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      Turn Empty N.Y.C. Hotels Into Permanent Housing for Homeless, Adams Says

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      Hotels in New York City that have been left empty by the pandemic would be converted into “supportive housing” that provides a wide range of assistance to people struggling with mental illness or substance abuse and to people leaving the prison system, under a plan proposed on Monday by Eric Adams, who is likely to be the city’s next mayor.More than 20 percent of the city’s hotels are now closed, a trade association says. At the same time, the city faces a homelessness crisis, growing sentiment against warehousing homeless people in barrackslike shelters and a lot of severely mentally ill people living in the streets.“The combination of Covid-19, the economic downturn and the problems we’re having with housing is presenting us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Mr. Adams, who won the Democratic primary for mayor in June, said as he stood outside a boarded-up hotel in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. “Use these hotels not to be an eyesore, but a place where people can lay their eyes on good, affordable, quality housing.”Details of the plan were thin. Mr. Adams mentioned the possibility of 25,000 converted hotel rooms, but he said that he would focus on boroughs outside Manhattan, where the number of rooms in closed hotels is much smaller than that.He was not clear about whether there was any overlap between his plan and those that the current mayor, Bill de Blasio, and the former governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, have already launched to build 25,000 supportive housing units in the city by about 2030. A spokesman for Mr. Adams’s campaign said that Mr. Adams was also considering converting rooms in former hotels that have already become homeless shelters into permanent supportive-housing apartments, something that Mr. de Blasio has also discussed.The nexus of hotels and homelessness has been a contested one during the pandemic. Early in the lockdown imposed to stem the spread of the coronavirus, thousands of people who had been living in dorm-style shelters were moved to hotel rooms, mostly in Manhattan where their presence led to complaints from some residents about harassment and sometimes violence. The city has since moved most of those people back to group shelters.Several advocates for homeless people and for supportive housing endorsed Mr. Adams’s plan and stood with him at the news conference. “Adams can be the mayor who uses this inflection moment to change the trajectory on homelessness,” Laura Mascuch, executive director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York, said in an interview. “We look forward to working with Adams to implement the strongest supportive housing program in the nation.” More

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      Justin Trudeau Projected to Remain Prime Minister of Canada

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      Justin Trudeau will remain Canada’s prime minister following the vote in an early election on Monday, Canadian broadcasters projected.Because many voters were still in line casting ballots, perhaps for several more hours, it is unclear whether Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party would regain a majority in Parliament — Mr. Trudeau’s objective. Preliminary results suggested that the Liberals would probably not achieve that.The prime minister called the election last month, two years ahead of schedule, expecting that the boost in his popularity provided by his handling of the pandemic would give him the majority he was denied in 2018. But those promising numbers immediately fell as Canadians expressed dismay about the election being held while the Delta variant of the coronavirus was straining hospitals and prompting the authorities to restore restrictions in some areas.While disgruntlement about the election call dominated the five-week campaign, the pandemic intensified as a campaign issue over the final days. Mr. Trudeau has proposed mandatory vaccination for some and championed vaccine passports. Erin O’Toole, the Conservative leader, rejected both.Mr. Trudeau first came to power in 2015 by presenting himself as a new voice in politics with a fresh approach and policies.This time around, Mr. Trudeau is part of the political establishment. So he focused on telling voters, explicitly or otherwise, that a return to a Conservative government under Mr. O’Toole would wipe away his achievements in a variety of areas including gun control, gender equity, climate change, child care, poverty reduction and, above all, ending the pandemic and getting Canadians vaccinated. More

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      Why Did Justin Trudeau Call for an Early Election in Canada?

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      His opponents have denounced the move as unnecessary and potentially dangerous amid a continuing pandemic.Canadians often grumble about federal elections called before schedule, as is the case with Monday’s vote. But usually the complaints die out after the first week of campaigning.Not this time. With the Delta variant of the coronavirus sweeping many provinces, and their governments restoring restrictions or pausing plans to lift them, questions about the wisdom of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s election call are still dominating the race.“They’ve been struggling with answering that question the whole campaign,” said Gerald Butts, a longtime friend of Mr. Trudeau’s and his former top political adviser. “And that’s part of why they’re having trouble getting the message across.”While Mr. Trudeau carefully avoids using the word “majority,” there is no doubt that he’s seeking to take back control of the House of Commons, which was denied him in the 2019 vote, when his Liberal Party won only a minority. Since then, he has relied on the ad hoc support of opposition parties to push legislation through, something Mr. Trudeau said led to delays in pandemic measures.Chrystia Freeland, the deputy prime minister and finance minister, said that this spring the “Covid consensus” among all of the parties in Parliament unraveled.“We really saw that it was becoming increasingly just not possible to get the business of the country done,” she said last week during a break in her one-person campaign trek around the country. “It was clear to us that it was going to become truly impossible to keep moving in the fall.”Mr. Trudeau’s opponents don’t buy that, noting that all the major pieces of Mr. Trudeau’s pandemic legislation have passed, though several bills died when Mr. Trudeau adjourned Parliament for the vote. They have relentlessly denounced his decision to call the snap election as unnecessary and potentially dangerous for people heading to the polls.The disgruntled include Liberals, leading to the possibility that many of them may simply not vote. More

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      Justin Trudeau Casts Ballot in Canadian Election

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      Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More

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      California's Governor Says Two of His Children Tested Positive for the Coronavirus

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      SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who four days ago beat back a pandemic-fueled attempt to recall him, is “following all Covid protocols” with his family after two of his four children tested positive for the coronavirus.“The governor, the first partner and their two other children have since tested negative,” Erin Mellon, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office, confirmed late Friday. The children, she said, tested positive on Thursday and have mild symptoms. They are being quarantined.The report came on the heels of Mr. Newsom’s victory over a Republican-led recall attempt that had gained traction as Californians became impatient with health restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus. The rate of new Covid-19 cases in California is among the lowest in the nation, and the rate of vaccination is among the highest.The governor’s children, however, are all under 12, the threshold age for inoculation. In a victory speech Tuesday night, the governor mentioned that his oldest daughter was about to turn 12 this weekend.“The Newsoms continue to support masking for unvaccinated individuals indoors to stop the spread and advocate for vaccinations as the most effective way to end this pandemic,” said the governor’s wife, Jennifer Siebel-Newsom.Governor Newsom’s spokeswoman did not specify which of his children had tested positive for the virus. But this is not the first time it has affected his family. In November, three of his children were quarantined after being exposed to a California Highway Patrol officer in the family’s security detail who was infected, and one child was quarantined after a classmate tested positive.This summer, the Newsoms pulled their children out of a summer camp after it was determined that masking requirements were not being strictly followed.The governor has been vaccinated since April, when he received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at a news conference. The unvaccinated head of the recall effort, Orrin Heatlie, said this week that he had recovered after being sidelined with Covid-19 during the last weeks of the campaign. More

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      Pandemic Drove Many California Recall Voters

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      The coronavirus pandemic helped propel the recall attempt of Gov. Gavin Newsom to the ballot in California, and on Tuesday, his handling of the pandemic was an overriding issue as about two-thirds of voters decided he should stay in office.Across the nation’s most populous state, voters surveyed by New York Times reporters outside polling places cited Mr. Newsom’s pandemic restrictions and support for vaccine mandates as key factors in whether they voted to oust or keep him. The recall served as a preview of next year’s midterm elections nationally, with voters sharply divided along partisan lines over issues such as masks, lockdowns and mandatory vaccinations.In San Francisco, Jose Orbeta said he voted to keep Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, in office, calling the recall a “waste of time.”“It’s a power grab by the G.O.P.,” said Mr. Orbeta, a 50-year-old employee of the Department of Public Health. He said Mr. Newsom had done a “decent job” leading California through the pandemic despite his “lapse of judgment” in dining at the French Laundry during the height of the outbreak.In Yorba Linda, a conservative suburb in Orange County, Jose Zenon, a Republican who runs an event-planning business with his wife, said he was infuriated by Mr. Newsom’s pandemic restrictions and support for vaccine mandates. He pointed to examples of his friends leaving for other states, such as Arizona, Nevada and Texas.“That train out of here is really long, and we might be getting on it, too,” Mr. Zenon said, just after voting for Larry Elder, the Republican talk-radio host who led the field of challengers hoping to take Mr. Newsom’s job.“The rules this governor made put a lot of businesses in an impossible position — we were without income for 10 months. Here we live in a condo, we want to have a home, but it’s just impossible. Something’s got to change.”Some voters in an increasingly politically active constituency of Chinese Americans supported the recall. They blamed Mr. Newsom for a rise in marijuana dispensaries, homeless people and crime that they said are ruining the cluster of cities east of Los Angeles where Chinese immigrants, many of them now American citizens, have thrived for years.“We really don’t like the situation in California,” said Fenglan Liu, 53, who immigrated to the United States from mainland China 21 years ago and helped mobilize volunteers in the San Gabriel Valley.“No place is safe; crime is terrible. Newsom needs to go. This is failed management, not the pandemic.”In the wealthy Orange County suburb of Ladera Ranch, Candice Carvalho, 42, cast her ballot against the recall because, she said, “I thought it was important to show that Orange County isn’t just Republicans.”She expressed frustration that the recall was taking so much attention at a critical moment in the pandemic.“It was a waste of money and completely unnecessary,” she said. “And I’m a little shocked we’re focusing on this now.” While she acknowledged knowing little about the specifics of state election laws, she said it seemed “slightly too easy” to get the recall attempt on the ballot. More

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      Covid Isn’t Finished Messing With Politics

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I’m trying to keep an open mind — OK, semi-open — about what to think of Joe Biden’s Covid vaccination mandates. I have no problem with the president requiring federal employees to get the shot. I have no problem with businesses large or small requiring the same. Their houses, their rules.But the civil libertarian in me doesn’t love the idea of this or any president using administrative powers to force vaccines on the people who refuse to get them. Your thoughts?Gail Collins: Well, Bret, if Biden was rounding up the non-vaxxers, having them tied down and inoculated by force — the way many Republicans seem to be drawing the picture — I’d certainly have reservations. But in effect he’s saying that they shouldn’t be allowed in certain places where infection is relatively easy to spread, like workplaces or public buildings.This is a serious, serious health crisis and I don’t think I’d want the president to content himself with giving pep talks.And don’t I remember a previous conversation in which you suggested the non-vaccinated didn’t deserve to be allowed in hospitals if they got sick?Bret: Not exactly, but close. The most elegant policy riposte to the anti-vaxxers — and I mean the willful ones, not the people who simply haven’t had access to the shot or have a compelling medical excuse — is to refuse to allow Medicare or Medicaid to pay their medical bills in the event they become seriously ill. Private health insurers might also follow suit. I accept that people don’t want the government or their employer telling them what to do with their bodies. But these same people shouldn’t expect someone else to bail them out of their terrible health decisions.I have another reservation about what Biden’s doing. Right now, the vast majority of Covid-related hospitalizations are happening among the unvaccinated, which is further proof the shots work. I understand that puts doctors and nurses under a lot of strain, though Covid hospitalizations seem to be declining and the surgeries that are being put off are mainly elective. Otherwise, I don’t see the latest Covid spike as the same kind of issue it was a year or so ago. It’s gone from being a public-health crisis to a nincompoop-health crisis.Gail: Imagining that as a new political slogan …Bret: Is “nincompoop” too strong? How about “total geniuses if they do say so themselves,” instead? Anyway, as anti-vaxxers are mostly putting themselves at serious risk of getting seriously ill, I don’t see the need for a presidential directive, including the renewed mask mandates, which only diminish the incentive to get vaccinated. No doubt I’m missing a few things …Gail: As someone who hates hates hates wearing a mask, I love the idea of getting rid of them. And there are a lot of public places now where I see signs basically saying: If you’re vaccinated, mask wearing is up to you.But in my neighborhood, where most of the people I see on the streets are long since vaccinated, a lot of folks wear masks even when they’re just walking around. It’s more convenient if you’re popping in and out of stores or mass transit, but I like to think they also want to remind the world that we’re still fighting back a pandemic, which is easier if everybody works together.Bret: There are people, particularly the immunocompromised, who have a solid medical or emotional need to take great precautions, including masks, and I totally respect them. The busybodies and virtue-signalers, not so much.Gail: On another presidential matter, I noticed your last column was somewhat, um … negative on the Biden presidency. You really think it’s been that bad?Bret: In hindsight, the headline, “Another Failed Presidency at Hand,” probably took the argument a step farther than the column itself. It’s too early to say that the Biden presidency has failed. But people who wish the president success — and that includes me — need to grasp the extent to which he’s in deep political trouble. It isn’t just the Afghan debacle, or worrisome inflation, or his predictions about the end of the pandemic when the virus had other ideas. I think he has misread his political mandate, which was to be a moderate, unifying leader in the mold of George Bush Sr., not a transformational one in the mold of Lyndon Johnson. And he’s trying to do this on the strength of Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote in the Senate. I think it’s a recipe for more social division and political failure.Gail: As reviews go, that’s certainly a downer.Bret: None of this is to commend the not-so-loyal opposition party. But they’re the ones who stand to gain most from a weak Biden presidency.Gail: Looking at it from my end, we have a president who’s got to make the country feel it’s not trapped in an unhealthy, unhappy, overall-depressed state forever. I’m buying into big change, which requires more than a gentle hand at the wheel. But back to your Biden critique. You said you voted for him last time but now he has revealed himself to be “headstrong,” “shaky” and “inept.” What if Donald Trump runs against him?Bret: One of the reasons I’m so dismayed by Biden’s performance is that it’s going to tempt Trump to run again. In which case, I’ll vote for whoever is most likely to beat Trump. Hell, I’d probably even vote for Bernie. I’d rather have a president who’s a danger to the economy and national security than one who’s a danger to democracy and national sanity.Gail: I do like imagining you walking around town with a Bernie button.Bret: Let’s not take this too far! Hopefully it will work out differently. Bill Clinton managed to straighten out his presidency after a terrible start that included the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia and the failure of Hillary Clinton’s health care plan. But that means tacking back toward the center. If I were Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff, I’d be quietly pushing Nancy Pelosi to pass a “clean” $1 trillion infrastructure bill that gives the president the big bipartisan win that he really needs now.Gail: And has all the stuff that you like.Bret: As for his $3.5 trillion social-spending behemoth, he might consider breaking up the bill into separate items of legislation to bring the headline price tag down. If this stuff is as popular as progressives claim, they should be able to score some legislative victories piece by piece.Gail: Sounds reasonable outside the reality of our modern-day Congress, in which the idea of passing more than one bill on anything seems way, way more difficult than firing a shuttle into space.Bret: In the meantime, we’ve got a recall election coming up in California, for which polling shows Governor Newsom will likely survive. I’m not Newsom’s biggest fan, but the whole idea of recall elections seems … unsound.Gail: Yeah, California makes it relatively easy to gather enough signatures for a recall vote, and this is a good example of why that’s bad. Newsom has been one of the strongest governors when it comes to pandemic-fighting, and while that’s great, the restrictions have been around for so long it’s left a lot of people feeling really cranky.Bret: I’m making my quizzical face. Go on.Gail: Then we had one of the worst political errors in recent American political history, when Newsom snuck off to a very fancy restaurant for a maskless birthday dinner for a lobbyist pal. Who wouldn’t have muttered “this guy has to go”?Bret: It was also emblematic of out-of-touch California elites who live on a totally different planet from the one in which there’s a housing crisis, a homelessness crisis, an affordability crisis, an addiction crisis, a pension crisis, a schooling crisis, a power-outage crisis, a wildfires crisis, a water-shortage crisis and maybe even another Kardashian crisis — all in a state that’s under almost complete Democratic Party control.Gail: But now recall reality is creeping in. People are looking at the conservative Republican who’d probably wind up as Newsom’s successor and realizing there are way worse things than a tone-deaf politician.Bret: California could really benefit from breaking up the Democrats’ electoral monopoly. Too bad the state Republican Party did itself so much damage with its terrible anti-immigration stance in the 1990s.Gail: Having two consistently competitive parties is good — when a party has hope of winning an election, it’s less likely to snap up a crazy person or a ridiculous person as a candidate. Which I’m afraid does get us over to Newson’s potential Republican successor, Larry Elder. Speaking of Republicans, anybody coming up now who’s winning your heart?Bret: Liz Cheney: gutsy and principled. Adam Kinzinger: ditto. Ben Sasse: decent and smart. Larry Hogan: ditto. John McCain: historic, heroic, humane — but tragically deceased. Basically, all the folks whose chances of surviving in the current G.O.P. are about as great as a small herd of gazelles in a crocodile-infested river.Gail: You’ve picked five Republicans, none of them stars on the rise and one long since passed away. Trump still has a grip on the heart of the party. Which is why I haven’t given up hope that we’ll lasso you back into voting Democratic in 2024.But way, way more topics for discussion before that. Have a good week, Bret, and let’s make a date to discuss the results of the California recall next time. If Newsom wins, we’re all going to be watching avidly to see where he holds his victory party.Bret: He should try holding it at an actual laundromat this time, not the French Laundry.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More