Aurelia Butler

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    A Weapons Scanner Arrives in the Subway. Adams Says It Isn’t Optional.

    Mayor Eric Adams announced that a new scanner would search for guns on the subway. Riders who refuse to be scanned, he said, will not be allowed to enter the system.Mayor Eric Adams announced the start of a contentious new plan to put a gun-detecting scanner in the subway on Friday and warned that New Yorkers who refused to be scanned would be kicked out of the system.Mr. Adams highlighted the scanner inside the busy Fulton Street subway station in Lower Manhattan, arguing that the technology would help make the subway safer.“Many New Yorkers will be familiar with this type of technology — it’s not new, and it’s being used in big cities across the country,” Mr. Adams said, noting that scanners were already being used at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Citi Field.A new pilot program will involve one scanner that will be moved to different stations over the next 30 days, city officials said. Mr. Adams said it would not cost the city any money.Civil rights groups immediately called the scanners unconstitutional and said they were preparing to take legal action.“New Yorkers did not consent to give up their rights or be N.Y.P.D. guinea pigs for overhyped and error-prone surveillance tech,” said a joint statement from the Legal Aid Society and the New York Civil Liberties Union. “We are prepared to protect the right of all subway riders to be free from N.Y.P.D. intrusion and harassment.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Clear Encampments? Mind Your Own Business, Los Angeles Says.

    In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s declaration urging cities to clear homeless camps met its strongest opposition in Los Angeles.Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared this week wearing work gloves and Ray-Ban sunglasses as he hauled a garbage bag from under a freeway overpass in California. His message was obvious: He wanted state and local officials to clear out homeless encampments, just as he was doing, and he had signed an executive order to spur them into action.“There are no longer any excuses,” Mr. Newsom said in a video statement that was released Thursday and filmed at an encampment where everything from a box fan to a plastic kiddie pool had been stashed.Hours later, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, responded with her own set of visuals from a different encampment cleanup in the nation’s second-largest city. Ms. Bass pointedly emphasized that 15 residents whom the city had displaced from this particular encampment had been “brought inside.”The clearing of encampments has long been framed as a partisan issue, with Democrats on one side reluctant to remove homeless people and Republicans on the other demanding citations and arrests. But in California, where Democrats dominate the state government and run its largest cities, the matter has become an intraparty dispute, especially after a Supreme Court decision last month gave local officials greater authority to crack down on encampments.Nowhere was Mr. Newsom’s executive order met Thursday with more scorn than in Los Angeles, where the public defenders who serve homeless clients called his move “completely unconscionable.” Los Angeles County supervisors, who represent nearly 10 million people, intend to make it clear next week that the county’s jails will not serve as makeshift shelters for homeless people.And Ms. Bass’s retort served as a statement that Los Angeles leaders believe they can handle the homelessness crisis in their city just fine, thank you, without interference from Mr. Newsom.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Automakers Sold Driver Data for Pennies, Senators Say

    Ron Wyden and Edward Markey urged the F.T.C. to investigate how car companies handled the data from millions of car owners.If you drive a car made by General Motors and it has an internet connection, your car’s movements and exact location are being collected and shared anonymously with a data broker.This practice, disclosed in a letter sent by Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts to the Federal Trade Commission on Friday, is yet another way in which automakers are tracking drivers, often without their knowledge.Previous reporting in The New York Times, which the letter cited, revealed how automakers including G.M., Honda and Hyundai collected information about drivers’ behavior, such as how often they slammed on the brakes, accelerated rapidly and exceeded the speed limit. It was then sold to the insurance industry, which used it to help gauge individual drivers’ riskiness.The two Democratic senators, both known for privacy advocacy, zeroed in on G.M., Honda and Hyundai because all three had made deals, The Times reported, with Verisk, an analytics company that sold the data to insurers.In the letter, the senators urged the F.T.C.’s chairwoman, Lina Khan, to investigate how the auto industry collects and shares customers’ data.One of the surprising findings of an investigation by Mr. Wyden’s office was just how little the automakers made from selling driving data. According to the letter, Verisk paid Honda $25,920 over four years for information about 97,000 cars, or 26 cents per car. Hyundai was paid just over $1 million, or 61 cents per car, over six years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Photographs From the Final Night of Billy Joel’s Residency

    Billy Joel performed the final show of his 10-year residency at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night, his 150th performance at the venue overall and the most for any performer there. The Times was on hand to capture the moments leading up to the concert, which amounted to a victory lap.Joel and his band after soundcheck on Thursday afternoon, hours before the performance.At soundcheck, Joel went over a setlist that drew from his five-decade career.Joel’s daughters Della and Remy joined him onstage after soundcheck.One fan opted to play Billy Joel songs outside the arena.Fans posed for photos inside the arena …… and outside, too.Concertgoers were encouraged to write messages for Joel. A banner to celebrate Joel’s 150th performance at the Garden was raised during the concert. More

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    Scandal Hits U.K.’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing,’ the Original ‘Dancing With the Stars’

    The BBC said it would add chaperones to rehearsals after allegations of abusive behavior at a hugely popular dance show that inspired international versions.For almost two decades, viewers in Britain have watched celebrities jive, waltz and cha-cha-cha on “Strictly Come Dancing,” a BBC reality television show that inspired the international “Dancing With the Stars” franchise.The format, which has been licensed to 61 other territories including the U.S., pairs professional ballroom dancers with people who are famous in other fields, from athletics and acting to politics and journalism. The amateur dancers then train intensively with their professional partners and compete in weekly live performances.Introduced in 2004, the show quickly became one of the BBC’s most popular programs, widely loved as a glitzy, family-friendly watch on weekends.But in recent months it has grabbed headlines because of a growing scandal: allegations that two professional male dancers exhibited bullying or abusive behavior toward their female dance partners during rehearsals.One former contestant, the actor Amanda Abbington, has alleged in interviews with the British media that her dance partner, Giovanni Pernice, displayed “bullying” and “aggressive behavior” and was “abusive, cruel and mean.” She declined to give further details of the behavior in interviews, saying the ongoing nature of a BBC investigation into the allegations prevented her from doing so.Ms. Abbington, who appeared in the British series “Sherlock,” cited “personal reasons” last year for leaving the dance competition during filming, but said this week that she had flagged the behavior to producers before filing an official complaint with the BBC. She said she believed that there were 50 hours of rehearsal video that could bolster her case, though they have not been made public.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Heirs of Jews Who Fled the Nazis Return Art to Heirs Whose Family Could Not

    An Egon Schiele drawing was returned on Friday at the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The heirs said in a statement that relinquishing the work was “the right thing to do.”“Seated Nude Woman,” a drawing by the Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele, was returned on Friday to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish art collector and Viennese cabaret performer who was killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.The drawing had been held by the heirs of a Jewish couple who fled the Nazis just before World War II and later unknowingly bought the work, which investigators for the Manhattan district attorney’s office say were among dozens looted from Grünbaum by the Third Reich.The return took place at the district attorney’s office in Manhattan. The grandchildren of the couple, Ernst and Helene Papanek, said in a statement that relinquishing the work was “the right thing to do” in the face of evidence it had been looted.Since September, five museums and four private owners have handed back 11 works once owned by Grünbaum in what has become the largest Holocaust art restitution case in the United States.One museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, has challenged an order from investigators to turn over a 12th Schiele, “Russian War Prisoner,” that was once owned by Grünbaum, who died in a concentration camp in 1941. The museum has contested the evidence cited by investigators and a legal battle over the work is proceeding in New York State Supreme Court.A Grünbaum descendant, Timothy Reif, responded to Friday’s return in a statement that said the recovery of the work sends a message “that crime does not pay and that the law enforcement community in New York has not forgotten the dark lessons of World War II.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Oren Alexander, Top Real Estate Agent, Faces Another Claim of Sexual Assault

    A fourth woman filed a lawsuit against Oren Alexander, once a star agent of luxury real estate.An actress and comedian says she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Oren Alexander, a top luxury real estate agent who is facing a string of accusations that he and his two of his brothers sexually assaulted women — allegations that had been whispered throughout the high-end real estate industry for years.Renee Willett, 31, filed a federal lawsuit on Friday accusing Mr. Alexander, 37, of attacking her in his apartment nearly nine years ago. She is the fourth woman to file a lawsuit this summer against Mr. Alexander. Two earlier lawsuits filed this year name Mr. Alexander and his twin brother, Alon, who does not work in real estate but often socializes with him. A third suit filed in June names Oren, Alon and their older brother Tal Alexander, 38, who is Oren’s longtime partner in real estate sales.Isabelle Kirshner, a lawyer for Oren Alexander, said she had no comment on the new allegation at this time. Oren, Tal and Alon have denied all previous allegations.Like other women who have said they were assaulted, Ms. Willett said she was prompted to file a lawsuit after reading articles about similar claims involving the Alexanders. Her lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, came two days after The New York Times published an article with accounts from several women about the brothers.“I felt a responsibility to come forward,” she said. “I have to do this not just for myself, but for everyone else.”Ms. Willett is an actress and comedian who is now working on a screenplay. She came forward, she said, after learning about other allegations of assault against the Alexanders.Vivien Killilea/Getty Images For Idol RocWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More