherding the city’s recovery, and there are signs that he may have a far warmer relationship with business leaders than Mr. de Blasio, who won on a populist platform.But on the campaign trail, there was no issue Mr. Adams discussed more than public safety.Mr. Adams, who speaks about growing up poor in Queens, has said he was once a victim of police brutality and spent his early years in public life as a transit police officer and later a captain who pushed for changes from within the system.During the primary, amid a spike in gun violence and jarring attacks on the subway, Mr. Adams emerged as one of his party’s most unflinching advocates for the police maintaining a robust role in preserving public safety. He often clashed with those who sought to scale back law enforcement’s power in favor of promoting greater investments in mental health and other social services.Mr. Adams, who has said he has no tolerance for abusive officers, supports the restoration of a reformed plainclothes anti-crime unit. He opposes the abuse of stop-and-frisk policing tactics but sees a role for the practice in some circumstances. And he has called for a more visible police presence on the subways.Alvin Bragg voting on Tuesday morning in Harlem, the neighborhood where he has lived most of his life and that has served as the constant backdrop of his campaign over the last two years.Anna Watts for The New York TimesAlvin Bragg was elected Manhattan district attorney on Tuesday and will become the first Black person to lead the influential office, which handles tens of thousands of cases a year and is conducting a high-profile investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his family business.The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Bragg on Tuesday night.Mr. Bragg, 48, a former federal prosecutor who campaigned on a pledge to balance public safety with fairness for all defendants, will succeed Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat who did not seek re-election. Mr. Bragg had been heavily favored to prevail over his Republican opponent, Thomas Kenniff, given that Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in the borough.The Manhattan district attorney’s office continues to disproportionately prosecute Black defendants, and Mr. Bragg throughout his campaign has drawn on his personal experiences growing up in New York to illustrate the types of changes he wishes to make. Mr. Bragg has said he would show leniency to defendants who commit low-level crimes and has emphasized the importance of accountability for the police and the office’s prosecutors.In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Bragg pointed toward experiences that he said would inform his work and set him apart from his predecessors.“Having been stopped by the police,” he said. “Having a homicide victim on my doorstep. Having had a loved one return from incarceration and live with me.”His victory comes as Democrats are seeking to balance sweeping changes to the criminal justice system with some voters’ concerns about rising gun crime. In 2020, millions of people around the country took to the streets to protest the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and call for change. But after rises in homicides and shootings in New York and other cities, some voters have moderated their stances.The most high-profile case confronting Mr. Bragg is the investigation into Mr. Trump and his family business. Over the summer, the business and one of its top executives were charged with running a yearslong tax scheme that helped executives evade taxes while compensating them with off-the-books benefits.Mr. Vance’s investigation into Mr. Trump and his business is ongoing; Mr. Bragg has faced questions about it throughout his campaign and will continue to do so. Though he cited his experience of having sued the former president over 100 times while at the state attorney general’s office, Mr. Bragg has said he will follow the facts when it comes to the current inquiry.Mr. Bragg voted on Tuesday morning in Harlem, the neighborhood where he has lived most of his life and that has served as the constant backdrop of his campaign over the last two years.He said that voting for himself, the first time he has done so, had been humbling.“Just to be engaged in our democracy from this new perspective has been so important to me, so meaningful on a personal level,” he said outside of the Wyatt T. Walker senior housing building on Frederick Douglass Boulevard.Mr. Bragg then drove to a polling place on 134th Street, where he was greeted by Jumaane D. Williams, the city public advocate; and Cordell Cleare, a Democratic State Senate candidate.Upon seeing Mr. Bragg, Mr. Williams offered an enthusiastic greeting: “The D.A. is here!”James Estrin/The New York TimesEric Adams leaned heavily on his biography on the long road to becoming New York’s 110th mayor — and just the second Black person to hold the office.When he talked about public schools on the campaign trail, Mr. Adams reminded voters that his dyslexia went undiscovered for most of his youth.When he spoke about homelessness, Mr. Adams recounted carrying a trash bag of clothes to school because he was worried that his family would be evicted before he returned home.On crime and safety, Mr. Adams promised that he could both promote public safety and protect Black and Latino residents from civil rights abuses. He said that his experience of being beaten by the police as a teenager inspired him to join the department and speak out against discrimination from within its ranks, eventually leading a group called 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.After retiring from the Police Department, Mr. Adams, 61, served four terms as a state senator before being elected, then re-elected, Brooklyn borough president.But while he has emphasized his working-class bona fides and vowed to fight for New Yorkers struggling to make ends meet in an expensive city that had left them behind, Mr. Adams has had no qualms about courting New Yorkers at the top of the heap.After winning a bruising Democratic mayoral primary in June — where he ran as a moderate in a field crowded with progressives — Mr. Adams held a raft of fund-raisers with New York’s rich and powerful. He consulted with the billionaire former mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and dined with the billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch while promising that city government would be more friendly to business than it has been under Mayor Bill de Blasio.Mr. Adams’s charm and ease in depicting himself as many things to many people and his ability to convincingly shape-shift at will may be his greatest skill, but it leaves some people uneasy.Even those who have known him for decades aren’t sure which version will show up to City Hall in January. Sometimes, even Mr. Adams does not seem sure.“I’m so many formers,” he said over the summer during a visit to the White House, where he declared himself the new face of the Democratic Party, “I’m trying to figure out the current.”N.Y.C. voters had a choice between two candidates with sharply different viewpoints: Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee and founder of the Guardian Angels, and Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee and current Brooklyn borough president.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesAfter a lengthy, bitter primary constrained by the coronavirus and a contentious general-election campaign, New Yorkers went to the polls on Tuesday to pick a mayor to lead the nation’s largest city out of the throes of the pandemic and into a new political era.After eight years under Mayor Bill de Blasio, voters were choosing between two candidates with sharply distinct visions: Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee and a former police officer who is currently Brooklyn’s borough president; and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican founder of the Guardian Angels, who has never held public office.They chose Mr. Adams, who ran a campaign tightly focused on public safety and was heavily favored in a city where Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans.Mr. Adams has promised to lead New York in a more equitable direction, pointing to his working-class roots to suggest he would be an advocate for issues of concern to less affluent New Yorkers.Still, in contrast to the message of economic populism that Mr. de Blasio rode to victory in 2013 and 2017 (he was prevented by term limits from running again), Mr. Adams made explicit overtures to big-business leaders, arguing that they too have a significant role to play in the city’s recovery.Mr. Adams greeted voters outside P.S. 375 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesAfter voting in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on Tuesday, Mr. Adams wiped away tears.“Because I’m standing here, everyday New Yorkers are going to realize they deserve the right to stand in this city also,” he said. “This is for the little guy.”Mr. Sliwa was keenly focused on public safety and addressing homelessness, but on other matters and certainly in personality, he and Mr. Adams had significant differences.Mr. Sliwa’s campaign was marked by antics and eccentricities that often drew more attention than his policy positions. His trip to the polls on Tuesday grew into a fracas when he tried to bring one of his many cats with him to vote, then fought with election officials who asked him to remove his red campaign jacket when they deemed it was a violation of electioneering rules.During the campaign, Mr. Sliwa sought to draw a contrast with Mr. Adams, whom he called elitist.Curtis Sliwa made a final campaign stop in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, on Tuesday.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesHe highlighted still-simmering questions around Mr. Adams’s residency and his financial dealings. Mr. Sliwa also tried to capitalize on anger in some corners of the city around vaccine mandates. In the end, it was not nearly enough.In his concession remarks at the Empire Steak House in Midtown Manhattan, Mr. Sliwa told supporters he was “pledging my support to the new mayor Eric Adams.”He added: “We’re all going to have to coalesce together in harmony and solidarity if we’re going to save this city that we love.”Julianne McShane

Nov. 2, 2021, 10:59 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:59 p.m. ETAs a Boston city councilor, Michelle Wu often attended meetings with her babies, a sight that announced change for a body that, through its history, had been dominated by white men.Philip Keith for The New York TimesBOSTON — Michelle Wu, who entered public service out of frustration with the obstacles that her immigrant family faced, will be the next mayor of Boston, pledging to make the city a proving ground for progressive policy.Buoyed by support from the city’s young, left-leaning voters and by Black, Asian and Latino residents, Ms. Wu, 36, soundly defeated City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George.Ms. Essaibi George, who ran as a pragmatic centrist in the style of former Mayor Martin J. Walsh, had the backing of the city’s traditional power centers, like its police, its trade unions and its working-class Irish American neighborhoods. “From every point of our city, Boston has spoken,” Ms. Wu said, to a jubilant crowd in the city’s South End. “We are ready to meet the moment. We are ready to be a Boston for everyone.”Conceding the race, Ms. Essaibi George said, “I want to offer a great big congratulations to Michelle Wu.”“She is the first woman, first person of color, and as an Asian American, the first elected to be mayor of Boston,” she said. “I know this is no small feat.”Ms. Wu — who grew up outside Chicago and moved to the Boston area to attend Harvard — was an unusual candidate for this city, and her victory sets a number of precedents. Upon taking office later this month, she will be the only Asian American mayor in a large U.S. city outside California and Texas. Ms. Wu is the first woman and the first person of color to be elected mayor in Boston, which has been led by an unbroken string of Irish American or Italian American men since the 1930s. Kim Janey, a Black woman, has served as acting mayor since March, when Mr. Walsh was confirmed as the U.S. labor secretary. Ms. Wu will also be the first mayor of Boston not born in the city since 1925.Malaysia Fuller-Staten, 24, an organizer from Roxbury, was ebullient as returns came in, saying the scale of Ms. Wu’s victory would shatter the image of Boston as conservative and insular. “Boston is so much an old boys club,” she said. “For her to win by that margin, it would be saying to everyone, Boston is not a center-right city. It would be saying, we are a city looking to change.”Born shortly after her parents immigrated to the United States from Taiwan, Ms. Wu spent her childhood interpreting for them as they tried to negotiate bureaucracy in the U.S. She was deeply shaken in her 20s, when her mother had a mental health crisis, forcing her to step away from her career to care for the family. Emerging from that experience, she plunged into a career in public service. She developed a close relationship with Elizabeth Warren, one of her professors at Harvard Law School, who became the state’s progressive standard-bearer and helped launch her in politics. As a Boston city councilor, Ms. Wu often attended meetings with her babies, a sight that announced change for a body that, throughout its history, had been dominated by white men.State Representative Aaron Michlewitz, a longtime friend and supporter, described Ms. Wu’s victory as the culmination of years of disciplined work on the nitty-gritty of governing. “It’s not always flashy, it’s not always something that gets a headline,” he said. “She doesn’t come off as this huge presence when she walks into a room necessarily. But over time she chips away at the issues you care about. You start realizing how dedicated she is to the craft and to the work.”Boston has been booming, as jobs in technology, medicine and education attract waves of young professionals. But that success has come at a cost, forcing working-class and middle-class families to leave the city in search of affordable housing. Ms. Wu has promised to push back against gentrification, with policies tailored to help lower-income residents stay in the city, such as waiving fees for public transport, imposing a form of rent control, and reapportioning city contracts to firms owned by Black Bostonians. It will not be easy for her to deliver. Rent control, for example, has been illegal in Massachusetts since 1994, so restoring it would require the passage of statewide legislation. The most recent effort to roll back the ban on rent control was rejected resoundingly by legislators last year, by a vote of 23 to 136. Her plans to restructure the city’s planning agency have worried many in the real estate and building sectors, which thrived while Mr. Walsh was mayor. And Ms. Wu will have to take control of a sprawling government apparatus whose powerful constituencies can slow or block a new mayor’s agenda. Wilnelia Rivera, a political consultant who supported Ms. Wu, said she will face pushback. “The reality about power is that it never wants to give up any, and we’ll see what that looks like once we cross that bridge,” she said. “She is going to have to recreate that power coalition. It would be nice to have a mayor who isn’t necessarily in the back pocket of all the power players in the city.” Ms. Wu comes in with high expectations for change, and will face pressure to move swiftly. One of the city’s most popular progressive figures, Suffolk County district attorney Rachael Rollins, warned that she runs the risk of disappointing many who have backed her. “What I won’t do is allow our community to be sold a bill of goods and then when someone gets into the office, nothing happens,” she said.Ms. Wu has responded repeatedly to such concerns throughout her campaign. “The history and legacy of Boston as a city is one of putting forward bold vision to reshape what’s possible and then fighting for what our residents need,” she said, listing challenges she took on as a city councilor, like introducing a pilot program for fare-free public transport.“Time and again, when people said it would be impossible,” she said, “we got it done.”As they left polling places on Tuesday, several voters described the race as a turning point for Boston, which has elected a long line of men from the white, working-class, pro-union wing of the Democratic Party. “Change in this city has taken a long time to come,” said Andrew Conant, 28, a filmmaker. “This is a very proud moment for my city.” Nov. 2, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ETReporting from AtlantaHistoric night in Durham, N.C., where Elaine O’Neal, a former interim dean of N.C. Central University Law School, will become the city’s first Black woman mayor.Nov. 2, 2021, 10:52 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:52 p.m. ETIn the Democratic primary for Florida’s 20th Congressional District, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick leads Dale Holness by a mere 31 votes. That would trigger an automatic recount for the heavily Democratic seat in Broward and Palm Beach counties. Nov. 2, 2021, 10:40 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:40 p.m. ETDiane Allen, Jack Ciattarelli’s Republican running-mate in New Jersey, just addressed an energized G.O.P. crowd watching results arrive slowly. “We feel good,” she said. “Let’s continue.”Nov. 2, 2021, 10:39 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:39 p.m. ETFelicia Moore, a candidate for mayor in Atlanta, hugged supporters at her election night watch party in Downtown Atlanta.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesNov. 2, 2021, 10:36 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:36 p.m. ETReporting from Northern VirginiaTerry McAuliffe, who did not concede defeat in his brief remarks, will not be speaking again tonight, an aide said.Nov. 2, 2021, 10:35 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:35 p.m. ETTerry McAuliffe embraces his wife Dorothy at an Election Night watch event.Doug Mills/The New York TimesDespite trailing in the Virginia governor’s race by four percentage points with nearly 90 percent of the vote counted, the Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, did not concede to his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, telling supporters to wait until all of the state’s votes are counted.“We still got a lot of vote to count,” he said to a morose crowd in a ballroom in McLean, Va. “We’re going to continue to count the votes because every single Virginian deserves to have their vote counted.”The former governor’s aides have for much of the evening cited outstanding votes from Fairfax County and Richmond, two heavily Democratic areas where Mr. McAuliffe has outperformed expectations. But across the rest of the state he has bled substantial support from Democratic performance during the years former President Donald J. Trump was in office.Mr. McAuliffe, who spoke for four minutes, thanked his family and supporters before ticking through his campaign platform, but without any mention of Mr. Trump — who was a constant presence in his closing argument against Mr. Youngkin.Nov. 2, 2021, 10:27 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:27 p.m. ETReporting from Northern VirginiaMcAuliffe in a speech before supporters: “We still got a lot of vote to count, we have about 18 percent of the vote out, we're going to continue to count the votes because every single Virginian deserves to have their vote counted.”Nov. 2, 2021, 10:16 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:16 p.m. ETTerry McAuliffe supporters looked concerned while watching a big screen showing early returns at a watch party in Fairfax.Doug Mills/The New York TimesNov. 2, 2021, 10:13 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:13 p.m. ETThe failed referendum to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new public safety agency reflected a generational divide within the city’s Black community. Younger activists pushed for it. Some older leaders said it was too much of a gamble. Nov. 2, 2021, 10:05 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 10:05 p.m. ETSupporters of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy have gathered at a party on the boardwalk in Asbury Park to watch the results come in.Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesNov. 2, 2021, 9:57 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:57 p.m. ETA “Yes On 2” sign outside of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers headquarters in Northeast Minneapolis.Aaron Nesheim for The New York TimesMINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis residents rejected an amendment on Tuesday that called for replacing the city’s long-troubled Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety, The Associated Press projected.The ballot item emerged from anger after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd last year, galvanizing residents who saw the policing system as irredeemably broken. But the amendment’s failure showed that even in a liberal city where skepticism of the police runs deep, many Americans are not prepared to get rid of the police.Minneapolis leaders now face the challenge of filling staffing shortages in a Police Department that is about a third smaller than it was before Mr. Floyd’s killing, and at a time when the city is facing the most homicides since the mid-1990s. Even though voters were bitterly divided over the charter amendment, the city has been largely united in a view that meaningful reforms to policing are needed.“We all agree that we can’t sustain as we are now with the way policing has been,” said Brian Herron, the pastor of a church on the city’s North Side and an opponent of the amendment. But he added: “We don’t have time to reimagine. We got bodies dropping in the streets. We got innocent folk being killed.”Supporters of the measure had framed it as an opportunity to rethink law enforcement and perhaps become a national model for a different approach.“For every new change, someone had to be the first,” said Sheila Nezhad, who supported the amendment, and who decided to run for mayor after working as a street medic following Mr. Floyd’s death. “This is our opportunity to lead.”In the days after Mr. Floyd’s murder, Minneapolis became the center of a push to defund or abolish the police, and the amendment on Tuesday’s ballot grew out of that. But while many in Minneapolis have deep concerns about the current policing system, the city was deeply divided on whether the ballot language went too far.Moderate Democrats, including Mayor Jacob Frey, called for improving the current department. An uptick in homicides led some residents to question the wisdom of shedding the Police Department for a new public safety agency. And a lack of clarity on what the amendment would actually do scared off some voters.“Policing is the No. 1 issue, but I don’t see my opinion reflected,” said Leanne Fanner, 54, who works in insurance and said before Election Day that she intended to vote against the measure. “I do think we need systemic reform of the Police Department — systemic and accountable reform.”The amendment called for discarding minimum police staffing levels for the city, and getting rid of the Minneapolis Police Department altogether. Under the amendment, the City Council would have more oversight over the agency that replaced the Police Department, which would be focused on public health and, according to the ballot language, “could include licensed peace officers (police officers), if necessary.”Supporters of the measure, who largely steered away from describing the plan as one to “defund the police,” framed it as a way to help their city move past the pain of the past 18 months and create a new, more equitable system. And they have disagreed with some opponents who say this is not a wise moment to replace the Police Department, given rising gun violence in the streets.“I find it fascinating that folks are saying, ‘No, this is the wrong time to do things that directly address the things that are bad right now,’” said JaNaé Bates, a minister who helped lead a campaign supporting the amendment and believes that having more social workers and community violence workers would do a better job reducing gun violence than would traditional policing.Many Minneapolis residents say they remain shaken by the events that unfolded in the city, from the video of an officer kneeling on Mr. Floyd’s neck, to the protests and arson and looting that followed.“We are going through some of the hardest and most difficult circumstances our city has ever faced,” Mr. Frey told high school students during a debate this fall.The question of how to respond has divided Minnesota’s top Democrats. Representative Ilhan Omar, whose congressional district includes Minneapolis, and Keith Ellison, the state attorney general, supported replacing the Police Department. Their fellow Democrats in the Senate, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, opposed it.Since Mr. Floyd’s murder, many large cities, Minneapolis included, have invested more money in mental health services and experimented with dispatching social workers instead of armed officers to some emergency calls. Some departments scaled back minor traffic stops and arrests. And several cities cut police budgets amid the national call to defund, though some have since restored funding in response to rising gun violence and shifting politics.But no large city went as far as getting rid of its police force and replacing it with something new.Nov. 2, 2021, 9:54 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:54 p.m. ETDemocrats may be poised for big disappointment in Virginia, but they do seem likely to hold on in New Jersey — even though the Republican leads at the moment. Virtually all the reported vote is from Republican areas.Nov. 2, 2021, 9:53 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:53 p.m. ETAlvin Bragg will become Manhattan’s first Black district attorney, according to the Associated Press. He will inherit a high-profile case against former President Donald J. Trump.Nov. 2, 2021, 9:45 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:45 p.m. ETMayor Mike Duggan in his office in the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center.Nick Hagen for The New York TimesMayor Mike Duggan of Detroit was elected to a third term on Tuesday, The Associated Press projected, as voters signaled confidence in the direction of a city that has suffered from decades of disinvestment and population loss.Mr. Duggan, a Democrat who was elected eight years ago as the city was in the throes of municipal bankruptcy, has presided over a resurgence of Detroit’s commercial center and a restoration of basic city services like streetlights. New factories are opening, the Detroit Pistons basketball team moved back from the suburbs, and young college graduates have moved into downtown and Midtown, along with businesses catering to them.“Eight years ago, the problems Detroit was facing were just Detroit — no other city was talking about bankruptcy or streetlights,” Mr. Duggan said earlier this year. “Today, the challenges that we’re dealing with, every other city has.”But by Mr. Duggan’s own assessment, Detroit remains a work in progress. Violent crime is a persistent concern. Blighted and abandoned homes are a common sight, despite efforts to bulldoze or restore many buildings over the last decades. And some longtime residents, especially Black residents who stayed in Detroit through years of white flight to the suburbs, say they are concerned about gentrification as the white population grows and rents go up.Mr. Duggan, the first white mayor in decades of a city where nearly 80 percent of residents are Black, has also so far failed to deliver on his promise to end more than half a century of population decline. Data from the 2020 census showed the population had fallen more than 10 percent since 2010, to about 639,000 residents. The white, Asian and Hispanic populations increased in that period, but there were tens of thousands fewer Black Detroiters in the city. The mayor has disputed that data and pledged to challenge the census figures.Mr. Duggan’s opponent, Anthony Adams, a lawyer and fellow Democrat, focused his campaign on crime reduction, police reform and keeping longtime residents in the city. But he struggled to gain traction as local and national figures in the Democratic Party, including President Biden, gave their support to Mr. Duggan.“We’re starting to lose our Black population in the city, and we’re losing it because the policies of this administration are harmful to the people who have been here through thick and thin,” Mr. Adams said in an interview this summer.Nov. 2, 2021, 9:29 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:29 p.m. ETTerry McAuliffe is trailing in some Virginia counties that President Biden won.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesMcLEAN, Va. — Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe is facing grim returns in nearly every sort of Virginia community in his battle with Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee for governor.Mr. McAuliffe, a Democrat, is posting only modest margins in heavily Black, rural counties like Brunswick, an agricultural community along the North Carolina border. And he is losing worse than President Biden in more heavily white areas of southwestern Virginia, like Alleghany County, near West Virginia, where Mr. McAuliffe is capturing 21 percent of the vote.More ominous for Mr. McAuliffe is that he is running well behind Mr. Biden, who won Virginia by 10 points last year, in exurban counties like Stafford, down Interstate 95 from Washington, D.C. Mr. McAuliffe is losing Stafford by about 20 points a year after Mr. Biden carried it by three.If any more evidence is needed that bedroom communities are drifting back to the Republicans, consider Henrico County, outside Richmond: Mr. Biden won it by nearly 30 points. Mr. McAuliffe is winning it by about nine.Nov. 2, 2021, 9:24 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:24 p.m. ETAlvin Bragg voting on Tuesday morning in Harlem, the neighborhood where he has lived most of his life and that has served as the constant backdrop of his campaign over the last two years.Anna Watts for The New York TimesAlvin Bragg was elected Manhattan district attorney on Tuesday and will become the first Black person to lead the influential office, which handles tens of thousands of cases a year and is conducting a high-profile investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his family business.The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Bragg on Tuesday night.Mr. Bragg, 48, a former federal prosecutor who campaigned on a pledge to balance public safety with fairness for all defendants, will succeed Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat who did not seek re-election. Mr. Bragg had been heavily favored to prevail over his Republican opponent, Thomas Kenniff, given that Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans in the borough.The Manhattan district attorney’s office continues to disproportionately prosecute Black defendants, and Mr. Bragg throughout his campaign has drawn on his personal experiences growing up in New York to illustrate the types of changes he wishes to make. Mr. Bragg has said he would show leniency to defendants who commit low-level crimes and has emphasized the importance of accountability for the police and the office’s prosecutors.In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Bragg pointed toward experiences that he said would inform his work and set him apart from his predecessors.“Having been stopped by the police,” he said. “Having a homicide victim on my doorstep. Having had a loved one return from incarceration and live with me.”His victory comes as Democrats are seeking to balance sweeping changes to the criminal justice system with some voters’ concerns about rising gun crime. In 2020, millions of people around the country took to the streets to protest the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and call for change. But after rises in homicides and shootings in New York and other cities, some voters have moderated their stances.The most high-profile case confronting Mr. Bragg is the investigation into Mr. Trump and his family business. Over the summer, the business and one of its top executives were charged with running a yearslong tax scheme that helped executives evade taxes while compensating them with off-the-books benefits.Mr. Vance’s investigation into Mr. Trump and his business is ongoing; Mr. Bragg has faced questions about it throughout his campaign and will continue to do so. Though he cited his experience of having sued the former president over 100 times while at the state attorney general’s office, Mr. Bragg has said he will follow the facts when it comes to the current inquiry.Mr. Bragg voted on Tuesday morning in Harlem, the neighborhood where he has lived most of his life and that has served as the constant backdrop of his campaign over the last two years.He said that voting for himself, the first time he has done so, had been humbling.“Just to be engaged in our democracy from this new perspective has been so important to me, so meaningful on a personal level,” he said outside of the Wyatt T. Walker senior housing building on Frederick Douglass Boulevard.Mr. Bragg then drove to a polling place on 134th Street, where he was greeted by Jumaane D. Williams, the city public advocate; and Cordell Cleare, a Democratic State Senate candidate.Upon seeing Mr. Bragg, Mr. Williams offered an enthusiastic greeting: “The D.A. is here!”Nov. 2, 2021, 9:22 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:22 p.m. ETReporting from New York“We won,” shouted an Eric Adams staffer from the stage just 17 minutes after the polls closed in New York City.Nov. 2, 2021, 9:12 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:12 p.m. ETEric Adams gives his victory speech at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge on election night.James Estrin/The New York TimesEric Adams, a former New York City police captain whose attention-grabbing persona and keen focus on racial justice fueled a decades-long career in public life, was elected on Tuesday as the 110th mayor of New York, and the second Black mayor in the city’s history.The Associated Press declared victory for Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, 10 minutes after the polls closed at 9 p.m.At his campaign celebration, held at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, just around the corner from his office at Brooklyn Borough Hall, Mr. Adams urged unity.“Today we take off the intramural jersey and we put on one jersey, Team New York,” he told supporters.Mr. Adams, who will take office as mayor on Jan. 1, faces a staggering set of challenges as the nation’s largest city grapples with the enduring consequences of the pandemic, including a precarious and unequal economic recovery and continuing concerns about crime and the quality of city life.His victory signaled the start of a more center-left Democratic leadership that he has promised will reflect the needs of the working- and middle-class voters of color who delivered him the party’s nomination and were vital to his general election coalition.He will begin the job with significant political leverage: Mr. Adams was embraced by both Mayor Bill de Blasio, who sought to chart a more left-wing course for New York, and by centrist leaders like Michael R. Bloomberg, Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor. Mr. Adams was the favored candidate of labor unions and wealthy donors. And he and Gov. Kathy Hochul have made clear that they intend to have a more productive relationship than Mr. de Blasio had with Andrew M. Cuomo when he was governor.He has made clear that large companies have a role to play in shepherding the city’s recovery, and there are signs that he may have a far warmer relationship with business leaders than Mr. de Blasio, who won on a populist platform.But on the campaign trail, there was no issue Mr. Adams discussed more than public safety.Mr. Adams, who speaks about growing up poor in Queens, has said he was once a victim of police brutality and spent his early years in public life as a transit police officer and later a captain who pushed for changes from within the system.During the primary, amid a spike in gun violence and jarring attacks on the subway, Mr. Adams emerged as one of his party’s most unflinching advocates for the police maintaining a robust role in preserving public safety. He often clashed with those who sought to scale back law enforcement’s power in favor of promoting greater investments in mental health and other social services.Mr. Adams, who has said he has no tolerance for abusive officers, supports the restoration of a reformed plainclothes anti-crime unit. He opposes the abuse of stop-and-frisk policing tactics but sees a role for the practice in some circumstances. And he has called for a more visible police presence on the subways.Nov. 2, 2021, 9:04 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:04 p.m. ETThe polls have closed in New York City. We will know the outcome of the mayor’s race, and several down-ballot races, soon.Nov. 2, 2021, 9:03 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:03 p.m. ETReporting from VirginiaIf Youngkin prevails, expect the two warring factions of the G.O.P. to both declare victory. "Never Trumpers" will claim this shows there’s a path without him. And Trump supporters will say he dragged Youngkin over the line. Melissa Lyttle for The New York TimesNov. 2, 2021, 9:00 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 9:00 p.m. ETVoting at Leonardo Da Vinci Intermediate School in the Corona neighborhood of Queens on Tuesday.Janice Chung for The New York TimesPolls have closed in New York, ending a battle for the city’s mayoralty that was largely marked by a long, bitter Democratic primary and a contentious general-election campaign.The Democratic nominee, Eric Adams, a former police officer and the current Brooklyn borough president, was widely expected to win the race, after a campaign sharply focused on the pandemic and public safety.Nov. 2, 2021, 8:56 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:56 p.m. ETA “Yes on 2” yard sign in Minneapolis on Tuesday.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesMINNEAPOLIS — Kendra Reichenau had no doubts about her vote on a proposal to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new public safety agency. She was a no.“We want the police here, period,” said Ms. Reichenau, who cited concerns about recent carjackings in her area that have been chronicled by local media. “We need the police.”Minneapolis became the center of a national debate on law enforcement last year after an officer murdered George Floyd and the city erupted in protests. But a sweeping plan to replace the existing police department with a new public health-focused safety agency has divided the city, especially at a time when homicides and some other crimes have increased.After voting at a church on Tuesday evening, Ms. Reichenau said getting rid of the existing Police Department would be reckless. But like many other opponents of the amendment, she indicated an openness to rethinking parts of the city’s public safety response. “We think it’s an ‘and,’” Ms. Reichenau said. “We think we need to strengthen the police, and strengthen some of the social services that need to go along to support the police.”Nov. 2, 2021, 8:50 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:50 p.m. ETMcAuliffe is far underperforming his 2013 showing in rural and white parts of southwestern Virginia — by as much as 20 percentage points in some places.Nov. 2, 2021, 8:50 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:50 p.m. ETMike Stoddard of Herndon, Va., watching results on a big screen at a Glenn Youngkin watch party in Chantilly: “Financially, emotionally, spiritually, I think he’s just trying to get veterans and Virginians back on track.” Melissa Lyttle for The New York TimesNov. 2, 2021, 8:42 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:42 p.m. ETReporting from VirginiaIn heavily blue Fairfax County, the early and absentee results so far, roughly 75-25 for McAuliffe, is where Republicans think they need to be if this is going to be close. Nov. 2, 2021, 8:33 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:33 p.m. ETIn Minneapolis, Democrats are divided over a charter amendment to replace the Police Department. Progressives – like Rep. Ilhan Omar – have been vocal in support. Moderates like Sen. Amy Klobuchar oppose the measure but have not campaigned against it.Nov. 2, 2021, 8:33 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:33 p.m. ETReporting from Northern VirginiaIn Lexington, Va., where Joe Biden won 65 percent of the vote, Terry McAuliffe is at just 50 percent with about half the vote counted so far. It’s a good representation of how far behind Biden McAuliffe is running in tonight’s results.Nov. 2, 2021, 8:23 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:23 p.m. ETAt a watch party for Terry McAuliffe in in Fairfax, Va., supporters checked their laptops to see the early return numbers. Doug Mills/The New York TimesNov. 2, 2021, 8:22 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:22 p.m. ETKenya Leonard, right, voted for Mr. Reed, left, because she remembered when he was mayor.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesAtlanta residents had 14 mayoral candidates to choose from, but the choice, many voters said, came down to just three: Kasim Reed, the former mayor; Felicia Moore, the City Council president; and Andre Dickens, a City Council member. Kenya Leonard, 23, said that she voted for Mr. Reed because she remembered that when he was mayor of Atlanta, from 2010 through 2018, her family spoke favorably about him. “I know that he brought business to Atlanta, I remember that he was active in the community and he fixed problems in the past, so he can probably start to fix them now,” she said. Regina McMurray, 31, said that Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’s decision not to run for re-election left many residents feeling abandoned. “I don’t like that Keisha gave up on us, and I want someone who won’t just quit when it gets tough,” she said. Ms. McMurray considered voting for Mr. Reed because he was successful in the past. However, after hearing friends speak highly of Mr. Dickens, she did her own research on Monday and decided to vote for him. “I liked the way he talked about homelessness and getting people out of poverty,” she said. “He feels relatable. He knows his stuff and cares about this city. There’s something about him that makes me have faith that he’s the kind of person who will do the right thing.” If none of the candidates receives a majority of the vote, the top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff on Nov. 30.Outside the Israel Baptist Church on Tuesday, Mr. Dickens shook hands and greeted voters. He said he was feeling good about his chances of making it to the runoff and touted his citywide appeal. “I go young, not so young, white, Black,” he said.Mr. Reed, at a campaign stop during the day, said that he, too, was feeling confident about the race and had already had conversations with his team about a strategy for the runoff. “This is my sixth mayoral election, so I have some sense of how this feels and how it goes,” he said. “I think I know how the movie is going to end.”Nov. 2, 2021, 8:16 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:16 p.m. ETShontel Brown was named the winner in a special election for an Ohio congressional seat.Tony Dejak/Associated PressShontel Brown, a Democrat, won a House seat in a special election in Cleveland on Tuesday, defeating her Republican opponent, Laverne Gore.Ms. Brown had narrowly won the Democratic primary for the seat earlier this year, after its previous occupant, Marcia L. Fudge, was appointed by President Biden as the secretary of housing and urban development. Ms. Brown defeated Nina Turner, a former state senator and a top surrogate for Bernie Sanders when he ran for president, in that primary, which attracted big Democratic names and millions of dollars.The district, Ohio’s 11th Congressional District, encompasses most of Cleveland and much of Akron and is heavily Democratic.It was one of two special elections in Ohio on Tuesday. Local election officials predicted low turnout, saying there had not been many absentee and early voters.Mr. Biden issued a last-minute endorsement in the campaign for the other seat, in Ohio’s 15th Congressional District, which was vacated earlier this year by Steve Stivers, a Republican. Mr. Biden praised Allison Russo, a Democrat who faced an uphill battle against Mike Carey, a Republican and the chairman of the Ohio Coal Association.In the 2020 election, President Donald J. Trump won the district, which includes the outskirts of Columbus and the surrounding areas, by 14 points. Mr. Trump had endorsed Mr. Carey.Nov. 2, 2021, 8:07 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:07 p.m. ETMcAuliffe is ever so slightly underperforming. The latest example is Fairfax: McAuliffe is at 74 percent of the advance vote, but our estimate was that he needed 76 percent. It’s early and not much, but it’s starting to add up.Nov. 2, 2021, 8:00 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:00 p.m. ETGov. Phil Murphy’s supporters are filing into Asbury Park’s Convention Hall in New Jersey, the same place he celebrated his 2017 win.Nov. 2, 2021, 8:00 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 8:00 p.m. ETA voter casting her ballot in Newark, N.J., on Tuesday.Eduardo Munoz/ReutersPolls have closed in New Jersey, ending voting for a contest for governor that will provide clues about how voters feel about strict pandemic-related mandates, even as Virginia’s governor’s race has drawn far more attention. Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, is widely favored to win the race, with some late polls showing him with a double-digit lead. If Mr. Murphy defeats Jack Ciattarelli, a former state assemblyman, he would become the first Democratic governor to be re-elected in the state in more than four decades. Democrats outnumber Republicans in New Jersey by about one million voters, and the state has voted for a Democrat in every presidential election since 1992.Public polls showed that voters gave Mr. Murphy high marks for his response to the pandemic, and he has indicated that he is open to a statewide mandate for Covid-19 vaccines for all students. Much of the campaign also focused on the state’s tax rates, with Mr. Ciattarelli constantly reminding voters that New Jersey homeowners pay the highest property taxes in the country and calling Mr. Murphy a “tax and spend liberal.” But Mr. Murphy hardly apologized for the state’s tax policies, instead arguing that the money translates into good schools and health care. And like Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, Mr. Murphy repeatedly tried to tie his opponent to Mr. Trump. Nov. 2, 2021, 7:52 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:52 p.m. ETA judge rejected a request to keep polls open in New Jersey until 9:30 p.m. He said it would cause disarray, and there’s no proof that voters were turned away because of snags with the new electronic poll books.Nov. 2, 2021, 7:45 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:45 p.m. ETYoungkin has an early lead in Virginia. That may be deceptive. So far, we mainly have heavily Republican Election Day vote. Over all, 12 percent of Election Day votes have been counted by the state, compared to just 5 percent of early and 2 percent of absentee votes.Nov. 2, 2021, 7:38 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:38 p.m. ETIt’s early, but so far more than 100 precincts have reported in Virginia and they’re generally consistent with a highly competitive race with a very high turnout.Melissa Lyttle for The New York TimesNov. 2, 2021, 7:37 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:37 p.m. ETThomas O’Connor, left, thinks Mr. Youngkin would be a better steward of the state’s education policy.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesCENTREVILLE, Va. — In Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County, which in the last decade has become among the nation’s most reliable Democratic bastions, few precincts are more closely divided than the one that votes at Virginia Run Elementary School in Centreville.In 2016, Donald J. Trump beat Hillary Clinton there by 75 votes out of 1,746 cast. A year later, as the first laps of the coming Democratic wave swept Ralph Northam into the governor’s office, Mr. Northam lost the Virginia Run precinct to his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie, by 80 votes out of 1,410 cast.Fairfax County didn’t separate 2020 absentee votes by precinct, making a comparison for that year difficult, but Mr. Trump did handily win the in-person vote last year at Virginia Run.On Tuesday afternoon, as volunteers from the local Democratic and Republican parties offered sample ballots on the sidewalk, a steady stream of voters reflected the neighborhood’s split.Thomas O’Connor, a 39-year-old attorney and father of five children, said he backed the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, for governor because he is concerned the Democrat, Terry McAuliffe, would reduce parental influence over the local schools.Mr. O’Connor, 39, said he’s been happy with his children’s education — one is in college and the four others attend local public schools — but said Mr. Youngkin would be a better steward of the state’s education policy.“He’s going to allow more parents’ voice, parents will have an opportunity to be heard,” Mr. O’Connor said. “Terry McAuliffe and the Democratic Party are trying to limit parental involvement.”There were signs, however, that Mr. McAuliffe’s efforts to tie Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump had convinced some voters.Gordon Hall, 29, a speech pathology student who said he cast his first ballot for Mitt Romney in 2012, said he couldn’t vote for Mr. Youngkin or for any Republican who fails to denounce Mr. Trump.“I want to avoid the Republican Party for now because Trump’s hold on them is so strong,” he said. “Terry McAuliffe, he’s fine, but Trump is just a stain on Republicans now.”Nov. 2, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ETReporting from AtlantaIn Atlanta, a runoff is likely in this crowded mayor’s race. Mayor Kasim Reed and council president Felicia Moore have polled well. A wildcard: Andre Dickens, a critic of Reed’s.Nov. 2, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ETReporting from RichmondDemocratic strategists in Chesterfield County last week told me they did not expect McAuliffe to win there, even though Biden carried the traditionally conservative region.Nov. 2, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:36 p.m. ETReporting from New YorkAll is quiet here at the New York Marriott where Eric Adams is set to hold his election night party. “I think we’re going to win,” joked one adviser to the likely next mayor. Nov. 2, 2021, 7:29 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:29 p.m. ETTerry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor, was at a rally of African American leaders in Richmond, where Black residents make up 40 percent of the population.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesDemocrats’ historic margins in Virginia in recent years are suddenly looking as though they may have been the result not of an inexorable demographic tide, but of a furious resistance to Donald J. Trump — one that exaggerated the true strength of the Democratic Party in a state that could be returning to its previous role as a battleground.Without Mr. Trump in office, Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic governor seeking a new term in that post, is fighting for his political life, four years after the current Democratic governor coasted to a 9-point win.Greater Richmond, including the capital city and its diversifying suburbs, is the second-fastest-growing region in the state and a key to the governor’s race, as well as to control of the Legislature.A poll released last week by Christopher Newport University suggested that Democrats were falling well short in the region. While it mirrored most other polls in showing the governor’s race deadlocked statewide, it said Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate, had pulled away from Mr. McAuliffe in the Richmond media market — an area extending beyond the city and its populous suburbs into rural counties.For Mr. McAuliffe to prevail in greater Richmond, Democrats need to drive up turnout in the city; maintain their gains of the past 15 years in Henrico County, north and east of the city; and not cede too much ground in Chesterfield County, which includes more conservative western suburbs.Nov. 2, 2021, 7:27 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:27 p.m. ETRepublicans tried to make critical race theory a central part of the Virginia governor’s race, but parents’ anger over schools may have had more to do with pandemic shutdowns.Nov. 2, 2021, 7:24 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:24 p.m. ETReporting from Northern VirginiaFairfax is usually among Virginia’s last counties to report final results in statewide elections and has in past elections given Democratic candidates a boost at the end of election nights.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesNov. 2, 2021, 7:23 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:23 p.m. ETReporting from Northern VirginiaFairfax County is delayed in reporting its early vote ballots. We do not know when we are expecting those ballots to be counted, but it will not be by the self-imposed 8 p.m. deadline.Nov. 2, 2021, 7:22 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:22 p.m. ETFor Youngkin to win, he’s going to need it all: a favorable turnout and gains across the state. But there are two big counties he all but must flip back: Virginia Beach and Chesterfield, outside Richmond.Nov. 2, 2021, 7:18 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:18 p.m. ETIn the final tally, $66.3 million was spent on television ads in the Virginia governor’s race general election, according to AdImpact. Democrats spent more: $34.6 million to $31.7 million.Nov. 2, 2021, 7:18 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:18 p.m. ETReporting from AtlantaIn Atlanta, the focus is on former Mayor Kasim Reed, a familiar figure burdened by his administration’s scandals. The question is whether his high name recognition will trump high negatives.Kendrick Brinson for The New York TimesNov. 2, 2021, 7:13 p.m. ETNov. 2, 2021, 7:13 p.m. ETPresident Biden argued on Tuesday that the lack of progress on his agenda was not dragging down former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesPresident Biden on Tuesday predicted a Democratic victory in the Virginia governor’s race and contended that the status of his domestic agenda was not a major factor in the contest.The Democratic candidate, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, was locked in a tight race with his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, even though Mr. Biden carried the state by 10 percentage points in last year’s election. A victory for Mr. Youngkin would be a perilous indicator of the Democratic Party’s standing heading into next year’s midterm elections.“We’re going to win,” Mr. Biden said at a news conference in Glasgow after he was asked about the contest. But he conceded that the race was “very close” and said that “the off-year is always unpredictable.”Mr. McAuliffe sought election against a backdrop of Democratic infighting in Washington, where lawmakers have been wrangling over the size and scope of Mr. Biden’s proposed social policy bill. The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill has been stalled in the House after passing the Senate in August, and Mr. Biden’s approval ratings have fallen.As the election approached, Mr. McAuliffe all but pleaded with lawmakers in his party to pass the infrastructure bill, which would have given Democrats a major accomplishment to highlight to voters.“We are facing a lot of headwinds from Washington,” Mr. McAuliffe said in October, adding, “The president is unpopular today, unfortunately, here in Virginia, so we have got to plow through.”But Mr. Biden, who was attending the U.N. climate conference in Scotland, argued on Tuesday that the lack of progress on his agenda was not dragging down Mr. McAuliffe.“I don’t believe and I’ve not seen any evidence that whether or not I am doing well or poorly, whether or not I’ve got my agenda passed or not, is going to have any real impact on winning or losing,” Mr. Biden said. “Even if we had passed my agenda, I wouldn’t claim we won because Biden’s agenda passed.”

Sept. 26, 2021, 11:01 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 11:01 p.m. ETIt’s 11 p.m. folks, and I’m all Broadway'd out.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:59 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:59 p.m. ETCouldn’t we have picked one of the more fun songs from "Wicked"?Sept. 26, 2021, 10:58 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:58 p.m. ETSOMETHING "WICKED" THIS WAY COMES! (Sorry, guys, I’m so tired at this point.)Sept. 26, 2021, 10:58 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:58 p.m. ETChief theater criticBlack and fuschia, tonight’s theme.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:58 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:58 p.m. ETFeatures writerDon’t sit on that fuschia!Sept. 26, 2021, 10:57 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:57 p.m. ETFeatures writerNOW WE ARE TALKING.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:56 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:56 p.m. ETSound the alarm: "Wicked" alert!Sept. 26, 2021, 10:56 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:56 p.m. ETFeatures writerI need something now that is somewhat different energetically than the medication commercials that are airing in between songs.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:55 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:55 p.m. ETFeatures writerCan we get the “You Oughta Know” number now?Sept. 26, 2021, 10:55 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:55 p.m. ETChief theater criticAgain, this is not the moment for ballads.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ETFeatures writerLeslie Odom Jr. should be in every musical.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ETChief theater criticWelcome back to fake improvised patter. Let’s get the real kind!Sept. 26, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:54 p.m. ETIt is so strained, and it’s hard for it to be endearing when we’re nearing the end.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:55 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:55 p.m. ETFeatures writerGuys the only fake improvised patter that matters is ours.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:49 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:49 p.m. ETChief theater criticThis late in the show, even a nice song from “Into the Woods” feels a little bit NOT NOW LOUISE.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:50 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:50 p.m. ETI am not a fan of Tituss Burgess’s voice in this duet; sounded a bit too thin to me.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:46 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:46 p.m. ETChief theater criticNo awards left, but more performances, billed as classic Broadway duets.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:45 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:45 p.m. ETChief theater criticThe producer Carmen Pavlovic says that all of the shows that opened before the pandemic deserve to be the best musical. But she will take the prize for herself.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:44 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:44 p.m. ETChief theater criticI’m not the biggest fan of "Moulin Rouge," but there’s no question it’s the showiest show of all shows.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:43 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:43 p.m. ETChief theater critic“Moulin Rouge” completes its sweep.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:42 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:42 p.m. ETDaniel J. Watts, right, with the dancer Jared Grimes.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesDaniel J. Watts, a Tony nominee for “Tina,” performed a spoken-word tribute to the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which received a special Tony Award for its work on racial justice. He was joined by the dancer Jared Grimes — with whom he began the performance with a brief, energetic tap dance, before quickly shifting to a more somber tone — and singers from Broadway Inspirational Voices, who took over for some of the verse.The tribute was one moment among many about racial justice, both within and outside the theater, in a year partly defined by a reckoning in the industry.“When we hum a few bars, you come running to see,” Watts said during the performance, “But when it comes to liberation, you run, you flee.”Below is the poem in full:SilenceThere’s nothing wrong with Silence. Until there is.I’m talking about silent silence. Not “silence is golden” silence,Though, silence is no longer golden when talk is cheap and actions are hollowEmpty like safes with nothing invested, because there’s nothing safeAbout an individual or institution that is uninvested in the safety of others,Always gaining interest in the silence, so quiet,But always very vocal once the people start to riot,Tell meWhat does your silence sound like?Is it deafening?Is it threatening?Let’s name the voices of othersWhat does your silence sound like?Does it want our songs of freedom for free?Are we dumb for not wanting our swing hung from a tree?When we hum a few bars, you come running to seeBut when it comes to liberation, you run, you fleeBut Black folk goin’ create whether caged or noMaking way from no ways, the only way we knowSo whether the cacophony grows or slowsDon’t know if you’ve noticed, but know this for sureYou can’t stop this beat.Not this Black beat.Even when it’s blues, try to stop this beat, JackThis beat will refuseThis beat will resist arrestArrest, arrest, arrest, arrest, arrest, arrestHold up.Is that what your silence is?A rest?Oh. That’s different.A rest is a pause in the sound.It’s the taking of a beat and holding itBut only for a marginal amount of measureCan you measure the quality of your silence?Are you simply taking a rest?But see, a rest suggests workA rest agrees there must be some degree of compositionPreceding and/or succeeding itOn the same accord that there are some chordsBefore and/or afterSo tell meWhat does your silence sound like?Is it surrounded by sound, bookended by phrasingOr have you yet to join the chorusHave you yet to commit to the band?Are you afraid? Of what?Being out of tune, out of touch?Scared your lack of technique will be critiqued too much?Thus fearful you will be asked to solo before you are ready?Well guess what?You’ll never be ready.So get ready.Get active.And get on beatThe two and four, to be exactLet go of your silenceAnd say to those who blame usThat’s the way we chose to fightSometimes there are battles which are more than Black or whiteAnd we will not put down our swordWhen justice is our rightMake them hear youYour silence sounds best when it’s surrounded by soundBetween the work already done and the work yet to comeSo come on.Make them hear you. Best Musical“Moulin Rouge! The Musical”Sept. 26, 2021, 10:41 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:41 p.m. ETI got spooked by the “Phantom of the Opera” walk-on music for Andrew Lloyd Webber just now. Thought we were in for a big, long "Phantom" performance.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:41 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:41 p.m. ETChief theater criticChita Rivera opened in “West Side Story” exactly 64 years ago.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:42 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:42 p.m. ETMuch respect to Chita but I’ve never really liked “West Side Story,” which has always made me feel like a bad theater-lover.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:34 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:34 p.m. ETWoo! This is the energy I was hoping for!Sept. 26, 2021, 10:34 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:34 p.m. ETFeatures writerYes, finally, life!Sept. 26, 2021, 10:34 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:34 p.m. ETYes! “Proud Mary” and the infamous shimmying! This is fantastic.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:33 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:33 p.m. ETI’m just glad that they’re not showing the part when Tina gets abused by her husband and then goes right into a song while in a bloody nightgown. Again, I’m all about Adrienne Warren’s performance in that show, but that part left a bad taste in my mouth.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETFeatures writerWe went crazy in the theater during “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”Sept. 26, 2021, 10:33 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:33 p.m. ETChief theater criticAs a performance, yes. But as narrative ... well, it made no sense.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:31 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:31 p.m. ETMatthew Lopez accepting the Tony for best play.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“The Inheritance,” the sprawling two-part play about gay culture in the wake of the AIDS epidemic, won the Tony Award for best play, making Matthew Lopez the first Latino playwright to win the award.Inspired by the novel “Howards End” by E.M. Forster, “The Inheritance” began its life in London, where it was a commercial and critical success.Lopez wrote in The Times, “In writing ‘The Inheritance,’ I wanted to take my favorite novel and retell it in a way that its closeted author never felt free to do in his lifetime. I wanted to write a play that was true to my experience, my philosophy, my heart as a gay man who has enjoyed opportunities that were denied Forster.”Accepting the award onstage, Lopez said he was indebted to Forster; Terrence McNally, the playwright who died last year of complications from Covid-19 and whom Lopez described as a mentor and the “spiritual godfather” of the play; and Miguel Piñero, the first Puerto Rican playwright to be produced on Broadway.He also urged the industry to improve its representation of Latino writers.“We are a vibrant community reflecting a vast array of cultures, experiences and yes, skin tones,” he said. “We have so many stories to tell. They are inside of us aching to come out. Let us tell you our stories.”Tom Kirdahy, who produced the play and was married to McNally, said, “This award is in loving memory for all the beautiful souls lost to AIDS and Covid, and it’s dedicated to the love of my life, my husband, Terrence McNally.”The play, which ran more than six hours in two separately sold parts, opened in November 2019 and closed with the pandemic shutdown on March 11, 2020 (it had originally planned to close on March 15).Sept. 26, 2021, 10:31 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:31 p.m. ETChief theater criticAdrienne Warren, showing why she won that award.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETFeatures writerAdrienne Warren is perfect.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:32 p.m. ETShe looks and sounds incredible! And the gold dress is dazzling.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:29 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:29 p.m. ETFeatures writerPut that mask back on, Senator Schumer!Sept. 26, 2021, 10:30 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:30 p.m. ETChief theater criticYou kind of feel that Schumer wants to be in a revival of “Fiorello.”Sept. 26, 2021, 10:29 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:29 p.m. ETWe have just a half hour left, right? This might be my first time sitting through an awards show in full (well, at least since the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards when I was a preteen). And I am TIRED.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:26 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:26 p.m. ETChief theater criticI am glad to see that they cast a wider net in honoring those who died than they have in previous years.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:26 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:26 p.m. ETChief theater criticAnd because of the extra hour of runtime, had the opportunity to give all of them a moment.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:28 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:28 p.m. ETChief theater criticBut I am cynical enough to imagine it’ll go back to what it was, next year.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:24 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:24 p.m. ETFeatures writerGod, this year was a terror.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSept. 26, 2021, 10:26 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:26 p.m. ETIt’s terrible, but I keep seeing people who I forgot died. So many people died, it’s hard to distinguish the grief.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:26 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:26 p.m. ETFeatures writerLook at all those names. My god.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:22 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:22 p.m. ETFeels like they are trying to balance all the new pop songs from jukebox musicals with old Broadway favorites — hence a “Godspell” song and “The Impossible Dream.”Sept. 26, 2021, 10:23 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:23 p.m. ETFeatures writerAlso like they’re trying to coax people into remembering that Broadway isn’t all scary, subversive big ideas.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:21 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:21 p.m. ETNow Brian Stokes Mitchell is singing a "Man of La Mancha" number. ...Sept. 26, 2021, 10:20 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:20 p.m. ETThe names of those honored during the in memoriam segment of the Tony Awards.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe coronavirus pandemic claimed a number of theater artists, including the playwright Terrence McNally and the actor Nick Cordero.And, in the 27 months since the last Tony Awards ceremony, many other theater artists have died of other causes, including the legendary impresario Hal Prince.Here are The New York Times obituaries for some of the members of the theater community who died of Covid-related causes.And here are obituaries for some of the performers who died of other causes during the 27 months since the last Tony Awards ceremony.Numerous influential writers and directors also passed away during that period.Some powerful producers died too.And there were so, so many more.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:19 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:19 p.m. ETChief theater criticA new approach to the In Memoriam segment: a dance routine to “Give My Regards to Broadway.”Sept. 26, 2021, 10:22 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:22 p.m. ETFeatures writerThey should only do “Memory,” and that’s it.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:22 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:22 p.m. ETChief theater criticI think dance is a more expressive medium for this segment than showtunes.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:23 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:23 p.m. ETChief theater criticThough it’s nice to recall that Mitchell sang “The Impossible Dream” from his Upper West Side window to crowds on the street at the beginning of the pandemic.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:18 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:18 p.m. ETFeatures writerI love remembering that Bernadette Peters is actually like this.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:17 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:17 p.m. ETI’m in love with Bernadette Peters’ star-spangled gown.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:15 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:15 p.m. ETAm I the only one with zero interest in Alanis Morissette? Though I totally missed the boat on that. And when “Jagged Little Pill” came out I was still learning basic arithmetic. That’s another problem with jukebox musicals though; it’s difficult to connect to them if you don’t like or know the music. I felt the same about “The Girl from the North Country,” though I also disliked the story.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:11 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:11 p.m. ETThe 74th Tony Awards at the Winter Garden Theatre on Sunday.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe Tony Awards this year gave noncompetitive “honors for excellence in the theater” to four veterans of the industry: a set builder, a publicist, a stage manager and a small theater.The Tony Honors are granted each year to institutions and individuals not eligible in the competitive prize categories.This year’s recipients:Fred Gallo, a longtime theatrical set builder, is the president of PRG Scenic Technologies. He has worked as a stagehand, has designed numerous theater renovations and has credits on many Broadway shows, including as technical director for “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark” and “King Kong.”Irene Gandy has for more than 50 years worked as a Broadway publicist. For several decades she has worked with the producer Jeffrey Richards, and she is credited as a producer on two Tony-winning productions, “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” and the 2012 revival of “Porgy & Bess.” She has worked on more than 100 shows.Beverly Jenkins is a veteran stage manager now working at “Hadestown” and a co-founder of Broadway & Beyond: Access for Stage Managers of Color.New Federal Theater, founded in 1970 by Woodie King Jr., is a company that seeks to champion artists of color and women. It has produced more than 450 plays, including a pre-Broadway run of Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.”Sept. 26, 2021, 10:10 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:10 p.m. ETFeatures writerOK here we go with an injection. Hit us, Alanis!Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSept. 26, 2021, 10:11 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:11 p.m. ETFeatures writerWow, OK, “Ironic.”Sept. 26, 2021, 10:09 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:09 p.m. ETFeatures writerWow, I used to be the most enthusiastic person about this broadcast and now I’m extremely bummed out!Sept. 26, 2021, 10:09 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:09 p.m. ETThis is supposed to be inspiring but it feels like a downer.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:07 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:07 p.m. ETFeatures writerJosh Groban has a strange self-awareness of what a choir boy he is and also how that’s kind of funny sometimes.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:09 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:09 p.m. ETChief theater criticFor me, easy listening selections are so not Broadway, no matter how well sung.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:09 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:09 p.m. ETMy brain is unable to process Josh Groban. His whole aura screams “eager and naive young boy” but then when he sings he has such a robust operatic voice that feels ages old.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:07 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:07 p.m. ETHmmm, seeems we have reached the “Godspell” portion of the evening … with special guest Josh Groban.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:07 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:07 p.m. ETChief theater criticDodai, I think we call him “very special guest” Josh Groban.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:07 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:07 p.m. ETFeatures writerKeeping it super current!Sept. 26, 2021, 10:04 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:04 p.m. ETFeatures writerUh oh, Jesse, it’s comedy.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesSept. 26, 2021, 10:05 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:05 p.m. ETChief theater criticTheoretically.Sept. 26, 2021, 10:06 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 10:06 p.m. ETChief theater criticOh dear.Sept. 26, 2021, 9:55 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 9:55 p.m. ETChita Rivera in 2019. She will present award for best musical on Sunday night.Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesChita Rivera rose to stardom as Anita in the original Broadway production of “West Side Story,” which opened at the Winter Garden Theater on Sept. 26, 1957.And on Sunday night she will be back on the same stage exactly 64 years later to present the best musical award, she said in an interview.“That blew my mind,” Rivera, now 88, said of the timing coincidence. “I’m in goose pimples right now thinking about it.”When Rivera strides onto the stage Sunday night, she said she will be thinking about the fact that she has “been here” before.“I have visions of Leonard Bernstein, visions of Jerome Robbins in my head that will never ever leave me,” Rivera said, referring to the men who wrote the music for and directed “West Side Story” years ago. “I just hope I don’t do cartwheels out there.”In a telephone interview on Friday, Rivera said she had “an idea” of who would be presenting with her, but would not know anything definitively until Sunday.More broadly, Rivera said she was thrilled by the idea that the Tonys might help mark Broadway’s return after a long, pandemic-related closure.“We need the theater so desperately,” she said. “We’re storytellers. And I want everybody to be able to get back to that — to that exciting place where you can feel and witness joy.”Sept. 26, 2021, 9:53 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 9:53 p.m. ETGraciela Daniele in 2015.Walter McBride/Getty Images It was nearly three-quarters of a century ago that Graciela Daniele started ballet class as a child in Buenos Aires.As she tells it, she had foot pain as a 6-year-old, and the doctor suggested ballet classes to help her arches develop. About a decade later, she was a ballet soloist performing around South America. She was later lured from Paris to New York after seeing a live performance of “West Side Story” with Jerome Robbins’s original choreography.“I decided I would have to go to New York to learn how to tell stories through dance,” Daniele told Dance Magazine in 1999.Now, Daniele, 81, is receiving a lifetime achievement award for her decades spent performing, choreographing and directing on Broadway. She has received 10 Tony nominations throughout her career, including for her musical staging in “Ragtime” as well as choreography and direction for “Once on This Island.”Daniele was a rarity on Broadway in the 1990s as a woman of color who held the dual roles of director and choreographer. She did so for the 1999 revival of “Annie Get Your Gun,” as well as the 2005 biomusical of Chita Rivera (when Rivera performed as Velma Kelly in the original production of “Chicago,” Daniele was in the cast).Daniele’s early roles included dancing in the original productions of “Promises, Promises” and “Follies.”Her Broadway career is not yet over: She is slated to do the musical staging for “Paradise Square,” a musical set in a Manhattan saloon during the Civil War.Sept. 26, 2021, 9:46 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 9:46 p.m. ETDavid Alan Grier, second from left, with Nnamdi Asomugha and other cast members in “A Soldier’s Play.” Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“A Soldier’s Play,” Charles Fuller’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1981 drama about racism in the American military, won the Tony Award for best revival of a play.The play starred Blair Underwood, an Army captain who investigates the murder of a Black sergeant near an Army base in Louisiana in 1944. The play, which opened in January 2020, received seven Tony nominations, the most of any play revival.Accepting the award, the play’s director Kenny Leon said the names of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, two Black people killed by the police last year, saying, “We will never, ever forget you.” He went on to speak about the lack of diversity among the most decorated playwrights.“No diss to Shakespeare, no diss to Ibsen, to Chekhov, to Shaw — they’re all at the table,” Leon said. “But the table’s got to be bigger.”“We need to hear all of the stories,” he went on. “When we hear all of the stories, we are better.”Earlier in the night, David Alan Grier, who plays the murdered sergeant, won a Tony for best featured actor in a play. After he accepted his award, Grier spoke to reporters about the devastation of the past 18 months and his relief to see Broadway returning.“I lost faith, I gained faith, I lost faith, I gained faith,” he said. “Finally there was a path forward, and I’m just happy for everyone.”Deadline reported earlier this week that “A Soldier’s Play” will get a television adaptation centered on Grier’s character.This award was the only top category for revival of a show this year; there were no musical revivals that qualified.Sept. 26, 2021, 9:41 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 9:41 p.m. ETElizabeth Stanley, center, in “Jagged Little Pill,” a musical based on Alanis Morissette’s 1995 alt-rock album of the same name.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAfter being hobbled by the pandemic for the past 18 months, Broadway started its return this fall. For theatergoers, there is a rich menu to choose from. Here’s an overview of the Tony contenders worth seeing, as well as where to see them and when.“David Byrne’s American Utopia,” an exuberant concert from the former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, and “Freestyle Love Supreme,” a mostly improvised hip-hop musical created, in part, by Lin-Manuel Miranda, will be awarded with special Tonys tonight. “American Utopia” is at the St. James Theater in a limited run that ends March 6. Previews for “Freestyle Love Supreme” start Oct. 7 at the Booth Theater, and the show opens Oct. 19; its limited run ends Jan. 2.“Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” a lavishly designed, smash-hit adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 movie musical, has 14 nominations. Performances resumed last week at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical,” the incandescent Adrienne Warren’s star-making performance in the title role, is up for a dozen awards tonight. Performances resume Oct. 8 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater. And “Jagged Little Pill,” a musical based on Alanis Morissette’s 1995 alt-rock album of the same name, earned 15 nominations. Performances resume Oct. 21 at the Broadhurst Theater.If you’re looking for a deal on a hot-ticket show, you will search in vain. The shows offering discounts may still be in previews (which means critics haven’t yet weighed in) or have been around a while and are running low on fuel. Still, some excellent productions might be in the mix. Here are some ways to score tickets:To guard against the heartbreak of counterfeit tickets, the safest bet is to buy through the show’s website or at the box office. The box office in particular has its advantages: You don’t have to pay the hefty service fees that are tacked onto online orders. But do check to make sure that the box office is open; prepandemic operating hours may not apply.The TodayTix app is a trustworthy source for often-discounted Broadway tickets, which users buy online. The app can also be used for entering some shows’ digital lotteries, which offer a chance to buy cheap tickets. On the TKTS app, or online at tdf.org, you can see in real time which shows are on sale, and for how great a discount. But that doesn’t mean there will be seats left for the show you want by the time you get to the window — and you have to buy them in person.Many shows, though not the monster hits, offer same-day rush tickets at the box office for much less than full price. Availability varies, but it’s worth swinging by the theater to check. Conveniently, Playbill keeps a running online tab of individual shows’ policies on digital lotteries, rush tickets, standing room and other discounts.Sept. 26, 2021, 9:27 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 9:27 p.m. ETJulia Halston on the Tony Awards red carpet on Sunday.Arturo Holmes/Getty ImagesThe actress and comedian Julie Halston received an award for her charitable work around pulmonary fibrosis, the lung disease.Halston — who has appeared in several Broadway shows, including “You Can’t Take It With You” and “Tootsie” — is a board member of the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation and helped to create a charity event featuring Broadway performers that the nonprofit says has raised more than $2 million since 2010. Halston’s husband, the radio newscaster Ralph Howard, died from complications related to the disease in 2018.The Isabelle Stevenson Award is given to a member of the theater community who has made a significant contribution to a humanitarian, social service or charitable organization.Sept. 26, 2021, 9:05 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 9:05 p.m. ETLeslie Odom Jr. arriving Sunday at the 74th Tony Awards at the Winter Garden Theater.Bryan Bedder/Getty ImagesThe host of tonight’s Tony Awards concert — the portion of the evening broadcast on CBS — is Leslie Odom Jr., who arrived on Broadway as a replacement in “Rent,” but got his big break when he joined the original cast of “Hamilton” as Aaron Burr.Odom, 40, won a Tony Award in 2016 for “Hamilton,” and this year was nominated for two Academy Awards for his work as both a performer and songwriter for the film “One Night in Miami.”He was also featured in the films “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Harriet,” and will appear in the forthcoming “Knives Out 2.” His work on television has included “Smash” and “Central Park.” Also: he has recorded several albums of music.Raised in Philadelphia and educated at Carnegie Mellon University, he now lives in Los Angeles. He is married to the actress Nicolette Robinson, and they have two children.Odom was an outspoken advocate for profit-sharing by the cast of “Hamilton,” helping to lead a successful campaign to persuade that show’s producers to give a small percentage of the profits to members of the original company.Sept. 26, 2021, 9:00 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 9:00 p.m. ETAdrienne Warren as Tina Turner in the musical “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAdrienne Warren is only staying in “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” for a few weeks. But now, when she leaves, she can take a Tony Award with her.Warren’s performance as Turner, a role she originated in London and then again when the show opened in New York in 2019, has thrilled audiences. Jesse Green, a theater critic for The New York Times, wrote, “In a performance that is part possession, part workout and part wig, Adrienne Warren rocks the rafters and dissolves your doubts about anyone daring to step into the diva’s high heels.”“I really look forward to the day that the bodies and souls and spirits of those that are involved in these shows that we’re celebrating can be invited and join the celebration with us,” she said in her acceptance speech. “Because those bodies, those bodies, those souls, those spirits, they are what makes Broadway.” “And the second we started making this business,” she continued, “and creating the business and working through the business through the lens of humanity and honoring those, those bodies and those souls and those spirits, the more the art will be transformative. The more the art will change lives, the more the art will change this world because the world has been screaming for us to change.”“I am so grateful for this,” she concluded, “it means the world to me, thank you so, so much.“Tina,” which has been closed since the start of the pandemic shutdown, is scheduled to resume performances on Oct. 8 with Warren in the title role; she is planning to depart the production on Oct. 31, and will be succeeded by Nkeki Obi-Melekwe.Warren is starring as Mamie Till-Mobley, the mother of Emmett Till, in an upcoming ABC series, “Women of the Movement,” with a producing team that includes Jay-Z and Will Smith. And she recently signed a development deal with another of the show’s producers, Kapital Entertainment.Warren, 34, grew up in Virginia and studied acting at Marymount Manhattan College. She made her Broadway debut in 2012 in “Bring It On: The Musical,” and then four years later had a breakthrough role with her Tony-nominated performance in “Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed.”In 2016, Warren was among the founders of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, which seeks to to combat racism. The organization is being honored this year with a special Tony Award.Sept. 26, 2021, 8:45 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 8:45 p.m. ETKaren Olivo and Aaron Tveit in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAaron Tveit is now a Tony winner.This year was the first time Tveit has been nominated, and the circumstances were unusual: he was the only person nominated in the category, best leading actor in a musical.Still, his win was not guaranteed: to claim the prize, he had to win the support of 60 percent of those who cast ballots in that category. And he did.Tveit, 37, won for his performance as Christian, the besotted bohemian at the heart of “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” which is adapted from the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film.In accepting his award, he said, “We are so privileged to get to do this, to be on Broadway, to have a life in the theater.”He added: “Let’s continue to strive to tell the stories that represent the many and not the few, by the many and not the few, for the many and not the few. Because what we do changes people’s lives. It changes people’s minds. It change’s people’s hearts. We can change the world with this. Let’s not forget that. This means more to me than I can ever say.”Tveit arrived on Broadway as a heartthrob, playing the love interests in “Hairspray” (as a replacement Link Larkin) and “Wicked” (as a replacement Fiyero). His breakout came in 2009, when he starred as a dead adolescent, Gabe, in the hit show “Next to Normal”; he followed that up with a starring role as the con man Frank Abagnale Jr. in the short-lived stage adaptation of “Catch Me If You Can.”Tveit, who is from the Hudson Valley and was educated at Ithaca College, is also known for starring in the “Grease: Live” television special (he played greaser-in-chief Danny Zuko) and for featured performances in a “Les Misérables” film adaptation (as the revolutionary Enjolras), and, most recently, this summer’s Apple TV Plus streamer “Schmigadoon!” (he was the bad boy carnival barker).Sept. 26, 2021, 7:55 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 7:55 p.m. ETCampbell Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol,” whose music was arranged and orchestrated by Christopher Nightingale.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesFor the first time, a play, not a musical, has claimed the crown for best original score.All five of the nominees in the category — “A Christmas Carol,” “The Inheritance,” “The Rose Tattoo,” “Slave Play” and “The Sound Inside” — have nary an aria, belt or 11 o’clock number (though they do have instrumental melodies).This is only the ninth year that a non-musical play has been nominated for a Tony Award in the category. (The others: “Much Ado About Nothing” in 1973; “The Good Doctor” in 1974; “The Song of Jacob Zulu” in 1993; “Twelfth Night” in 1999; “Enron” and “Fences,” both in 2010; “Peter and the Starcatcher” and “One Man, Two Guvnors,” both in 2012; “Angels in America” in 2018; and “To Kill a Mockingbird” in 2019.)But wait, you might be thinking, what about “Jagged Little Pill,” “Tina — The Tina Turner Musical” and “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”? Weren’t they eligible?Nope. They’re all jukebox musicals, in which a majority of the songs are well-known popular music rather than original scores, and therefore aren’t eligible. (Though Turner, Alanis Morissette and the 161 writers whose 70 songs make up “Moulin Rouge!” catalog did win plenty of Grammys of their own.)Of course, you might remember that there was one musical eligible for the award in the pandemic-shortened season — the young-adult adventure “The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical” — but it failed to pick up a single nomination in any of the categories it was eligible for, including this one.So, a play it is.Sept. 26, 2021, 7:46 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 7:46 p.m. ETSara Krulwich/The New York TimesLauren Patten’s path to a Tony Award seemed assured from the moment she stepped onto the stage in the 2018 pre-Broadway run of “Jagged Little Pill” at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass.Her rendition of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know,” midway through the second act, was so electric that a prolonged audience ovation stopped the show during the very first preview. The Boston Globe even wrote a story about it. And it continued, if anything intensifying, throughout the show’s prepandemic Broadway run, which began in late 2019.Now the 29-year-old actress is a Tony winner — best featured actress in a musical — for her portrayal of Jo, a high school student whose heart gets broken.Patten’s win comes at a complicated moment for her, as “Jagged Little Pill” wrestles with criticism over how her character’s gender identity has been depicted over time.During the show’s pre-Broadway run, some people saw the character as a rare example of nonbinary representation in a major musical; when the show then transferred to Broadway, some of those fans were disappointed with how the role had evolved.“We are in the middle of a reckoning in our industry,” she said as she accepted the award, “and first and foremost I want to thank my trans and nonbinary friends and colleagues who have engaged with me in difficult conversations and joined me in dialogue about my character, Jo.”She continued, “I believe that the future of the change we need to see on Broadway comes from these kinds of conversations that are full of honesty and empathy and respect for our shared humanity. And I am so excited to see the action that comes from them, and to see where that leaves our future as theater artists in this country.”In the Cambridge production, Jo described an argument with her mother, saying, “Yeah, Angie’s chill about the lesbian stuff, but last night she was like ‘I don’t get it; do you want to be a boy or a girl?’ And I said, ‘First of all, if I got to decide what I was, I’d be a koala.’ Then I tried to explain the whole gender spectrum thing.”On Broadway, that exchange is gone, but Jo describes a conversation with her mother this way: “Oh yeah, the queer panic is at an all-time high. She’s like ‘Why would you choose to look like a boy?’ And I’m like ‘Why would you choose to look like the Talbots catalog threw up on you?’”As early as 2019, the show’s writer, Diablo Cody, said “Jo has always been cis” and said the production didn’t “want the character to be read as trans or as nonbinary, because the actress who is playing the role is cisgender.” But earlier this month the production issued an apology as part of a broader statement about the issue.“In Jo, we set out to portray a character on a gender expansive journey without a known outcome,” the lead producers said. “Throughout the creative process, as the character evolved and changed, between Boston & Broadway, we made mistakes in how we handled this evolution. In a process designed to clarify and streamline, many of the lines that signaled Jo as gender non-conforming, and with them, something vital and integral, got removed from Jo’s character journey.”The character was built around Patten, who has been part of the show’s development since its early preproduction workshops, but the show has faced some criticism from those who think the character should be portrayed by a transgender or nonbinary performer. Patten recently apologized on Instagram, saying “I am profoundly sorry for the harm I caused.”“It is my deepest hope for Jo to be a character that can be claimed and owned by folks of many queer identities — butch and masc women, nonbinary and genderqueer folks, trans men, and many more,” she wrote. “Theatre has the power and the potential to be expansive, and I hope that Jo can be a representation of that moving forward.”Patten is scheduled to return with most of the original cast when “Jagged Little Pill” resumes Broadway performances on Oct. 21.Sept. 26, 2021, 7:41 p.m. ETSept. 26, 2021, 7:41 p.m. ETLois Smith as Margaret in “The Inheritance.” She was the sole female performer in this Matthew López play.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesLois Smith, 90, is at last a Tony winner. And not just a winner — she is now the oldest performer to win a Tony Award for acting.“I love the processes of the live theater,” said Smith, who won for her portrayal of Margaret, the caretaker of a sanctuary for men dying of AIDS-related illnesses, in Part 2 of Matthew López’s more-than-six-hour epic “The Inheritance.”“I first worked on ‘The Inheritance’ in a workshop where Matthew López was finishing a play about the AIDS plague, and it was partly based on E.M. Forster’s book “Howards End,” which had been my favorite novel for as long as I can remember,” she continued. “E.M. Forster gave us — there’s a famous two-word message from “Howards End,” which is so apt, I think, tonight for all of us who are here celebrating the importance, the functions, of live theater: ‘Only connect.’ ”In his review of the play in The Times, Ben Brantley called Smith’s performance as the show’s sole female character “quietly brilliant.” She beat out Jane Alexander, 81, who was up for “Grand Horizons,” as well as Cora Vander Broek (“Linda Vista”), Annie McNamara (“Slave Play”) and Chalia La Tour (“Slave Play”).Cicely Tyson, who died earlier this year at 96, previously held the record. She was 88 in 2013 when she won in the same category for her role in the revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful.”In an interview with Variety in March 2020, Smith acknowledged that her performance schedule in “The Inheritance” was pretty, well, cushy. She doesn’t appear onstage until late in the play, which was performed in two parts. So she only performed three times per week.“I think to myself, ‘Now what’s going to happen to me?’” she said. “This may be the end of me. Suppose somebody asks me to do eight shows a week, what am I going to say? It’s hard to imagine at this point!”She was first nominated for a Tony in 1990 for “The Grapes of Wrath,” and she was nominated again, in 1996, for “Buried Child” — both times for best featured actress in a play.

Steelers linebacker T.J. Watt, left, joined teammates including safety Minkah Fitzpatrick during the team’s practice Wednesday, Matt Freed/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via Associated PressT.J. Watt might have grown up in Wisconsin, and he might play for the Steelers, but according to Coach Mike Tomlin, he is just “visiting from another planet.” Tomlin said this toward the end of last season, which Watt finished with a league-leading 15 sacks.The team’s front office acknowledged Watt’s otherworldly talent with a four-year extension worth $80 million guaranteed, according to multiple reports. Fresh off that signing, Watt beams into Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y., on Sunday to lead a Steelers defense that represents an immediate, and stern, test for the Buffalo Bills and their superlative quarterback, Josh Allen.Last season, Pittsburgh allowed the third-fewest points in the league and they are again stacked at every level, from secondary (Minkah Fitzpatrick) to linebacker (Devin Bush) to defensive line (Cam Heyward). Watt, though, is the best of them all, a supreme edge rusher who bypasses double-teams to torment quarterbacks, usually from the left side. Only Shaquil Barrett of Tampa Bay (76) recorded more pressures than Watt (73) during the 2020 season, according to Pro Football Focus.As he waited for his contract negotiation to get resolved, Watt abstained from practicing with his teammates during most of training camp. He finally joined them on Wednesday, and no doubt he figures to be ready to play. The Bills better be, too.Baltimore Ravens running back J.K. Dobbins was carted off the field after tearing his A.C.L. in a preseason game against the Washington Football Team.Carolyn Kaster/Associated PressIn the span of just 12 days, the Baltimore Ravens lost their top three rushers on the depth chart to season-ending injuries.Gus Edwards tore his anterior cruciate ligament in his knee during practice this week, the second such injury for a Ravens running back after starter J.K. Dobbins did so in the Aug. 28 preseason finale against Washington. They joined Justice Hill, who tore his Achilles’ tendon in practice, on injury reserve. Cornerback Marcus Peters also tore his A.C.L. at the same practice as Edwards.“I think you mourn for a day, and we fight today,” Coach John Harbaugh told reporters Friday. “We can move forward.” He said he did not think the playing surface contributed to the rash of non-contact injuries.To respond to the carnage, the Ravens signed Latavius Murray, the former New Orleans Saints backup, after he was released for declining to take a pay cut. Baltimore also added two players who previously had 1,000-yard rushing seasons, Le’Veon Bell and Devonta Freeman, to the practice squad with the intention of elevating them to the active roster.Bell, a three-time Pro Bowl selection during his five seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers, was released by the Jets midway through last season for his lack of production. He briefly signed with Kansas City, splitting carries in a reserve role, and later criticized Coach Andy Reid on social media this off-season.Freeman, an elusive runner and pass catcher, rushed for 1,000 yards twice early in his six seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, but his production slipped after his groin injury in 2018, which kept him out of all but two games. He signed a one-year deal with the Giants last season, appearing in only five games and rushing for 172 yards. The Saints released him during training camp after he signed a one-year contract this off-season.Mac Jones, right, took over the starting quarterback job at Alabama in 2019 when Tua Tagovailoa broke a hip. The pair will square off as N.F.L. pros on Sunday.Vasha Hunt/Associated PressAfter sharing one of the most talented quarterbacks rooms in recent college football history, the former Alabama teammates Mac Jones and Tua Tagovailoa will reunite on the field Sunday afternoon, as Tagovailoa’s Miami Dolphins face Jones’s New England Patriots in Foxborough, Mass.With Jalen Hurts having taken over the starting job for the Philadelphia Eagles at the end of the 2020 season, Alabama’s last three quarterbacks will be under center for N.F.L. franchises in Week 1. That each made it onto Sunday’s N.F.L. schedule should validate the quarterback battles that occurred when they were there. After winning a national championship with the Crimson Tide at the end of the 2017 season, Hurts lost the starting spot to Tagovailoa in 2018. When Tagovailoa broke a hip in 2019, Jones supplanted him, starting two games to end that season.Jones led an undefeated Alabama team to a national championship in 2021 before being selected at No. 15 in the draft. His poise in training camp and preseason games so impressed Patriots Coach Bill Belichick that he crowned the rookie the No. 1 quarterback and cut last year’s starter, Cam Newton, who is now a free agent.In one season in Miami, Tagovailoa has yet to cement himself as the Dolphins’ quarterback of the future. During the off-season, rumors swirled that the team might have been searching for other options, including the Texans’ Deshaun Watson, but Coach Brian Flores threw his support behind Tagovailoa as training camp ended.Alabama head coach Nick Saban wished both of his former quarterbacks well in a news conference Wednesday. “I hope they both do extremely well in this game and in their career,” Saban said. “But somebody has to win and somebody has to lose.”Justin Herbert finished the 2020 season with the most passing touchdowns (31) and completions (396) of any rookie in league history.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressIf Los Angeles quarterback Justin Herbert plans to make a leap in Year 2, facing the Washington Football Team’s dominant defensive end Chase Young is probably one of the most difficult ways to start. Young, the 2020 defensive rookie of the year, will meet Herbert’s Chargers Sunday afternoon. It will be the second straight season where the reigning offensive and defensive rookies of the year will meet in their season opener: Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray faced Nick Bosa’s San Francisco 49ers in Week 1 last season.In 2020, Young anchored one of the league’s best defenses, which allowed just over 300 yards per game, second fewest in the N.F.L. Herbert finished the season with the most passing touchdowns (31) and completions (396) of any rookie in league history.Giants running back Saquon Barkley is expected to return to play for the first time since Week 2 last season.Noah K. Murray/Associated PressComing into Week 1, most teams’ optimism hinges on the health of their rosters. A few star players whose status had been murky this week, including Giants running back Saquon Barkely, Chargers running back Austin Ekeler, and Colts guard Quenton Nelson, are good to go.Elsewhere, the absence of injured players will temper their teams’ game plans.Notable injuries in the 1 p.m. Eastern games:Jets at Carolina PanthersJets receiver Jamison Crowder (reserve/Covid-19) will miss Sunday’s season opener, while receiver Keelan Cole (knee) will be a game-time decision. And the Panthers will be without receiver Shi Smith, who missed practice this week with a shoulder injury.Los Angeles Chargers at Washington Football TeamThe Washington Football Team placed receiver Curtis Samuel on the injured reserve list earlier this week, so he will miss at least three weeks to nurse a groin injury.Arizona Cardinals at Tennessee TitansThe Titans will be without kicker Sam Ficken, who is on the injured reserve list with a groin injury.Seattle Seahawks at Indianapolis ColtsThe Colts’ veteran cornerback Xavier Rhodes (calf) will miss Sunday’s opener, along with receiver T.Y. Hilton, who re-aggravated a lingering neck injury during a practice last month. Hilton, the Colts’ top receiver, is expected to miss the start of the regular season.Jacksonville Jaguars at Houston TexansTexans quarterback Deshaun Watson is out for their season opener against the Jaguars. Watson, who has 22 civil suits alleging sexual misconduct filed against him, isn’t expected to suit up for Houston this season. (He has denied the accusations.) Tyrod Taylor will start in his place. Houston will also miss kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn (leg), as well as defensive back Lonnie Johnson Jr. (thigh).The Jaguars will be without cornerback Tre Herndon, who’s out with a knee injury.Pittsburgh Steelers at Buffalo BillsBills running back Zack Moss was not on the team’s injury report leading up to Sunday’s game against the Steelers, but he will miss the team’s opener. Notable injuries in the 4:25 p.m. Eastern games:Miami Dolphins at New England PatriotsDolphins receiver Preston Williams, who’s been nursing a foot injury, is reportedly not expected to play against the Patriots.Green Bay Packers at New Orleans SaintsThe New Orleans Saints will be without receiver Michael Thomas for the start of the season after he underwent ankle surgery in June. They’ll also miss receiver Tre’Quan Smith (hamstring).Denver Broncos at New York GiantsGiants tight end Evan Engram (calf) is out.Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts wore a helmet decal that read “Black Lives Matter,” one of six league-approved social justice messages, in a game last season.Rich Schultz/Associated PressIn Thursday night’s season opener, players stood on the field at Raymond James Stadium with their arms intertwined as Alicia Keys and the Florida A&M choir performed “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before the game’s start.The N.F.L. began airing the song, also known as the Black national anthem, as part of its TV broadcasts before games following the worldwide racial justice protests held after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. It also included a performance of the song before the draft in April.The league will continue to include the song’s performance in its pregame ceremonies as part of its continued social justice efforts.“Lift Every Voice and Sing,” written over 120 years ago by N.A.A.C.P. leader James Weldon Johnson, captures in its lyrics the solemn hope for the liberty of African Americans, which read in part:“Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us.Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us.Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,Let us march on ’til victory is won.”Along with playing the song before its games, the N.F.L. will also allow players to wear helmet decals with one of six approved social justice messages. The league will again display the slogans “It Takes All of Us” and “End Racism” on end zones in solidarity with social justice movements against racism and police brutality.The New Orleans Saints’ Week 1 game against the Packers was moved to Jacksonville’s TIAA Bank Stadium in the wake of Hurricane Ida.John Raoux/Associated PressNo, it’s not a misprint. Yes, the end zones at TIAA Bank Stadium, home of the Jacksonville Jaguars, really do say “SAINTS.”The New Orleans Saints, displaced by the destruction of Hurricane Ida, will begin the season Sunday against the Green Bay Packers in the teal-tinged wilderness of Jacksonville, Fla., instead of the Superdome’s black-and-gold cacophony. The stadium was available because the Jaguars open on the road, but the site was hardly chosen at random.After evacuating New Orleans on Aug. 28, the Saints settled in North Texas, practicing first at AT&T Stadium in Arlington before shifting to Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth. With AT&T unavailable Sunday because of a conflict, the Saints picked Jacksonville from among Florida’s three N.F.L. locales, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, because of its “relative inaccessibility and unattractiveness as a destination location.”The Saints went so far as to research flights to Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville, and discovered that Jacksonville was the hardest — and most expensive — option for Packers fans.“We’re conscious of everything, I think, when it comes to preparing for an opponent,” Saints general manager Mickey Loomis told reporters last week. “The main thing is, hey, we’ve got to have an NFL-ready stadium. Look, there’s just so many variables. I don’t want to get into all the variables that exist, but the main thing is to have a suitable place to play that both teams have access to.”This is expected to be the only home game the Saints play away from New Orleans. Mayor LaToya Cantrell said that the Superdome, which didn’t suffer any major damage, should be ready to host the team’s Week 4 game against the Giants.