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    Blade Now Offers a $275 Bus Ticket to The Hamptons

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    Blade, after a decade of flying passengers to eastern Long Island on helicopters, is getting into the luxury coach business.Blade, the helicopter charter company, was founded 10 years ago as a way for commuters going between New York and the Hamptons to avoid vehicle traffic.This May it is introducing a new service, the Hamptons Streamliner, that, starting at $195 a ticket, will take passengers to destinations on eastern Long Island aboard … a bus.Like Blade’s helicopters, seats on which start at $1,025, its buses are marketed as a luxurious option for Hamptons-goers. Seats can recline up to 45 degrees and passengers will be offered free refreshments like espresso martinis, PopUp Bagels and Sweetgreen salads as they make their way from Manhattan to stops in Southampton, Bridgehampton and East Hampton via the Long Island Expressway.Other amenities include a call button at each seat to get the attention of an attendant who can bring riders a snack, a drink, a hot towel or a cashmere blanket. Those who spring for one of seven premium seats, which cost $275, can also ride with a pet (for an additional fee).Each of the 19 seats on a Streamliner bus has a call button passengers can use to get the attention of an onboard attendant. Blade Air Mobility, Inc.The 19-passenger coaches, of course, will be subject to the same gridlock and hourslong traffic delays any vehicle can encounter on the expressway — making the onboard perks a main draw, said Roisin Branch, Blade’s chief marketing officer. “This level of service is commensurate to what you would see in private aviation,” she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hungry for Cash, Zeldin Turns to Trump in N.Y. Governor’s Race

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      Republicans running statewide in a Democrat-dominated state like New York often follow a predictable path toward the political center. On Sunday, though, Representative Lee Zeldin will take a different route — south to the Jersey Shore for a fund-raiser starring former President Donald J. Trump.The high-profile rendezvous, at the palatial seaside retreat of old Trump real estate friends, has already prompted days of Democratic attacks against Mr. Zeldin, the Republican nominee for governor.But Mr. Zeldin is after something more important to his campaign than political optics: With tickets going for up to $100,000 a couple (including a photo and “V.I.P. Reception” with the 45th president), the event promises to deliver $1 million or more in badly needed campaign funds, which would be his largest haul to date.Republicans have lauded Mr. Zeldin, a 42-year-old Army reservist and conservative Long Island congressman, as their best chance to win the governor’s mansion in two decades. He faces a relatively untested Democratic opponent, Gov. Kathy Hochul, in a year when his party’s relentless focus on inflation and public safety may resonate with voters.Yet with just nine weeks to go until Election Day, Mr. Zeldin is at risk of being dangerously outspent by Ms. Hochul, a critical impediment to meaningfully compete in the nation’s most expensive media market.As summer wanes, that possibility has sent Mr. Zeldin on a furious fund-raising swing from the Hamptons to Lake Erie (one event featured a jet suit demonstration) hunting for cash.And at a time when some party strategists are calling on him to moderate his stances on issues like guns or abortion, it has driven the congressman to tighten his links to right-wing heroes like Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who have the notoriety to bring out big new donors, but nonetheless could turn off New York swing voters.“My view is there’s a path, but that path is expensive,” said Gerard Kassar, the chairman of the Conservative Party in New York.Not even Mr. Zeldin’s closest allies argue he will be able to match Ms. Hochul’s campaign juggernaut, which is on track to leverage her powers as governor to raise between $50 million and $70 million in the race and to begin blanketing the airwaves starting next week with an initial $2 million TV and digital ad buy targeting Mr. Zeldin.But to compete, they say he needs to raise at least another $10 million to $20 million, multiples more than recent Republican candidates for governor, after a costly primary burned up almost all his funds, and left him with just over $1.5 million in the bank by mid-July.Doing so is no easy task, particularly when it comes to convincing the kind of shrewd, deep-pocketed Republican donors — who are also weighing involvement in tighter Senate, House and governor’s races across the country — that a conservative candidate can buck history and overcome New York’s strong Democratic tilt.“These people are investors. They don’t get themselves into a position to donate by throwing money away,” said Chapin Fay, a Republican strategist who worked on Mr. Zeldin’s first successful House race in 2014. “The work Lee has to do is to prove that there is a path.”Despite Republican optimism, an August Siena College poll showed Ms. Hochul with a 14-point lead. And a recent special congressional election in the Hudson Valley, won by a Democrat, Pat Ryan, suggested that what once looked like a historically good year for Republican candidates may be less assured.It is unclear how much help Mr. Zeldin may get from Republicans outside New York. The Republican Governors Association, the clearinghouse for chief executive races across the country, is capable of spending millions in races it believes it can win and appears poised as of now to take a pass financially on Mr. Zeldin’s cause.Two new super PACs will soon raise money aimed at helping Mr. Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor in New York.Andrew Seng for The New York TimesDuring one recent briefing, officials for the group outlined 18 states they were focused on and prepared to spend tens of millions of dollars in this fall, including Arizona, Georgia, Ohio, Oregon, Connecticut, Minnesota, Texas and Wisconsin, according to a person familiar with the presentation. They made no mention of New York, or Mr. Zeldin.Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the governors’ group, called Mr. Zeldin a “strong candidate” and said it would be monitoring the New York race. Confident in Ms. Hochul’s standing, the Democratic Governors Association does not plan to invest, either.Mr. Fay is doing his part to help fill the gap. He plans to roll out a new super PAC next week dedicated to deepening Republican inroads in Asian, Latino, Eastern European and Jewish communities in New York City where Mr. Zeldin needs to narrow Democratic margins. He aims to raise $1 million, and has already secured at least one six-figure check to fund multilingual messaging.Two more party stalwarts, Edward F. Cox and John J. Faso, are raising funds for another, larger super PAC to back Mr. Zeldin and weaken Ms. Hochul on the airwaves. It remains unclear how much they can assemble, but the two men have deep ties to some of the party’s wealthiest donors from Mr. Cox’s years as the state party chairman. They also found success this spring financing a successful lawsuit that ultimately thwarted Democrats’ attempt to gerrymander New York’s congressional districts.Mr. Zeldin’s campaign declined to say how much he has raised in recent weeks. A spokeswoman, Katie Vincentz, asserted that Mr. Zeldin had already raised more than previous Republican challengers, and was confident that he would “have all of the resources he needs to fire Kathy Hochul on Nov. 8 and save our state.”She also accused Ms. Hochul of trying “to sell access to Albany” to potential campaign supporters, a perennial charge against New York governors.Coming off an overwhelming primary victory in June, Ms. Hochul has spent the summer months jetting between California, the Hamptons and the Hudson Valley, using $10,000 cocktail party invitations to rebuild her own stockpile, which stood at almost $12 million in mid-July.Though she only took office a year ago, Ms. Hochul has proved to be one of the state’s most aggressive fund-raisers in recent memory, pushing the boundaries of ethics rules and her own executive orders to collect large checks from business leaders, lobbyists and others with interests before the state. By mid-July, she had collected about 112 checks for $50,000 each, compared to close to 40 donations of a similar size collected by Mr. Zeldin, according to campaign finance records.Ms. Hochul will also have some outside help. The carpenters union has pledged to spend $1 million for New York Democrats, according to The Albany Times Union. And allies of Mayor Eric Adams, including the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council and Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, are also raising funds for a small Hochul-oriented super PAC. The group currently plans to spend six figures, but could scale up if the race tightens.The PAC plans “to elevate Governor Hochul’s strong record on standing up for working people and unions, protecting reproductive freedom, keeping us safe by tackling gun violence, and delivering record funding for our health care and public schools,” said Candis Tall, the political director for 32BJ who sits on the its board.Mr. Zeldin, meanwhile, has put together his own impressive run of high-dollar events.He raised six figures last week at a carnivalesque event on Long Island. Hosted by the insurance magnates Steve and Carolyn Louro, the beachy “dinner party” in Nissequogue advertised fireworks, appearances by retired New York Giants and Yankees, speeches by Donald Trump Jr. and Kimberly Guilfoyle, and a test flight by the British inventor of a jet suit.Mr. Zeldin’s campaign netted close to $1 million last Sunday at an event at the waterfront Oyster Bay estate of Matthew Bruderman, a wealthy financier. Donors shelled out $25,000 a plate for a “V.I.P. dinner” with Mr. Zeldin and Mr. DeSantis, who ultimately did not attend, and heard from Dan Bongino, the right-wing media personality.This coming Sunday’s event in Deal, N.J., will be hosted by the Chera family, a prominent group of Syrian Jewish real estate developers whose firm owned the St. Regis New York Hotel and the Cartier Mansion. The patriarch, Stanley Chera, was a friend and political supporter of Mr. Trump who died in April 2020 of complications from Covid-19. Tickets run between $1,000 and $100,000 a couple, with varying levels of access to the former president.Democrats have already used the event to renew familiar attacks against Mr. Zeldin as a far-right puppet of the former president whose views — including a House vote to overturn 2020 election results — are too extreme for the state.“Zeldin will do and say whatever it takes to appeal to the far right, even if it means raising money alongside the disgraced former president,” said Jerrel Harvey, a spokesman for Ms. Hochul’s campaign. “His blind loyalty to Trump is too dangerous for New York.”Mr. Zeldin’s allies said they were not overly concerned, particularly since Democrats would attack his ties to Mr. Trump regardless of whether they appeared together at a fund-raiser.“I got this advice a while ago from a Beltway fund-raiser,” said Mr. Fay, the Republican strategist. “If you are already getting crucified for the person or the issue, then take the money.” More

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      Where Are All the Manhattan Voters in August? Try the Hamptons.

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      A late August congressional primary in New York has candidates scrambling to find far-flung voters who tend to summer in places like the Hamptons.AMAGANSETT, N.Y. — In the lush town green here one recent morning, waiting to get her nails done, sat just the kind of Manhattan Democrat whose coveted vote could tip the balance in Tuesday’s blockbuster primary involving two lions of Congress, Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney.Only the woman in question, Judith Segall, said she was in absolutely no rush to leave this exclusive bastion of sand dunes, $10 heirloom tomatoes and seasonal city transplants, and return to her Upper East Side home.“I’m not coming in to vote. That’s the problem: Nobody here is going to come in just to vote,” said Ms. Segall, a retired accountant with a city accent who spends her summers out here, and likes Mr. Nadler. “It’s insane. What’s this voting in August?”New York City may be a center of the political universe this summer, as Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney, two powerful longtime allies, face off in a newly reconfigured Manhattan district, and a dozen other Democrats scramble to claim a rare open seat connecting Lower Manhattan and Brownstone Brooklyn.But in a twist befitting two of the wealthiest districts in the United States, the races could well be won or lost miles outside the city, in places like the Hudson Valley, the Berkshires and, above all, the sandy coast of eastern Long Island, where otherwise reliable voters like Ms. Segall decamp in droves each August to spend the final weeks of summer in second homes and vacation rentals.That reality has prompted an unusual and expensive shadow campaign — complete with beach-themed mailers, sophisticated geolocation tracking for tailored ads targeting second homes and at least one Hamptons swing by Ms. Maloney — to see who can prod more of their would-be supporters off their beach chairs and back to the city, or at least the local post office.With low turnout predicted, political operatives say as few as a thousand lost votes could be the difference between a narrow victory and a loss.The exodus is most glaring in the 12th District, where Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney were drawn together after three decades serving side by side and are now fighting (alongside a third candidate, Suraj Patel) over uptown voters who like them both.Some 35,000 Democrats in the 12th District in Manhattan have received mail-in ballots for the primary contest pitting Representative Carolyn Maloney, above, center right, against Representative Jerrold Nadler, below.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesAnna Watts for The New York TimesSome 35,000 Democrats have received mail-in ballots there so far, according to the New York City Board of Elections, a large proportion of them people over 65, and many Upper East and West Siders who flee their apartments when the weather warms. By comparison, the board said that just 7,500 mail-in ballots were distributed for all of Manhattan during the 2018 midterm primaries, which were held in June.Another 21,000 Democrats have received absentee ballots for the primary in the neighboring 10th District, far more than any other district but the 12th. The 10th includes wealthy areas like Greenwich Village, Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights — as well as Orthodox Jewish communities in Borough Park — whose residents also tend to skip town.“The last two weeks of August, this is actually where many people are,” said Jon Reinish, a Democratic political strategist, who is among a torrent of temporary city transplants who have slipped away to the Hudson Valley town of Rhinebeck.He had a word of advice to Democratic vote hunters, particularly Ms. Maloney, whose East Side base even relocates some of its favorite restaurants out to Long Island for “the season.”“As opposed to pounding the pavement around the 86th Street and Lexington Avenue subway stop, Carolyn Maloney may be better served campaigning outside the entrance to Sagg Main Beach or along Jobs Lane in Southampton,” he said, only partially in jest.Hamptonites are already accustomed to national politicians descending each summer for ritzy fund-raisers and seafood raw bars: Vice President Kamala Harris; Beto O’Rourke, a Texas Democratic candidate for governor; and New York’s candidates for governor were all here recently. But given the timing of the Aug. 23 congressional primaries, they appear to be relishing their moment of heightened electoral influence.“If they are serious about wanting to be re-elected, they should be out here,” said Gordon Herr, the chairman of the Southampton Town Democratic Committee and a former city resident who moved out east full time 16 years ago. He said many city residents he’s spoken to “are very conflicted” over who to vote for and could use the extra nudge.The state’s court-ordered redistricting process led to two separate primary dates, including a rare late August primary for the House and State Senate.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesNew York almost never holds elections in August. But that changed this year after the state’s highest court tossed out newly drawn maps favoring Democrats as unconstitutional, and a rural judge decided to split that state’s primary calendar in two to allow time for a court-appointed expert to draw new, neutral lines.The result put Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney on a collision course and opened a fresh seat next door; it also means New Yorkers are being asked to go to the polls twice in two months.Voters who will be in the city on Election Day undoubtedly remain the majority, and the campaigns’ chief focus. But tracking those headed outside New York has been an uncommonly high priority, particularly for Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney. More

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      Where’s Eric Adams? Meeting Donors, From the Hamptons to the Vineyard.

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      Eric Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, is rushing to raise $5 million for the general election in November.On Martha’s Vineyard last weekend, as most residents braced for the possible arrival of Hurricane Henri, a smaller gathering focused on a more certain visitor: Eric Adams, New York City’s likely next mayor.Mr. Adams mingled on Friday with potential donors at a fund-raiser in Oak Bluffs, a historically Black section of the island. A day later, Mr. Adams traveled to the opposite end of the island, for a fund-raiser hosted at the waterfront retreat of Zach Iscol, a businessman who ran for mayor and then comptroller during the June 22 primary election. Caroline Kennedy attended.The weekend before, Mr. Adams was in the Hamptons, donning a bright red blazer with polka dot elbow patches at a fund-raiser hosted by John Catsimatidis, the Republican billionaire, and attending a separate meeting with the venture capitalist Lisa Blau.Mr. Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor, will be an overwhelming favorite in the November general election. His Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, faces a steep disadvantage in party registration — Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly seven to one in the city — and an even more pronounced gap in campaign funds.Yet Mr. Adams — who has raised more than $11 million in public and private funds for the primary, and now has about $2 million on hand — has been working overtime on the fund-raising circuit, attending as many as five fund-raisers in one day. His campaign has said he intends by November to raise a fresh $5 million, including public matching funds; Mr. Sliwa, by contrast, has raised only $599,000 since entering the mayor’s race in March, and has about $14,000 on hand.On Mr. Adams’s docket for next month are fund-raisers hosted by the billionaire former mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, reported by Politico, and another hosted by Michael Novogratz, a hedge fund titan-turned-cryptocurrency investor.The fund-raising blitz will enable Mr. Adams to “spend October in full campaign mode,” said Frank Carone, his lawyer and close confidante.Mr. Adams’s trips beyond Brooklyn, Mr. Carone added, allow him to establish a robust fund-raising infrastructure that he can tap into after the general election, to raise money for the transition.A week after being declared the winner of the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, Eric Adams was the star attraction at a Brooklyn fund-raiser in July.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesMr. Adams’s aides would not disclose how much he had raised since winning the primary nor how many fund-raisers he has attended; his campaign disclosure forms are set to be released by the end of the week, via the city’s Campaign Finance Board.“Voters deserve to hear Eric’s plans for the city, and the working people he represents deserve to have a voice in this election — and that’s why Eric’s campaign is raising the resources necessary to get his message out,” said Evan Thies, Mr. Adams’s spokesman.In his years in elected office, Mr. Adams’s fund-raising has, at times, tested the boundaries of campaign-finance and ethics laws. Mr. Adams was investigated as a state senator for his role in awarding a video lottery machine contract at Aqueduct Racetrack after, among other things, soliciting donations from people affiliated with the bidders. He has also been criticized for taking money as Brooklyn borough president from developers who were lobbying him for crucial zoning changes.Good government groups have said they will be watching closely to make sure that Mr. Adams steers clear of conflicts of interest; his summer of fund-raising may offer opportunity for dissection.“He will be under intense scrutiny, and I’m sure his campaign is aware of that,” said John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany.Mr. Adams will, arguably, never be more attractive to donors than now; he is the de facto mayor-in-waiting for a city of 8.8 million who has yet to alienate powerful interests by making difficult mayoral decisions.The Martha’s Vineyard fund-raiser in Oak Bluffs featured a largely Black “cross-section of distinguished leaders, achievers, and I won’t say elite, but certainly upper-class folks,” said one attendee, the Rev. Jacques Andre DeGraff, an associate pastor at Harlem’s Canaan Baptist Church of Christ.Hasoni Pratts, one of the hosts of the gathering at Mr. Iscol’s house and the national director of engagement for Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, said it was not difficult to find donors for Mr. Adams.“They like his message and his background as a self-made person and a public servant,” she said.In August, Mr. Adams traipsed out to the Hamptons. There was a speech at the Hamptons Synagogue, followed by a fund-raiser at the Westhampton Beach home of Jerry W. Levin, a businessman and Republican donor who has given more than $17,000 to Representative Lee Zeldin and his PAC. Mr. Levin posed for a photo with Mr. Adams at the event promoting his Waterloo Sparkling Water brand, holding a grape-flavored can.Jerry Levin, a Republican donor, hosted a fund-raiser in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., for Mr. Adams, saying he thought Mr. Adams was the “right person for the position.”Dan’s PapersMr. Levin declined to say how much he had contributed to Mr. Adams.“I’m a conservative Republican, and I remain a conservative Republican,” he said. “I think Eric is the right person for the position. Realistically, I can’t see how a Republican could win.”Another fund-raiser in Water Mill was organized by Mr. Catsimatidis, and attended by Rudy Washington, a deputy mayor in the 1990s under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. Ms. Blau — the venture capitalist married to Jeff T. Blau, chief executive of the real estate company that developed Hudson Yards — invited friends to her home to hear Mr. Adams speak, for what was billed as a conversation, not a fund-raiser. During the primary, Ms. Blau backed an effort to get more Republicans to register as Democrats.One Hamptons donor, Jean Shafiroff, said she was impressed by Mr. Adams’s focus on tackling crime, as well as by his colorful ensemble.“I thought it was cheerful looking,” she said. “He was saying it’s OK to get a little dressed up and support fashion.”Ms. Shafiroff, the wife of a banker who is known as the “first lady of philanthropy,” donated $1,000 at the event.A fund-raiser in July at the Queens home of the developer Carl F. Mattone was co-hosted by Eric Ulrich, a Republican councilman, along with the lobbyist Williams Driscoll and Gerry Caliendo, a Queens architect. Another event is planned for Sept. 8 at South Street Seaport by Bo Dietl, a former Republican and mayoral candidate who also hosted a fund-raiser for Mr. Adams at Smith & Wollensky earlier this year.Mr. Adams, a former police captain, has positioned himself as a centrist, someone willing to work with Democrats and Republicans alike. After the primary, Mr. Adams was photographed dining with Mr. Dietl and Mr. Catsimatidis at Rao’s in East Harlem.“I am pro common-sense Democrats,” Mr. Catsimatidis said in an interview. “We had a lot of common-sense Democrats that loved what Eric Adams said during the get-together, and a lot of Republicans that loved what he said.”On Sept. 30, Mr. Novogratz, a Democrat, will host a high-dollar fund-raiser for Mr. Adams at an undisclosed location in Manhattan. Greenberg Traurig, the international law firm that lobbies city government for Fordham University, AT&T and various real estate firms, is hosting one on Sept. 9 at their Manhattan office, where designated hosts must contribute $2,000. To be listed as a “friend” will cost $1,000; regular guests will pay $400. Bolton-St. Johns, a prominent firm that lobbies city government for Airbnb and DoorDash, is also planning a fund-raiser in September.The fund-raising event in Brooklyn also drew Letitia James, the state attorney general, center, with Mr. Adams.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesOther fund-raiser hosts have included the prominent real estate lobbyist Suri Kasirer, who held an event for Mr. Adams at her home on Aug. 14; and several partners from the Manhattan law firm Cozen O’Connor, which represents clients with business before the city. The law partners hosted an Aug. 10 fund-raiser on the 17th-floor sky terrace at 3 World Trade Center.Ofer Cohen, who runs a Brooklyn commercial real estate firm, is planning a fund-raiser for Mr. Adams as well. Mr. Cohen is still trying to nail down a date that works, amid the back-to-school rush and the Jewish High Holy Days. He considers his Brooklyn fund-raising crowd “the O.G.s.”“The business community and the real estate community here always liked Eric,” Mr. Cohen said. “The difference is now, it’s all over the city. It’s all business sectors.”Some Democrats pledged during the mayoral primary not to accept money from real estate developers, but Mr. Adams said he would take campaign contributions from all New Yorkers and that they would not influence his decisions as mayor. During the primary, Mr. Adams also received indirect financial support from a well-funded super PAC run by Jenny Sedlis, who was on leave from a charter school advocacy group. Mr. Sliwa, on the other hand, has struggled to raise money. He has not qualified for public matching funds yet, but his campaign believes it will soon. Republicans like Mr. Catsimatidis, who said Mr. Sliwa was “like a brother” to him, may want to hedge their bets by supporting Mr. Adams and Mr. Sliwa.Mr. Adams’s ease in drawing interest from donors — for himself and his party — began immediately after he emerged as the Democratic primary victor. One week later, he appeared as the headliner at a waterfront fund-raiser for the Brooklyn Democratic Party, where top tickets went for $50,000. The July 14 event was the first in-person gathering for many donors since the pandemic began, and it was packed with lobbyists and elected officials: Mayor Bill de Blasio; Letitia James, the state attorney general; and several members of Congress.At the restaurant Giando on the Water, where guests enjoyed sweeping views of the East River and the Williamsburg Bridge, Mr. Adams appeared onstage like a rock star. He declared, “I am the mayor,” and urged the audience to donate to his friends at the Brooklyn Democratic Party.“I’m hoping the people at the door will not allow anybody in here without writing a check,” he told the crowd. More

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      A Tabloid Ally of Trump and Weinstein Reboots Himself

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      Dylan Howard, known for the “catch and kill” deals during the #MeToo reckoning, teams up with an Italian publisher for a publication aimed at the Hamptons crowd.In late May, the luxury brand Ferragamo threw a launch party to celebrate the Grazia Gazette: The Hamptons — the latest free publication in one of the country’s wealthiest enclaves.Most guests did not know that they were also celebrating a comeback.Grazia’s American operation, Grazia USA, is run by Dylan Howard, the disgraced National Enquirer editor who played a key role in suppressing stories about Donald Trump’s affairs during his presidential campaign, helped Harvey Weinstein dig up dirt on his accusers and, in Jeff Bezos’s telling, threatened the Amazon owner with blackmail.At the party for Mr. Howard’s new venture, young stars and social media influencers mingled while sipping a custom rosé. Some sang along to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Driver’s License.”They knew the lyrics, but not much about the man behind the event.“I have never heard of him,” said Isaac Hindin-Miller, the DJ, in a phone call afterward.“I was more there as a guest of Ferragamo,” said Jenné Lombardo, a marketing consultant who went with her husband, Harvey Newton-Haydon, a model.“I don’t know Howard or anything about him,” Julia Moshy, one of the “Rich Kids of Instagram,” wrote in an email.A Dylan Howard primer: During his time as the top editor of The Enquirer, a job he held for more than five years, Mr. Howard used his position to help suppress coverage of Mr. Trump’s reported extramarital affairs, including buying one woman’s story and then burying it in a journalistic maneuver known as “catch and kill.” The company later admitted that the payment amounted to an illegal campaign contribution, and Mr. Howard emerged unscathed after cooperating with federal prosecutors.Mr. Howard also dispatched a reporter to help collect hostile information on the actress Rose McGowan, who had made veiled references to misconduct by Mr. Weinstein. (Ms. McGowan later said the producer had raped her in a hotel room in 1997 — Mr. Weinstein has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex.)Soon after leaving American Media last year, Mr. Howard started a new company, Pantheon Media Group. Pantheon later struck a licensing agreement with the Mondadori Group, the biggest publisher in Italy and the backer of the Grazia fashion magazine franchise, to publish Grazia in the United States. The Grazia Gazette: The Hamptons is among the first projects.Madelyn Cline on the cover of the first issue of Grazia Gazette: The Hamptons.Grazia GazetteThe model Ambra Battilana, who had been invited to the party, was aware of Mr. Howard’s background. She said she was relieved she had not attended.Ms. Battilana has accused Mr. Weinstein of sexually assaulting her during a meeting in his TriBeCa office. The next day she recorded Mr. Weinstein apologizing to her. The Enquirer unsuccessfully tried to buy Ms. Battilana’s story at the time. (Mr. Weinstein was found guilty of sex crimes against two women last year and sentenced to 23 years in prison.)Given all that, Mr. Howard’s involvement in the Surf Lodge party did not sit well with Ms. Battilana, who spends most summer weekends in the Hamptons and goes to the Surf Lodge frequently. (Mr. Howard also has a home in Springs, a hamlet in the Hamptons, which he bought for $1.1 million at the end of 2017, according to public records.)“I think this is completely horrendous,” she said. “I will be asking who is connected, because I really want to get to the bottom of understanding who was the person who would allow such a person to get in.”In a statement, a spokeswoman for Ferragamo said: “Salvatore Ferragamo has a longstanding relationship with Grazia titles globally and recently expanded that to partner on the launch issue of the Gazette with a dinner co-hosted by editor in chief David Thielebeule and cover star Madelyn Cline, not Dylan Howard.” (Ms. Cline is an actress and one of the stars of Netflix’s “Outer Banks.”Grazia Gazette: The Hamptons is just one part of Mr. Howard’s reinvention plan. He is trying to raise money to “buy the entire Grazia brand worldwide,” according to a copy of his financing proposal reviewed by The New York Times, with whom Mr. Howard did not wish to discuss his new business ventures. He initially agreed to clarify his future plans over lunch, only to cancel through a publicist, Howard Bragman, several days later.“Mr. Howard would of course like to grow his business, including his successful collaboration with Grazia,” Mr. Bragman said in an email. In a separate email, Mr. Howard’s lawyer, Mitchell Schuster, called The Times’s characterization of Mr. Howard’s fund-raising efforts “not correct as stated and misleading.”Maer Roshan, the editor of Los Angeles Magazine and the former editor of Radar, which Mr. Howard took over in 2009 and transformed into something more akin to the gossip site TMZ, was among those in the media who were incredulous at Mr. Howard’s attempted comeback.How “does this dude come back with this glossy magazine and roster of A-list advertisers?” he wondered.Since leaving American Media when his contract expired on March 31, 2020, Mr. Howard has acquired the website for OK Magazine, as well as Radar Online. Both were formerly owned by American Media.Mr. Howard has also continued a sideline he started in 2018 as an author of true-crime books for Skyhorse, which is distributed by Simon & Schuster. Working in collaboration with other authors, but with his name receiving top billing, he has come out with more than half a dozen books, including, “Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” “Covid-19: The Greatest Cover-Up in History” and “Diana: Case Solved.”In an email, Tony Lyons, Skyhorse’s president and publisher, called Mr. Howard a “dogged investigator and a talented storyteller.”There is also podcasting. This month, PodcastOne, the producer of “The Adam Carolla Show,” “The Dan Abrams Podcast” and more than 200 other audio series, announced that it had reached a deal with Mr. Howard’s Empire Media to create six limited series and eight weekly programs.One company that won’t do business with Mr. Howard is the dating app Bumble, which removed his profile earlier this year after a woman complained about his work for Mr. Weinstein, according to two people with knowledge of the matter (Mr. Schuster, the lawyer, said Mr. Howard chose to remove his profile for “unrelated reasons” and said he did not “work for” Mr. Weinstein).Mr. Howard grew up in Geelong, Australia, a city southwest of Melbourne, and started his career at a local paper. From there he became a sports reporter for Channel 7 in Melbourne before coming to the United States in 2009.After a stint as a producer at Reuters in New York, he joined American Media, which owned a number of celebrity gossip sites and publications, including the supermarket tabloid Star and RadarOnline. Under Mr. Howard, RadarOnline turned into a celebrity scoop machine, posting audio recordings of Mel Gibson’s vitriolic tirades and other Hollywood dirt.In 2011, he tied for entertainment Journalist of the Year at the annual Los Angeles Press Club awards. “In the world of celebrity and entertainment news, even mainstream media couldn’t ignore exclusive stories broken under Dylan Howard’s tenure as senior executive editor of RadarOnline,” the judges wrote.Mr. Howard left American Media in 2012. The Associated Press reported that his departure came after an external investigation into his workplace behavior. (The company said he was cleared of any wrongdoing.) The next year he returned to American Media, whose chief executive was David Pecker, a friend of Donald J. Trump, and he soon became the company’s chief content officer. That job gave him oversight of The Enquirer as well as Us Weekly, Globe and OK!, among other publications.Mr. Howard in 2014, when he was the editor in chief of Radar Online.Ilya S. Savenok/Getty ImagesDuring the 2016 presidential campaign, headlines in The Enquirer lionized Mr. Trump and belittled his political rivals. In addition, as The Wall Street Journal was first to report, American Media made a $150,000 payment to the former Playboy model Karen McDougal in return for the rights to her story of an affair with Mr. Trump. The Enquirer never ran that story.Mr. Howard also worked with Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, on a deal that silenced another woman, Stormy Daniels, who also said she had sex with Mr. Trump, who has denied having sex with either woman.In an email, Mr. Bragman added that Mr. Howard had been “ORDERED BY MANAGEMENT” to help suppress coverage of Mr. Trump’s affairs. But in a follow-up email, Mr. Schuster, Mr. Howard’s lawyer, said that Mr. Bragman’s comment was not authorized by Mr. Howard.“Please disregard Mr. Bragman’s comment and confirm that it will not be included in your article,” he wrote. “Thank you.”American Media ultimately admitted that its payment to Ms. McDougal violated campaign finance law. Mr. Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison. Mr. Howard, along with Mr. Pecker, entered into a nonprosecution agreement with the government and cooperated with its investigation.The agreement remained in effect only if American Media did nothing to break the law for three years. In 2019, Mr. Bezos, the Amazon founder, accused the company of blackmail after it had published an 11-page exposé of his extramarital affair with the former TV personality Lauren Sanchez headlined “Bezos’ Divorce! The Cheating Photos That Ended His Marriage.”The story led to a public spat in which Mr. Bezos accused the tabloid’s leaders of “extortion and blackmail” in a lengthy post on Medium. The multibillionaire quoted from a letter sent to him by Mr. Howard. In the letter, as quoted by Mr. Bezos, Mr. Howard described the supposedly compromising photographs The Enquirer had in its possession, including a “below-the-belt selfie.”No one was charged in the matter. Mr. Schuster called Mr. Bezos’ post on Medium “self-serving and inaccurate,” and said that Mr. Howard’s reporting was “fair and accurate.”Now, a little more than a year since Mr. Howard made his exit from American Media, Grazia Gazette: The Hamptons appeared in stacks along Main Street in East Hampton. Distributed free, it has a lot of competition in a place where there is no shortage of gratis publications aimed at wealthy readers, a boomlet fueled by ad dollars from real estate agencies promoting multimillion-dollar listings.“Most of them are thrown in the garbage,” said the author Steven Gaines, a resident of East Hampton who has written extensively on the area’s history. “Some people pick them up and look at them, but there’s really nothing interesting.”The lucky ones have a rack under an awning, or a place on an indoor windowsill. The unlucky ones get tossed on doorsteps, rained on and thrown away.Lynn A. Scotti, a president and group publisher at Modern Luxury Media, which publishes Hamptons Magazine, is aware of the new entrant in the field. She said she had seen the Grazia Gazette “out wet,” adding: “We welcome healthy competition and I wish him the best.”The editor and publisher Dan Rattiner, who has run Dan’s Papers, a Hamptons local news publication, for more than 60 years, said of the free glossies: “They come and go. There are so many of them, it’s hard to tell one from another.”Mr. Roshan, the editor, expressed surprise that luxury advertisers would sign on with a publication run by Mr. Howard at a time when “people have been canceled and cast out for far less.”But Joseph Montag, the managing director of the Topping Rose House, a hotel and restaurant and a not infrequent filming location for “The Real Housewives of New York City,” suggested that people in the Hamptons were not likely to be bothered by Mr. Howard’s efforts to bury the accounts of the women who had accused Mr. Weinstein of sexual assault or told of their affairs with Mr. Trump.“People out here are used to those sorts of things,” Mr. Montag said, adding that Matt Lauer, the former NBC anchor who was fired by the network after accusations of sexual assault, was still out and about in the Hamptons.Mr. Gaines, the Hamptons chronicler, seemed to be of two minds.“If he wants to reinvent himself, he should go to Miami,” he said. “They forgive everything down there.”But then again, the Hamptons-specific media market is crowded.“If he took his bad-boy reputation out here and he used that, he exploited that, to make a different type of magazine,” Mr. Gaines continued, “I think people would read that.”Jim Rutenberg, Lauren Hirsch and Michael Rothfeld contributed reporting. Susan Beachy contributed research. More

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      Did Candidates Flee to Vacation Homes? 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s Race

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceA Look at the RaceAndrew Yang’s Candidacy5 TakeawaysWho’s Running?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDid Candidates Flee to Vacation Homes? 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s RaceQuestions surrounding candidates’ second homes, ranked-choice voting and ties to casino interests arose in New York’s mayoral contest.Maya Wiley, center, and other candidates shared their whereabouts during the first several months of the pandemic. She spent 10 days outside of the city on Long Island in July.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesEmma G. Fitzsimmons, Jeffery C. Mays, Dana Rubinstein and Jan. 25, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETOne of the main unanswered questions in this year’s mayoral race is how the introduction of ranked-choice voting will change the nature of the election.The first taste of how things will change came on Sunday, with an endorsement of two candidates, in ranked order.Other questions were also addressed last week, including how much time candidates spent outside of New York City during the pandemic, and how they view the long-term job prospects of the current police commissioner, Dermot F. Shea. (Hint: Count on a job opening in January.)Here are some key developments in the race:A double endorsement?For months, New York mayoral campaigns, political strategists and officials have quietly grappled with one of the biggest uncertainties in the race: how to approach the new ranked-choice voting system in the June Democratic primary, for which New Yorkers will be asked to rank as many as five choices. Can a candidate draw contrasts without alienating a rival’s supporters? Are alliances in order? Do voters even understand the process?On Sunday, some of those private calculations were placed on public display in what was billed as the “first of its kind” ranked-choice endorsement in the race: State Senator Gustavo Rivera named Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, as his first choice, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, as his second.Both of those contenders are seeking to emerge as the standard-bearers for progressive voters in the party, in competition with candidates including Maya Wiley, who out-raised Ms. Morales but trails Mr. Stringer in the money race. Mr. Rivera stressed their New Yorker bona fides at a time when Andrew Yang — another leading candidate in the race — has faced scrutiny over his political ties to the city.The joint campaign event with Mr. Rivera was not a cross-endorsement, Mr. Stringer assured.“Obviously I don’t want her to be mayor,” Mr. Stringer cracked as he appeared with Ms. Morales, and they stressed their interest in educating New Yorkers about ranked-choice voting.But the moment offered an early glimpse of how the new system may shape coalitions and highlight rivalries — and how elected officials with endorsements to dole out may seek to wield their influence.Yang pitches a casino on Governors IslandAdd Mr. Yang to the list of gambling and real estate executives eager to bring a full-fledged casino to New York City.Mr. Yang spent much of last week doubling down on his assertion that what New York City needs right now is a casino.During a discussion about the city’s grave fiscal needs and the imperative to draw tourists back, Mr. Yang argued that New York City should put a casino on Governors Island — to make the city money and to make it “more fun.”“That casino would generate so much money, it’d be bananas,” Mr. Yang said during the Jan. 14 interview.Andrew Yang has proposed putting a casino on Governors Island: “That casino would generate so much money, it’d be bananas.”Credit…Andrew Seng for The New York TimesCasinos are currently prohibited on the island, but Mr. Yang’s endorsement of a city casino raised some eyebrows among political types because Bradley Tusk, who is advising Mr. Yang’s campaign, is also chairman of IG Acquisition. The company, which seeks to acquire businesses in the leisure, gaming and hospitality industries, recently raised $300 million in an initial public offering.Via text message, Mr. Tusk acknowledged discussing the idea of a Governors Island casino with Mr. Yang, but said the idea is for the city to own the casino — the opposite of the industry’s preference.He argued that because he and Mr. Yang are proposing a city-controlled casino, rather than a private operation, there is no possible conflict of interest. A city-owned casino might still benefit from a casino consulting firm, but Mr. Tusk said that his company is interested in finding ways for people to bet on video games like Fortnite or League of Legends.“The point of saying public owned was to both maximize revenue for the city and remove it as anything that involves me,” Mr. Tusk said.Three weeks in the HamptonsWhen Mr. Yang told The New York Times that he had spent “more time upstate than in the city over the last number of months,” his fellow mayoral candidates saw an opening and highlighted how they stayed put.One candidate who did not throw any shade at Mr. Yang was Raymond J. McGuire, a wealthy former Wall Street executive who, with his wife, owns a second home in the Hamptons. Speculation rose that Mr. McGuire’s campaign was silent because perhaps he had spent much of the pandemic outside of the city as well.After reviewing his calendar, Mr. McGuire’s campaign said that he spent the first three months of the pandemic in Manhattan, and then a total of three weeks in the Hamptons with his family from June to August.His campaign staff shared a schedule that indicated that Mr. McGuire worked and took meetings in both Manhattan and the Hamptons during the summer; The Times confirmed that several of those meetings — with future staff members and an influential Black activist, Kirsten John Foy — did take place.“It’s pretty clear from the exhaustive and transparent accounting of Ray’s whereabouts that he was not living in the Hamptons during Covid,” said Mr. McGuire’s spokeswoman Lupé Todd-Medina.Ray McGuire’s campaign staff shared a schedule that indicated he worked and took meetings in both Manhattan and the Hamptons during the summer.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesThe Times asked other candidates about their whereabouts from March to September. Ms. Wiley’s campaign said she spent 10 days outside of the city on Long Island in July, while Mr. Stringer said he spent three days in Connecticut with his wife’s family in August.Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, said he did not spend a full 24 hours outside of the city during that period. Mr. Adams, who slept at Brooklyn Borough Hall during the height of the pandemic, said he would spend eight to 12 hours visiting with his partner and family in New Jersey.Carlos Menchaca, a councilman from Brooklyn, said he spent a total of 14 days outside the city, mostly hiking and meditating but still working remotely. Ms. Morales said she spent two days in upstate New York in July, and one of those days was with her campaign team.Shaun Donovan, the former federal housing secretary, spent two weeks with his family in Washington, D.C., as they were in the process of moving to join him in Brooklyn, according to his campaign. Zach Iscol said he spent a total of 50 days outside of New York with his family in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts in between working as deputy director at the Covid-19 field hospital at the Jacob Javits Center.Paperboy Prince raps about universal basic incomeIf there is one candidate in the crowded mayoral field who is most likely to be impersonated on “Saturday Night Live,” it is probably Paperboy Prince, a rapper from Brooklyn.At an online mayoral forum last week, Paperboy performed a rap in support of universal basic income, took two actual pies to the face and expressed concern about waking up a roommate.Paperboy, who ran to be the first nonbinary member of Congress, wore large bedazzled sunglasses indoors and easily had the most colorful backdrop. The rapper won about 14,000 votes in the Democratic primary against Representative Nydia Velazquez last year.Paperboy’s platform includes canceling rent, legalizing marijuana and psychedelics, abolishing the police and issuing reparations to “Black and brown people for the Drug War.”Other unorthodox candidates have garnered attention over the years — if not many votes. Jimmy McMillan ran for governor and mayor on the “Rent is Too Damn High” platform. He released a music video and was played by Kenan Thompson on “S.N.L.” in 2010.The forum, held by the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, featured other lesser known candidates: Joycelyn Taylor, the head of a general contracting firm who talked about growing up in public housing; Aaron Foldenauer, a lawyer who bristled at not being featured on the same panel as the leading candidates; and Quanda Francis, an accountant who said she dropped out of high school, which she said was an example of the failures of the city’s education system.A different kind of police commissionerWhen Mayor Bill de Blasio made a major announcement last week about stricter disciplinary rules for officers, he did so without Commissioner Shea.The mayor said that the police commissioner was still recovering from the coronavirus. Yet the commissioner apparently felt well enough to conduct interviews with reporters earlier in the week, raising questions about his support of the new rules and of the mayor.Mr. Yang said he wants to hire a “civilian police commissioner.” Credit…James Estrin/The New York TimesWhat seems clear is that Commissioner Shea does not have the support of most of the mayoral candidates. Ms. Wiley, a former counsel to Mr. de Blasio, even called on the mayor to fire him.Several candidates have talked recently about what they want to see in the next police commissioner. Mr. Yang said he wants to hire a “civilian police commissioner” who was not a police officer and who is “independent from the culture of the Police Department.”Mr. Adams, a former police officer, said he would hire a female police commissioner.At the Brooklyn mayoral forum, Ms. Wiley and Mr. Stringer, the city comptroller, would not commit to hiring a person of color as police commissioner, but pledged that their administrations would be diverse. Mr. de Blasio picked three Irish-American leaders, and the Police Department has not had a Black commissioner since Lee P. Brown resigned in 1992.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More