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      Kim Janey Becomes Boston's First Black Mayor

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      At 11, Kim Janey was bused into a neighborhood where Black students were pelted with rocks. As acting mayor, she hopes to help Boston step out of the shadow of that era.BOSTON — On a September morning in 1976, an 11-year-old Black girl climbed onto a yellow school bus, one of tens of thousands of children sent crisscrossing the city by court order and deposited in the insular neighborhoods of Boston in an effort to force them to integrate.As her bus swung uphill into the heart of the Irish-American enclave of Charlestown, she could see police officers taking protective positions around the bus. After that, the mob: white teenagers and adults, shouting and throwing rocks, telling them to go back to Africa.That girl, Kim Janey, became acting mayor of Boston on Monday, making her the first Black person to occupy the position, at a moment of uncommon opportunity for people of color in this city.With the confirmation of her predecessor, Martin J. Walsh, as U.S. labor secretary, the 91-year succession of Irish-American and Italian-American mayors appears to be ending, creating an opening for communities long shut out of the city’s power politics.It isn’t clear what role Ms. Janey, 55, will play in this moment. As the president of Boston’s City Council, she automatically takes the position for seven months before the November election, and she has not said whether she plans to run. But the five candidates already in the race are all people of color, and racial justice is certain to be a central theme of the campaign.Students arrived by school bus at South Boston High School in Boston on Sept. 8, 1976. An initiative to desegregate Boston Public Schools, put in effect in the fall of 1974, was met with strong resistance from many residents of Boston.Ed Jenner/The Boston Globe, via Getty ImagesNearly 50 years after court-ordered desegregation, Boston, the home of abolitionism, remains profoundly unequal. In 2015, the median net worth for white families in the city was nearly $250,000 compared with just $8 for Black families, according to a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.Boston’s police force remains disproportionately white. And a recent review of city contracts found that during the first term of Mr. Walsh’s administration, Black-owned firms landed roughly half of 1 percent of the $2.1 billion in prime contracts.None of this comes as a surprise to Bostonians who, like Ms. Janey, came of age in the 1970s — the “kids on the bus,” as one of them put it. Now in their 50s, they are a group without illusions about what it will take to close those gaps.Denella J. Clark, 53, president of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation, carries a scar on her left leg from a broken bottle that was thrown at her by a white woman when she was a 9-year-old being bused into a South Boston elementary school.“I still think we have those people that are throwing bottles, they’re just not doing it overtly,” she said. “When you see some of this change, it’s because people were forced to make those changes, just like in the court case” that led to busing in Boston.Michael Curry, who was 7 when he was first bused into Charlestown, described a similar conclusion: In a city with a limited pool of jobs and contracts, “the people who have taken advantage of those things are being asked to share that pie.”“Boston will not go without a fight,” he said.‘Where Are They Now?’Mr. Curry, now 52, recently realized something: More than four decades after he was bused to the Warren-Prescott elementary school, he has rarely returned to Charlestown.He is middle-aged now, a father of three and a lawyer. But he can still close his eyes and replay the path of that bus as it slid past the Museum of Science, then turned right and crossed into Charlestown, where crowds were waiting, armed with rocks or bricks.“It boggles my mind to this day,” he said. “How much hate and frustration and anger would you have to have to do that to children?”He wonders sometimes about those white parents. “Where are they now?” he said. “Do they look back and say ‘I was there that day’?”This month, Mr. Curry, a former president of Boston’s N.A.A.C.P. branch, reached out to his social media networks, asking friends for their own memories. The responses came back fast — and raw. “Absolutely no interest in recollecting memories from that era,” one said. “It was a nightmare.”One person who has struggled to put that time behind her is Rachel Twymon, 59, whose family’s story was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1985 book, “Common Ground,” which later became a television mini-series. Ms. Twymon still seethes at her mother, one of the book’s protagonists, for sending her to school in Charlestown in the name of racial justice.“For adults to think their decision was going to change the world, that was crazy,” said Ms. Twymon, an occupational therapist who lives in New Bedford, Mass. “How dare you put children in harm’s way? How dare you? I have never been able to come to grips with that.”Rachel Twymon outside her home in New Bedford, Mass. She says that she still seethes over her mother’s decision to send her to school in Charlestown in the name of racial justice.Philip Keith for The New York TimesMs. Janey’s recollections of busing are tempered, by comparison.“I had no idea what would be in store,” she said. “When I finally sat on the school bus and faced angry mobs of people, had rocks thrown at our bus, racial slurs hurled at us, I was not expecting that. And there’s nothing that can prepare you for that.”She quickly added, though, that the environment changed as soon as she stepped inside Edwards Middle School, where her closest friend was Cathy, a white girl from an Irish-American family.“The other thing that I would share, and I think this gets lost when we talk about this painful part of our history, is that inside that school building, I was a kid,” she said. “We were children. We cared about who we would play with, and who’s going to play jump rope, and who wants to play hopscotch.”Lost and GainedThe city Ms. Janey will lead as mayor is radically changed, in part because of what happened after busing: The working-class, Irish-American neighborhoods that fiercely resisted integration began to wane under pressure from white flight and gentrification.They had been poor neighborhoods. Patricia Kelly, 69, a Black teacher from New Jersey who was assigned to a Charlestown elementary school in 1974, recalled her shock at the deprivation she encountered there; once, she gingerly approached a boy’s mother about the stench of urine on his clothes and was told that they had no hot water.After busing began, Boston’s public schools lost almost a third of their white students in 18 months, as white families enrolled their children in parochial schools or boycotted schools in protest.For David Arbuckle, 58, who is white, it meant that most of his old friends were gone. He recalled walking to school through crowds of white residents who bellowed at him for violating the antibusing boycott, a daily gantlet that gave him stomachaches.A crowd of antibusing demonstrators storming up East Sixth Street in South Boston armed with rocks and clubs on Feb. 15, 1976. Ulrike Welsch/The Boston Globe, via Getty ImagesFor decades, some of those childhood friends blamed desegregation for ruining their chances in life, Mr. Arbuckle said.“They would tell you, ‘I didn’t get an education because Black people came to my school and took my seat,’” he said. The 1980s only deepened their grievances, he said; factory jobs were drying up, and court-ordered affirmative action policies, many complained, made it more difficult to be hired by the Police or Fire Departments.“It almost feels like a lost generation, to some extent,” said Mr. Arbuckle, who now works in management for the commuter rail system in Boston. Returning to Charlestown as an adult, shuttling his sons to hockey practice, he sometimes wore a suit, straight from the office, and people from the neighborhood “would turn on me because I was a yuppie.”He said it was hard to imagine members of the older generation softening their views, even as the city surrounding them became wealthier and more diverse.“I don’t know if people have to die off,” he said. “I know it sounds awful.”‘A Hundred-Year Fight’Ms. Janey — whose ancestors escaped to Canada through the Underground Railroad and began settling in Boston in the second half of the 19th century — does not dwell on busing when she tells the story of her life, except to say that it was a setback.“It was the first time that I didn’t feel safe in school,” she said. “It was the first time that I was not confident about how teachers felt about me as a little Black girl, the way I felt in elementary school.”Her parents withdrew her as soon as they could, sending her to the middle-class suburb of Reading through a voluntary busing program, starting in the eighth grade. She would go on to work as a community activist, serving at Massachusetts Advocates for Children for almost two decades before running for a seat on the Boston City Council in 2017.She described her work in education, in a talk to students last year, as an extension of the civil rights movement that swept up her parents.“The fight for quality education for Black families in this city dates to the beginning of this country,” she said. “It’s a hundred-year fight.”The fury unleashed by busing reshaped Boston in many ways, including by setting back the ambitions of Black candidates. White anger made it difficult for them to build the multiracial coalitions that were necessary to win citywide office in Boston, said Jason Sokol, a historian and author of “All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics From Boston to Brooklyn.”“You can’t overlook how powerful the legacy of the battles over school desegregation were,” he said. “The white resistance was so vicious that it didn’t seem like a political system a lot of African-Americans wanted to be part of. It was just very poisoned for a long time.”Michael Curry, former president of the Boston branch of the N.A.A.C.P., outside the Warren-Prescott elementary school. Mr. Curry said he could still close his eyes and remember the school bus crossing into Charlestown, where armed crowds were waiting with rocks and bricks.Philip Keith for The New York TimesMs. Janey, who became mayor when Mr. Walsh stepped down on Monday, will officially take the oath of office on Wednesday, acutely conscious of her place in history.The city will be watching to see if she makes a mark between now and November: The powers of an acting mayor in Boston are limited, and she may have difficulty making key appointments. Ms. Clark of the Boston Arts Academy Foundation, who serves on Ms. Janey’s transition committee, warned against expecting swift change in the city’s politics.“I worry they’re going to block her at every instance,” she said. “We all know what Frederick Douglass said: ‘Power concedes nothing.’ This is Boston. This is a big boys’ game.”Still, Thomas M. Menino, one of Ms. Janey’s predecessors, became acting mayor under similar circumstances, when the city’s mayor was appointed as a U.S. ambassador. Mr. Menino used the platform to build a powerful political base and was elected mayor four months later, becoming the city’s first Italian-American mayor. He went on to be re-elected four times, serving for more than 20 years.Ms. Janey, by all appearances, would like to follow a similar path. Her swearing-in, she said last week, is a moment full of hope, a measure of how far Boston has come.“I’m at a loss for words, because, at 11 years old, I saw firsthand some of the darkest days of our city,” she said. “And here I am.” More

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      ‘The Den of Thieves’: South Koreans Are Furious Over Housing Scandal

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      President Moon has spent years trying to curb runaway housing prices. Now several officials in his government are under investigation for contributing to the problem ahead of important elections.SEOUL — ​The 10 people bought $8.8 million worth of land in an undeveloped area southwest of Seoul, registering it for farming and planting numerous trees. It’s a common trick used by shady real estate speculators in South Korea: Once the area is taken over for housing development, the developers must pay not only for the land, but the trees, too.A national outrage erupted this month when South Koreans learned that the 10 people were officials from the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) — the government agency in charge of building new towns and housing — suspected of using privileged information to cash in on government housing development programs.The incident has thrown President Moon Jae-in’s government into crisis mode just weeks before key mayoral elections that are largely seen as a referendum on him and his party ahead of next year’s presidential race. Young South Koreans are saying they are fed up with corruption and the president’s failed policies on runaway housing prices. The LH scandal is now set to become a critical voter issue in Mr. Moon’s final year in office.“When my girlfriend and I discuss how we are going to find a house in Seoul for the family we are going to start, we can’t find an answer,” said Park Young-sik, 29, an office worker. “The LH scandal shows how some people in South Korea make a quick fortune through real-estate foul play, while the rest of us can barely buy a house even if we toil and save for a lifetime.”President after president has promised to make housing more affordable in South Korea, but real-estate prices have kept soaring, undermining public trust.Rising housing prices have long been one of the country’s most intractable policy headaches, especially in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province, where nearly half the country’s population lives, crammed into everything from gleaming apartment towers to urban slums.A protest in Seoul outside offices for the Korea Land and Housing Corporation, the government agency in charge of building new towns and housing.Yonhap/EPA, via ShutterstockReal-estate speculation has become something of a national sport, but the suspicion of insider trading among public officials made the LH story stand out. Anger spread quickly, especially among young South Koreans who have been crushed by the country’s dwindling job opportunities.“The den of thieves!” read one of the many signs young protesters plastered on the doors of an LH office in Seoul this month.Voters in South Korea’s two largest cities — Seoul and Busan — go to the polls on April 7 to choose their mayors, and many observers said the elections could reflect poorly on Mr. Moon’s performance. Survey results showed that the LH news was dragging down approval ratings for both him and his party, most sharply among South Koreans in their 20s.“I am sorry for worrying the people greatly, and for deeply disappointing those people who have lived honestly,” Mr. Moon said last week, vowing to eliminate “real estate corruption widespread in our society” as a priority of his last year in power.Apartment prices in Seoul have soared by 58 percent during Mr. Moon’s tenure, according to data from the government-run Korea Real Estate Board. Some of the units in popular residential districts in Seoul have nearly doubled in price in the same period.Rising housing costs have been blamed for creating a vicious cycle in which families believe real estate investments are foolproof, despite being warned otherwise by the authorities. Experts believe the soaring housing costs have also contributed to the country’s declining fertility rate, one of the lowest in the world, by discouraging young Koreans from starting a family.The insidious​ divide among young people in South Korea has become a popular topic in K-dramas and films, including Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite.”​ The “dirt-spoons” struggle to manage an ever-expanding income gap while the “gold-spoons,” the children of the elites, glide through a life of privilege. The problem also featured prominently in the real-life downfall of the former president, Park Geun-hye,​ and the jailing of the Samsung Electronics vice chairman, Lee Jae-yong.Police investigators removing items confiscated from a Korea Land and Housing Corporation office in Gwacheon, south of Seoul. Yonhap/EPA, via ShutterstockWhen Mr. Moon took office in 2017, he promised a “fair and just” society. His government has introduced dozens of regulatory steps to curb housing prices, including raising capital-gains taxes on house flipping and property taxes on multiple-home owners.None of these measures have worked.Last month, the Moon administration announced plans to supply more than 836,000 new housing units in the next four years, including 70,000 homes to be built in the area southwest of Seoul at the center of the LH scandal. Two civic groups were the first to report that 10 LH officials bought land there months before the highly secretive development plan was announced, accusing the officials of capitalizing on insider information for personal gain, a crime in South Korea.The government has identified 20 LH officials who are suspected of using privileged information to buy land in various areas before projects were slated to begin there. The investigation has been expanded to target government employees outside of LH, including members of Mr. Moon’s staff. As the dragnet grew larger, two LH officials were found dead this month in apparent suicides. One of them left a note confessing to an “inappropriate deed,” according to the local media.“LH officials had more access to information on public housing projects than any other, but sadly, we also learned through our investigation that they were ahead of others in real estate speculation,” said Lee Kang-hoon, a lawyer at the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, one of the two civic groups that uncovered the corruption among the LH officials.Mr. Moon’s political enemies have been quick to fan the flames among angry voters.The Changneung district in Goyang, east of Seoul, where the government plans to develop a new town to help alleviate the housing crunch. Yonhap/EPA, via Shutterstock“Stealing public data for real estate speculation is a crime that ruins the country,” the former prosecutor-general, Yoon Seok-youl, told the conservative daily Chosun Ilbo this month while criticizing the government’s handling of the situation.Mr. Yoon has become a darling among the conservative opposition, and recent surveys showed him to be one of the most popular potential candidates in next year’s presidential election. He recently clashed with Mr. Moon over the president’s effort to curtail the power of prosecutors, and resigned early this month.Lee Jae-myung, the governor of Gyeonggi Province, is another potential candidate in next year’s race. The liberal governor hopes to represent Mr. Moon’s party in the election and has promoted a “basic housing” policy in which the government would provide cheap and long-term rentals for South Koreans.He recently urged Parliament to enact a comprehensive law banning conflicts of interest among public servants. “If you want to clean the house, you must first clean the mop,” he said. “If you want to make South Korea a fair society, you must first ensure that those who make and implement policies act fairly.” More

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      Anti-Asian Attacks Place Andrew Yang in the Spotlight. How Will He Use It?

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      Mr. Yang is seeking to become New York City’s first Asian-American mayor, but critics say that some of his past comments have fed racial stereotypes.During a surge in attacks on Asian-Americans last spring, Andrew Yang — then recently off the 2020 presidential campaign trail — wrote an op-ed suggesting that “we Asian-Americans need to embrace and show our Americanness in ways we never have before.”To many Asian-Americans, the message seemed to place yet another burden on victims, and it stung.One year later, as Mr. Yang hopes to make history as New York City’s first Asian-American mayor, some New Yorkers have not forgotten that op-ed, or their sense that Mr. Yang’s remarks during the presidential campaign — describing himself as “an Asian man who likes math,” for instance — could feed stereotypical tropes.But many Asian-Americans also see in his candidacy an opportunity for representation at the highest level of city government, an increasingly meaningful metric amid violent attacks on Asian-Americans in New York and across the nation, including the fatal shootings in the Atlanta area last week that left eight people dead, six of them women of Asian descent.“I grew up Asian-American in New York, and I was always accustomed to a certain level of bullying, of racism, but it took a form of mockery, of invisibility, of disdain,” an emotional Mr. Yang said at a news conference in Times Square the next day. “That has metastasized into something far darker. You can feel it on the streets of New York.”As New York’s diverse Asian-American constituencies grapple with both overt violence — the city saw three more anti-Asian attacks on Sunday — and more subtle forms of bigotry, Mr. Yang and many of the other leading mayoral candidates are racing to show how they would lead a community in crisis. They are holding news conferences, contacting key leaders and attending rallies in solidarity with Asian-Americans who have at once demonstrated growing political power and are experiencing great pain now.But more than any other candidate, it is Mr. Yang who is in the spotlight, with the moment emerging as the most significant test yet of his ability to demonstrate leadership and empathy under pressure. He is also looking to respond in a way that will strengthen his support among Asian-Americans, a group whose backing he is counting on, while simultaneously building a broader coalition.In recent weeks, Mr. Yang has visited a branch of Xi’an Famous Foods, a popular New York restaurant chain that has been hit hard by anti-Asian harassment. Along with other contenders he joined a rally against Asian-American hate in Manhattan late last month and participated in a vigil on Friday and other outreach efforts over the weekend.“We have to start building bonds of connection with the Asian-American community to let them know that this city is theirs, this city is ours,” Mr. Yang said at a rally on Sunday. “One great way to do that is by electing the first Asian-American mayor in the history of New York City. Because you know I’ll take it seriously.”Throughout the race he has made frequent visits to heavily Asian-American neighborhoods across the city, expanding his coalition of “Yang Gang” supporters, a cohort that in his 2020 campaign included many young, white men. He has also taken multiple turns on national television to discuss attacks on Asian-Americans, including an appearance with his wife, Evelyn, on ABC’s “20/20” on Friday. Earlier this month, Mr. Yang visited Xi’an Famous Foods, a popular New York restaurant chain that has been hit by anti-Asian harassment. Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesMr. Yang was not, however, the first contender to condemn the Georgia shootings, tweeting late that night instead about a St. Patrick’s Day scarf, in a move that struck some observers as tone deaf. (He later said that he had not seen the news on Tuesday. He issued a series of tweets about Atlanta on Wednesday morning, before making public remarks.)On Thursday, Mr. Yang’s voice appeared to waver with emotion as he spoke at an event convened by the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader. Speaking in starkly personal terms, Mr. Yang discussed the importance of “seeing that Asian-Americans are human beings, Asian-Americans are just as American as anyone else.”“I’m glad that he’s leaning in,” said Representative Grace Meng, the only Asian-American member of New York’s congressional delegation. “I felt like he was getting a little emotional. And I think that the Asian-American community likes to see more of that.”Jo-Ann Yoo, the executive director of New York’s Asian American Federation, said there were signs that Mr. Yang was connecting in particular with younger Asian-American voters.“They’ve said, well, nobody has invited us, drawn us into politics, we don’t see ourselves reflected in any of these spaces,” she said. “If those are the reasons Asian-American young people are not engaging, I think Yang’s done a pretty good job of leading the conversations and drawing young people in.”But, she added, “Other non-Asian candidates should not assume that Asians only vote for Asians.”Interviews with around a dozen community leaders, elected officials and voters suggest that the candidates who are best-known to Asian-American New Yorkers include Mr. Yang, a son of Taiwanese immigrants, and two veteran city officials: Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller.“It’s really a test of whether people are going to lean into longer-term relationships with electeds like Eric and Scott, or are they going to base their decision, especially the newer voters, on more identity politics, like with Andrew Yang?” said Ms. Meng, who has not endorsed a candidate.Some also mentioned interest in candidates including Maya D. Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio; Dianne Morales, who has relationships with community leaders from her time as a nonprofit executive; and Councilman Carlos Menchaca, a low-polling contender who represents a significant Asian-American population in Brooklyn. Ms. Meng also described Kathryn Garcia, a former city sanitation commissioner, as being especially proactive in her outreach.Like every other constituency in New York, the Asian-American slice of the electorate encompasses a diversity of views on high-priority issues including education, the economy, poverty and health care. But community leaders say that the matters of security and confronting bias have plainly become among the most urgent, though there are differences of opinion around the role policing should play in combating the uptick in attacks.“Especially during these times, it’s really important to be that candidate to show that you can empathize with the Asian-American community, that you’re reaching out actively to the community and you’re thinking of ways to bring different coalitions together,” Ms. Meng said.In Queens, the borough with the largest population of people of Asian descent, Mr. Yang’s greatest competition for those voters appears to be Mr. Adams, a former police officer who has been vocal in calling for more resources to combat anti-Asian attacks, and who is widely seen as a strong mayoral contender despite trailing Mr. Yang in the little public polling that is available.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has been vocal in requesting more resources to combat anti-Asian attacks. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times“Eric seems to have engaged in the broadest level of outreach in communities across the city, in particular, in Asian-American communities,” said State Senator John C. Liu of Queens, an influential voice in New York Asian-American politics.Asked about Mr. Yang’s outreach, he replied, “I’m going to limit my comments to things I will positively say about specific candidates.”“You can use that as my response to your specific question,” he added.The parents of Wenjian Liu, a police officer who was fatally shot in a patrol car in Brooklyn in 2014, endorsed Mr. Adams on Sunday.“Eric Adams was there for us when we lost our son — and he’s always been there for the Asian community, not just when he decided to run for mayor,” Wei Tang Liu and Xiu Yan Li said in a statement provided by the Adams campaign.It’s a message that some may see as a swipe at Mr. Yang, who has lived in New York City for years — building a career in the nonprofit and start-up worlds — but has not been active in local politics until now.At the rally against Asian-American hate late last month, Jessica Zhao, 36, said she felt torn about his candidacy. She approved of his outreach to Asian-American voters as a mayoral candidate, but she remained concerned by last spring’s op-ed, in which Mr. Yang offered a wide range of recommendations — including advising that Asian-Americans should wear red, white and blue.Indeed, Ms. Zhao had outfitted her husband — a Navy veteran — with masks bearing the military logo out of a “desperate” concern for his safety. But she detested the notion that proof of patriotism might ward off hate crimes, and was deeply bothered that, in her view, Mr. Yang seemed to put the onus for safety on Asian-Americans under attack.“To put even more of a burden on us — we could do even more to supposedly pacify racists enough that they won’t attack us? — really hit a nerve,” said Ms. Zhao, who is active with the Forest Hills Asian Association in Queens. “To say that he felt ashamed to be Asian, it was like the opposite of what we needed in that moment. We were so desperately hoping he could be a galvanizing voice for us.”In an interview last week, Mr. Yang declined to say whether he regretted writing the op-ed, but said repeatedly that he was “pained” by how it was perceived.“It pained me greatly that people felt I was somehow calling our Americanness into question when really my feeling was the opposite,” said Mr. Yang, who also pledged to be more active in New York’s Asian-American communities. “Which was, we are just as American as everyone else, and then, how can we help our people in this time when there is so much need and deprivation?”Asked whether he had changed how he approached matters of race and identity since running for president, he paused.“This is a very difficult time,” Mr. Yang finally said. “Our sense of who we are in this country has changed appreciably in the last number of months.”And in the last few weeks, Ms. Zhao’s sense of Mr. Yang has changed, too, she said.“Seeing his, I guess, evolution, in being able to properly address anti-Asian sentiment in this country, that has been encouraging,” she said. “I can tell that he brings a unique perspective of what Asians are suffering through. And that’s when representation really does come through. That’s when it does matter.”Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting. More

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      5 Takeaways From the N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race

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      As Andrew Yang appears to be solidifying his role as the front-runner in the contest, his Democratic rivals have begun to focus their lines of attack on him.Since even before he officially entered the New York City mayoral contest, Andrew Yang has attracted more criticism from his rivals than any other contender in the sprawling field, a reflection of both missteps he has made and, as the race has unfolded, his standing as the leading candidate.Last week, the criticisms became even sharper, signaling the beginning of a more intense phase of the campaign.Here are the race’s latest developments:The candidates take direct aim at YangPart of Mr. Yang’s appeal to his supporters is his willingness to shed the conventions of political caution and speak frankly — a trait that sometimes gets him in trouble.The most recent example came last week, when Mr. Yang, in an interview with Politico, criticized the United Federation of Teachers, suggesting that the union was “a significant reason why our schools have been slow” to open amid the pandemic.The remarks drew pointed criticism from Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, and Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, as well as more muted criticism from other candidates, as they defended the work teachers have done under challenging circumstances. They are all also aware that the union’s coveted endorsement is still up for grabs.Mr. Stringer — who trails Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams in the little public polling available — laced into Mr. Yang in perhaps his most direct and sustained attack to date, seeking to cast his rival as an unserious candidate at a moment of significant challenges for the city — and appearing to make a barely veiled comparison to former President Donald J. Trump.“Whether it’s an illegal casino on Governors Island, housing for TikTok stars or being baffled by parents who live and work in two-bedroom apartments, kids in virtual school, we don’t need another leader who tweets first and thinks later,” he said in a Friday morning speech. He also noted that Mr. Yang had spent much of the pandemic outside the city before deciding to run for mayor.Mr. Stringer, Mr. Adams and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, have also been critical of the details around Mr. Yang’s proposal for basic income — and on Twitter, exchanges between strategists for Mr. Yang and Mr. Stringer in particular have become even more contentious.“Andrew Yang is going to keep talking to New Yorkers about his plans to get the city safely reopen and people back to work as fast as we can,” said Chris Coffey, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, about the mounting attacks. “We’ll leave the tired, 1990s negative campaigning to others.”Candidates reluctant to decriminalize all drugsThis year, Oregon became the first state in the nation to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of all drugs. If the next mayor of New York City has his or her way, the city may finally open sites to allow for the safer injection of drugs. But based on responses at a recent forum, mayoral candidates do not favor following Oregon’s lead on full-scale decriminalization.“I do have concerns about the devastation I’ve seen with highly, highly addictive and deadly drugs, where even small amounts can have life-altering consequences and even cause death,” said Shaun Donovan, a former cabinet member in the Obama administration, citing fentanyl as an example.Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, echoed Mr. Donovan’s concerns and expressed particular unease with cocaine, saying, “Back in the day, when it was super- popular in the ’80s, we had young basketball players who died of heart attacks after their first use.”Maya Wiley, the former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, avoided directly addressing the issue. Mr. Adams was forthright in his opposition, though he said he supports legalizing marijuana.“You guys know I’m ex-po-po,” said Mr. Adams, the former head of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, using an expression to describe a police officer.The candidates’ responses seemed to elicit some frustration from one of the moderators, Alyssa Aguilera, co-executive director of VOCAL-NY, which hosted the forum.“Drugs have always been illegal, and the devastation and the overdoses are continuing to happen,” she said. “Clearly 40 years of that hasn’t worked, and we’re hopeful that the next mayor will take a different approach.”The only candidates to offer more support for the idea were Mr. Yang — who favors the legalization of psilocybin mushrooms — and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive running to the far left in the Democratic primary.“We need to move towards that, in response to the war on drugs,” Ms. Morales said, referring to the decriminalization of all personal drug possession.Friends with moneyNorman Lear, the creator of the television show “All in the Family,” was among a few Hollywood-related donors to Maya Wiley’s campaign. David Dee Delgado/Getty ImagesThe latest campaign filing revealed that Ms. Wiley has many friends in Hollywood.The former MSNBC analyst received donations recently from the director Steven Spielberg; Norman Lear, the creator of the television show “All in the Family”; Alan Horn, the former head of Walt Disney Studios; and Christopher Guest, the director of beloved mockumentaries like “Best in Show.”Mr. Yang received a $2,000 donation from Jessica Seinfeld, wife of the comedian Jerry Seinfeld, and had support from two snack magnates: Siggi Hilmarsson, the founder of Siggi’s yogurt, and Daniel Lubetzky, the founder of KIND bars.Mr. Adams has the most money on hand — more than $7.5 million — but Ms. Morales has the most individual donors in New York City. Ms. Morales has received smaller donations from more than 9,000 New Yorkers, and said she expects to qualify for public matching funds — a major boost for her campaign.Several candidates in the Democratic field have pledged not to take money from the real estate industry, but Mr. Adams is not one of them. He received donations from Brett Herschenfeld and Harrison Sitomer, two leaders of SL Green, the powerful commercial real estate company. A PAC affiliated with Madison Square Garden also donated $2,000 to his campaign.In the Republican field, Sara Tirschwell, a former Wall Street executive, has raised about $320,000, while Fernando Mateo, a restaurant operator, raised nearly $200,000. They are far behind the Democratic candidates.Donovan vs. The Wall Street JournalEvery election cycle, candidates perform the campaign ritual of visiting prominent newspapers’ editorial boards to discuss their ideas. The meetings are normally closed-door affairs, but Mr. Donovan has made his interview with The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board a public part of his campaign.Mr. Donovan’s campaign distributed a news release and video of his remarks to The Journal, criticizing the editorial board for “turning a blind eye to the racist and un-American” remarks by Mr. Trump that he suggested may have contributed to the shootings in Atlanta where eight people, including six women of Asian descent, were killed.The board, Mr. Donovan said, had shown a “willful disregard” for Mr. Trump’s “racist and hateful remarks about immigrants, about Asian-Americans, calling this virus the ‘Kung Flu,’ and the contribution that has to the hate crimes we have seen, even yesterday in Atlanta.”Mr. Donovan, speaking out against violence against Asian-Americans at the headquarters of the National Action Network in Harlem last week, mentioned his visit to The Journal’s editorial board and his criticism of how the board had normalized Mr. Trump’s racist remarks.“We need to stop explaining away the hate behind these crimes, these crimes that we’re living with because of what we’ve seen in the White House and across the country these last four years, and call them what they really are, acts of terror,” Mr. Donovan said.Paul Gigot, the editorial page editor and vice president of The Wall Street Journal, strongly disagreed with Mr. Donovan’s remarks. The board had been critical of Mr. Trump around immigration and his response to a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 where Heather D. Heyer, 32, was killed after a car plowed into a crowd of counterprotesters, he said.“I can point you to any number of pieces where we took his falsehoods on, and I can point you to any number of pieces where Donald Trump, tweets and everything else, was most unhappy with our coverage,” Mr. Gigot said before moving the conversation back to the topic at hand.The story behind Yang’s omnipresent scarfMr. McGuire is a proud self-described “sneakerhead” who can sometimes be spotted in red-soled Air Jordans — the 11 Retro (Bred) edition that can retail for a few hundred dollars.Ms. Wiley often favors the color purple.But few candidates seem as attached to any item of clothing as Mr. Yang is to his scarves — a gift from his wife, Evelyn.The three identical orange and blue Paul Smith scarves, which she bought on sale for $95 each from countryattire.us (a store she found via Google), evoke the colors of both the New York Mets and New York City’s flag.“She said, ‘Hey, this is going to be your new scarf,’ and I said, ‘Fantastic,’” Mr. Yang recalled.The scarf has fast become Mr. Yang’s signature fashion accessory, along with a black mask emblazoned with “Yang for New York” in white letters across the mouth.Ms. Yang wanted Mr. Yang to have a “splash of color,” he said, one that was “going to be identifiable and preferably somewhat New York-related.” More

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      Searching for Motives in the Atlanta Shootings

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      Readers discuss the role that religion and sexual guilt may have played. Also: Who should be mayor of New York; the decline of air travel.More from our inbox:Elect the Best Person as Mayor of New YorkWho Needs Air Travel?Three women were killed on Tuesday at the Gold Spa in Atlanta.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Racism and Sexism Shadow Many Interactions for Asian-American Women” (news article, March 19):Two-thirds of the way into this piece, The Times finally offers the beginning of wisdom on the Atlanta shootings: “Very little is known about the motives of the Atlanta gunman.”Yet the story has already been pervasively framed primarily as a case of anti-Asian violence and of violence against women. Many observations about the disturbing rise of anti-Asian violence over the past year have been adduced, as if these findings explained the Atlanta shooter’s actions. But they cannot be so used.Anti-Asian animus and misogyny may well have played a role in the gunman’s twisted thinking. But there are good reasons to think that his reported distress about his sexual proclivities and his church’s moral teachings will prove to be an important part of the story as well.Unfortunately, the race and gender framing of the story is now so reflexive and ingrained that it may never be possible for the country to understand the tragedy in Atlanta.John TorpeyMontclair, N.J.The writer is a professor of sociology and history at the CUNY Graduate Center.To the Editor:Re “Sex and Guilt Defined Life of a Suspect” (front page, March 19):Sorting out the factors that contributed to the murders at Atlanta massage parlors, we must not ignore the role likely played by Robert Aaron Long’s religious background. By inculcating in him an extreme opinion that premarital sex is a sin, his religious upbringing made him feel that the normal sexual strivings of any young male make that person a sinner. This caused unbearable guilt when he succumbed to his sexual urges.There needs to be a more enlightened attitude toward premarital sex among those religious extremists. Sexual relations between two consenting adults should not be regarded as a sin or as a crime. Until this becomes universally accepted, expect to see more conflicted young men like Mr. Long act out their sexual conflicts via violence.Harvey M. BermanWhite Plains, N.Y.The writer is a psychiatrist.To the Editor:Re “Asian-Americans Ask: Why Not Call It Hate?” (front page, March 19):Quick question: How many people demanding increased investigation and prosecution of anti-Asian hate crimes supported last year’s protests to “defund the police”?They can’t have it both ways. If you want more enforcement of hate-crime laws, you’ll need more money. It doesn’t grow on trees.Jonathan ZimmermanPhiladelphiaThe writer teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania.Elect the Best Person as Mayor of New YorkKathryn Garcia, center, the former sanitation commissioner, was one of the first mayoral candidates to urge Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign.Mike Segar/ReutersTo the Editor:Re “Women Running for Mayor Say Cuomo Shows Need for Change” (front page, March 18):The best person — be it he, she or they — should be elected mayor of this city, which desperately needs to be brought back from its current state.Frankly, it is insulting to women to promote the idea that one should vote for a woman just because she is a woman. In my view, this city needs someone who comes in with a record of excellent administrative experience, actually getting things done.If the best person for mayor happens to be a man, then that man should be elected and, moreover, should also be held to an “inclusive style of leadership” and “not rely on bullying.” You can have both.Ellyn S. RothNew YorkWho Needs Air Travel?Many airlines, including United, American, Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic, began running flights only to haul cargo after the pandemic began and commercial passenger travel plummeted.Sebastian Hidalgo for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Do You Really Need to Fly?,” by Farhad Manjoo (column, March 15):Back in the ’90s I flew to Chicago from New York for a one-day meeting at the O’Hare Hilton. I got off the plane, and walked through the terminal and into the hotel. After the meeting I left the hotel, walked through the terminal and boarded my return flight.My friends asked me how Chicago was. I told them that I had no idea, as I had never even been outside.Charlie PerrinLeesburg, Fla.To the Editor:Farhad Manjoo’s points against “gratuitous business travel” apply to academic travel as well.The Zoom conferences I attended this past year promoted a focus on ideas, bypassing not only tedious air travel but also the tedious pseudo-socializing that often infests in-person academic conferences.After a session of philosophical discussion, I was delighted to socialize with my cat rather than with someone bent on professional advancement.Felicia Nimue AckermanProvidence, R.I.The writer is a professor of philosophy at Brown University. More

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      The Unlikely Issue Upending France: Meatless School Lunches

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      The Green party mayor of Lyon, a gastronomic capital, introduced no-meat menus in schools. Let the anguish begin.LYON — Grégory Doucet, the mild-mannered Green party mayor of Lyon, hardly seems a revolutionary. But he has upended France by announcing last month that elementary school lunch menus for 29,000 Lyonnais children would no longer include meat.An outrage! An ecological diktat that could signal the end of French gastronomy, even French culture! Ministers in President Emmanuel Macron’s government clashed. If Lyon, the city of beef snouts and pigs’ ears, of saucisson and kidneys, could do such a thing, the apocalypse was surely imminent.“The reaction has been quite astonishing,” Mr. Doucet, 47, said.He is a slight man whose mischievous mien and goatee gives him the air of one of Dumas’s three musketeers. A political neophyte elected last year, he clearly finds it a little ludicrous that he, an apostle of less, should end up with more, sitting beneath a 25-foot ceiling in a cavernous mayor’s office adorned with brocade and busts of his forbears. That tweaking a local school menu has split the nation leaves him incredulous.“My decision was purely pragmatic,” he insisted, eyes twinkling — a means to speed up lunches in socially distanced times by offering a single menu rather than the traditional choice of two dishes.“My decision was purely pragmatic,” said the mayor of Lyon, Grégory Doucet.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesNot so, thundered Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister. He tweeted that dropping meat was an “unacceptable insult to French farmers and butchers” that betrays “an elitist and moralist” attitude. Julien Denormandie, the agriculture minister, called the mayor’s embrace of the meatless lunch “shameful from a social point of view” and “aberrational from a nutritional point of view.”All of which prompted Barbara Pompili, the minister of ecological transition, to speak of the “prehistoric” views, full of “hackneyed clichés,” of these men, in effect calling two of her cabinet colleagues Neanderthals.This heated exchange over little illustrated several things. Mr. Macron’s government and party, La République en Marche, remain an uneasy marriage of right and left. The rising popularity of the Greens, who run not only Lyon but also Bordeaux and Grenoble, has sharpened a cultural clash between urban environmental crusaders and the defenders of French tradition in the countryside.Not least, nothing gets the French quite as dyspeptic as disagreement over food.The mayor, it must be said, made his move in a city with an intense gastronomic tradition. At the Boucherie François on the banks of the Rhône, a centennial establishment, Lyon’s culture of meat is on ample display. The veal liver and kidneys glistened; cuts of roast beef wrapped in pork fat abounded; the heads of yellow and white chickens lolled on a counter; the saucissons, some with pistachio, took every cylindrical form; the pastry-wrapped pâté showed off a core of foie gras; and pigs’ trotters and ears betrayed this city’s carnivorous inclinations.“The mayor made a mistake,” said François Teixeira, a butcher who has worked at François for 19 years. “This is not good for Lyon’s image.”François Teixeira at his butcher shop in Lyon. “The mayor made a mistake,” he said.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesCertainly, the mayor’s decision came at a sensitive moment. The right in France has expressed indignation that the country is being force-marched, through politically correct environmental dogmatism, toward a future of bicycles, electric cars, veganism, locavores, negative planet-saving growth and general joylessness — something at a very far cry from stuffing goose livers for personal delectation.Last year, Pierre Hurmic, the Green party mayor of Bordeaux, touched a nerve when he rejected the city’s traditional Christmas tree because it’s “a dead tree.” Mr. Doucet’s culinary move was part of “an ideological agenda,” the right-wing weekly Valeurs Actuelles proclaimed in a cover story. “The canteens of Lyon were just a pretext.”Mr. Doucet, who describes himself as a “flexitarian,” or someone who favors vegetables but also eats a little meat, argues that the Education Ministry forced his hand. By doubling social distancing at schools to two meters, or more than six feet, it obliged the mayor to accelerate lunch by offering just one dish.“There’s a mathematical equation,” he said. “You have the same number of tables, but you have to put fewer children at them, and you can’t start the lunch break at 10 a.m.”But why nix meat? The mayor, who has a 7-year-old in elementary school, rolled his eyes. “We have not gone to a vegetarian menu! Every day, the children can eat fish or eggs.” Because a significant number of students already did not eat meat, he said, “we just took the lowest common denominator.”It was not, Mr. Doucet said, an ideological decision, even if he aims over his six-year term to adjust school menus toward “a greater share of vegetable proteins.”The mayor continued: “Most of the time these days there’s not much choice. You don’t have the choice to go to a museum, or to the theater, or to the cinema. It’s indecent for the right-wing opposition to say that I am trampling on our liberties in the context of a state of emergency.”A portrait of Paul Bocuse, one of France’s most celebrated chefs, in Lyon.Andrea Mantovani for The New York TimesMr. Macron has adopted a balancing act between his embrace of a Green future and, as he put it last year, his rejection of “the Amish model” for France. The president tries to differentiate rational from punitive or extreme environmentalism.The president, casting his net wide as usual ahead of regional elections in June, wants to appeal to conservative farmers while attracting some of the Green vote. During a recent visit to a farm, he attacked attempts to forge a new agriculture based on “invective, bans and demagoguery.” In an apparent allusion to the Lyon fiasco, he has said “good sense” should prevail in balanced children’s diets and noted that, “We lose a lot of time in idiotic divisions.”His government has proposed a Constitutional amendment, the first since 2008, that, if approved in a referendum, would add a sentence to the effect that France “guarantees the preservation of the environment and biological diversity and fights against climate change.”The right has expressed opposition to the change. It still has to be reviewed by the right-leaning Senate. Another bill sets out possible reforms for a greener future that include banning advertisements for fossil fuels and eliminating some short-haul domestic flights.Mr. Doucet is unimpressed. “Macron is not an ecologist. He is a modern conservative. He knows there’s a problem, so he is ready to make some changes, but he does not measure the size of the problem. Can you tell me one strong step he has taken?”For now, the meatless Lyon school lunches are still being served. Children seem just fine. Last week, a Lyon administrative court rejected an attempt by some parents, agricultural unions and local conservative politicians to overturn the mayor’s decision, ruling that the “temporary simplification” of school menus did not pose a health risk to children.Mr. Doucet says that when the health crisis eases, but not before, he will be able to offer a choice of school menus again, including meat. Meanwhile, Mr. Denormandie, the agriculture minister, has asked the prefect in the Lyon area to look into the legality of dropping meat.Eggs and fish are still being served in school canteens in Lyon.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times“Mr. Denormandie’s accusation that we are antisocial is a lie,” Mr. Doucet told me. “He said we were denying meat to the poorest people with the most precarious existences, which is false. He should have been fired at once.”Boris Charetiers, a member of a parents’ association, said the mayor was being closely watched. “We are vigilant,” he said. “We don’t want this to be a definitive decision. Our children cannot be hostages to ecological political conviction.”As for Mr. Teixeira, the butcher, he cast his eye appreciatively over the vast selection of meat. “We have canine teeth for a reason,” he said.Gaëlle Fournier contributed reporting from Paris. More

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      Will Cuomo’s Scandals Pave the Way for New York’s First Female Mayor?

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      The women running for mayor have sharply criticized Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo as sexual harassment allegations pile up against him, and they say they offer a different style of leadership.In the race to become mayor of New York, there is a glass ceiling, unbroken but not unmentioned by the several women running for the position this year: The city has had 109 mayors, not one of them a woman.So at gatherings like a recent fund-raiser for Kathryn Garcia, a Democratic hopeful, that barrier has been top of mind.The online fund-raiser, which was attended by dozens of women, many of them veterans of city government, was held last week on International Women’s Day. But Ms. Garcia’s mission was particularly relevant for another reason, too: Earlier that day, two high-powered lawyers were named to lead an independent investigation of sexual harassment accusations made against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.It was a moment that Ms. Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, leaned into.“New York’s governor is reminding us it is time to see more women in positions of power,” Ms. Garcia told the group. “In 2021, there is no right man for the job of mayor.”The women running for mayor have all touched upon the historic nature of their political campaigns, highlighting it in fund-raising pitches and on social media.And more recently, they have underscored the need to end the male-dominated political culture that gave rise to the sexual harassment scandal surrounding Mr. Cuomo.Many of the governor’s strongest critics have been women. Two Democrats, Ms. Garcia and Maya Wiley, were among the first mayoral hopefuls to urge Mr. Cuomo to resign. A third, Dianne Morales, has called for his impeachment.With only three months left until the June 22 Democratic primary for mayor, the political world is abuzz over Mr. Cuomo’s scandals. Two of the race’s more prominent male candidates, Andrew Yang and Eric Adams, have taken a more cautious approach to addressing Mr. Cuomo’s political straits, only recently saying that he should step aside until the investigations are complete.The governor’s problems have given the female candidates more ammunition to make their case that it is time for a woman to lead New York City.They have rebuked Mr. Cuomo and shared their stories of sexual harassment and sexism in politics. And they have argued that they would offer a more inclusive style of leadership than Mr. Cuomo, one that empowers staffers and does not rely on bullying.Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and the former head of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, who is the strongest female candidate in the polls and fund-raising, has called on the men in the race to join her in urging Mr. Cuomo to resign.“It is clear that this is a man who behaves this way,” Ms. Wiley said. “This isn’t a single mistake. This isn’t a misinterpretation. This is a set of behaviors, and this is who he is.”Maya Wiley, center, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, has also called on Mr. Cuomo to step down. Mary Altaffer/Associated PressPolitical experts have many theories about why New York is such a difficult environment for women running for office, from overt sexism to machine politics and the challenges of raising large amounts of money.Ruth W. Messinger, a former Manhattan borough president, said she experienced all three hurdles in 1997, when she ran as the Democratic nominee against the Republican incumbent, Rudolph W. Giuliani.Voters said she was unattractive, unions were “bastions of male domination,” and men were reluctant to donate to her, she said in an interview. During a focus group, Ms. Messinger recalled, a man commented, “I would never date her.”She would meet with major donors and thought it went well, and then husbands told their wives to write a check.“The women wrote smaller checks,” Ms. Messinger said.In the 2013 mayoral race, Christine Quinn, the former New York City Council speaker, had been a front-runner, but she lost to Mr. de Blasio in the Democratic primary after some voters said they found her unlikable — a word deeply influenced by gender bias and often a sexist trope, researchers on women and politics say. Ms. Quinn was also closely linked to the incumbent, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose popularity had fallen after three terms.Ms. Quinn said she wished she had been more authentic and embraced her brusque reputation.“That’s probably exactly what you want in the mayor of New York — a bitch with a big heart, and I’m both,” she said.Major cities like Chicago and Houston saw voters elect their first female mayors in the 1970s and ’80s. Women now run 27 of the nation’s 100 largest cities, including Lori Lightfoot in Chicago and Keisha Lance Bottoms in Atlanta.New York also has never had a female governor, with the state decades behind more conservative states like Texas and Alabama in electing a woman. But if Mr. Cuomo were to resign or be removed from office, a woman — Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul — would succeed him.“The larger point here is that Cuomo’s behavior unfortunately isn’t isolated — it’s a symptom of a culture that can be toxic for women, not just in Albany but at City Hall,” said Marti Speranza Wong, executive director of Amplify Her, a group that works to elect women. “We can’t really expect an environment that is supportive of women if we don’t have women in positions of power.”Female candidates in New York and beyond have been encouraged by the success of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose upset primary victory in 2018 over the Democratic incumbent, Joseph Crowley, demonstrated how women can go around party officials to reach voters directly.“Machine politics is a machine that was built by and for men,” Ms. Morales said. “In New York City, I’m not sure we’re as progressive as we like to think we are.”Of the leading female candidates this year, two are women of color: Ms. Wiley, who is Black, and Ms. Morales, a former nonprofit executive, who is Afro-Latina.The women in the Democratic primary are focusing on different issues: Ms. Morales is running to the left of the field and wants to cut $3 billion from the police budget; Ms. Wiley has emphasized her civil rights background and a plan to create 100,000 jobs; Ms. Garcia has highlighted her experience in government and wants to improve basic services and quality of life in the city. (Another female candidate, Loree Sutton, a retired Army brigadier general, dropped out of the Democratic race last week.)As the candidates continue to make appearances in an endless series of online forums, the women seem to be forming a bond. At one forum where candidates were asked to pick a second choice for mayor, Ms. Wiley and Ms. Morales named each other.Ms. Morales said she felt strongly that it was time for a woman of color to be elected.“There’s a level of solidarity that we all feel toward each other, and a recognition of the barriers and obstacles that we’re overcoming on a daily basis just to be in this space,” she said.Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, said she felt strongly that it was time for a woman of color to be elected.Laylah Amatullah Barrayn for The New York TimesThe women’s response to the allegations against the governor illustrate that common ground.Ms. Wiley, a former MSNBC analyst with a loyal following on social media, took to Instagram last month and called Mr. Cuomo’s behavior disgusting. She shared in a video that a boss had once asked her if she believed in monogamy.In an interview, Ms. Wiley provided further details: She was a young lawyer alone in his office where he told her that he was open to multiple partners.“I looked this man dead in the eye and said, ‘Yeah, I believe in monogamy,’” she said. “I said it with a particular attitude — let me say that — and my attitude was, ‘Really, dude? Did you just ask me that question?’”“This is why when you hear Charlotte Bennett’s story, you know exactly what they’re asking you,” she said in reference to a female staffer who accused Mr. Cuomo of trying to groom her for a sexual relationship. “You’re being asked if you’re willing.”Many of the comments on Ms. Wiley’s Instagram video were supportive. Others said she was jumping the gun and told her to “be quiet” and “shut up.”Ms. Morales said that news reports about Mr. Cuomo’s treatment of women reminded her of a job she had while she was in her 20s.“I’ve experienced a male boss closing the door in a small office and backing me into a corner and screaming at me at the top of his lungs and then storming out, and people surrounding me to see if I was OK,” she said.Sara Tirschwell, a former Wall Street executive who is running in the Republican mayoral primary, once filed a sexual harassment complaint against her boss, and has also called on Mr. Cuomo to resign. She quotes Maya Angelou on her campaign website: “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it, possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”While women have made strides in state legislatures and Congress, some voters still cannot picture a woman as president, governor or mayor, said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.“When you’re the place where the buck stops, there needs to be a sense of strength and authority,” Ms. Walsh said. “That has been one of the challenges that women have faced — the stereotype that women aren’t strong or tough enough.”That stereotype particularly rankles Ms. Garcia, who served as Mr. de Blasio’s go-to crisis manager, taking on the top job at the New York City Housing Authority and running the city’s pandemic meal program.She said that people constantly underestimate her as she runs for mayor, and some have suggested she would make a great deputy mayor.“It’s frustrating that you’re considered the most qualified for the job and are pigeonholed that you should be a less-qualified guy’s No. 2,” she said. More

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      A Woman Leading N.Y.C.? This Could Be the Year.

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      [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Thursday. Weather: Heavy rain in the afternoon, with a high near 50. It’ll get gusty in the evening, and watch out for snow overnight. Alternate-side parking: In effect until March 28 (Passover).Maya Wiley.Eduardo Munoz/ReutersNew York City has had 109 mayors. So far, not one has been a woman.That glass ceiling may finally shatter in this year’s election. There are three strong female candidates for the Democratic nomination, and all have suggested that the testosterone-fueled political culture that is the backdrop for the sexual harassment scandal surrounding Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo makes a strong case for electing the city’s first female mayor.“New York’s governor is reminding us it is time to see more women in positions of power,” Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, said at a recent fund-raiser for her mayoral campaign. “In 2021, there is no right man for the job of mayor.”[The women running for mayor have sharply criticized the governor.]Here’s what you need to know:The candidatesTwo other women are running in the Democratic primary for mayor in addition to Ms. Garcia. (Another, Sara Tirschwell, is running in the Republican primary.)The two Democrats are Maya Wiley, former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and former chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board; and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive.Ms. Wiley, the strongest female candidate in the polls and fund-raising, has emphasized a plan to create 100,000 jobs. Ms. Morales wants to cut $3 billion from the police budget. Ms. Garcia is focusing on improving basic services and quality of life in the city.All three have shared their stories of sexual harassment and sexism, and argued that they would offer a more inclusive style of leadership. People who have worked in Mr. Cuomo’s office have described it as toxic, especially for young women.All three candidates have taken a hard line against the governor: Ms. Morales called for his impeachment, while Ms. Garcia and Ms. Wiley called on him to resign.The historyOvert sexism, machine politics and the challenges of raising large amounts of money are just some of the barriers that prevent women from running for office in New York, political experts said.Those issues and others bedeviled the candidacies of two women who ran unsuccessfully for mayor relatively recently, Ruth W. Messinger and Christine Quinn.“Machine politics is a machine that was built by and for men,” Ms. Morales told my colleague Emma G. Fitzsimmons, the City Hall bureau chief.If Mr. Cuomo leaves office, New York State will break another glass ceiling: Kathy Hochul, his lieutenant governor, would become the first woman to lead the state.From The TimesAsian-Americans Are Being Attacked. Why Are Hate Crime Charges So Rare?A Father’s Gift to a Mayoral Candidate: A $1 Million Super PACNew York Renters in Covid Hot Spots Are Four Times More Likely to Face EvictionModernist Horse Sculptures Removed by City Housing AgencySt. Patrick’s Day in New York, a Year LaterWant more news? Check out our full coverage.The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.What we’re readingGov. Andrew M. Cuomo said yesterday that indoor fitness classes will be able to reopen at 33 percent capacity next Monday. [New York Post]The mayoral candidate Andrew Yang called for the New York Police Department’s Asian Hate Crime Task Force to be fully funded after Atlanta-area shootings killed six women of Asian descent. [Politico New York]A man from Dutchess County was fined $5,000 after pleading guilty to illegally raising sharks in his basement to sell over the internet. [Fox 5 NY]And finally: After a summer off, Shakespeare could return to Central Park Last year, for the first summer since 1962, no players graced the stage at Central Park’s Delacorte Theater.But on Tuesday my colleague Michael Paulson reported that the Public Theater announced that it hoped to resume Shakespeare in the Park, the free performances of the bard’s works that have become a beloved city tradition.This year, the theater is planning just one Shakespeare in the Park production, “Merry Wives,” a 12-actor, intermission-free version of “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” It would have an eight-week run starting in July instead of the usual two-play season beginning in May..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1pd7fgo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1pd7fgo{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1pd7fgo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1pd7fgo{border:none;padding:20px 0 0;border-top:1px solid #121212;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1pd7fgo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-coqf44{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-coqf44 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-coqf44 em{font-style:italic;}.css-coqf44 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-coqf44 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#333;text-decoration-color:#333;}.css-coqf44 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}According to the plans, the show, which is being adapted by Jocelyn Bioh and will be directed by Saheem Ali, will be set in Harlem and imagine Falstaff as an African-American seeking to romance two married immigrants from West Africa.“We’re really centering BIPOC stories, but we’re also bringing Black joy to the front,” Mr. Ali told me in an interview, using the acronym for Black, Indigenous and people of color.Things will be different this summer because of the pandemic, but exactly how remains to be seen. Audiences will be smaller — Mr. Ali said that under current state rules, about 450 spectators would be allowed to attend each performance at the outdoor Delacorte, instead of the usual 1,800 or so.The actors face different challenges, Mr. Ali said, and the Public will have to follow Actors’ Equity Association safety guidelines in order to stage the show.Does that mean the actors will need to be vaccinated? Kept in an N.B.A.-style bubble? Forced to soliloquize through masks?Mr. Ali said that it was too soon to say for sure, but that he thought incorporating the safety regulations into the play could make the show feel more immediate.“I’m looking at those restrictions, and looking at them as opportunities instead of obstacles,” Mr. Ali said.It’s Thursday — take the stage.Metropolitan Diary: First day out Dear Diary:Nothing could prepare a timid young woman from a small Southern town for a move to Manhattan, but I knew two things: that I would be a full-time student at New York University and that I had to find a job to pay my portion of the rent.On my first day of job-hunting, I put on my ivory-colored linen suit and took the subway from West 86th Street to Times Square.About halfway there, the woman who was sitting next to me told me in a thick accent that I had a spot on the back of my skirt.“You must’ve sat in something,” she said. “It looks horrible.”Stellar first day out, I thought.When I got off the train, I was thinking desperately about what to do when I heard the woman yelling.“Maybe just turn it around,” she shouted.My first stop was a dry cleaner. Sure, the man there said, expressionless, when I asked if he could help: Leave the skirt and pick it up tomorrow.No, thank you, I stammered before hurrying out the door.Deciding to take my subway mate’s advice, I turned the skirt around so that the spot was squarely over the middle of my lap. What choice did I have? I had 20 minutes to spare and four blocks to go to get to my interview.I managed to obscure the spot with my large bag for the rest of the day. In the end, it was a conversation starter, and I left my interview with a job offer and a little insight that would come in handy for my many adventures in the city.— Victoria JamesNew York Today is published weekdays around 6 a.m. Sign up here to get it by email. You can also find it at nytoday.com.What would you like to see more (or less) of? Email us: nytoday@nytimes.com. More