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    Harvard Removes Binding of Human Skin From Book in Its Library

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    The decision to find a “respectful final disposition” for human remains used for a 19th-century book comes amid growing scrutiny of their presence in museum collections.Of the roughly 20 million books in Harvard University’s libraries, one has long exerted a unique dark fascination, not for its contents, but for the material it was reputedly bound in: human skin.For years, the volume — a 19th-century French treatise on the human soul — was brought out for show and tell, and sometimes, according to library lore, used to haze new employees. In 2014, the university drew jokey news coverage around the world with the announcement that it had used new technology to confirm that the binding was in fact human skin.But on Wednesday, after years of criticism and debate, the university announced that it had removed the binding and would be exploring options for “a final respectful disposition of these human remains.”“After careful study, stakeholder engagement, and consideration, Harvard Library and the Harvard Museum Collections Returns Committee concluded that the human remains used in the book’s binding no longer belong in the Harvard Library collections, due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history,” the university said in a statement.Harvard also said that its own handling of the book, a copy of Arsène Houssaye’s “Des Destinées de L’Ame,” or “The Destiny of Souls,” had failed to live up to the “ethical standards” of care, and had sometimes used an inappropriately “sensationalistic, morbid and humorous tone” in publicizing it.The library apologized, saying that it had “further objectified and compromised the dignity of the human being whose remains were used for its binding.”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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      The Woman Who Tried to Make Porn Safe for Feminism

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      How the archive of Candida Royalle, a porn star turned pioneering director, landed at Harvard — and inspired a new book challenging the conventional history of the sexual revolution.Harvard’s Schlesinger Library is the nation’s leading repository for women’s history, home to the papers of suffragists and social reformers, poets and politicians, the collective behind “Our Bodies, Ourselves” and iconic figures like Amelia Earhart, Angela Davis and Julia Child.But in its basement vaults, carefully preserved in a box, you can also find a rather different artifact: a costume from the 1978 pornographic comedy “Hot & Saucy Pizza Girls.”The movie, starring John C. Holmes as a pimp who oversees a prostitution ring masquerading as a pizza delivery service, was history-making in its own way, as one of the earliest examples of what became a classic trope — porn with pepperoni. But the costume is at the Schlesinger because of another name on the bill: Candida Royalle.Royalle, who died in 2015, was a minor celebrity in her day. She was a porn star from the 1970s golden age who moved to the other side of the camera, producing feminist erotica that focused on female fantasies, and female audiences.During the so-called sex wars of the 1980s, Royalle faced off against anti-porn feminists like Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, who dismissed women in the profession as stooges of the patriarchy. And in the 1990s, she became a godmother to the mediagenic sex-positive feminists riding feminism’s third wave.Today, Royalle’s name may ring few bells. But her voluminous archive is now housed at Harvard, where the trove of diaries, letters, photographs, scrapbooks, videos and memorabilia is opening up a new window onto the sexual revolution.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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      RuPaul Is Sending a Rainbow Bus to Give Away Books Targeted by Bans

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      The star, whose show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has an international following, is one of the founders of a new online bookstore promoting underrepresented authors. The giveaways are part of its outreach.At a time of book bans and efforts by state legislatures to ban drag shows, the performer and television producer who is arguably the country’s most famous drag star, RuPaul, is the co-founder of a new online bookstore that will be sending a rainbow school bus from the West Coast to the South to distribute the very books targeted by those bans.He announced on Monday that he was one of three business partners behind the bookstore, Allstora, which will promote underrepresented authors and provide writers with a greater share of profits than other online booksellers do.RuPaul said that this sort of book website would fill an important gap, especially in “these strange days, we’re living in,” to support the ideas of people “who are willing to push the conversation forward.”In recent years, there has been a sharp rise in efforts to restrict access to books at libraries in the United States, and most of the challenged books are by or about L.G.B.T.Q. people or people of color, according to library and free speech organizations. Some libraries have received bomb threats, and others have faced closure over efforts to remove books. At the same time, states have tried to ban drag shows and restrict access to health care for transgender people.RuPaul with Eric Cervini, left, co-founder and chief executive of Allstora, and Adam Powell, co-founder and director of the Rainbow Book Bus.AllstoraEnter RuPaul. Drag has been in popular culture for decades, but his reality competition show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” which is airing its sixteenth season and has more than a dozen international editions, has brought the work of hundreds, if not thousands, of drag performers to home audiences.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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      Biden to Create Library Honoring His Friend and Rival John McCain

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      In a stop in Arizona, a key battleground state in next year’s election, the president plans to embrace the longtime Republican senator and vocal Trump critic.President Biden plans to announce on Thursday that he will devote federal money to create a new library and museum dedicated to his old friend and adversary, Senator John McCain, seeking to embrace a Republican who stood against former President Donald J. Trump.After stops in Michigan and California this week, Mr. Biden arrived in Phoenix on Wednesday night in advance of a speech at the Tempe Center for the Arts on Thursday morning, when he intends to honor the legacy of Mr. McCain, who represented Arizona in the House and Senate for 35 years before dying of brain cancer in 2018.The McCain project was compared by people familiar with the plan to a presidential-style library and museum for a man who tried twice to reach the White House but never did. In affiliation with Arizona State University, the new institution would house Mr. McCain’s papers as well as offer exhibits about his life, including possibly a reproduction of the so-called Hanoi Hilton, where he was held in North Vietnam as a prisoner of war for five and a half years.The announcement will be included in a speech that is meant to focus on what the president characterizes as a battle for American democracy as he faces the prospect of a rematch next year against Mr. Trump, who has been charged by both federal and Georgia state prosecutors with trying to subvert the 2020 election to hold on to power. In a summary that it distributed, the White House said defending democracy “continues to be the central cause of Joe Biden’s presidency.”The speech, according to the White House, will focus on the importance of American institutions in preserving democracy and the value of following the Constitution. It comes after three addresses Mr. Biden gave last year about the state of the country’s democracy and will brand Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement a radical threat.“There is something dangerous happening in America,” Mr. Biden plans to say, according to advance excerpts released by the White House. “There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: the MAGA movement.”“Not every Republican — not even the majority of Republicans — adhere to the extremist MAGA ideology,” he plans to add. “I know because I’ve been able to work with Republicans my whole career. But there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”The renewed focus on Mr. Trump comes as Mr. Biden is being pressed to draw a sharper contrast with his once-and-possibly-future rival to remind Democrats and independents disenchanted with his own presidency of the stakes in next year’s election.Months of trying to claim credit for “Bidenomics,” as he calls his economic program, have not moved his approval numbers, as many voters, including most Democrats, tell pollsters that they worry about the 80-year-old president’s age. Democratic strategists argue that whatever Mr. Biden’s weaknesses, swing voters will come back to him once they focus on Mr. Trump as the alternative.In paying tribute to Mr. McCain, Mr. Biden hopes to reach out to anti-Trump Republicans and appeal to voters more generally in one of the battleground states that many analysts believe will determine the outcome next year. Mr. Biden and Mr. McCain served in the Senate together for many years and were friendly despite being from opposite parties. Even after running on opposing tickets in 2008, when Mr. McCain was the Republican presidential nominee and Mr. Biden was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, they maintained a respectful relationship.Mr. McCain was one of the most vocal Republican critics of Mr. Trump, and Cindy McCain, the senator’s widow, endorsed Mr. Biden against the incumbent president of her party in 2020. In return, he appointed her to be his ambassador to United Nations agencies for food and agriculture in Rome. Earlier this year, she was appointed executive director of the United Nations World Food Program.Mrs. McCain will join Mr. Biden on Thursday morning along with other relatives of the senator, Gov. Katie Hobbs and members of Arizona’s congressional delegation. The president plans to use leftover money from the American Rescue Plan, the pandemic relief spending package approved shortly after he took office, to finance the new library.The library, described as a facility to provide education, work and health monitoring programs to underserved communities, will be formed in partnership with Arizona State and the McCain Institute, a public policy organization devoted to advancing issues like democracy, human rights, national security and human trafficking. More

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      Does Therapy Culture Help or Hurt Us?

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      More from our inbox:Trump Pardoning Himself? An ‘Appalling Idea’Trump’s WeightImproving Access to E-BooksGraphicaArtis/Getty ImagesTo the Editor: Re “Hey, America, Grow Up!” by David Brooks (column, Aug. 11), about how an emphasis on trauma makes adults immature:As a psychiatrist, I feel that Mr. Brooks makes several valid points regarding trauma but fails ultimately to thread the needle.A good psychiatrist or therapist identifies the real trauma in a patient’s past — typically from events in childhood at the hands of parents or other family members — while simultaneously discouraging the kind of victim mind-set that displaces past pain onto present-day scapegoats.The goal is to illuminate the real trauma, which requires re-evaluating what is often an idealized remembrance of one’s upbringing, so that the patient can stop projecting malice onto anyone and instead regain a sense of agency. As the saying goes, those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.If we fail as a culture to acknowledge the well-established long-term consequences, both physical and psychological, of legitimate trauma, we will wind up creating more people who identify as victims, not fewer.Christopher BaileyKirkland, Wash.To the Editor:One thing David Brooks’s good column leaves untouched is how much resistance to the hyperinflation of “trauma” there has been among psychotherapists themselves.In 1967, Anna Freud, Sigmund Freud’s daughter, wrote that the concept had become so “carelessly used” that its “blurring” could lead to “abandonment and loss of a valuable concept.” In 1978, psychiatrist Henry Krystal, an Auschwitz survivor and founder of contemporary trauma theory, said flatly that the use of the term “has become so loose that it has become virtually useless.”Of course, “trauma culture” has a life of its own, independent of psychiatric or psychological knowledge. And no small number of therapists have fully cashed in from Trauma, Inc., which is, indeed, big business.But my sense is that, even in the culture at large, “trauma” hype may have run its course. What follows may be greater “maturity,” as Mr. Brooks and many others would hope, or it may be just the next form of mishegoss.Henry GreenspanAnn Arbor, Mich.The writer is an emeritus psychologist at the University of Michigan.To the Editor:Wouldn’t it be nice if David Brooks’s ideas about how people should “throw off some of the tenets of the therapeutic culture” and “weave their stable selves through the commitments to and attachments with others” in order to build a culture of maturity were realistic?But try telling that to people who have grown up in poverty, who have never had adequate health insurance or medical care, who grew up in families rife with violence and abuse, who live in communities with chronic gun violence, and who have to drop out of high school to give birth to a baby.What can you weave in there? And who can you attach to when your life and the lives of those around you are a mess, and you live in a world that you have little hope of escaping?Debra KuppersmithDobbs Ferry, N.Y.The writer is a psychoanalyst.To the Editor:David Brooks made some excellent observations about our country’s growing narcissism. But he missed a key prescription for change: helping Americans develop a sense of purpose.This starts with treating challenges as temporary setbacks and harnessing our talents and efforts in the service of something bigger than ourselves. We need to lose the “me” and find the “we.”Studies show that people who feel a sense of purpose in their lives — through family, friends, work or community — are overall more resilient and report a greater sense of well-being. This message feels especially urgent for adolescent girls in America who are experiencing record levels of isolation, depression and suicidal thoughts.Until Americans commit to a purpose-driven mind-set, we will continue to wallow in our current obsession with victimization and search out cheap ways to validate our self-worth.Suzanne ChazinChappaqua, N.Y.Trump Pardoning Himself? An ‘Appalling Idea’Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesTo the Editor: It has become commonplace to suggest that one difference between a state and a federal conviction of Donald Trump is that Mr. Trump could not pardon himself from a state conviction if he is elected president, implying that he could pardon his own federal offenses. It’s long past time to stop giving this appalling discussion of self-pardons any air.A president pardoning himself for his own crimes is the very definition of unchecked power. Revolutionaries called it tyranny, which in this context is a better word. The idea that our executive has so much power that the rule of law does not apply to him because he could forgive himself betrays what the Revolutionary War was about.The Constitution separated the powers of the government into three branches. It empowers Congress with the legislative power and the courts with the judicial power. The idea that a president could make himself immune from both other branches — in the furtherance of a crime — is inexcusable.Mr. Trump has floated this idea before and some allies are resurrecting it again. It’s born in the brevity of the Constitution’s pardon power. But it flouts both the rule of law and the separation of powers essential to the Constitution. We should be outraged.Andrew J. KennedyMonroeville, Pa.The writer is a lawyer.Trump’s WeightTo the Editor: Re “Trump Is Booked at Jail in Atlanta in Election Case” (front page, Aug. 25):Donald Trump weighs only 215 pounds? Forget the mug shot T-shirts; his campaign should be selling whatever brand of scale he’s using.Alan RutkowskiVictoria, British ColumbiaImproving Access to E-BooksAnn Johansson for The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “What Does It Mean to Own a Book?” (Business, Aug. 13):I would like to thank David Streitfeld for his piece shining a light on the innovative and visionary work done by Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive. In the discussion about the complexity of providing digital access, the work of our nation’s libraries and nonprofits like the Digital Public Library of America that support them should not be overlooked.Public libraries across the country offered access to over a billion digital e-books and half a billion digital audiobooks in fiscal year 2021. They circulated 460 million digital items and spent nearly $600 million to provide that access. And these numbers continue to grow.Mr. Streitfeld rightly points out that many titles are increasingly expensive for libraries to acquire, especially those from the “big five” publishers, which only offer licenses that are limited to a certain number of loans or length of time. However, the Digital Public Library of America works with hundreds of midsize and independent publishers to offer more reasonable terms including, for example, a perpetual one-user-at-a-time license that functions much like library ownership of a print book.Right now, legislators in several states are working with librarians to draft legislation that would enshrine the rights of libraries to acquire digital content on reasonable terms.Libraries need our support to ensure that as the transition into a digital world continues, access to knowledge becomes more and not less accessible.John S. BrackenChicagoThe writer is the executive director of the nonprofit Digital Public Library of America. More

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      When Law Schools Snub the Rankings

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      More from our inbox:Libraries Changed Our Lives. Let’s Support Them.The Black-Jewish RelationshipChristine McVie’s MagicElection Liars, Not Deniers Vanessa Leroy for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “In Growing Movement, More Top Law Schools Will Boycott Rankings” (news article, Nov. 19):​As a law professor for more than 25 years, I applaud the recent boycott of the U.S. News & World Report rankings. The rankings serve only the periodical itself and deans adept at prioritizing favored metrics, especially test scores.More insidiously, the rankings harm students. In addition to motivating deans to award scholarships to students with the highest test scores instead of students with true financial need, and discouraging public interest work, at best the rankings provide students a one-dimensional picture.Law school is a significant investment. Especially below the Top 10, a student choosing among law schools should consider many factors, including the cultural nuances of the institution, which only old-fashioned due diligence can unearth. It breaks my heart when students, lured by rankings, later discover they could have chosen a better fit.I hope the remaining Top 10 deans quickly follow suit and embolden the top 25 law schools to call out the U.S. News rankings as the sham they truly are.Susan Pace HamillTuscaloosa, Ala.The writer is a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law.To the Editor:“In Growing Movement, More Top Law Schools Will Boycott Rankings” describes the scramble to enter the vaunted “T14” — the top 14 law schools as ranked by U.S. News.“At No. 15,” the article declares, “U.C.L.A. is tantalizingly close to the T14.” The difference between ranking 14th and 15th is presented as clear-cut and consequential, illustrating the absurdity of reducing the many facets of legal education to a single number.The article cites a study that found graduates from the T14 to have higher salaries and more “prestigious careers” — on average. Yes, the law schools in the T14 are excellent, but there is no magic to the number 14, and the U.S. News algorithm includes as much “noise” as “signal.”Moreover, the remaining 185 law schools reflect a wide range of approaches and cannot be lumped together. As the dean of an outstanding law school with strong placement in the kind of prestigious jobs the article refers to, I know that many schools provide superb student outcomes, a fact erased by the cited study and obscured by U.S. News’s opaque numbers.Prospective students miss out when they substitute reliance on U.S. News rankings for their own research into which law schools are a good fit for them, given their academic records, interests, career goals and financial situations.Matthew DillerNew YorkThe writer is dean of Fordham Law School.Libraries Changed Our Lives. Let’s Support Them. Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Thankful for Libraries,” by Charles M. Blow (column, Nov. 26):Thanks to Mr. Blow for his column about the importance of libraries in his life. His experience touched me personally.I grew up in a home lacking books. The public library was an oasis for me. Little did I know that when I later attended college and supported myself partly by working in a public library system that I would become a librarian.The recent attacks on public and school libraries are so misguided. Libraries have always done their very best to serve their communities by representing many points of view. They deserve our support.Sam SimonNyack, N.Y.To the Editor:Like many people, I have had a lifelong love affair with libraries — from the time my dad took me to our local library to get my first library card when I was 6.The librarian at my elementary school was Mrs. Moreland, mother of my good friend Stevie. She introduced me to wonderful books as a third grader that led to my becoming a reader for life.As a somewhat nerdy high school student, I would head after school to our local library, part of the Houston Public Library system, spending half my time on the children’s side of the library and the other half on the adult side. My parents never tried to restrict what I could read. When I came to New York, one of the first things I did was to get my library card.Libraries and the devoted librarians who work in them have been my friends for these many years. It pains me to read about the harassment that many librarians have had to endure at the encouragement from certain politicians.Reading is empowering. No wonder that those who want to tell the rest of us what to do fear libraries and books.Jacqueline LowryNew YorkThe writer is a retired teacher of reading, math and science in an elementary-school gifted and talented program.The Black-Jewish Relationship Illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times; photograph by Ronald Martinez, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Blacks and Jews, Again,” by Michael Eric Dyson (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 27):Professor Dyson’s illuminating and refreshingly honest essay about the historically fraught, ambivalent relationship between African American and Jewish communities is a gift for both of them. If they are to transcend this relationship and unequivocally condemn antisemitism or racism when it arises in their respective communities, they need to learn each other’s histories.Both groups are survivors of institutionalized terror and traumatic violence of historic proportions, perpetrated by bigots. Thus, both groups know prejudicial hatred when they see it, and both know how dangerous it is.As Mr. Dyson implies, knowing each other’s histories will allow African Americans and Jews to identify with each other, to understand, for example, how the suffering of the Jewish people “inspired the sorrow songs” of African Americans (e.g., “Go Down, Moses”) more than a century ago.African Americans and Jews should also remember who benefits from promulgating antisemitic or racist tropes. It must be incredibly gratifying for white supremacist organizations when African Americans and Jews channel the same antisemitism and racism, respectively, as those who would banish them from the country. ​Paul SiegelNew York​​​The writer is a professor of psychology at Purchase College and Westchester Community College, SUNY.Christine McVie’s MagicChristine McVie of Fleetwood Mac in performance at Madison Square Garden in 2014. Her commercial potency was on full display on Fleetwood Mac’s “Greatest Hits” anthology: She either wrote or co-wrote half of its 16 tracks.Charles Sykes/Invision, via Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Christine McVie, Wellspring of Soulful Hits for Fleetwood Mac, Dies at 79” (obituary, Dec. 1):I mourned the death of Christine McVie this week. What a loss. As I listened at bedtime to Fleetwood Mac’s hits, I reflected on the sadness that arose.When we mourn our fallen generational culture icons, especially musicians (because music and memory are entwined), we are mourning the loss of our youth, with its exuberance, dreams and open promises for the future. We are mourning ourselves.Steve GellmanGrosse Pointe Park, Mich.Election Liars, Not DeniersTo the Editor:I do wish the media would stop calling certain politicians election deniers.None of them are likely to really believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump.They are not deniers; they are election liars. Cold, cynical, opportunistic, sociopathic liars.They lie solely to gather their base’s votes, and the heck with democracy.Charlie PhillipsPortland, Ore. More

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      Meta Will Give Researchers More Information on Political Ad Targeting

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      Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said that it planned to give outside researchers more detailed information on how political ads are targeted across its platform, providing insight into the ways that politicians, campaign operatives and political strategists buy and use ads ahead of the midterm elections.Starting on Monday, academics and researchers who are registered with an initiative called the Facebook Open Research and Transparency project will be allowed to see data on how each political or social ad was used to target people. The information includes which interest categories — such as “people who like dogs” or “people who enjoy the outdoors” — were chosen to aim an ad at someone.In addition, Meta said it planned to include summaries of targeting information for some of its ads in its publicly viewable Ad Library starting in July. The company created the Ad Library in 2019 so that journalists, academics and others could obtain information and help safeguard elections against the misuse of digital advertising.While Meta has given outsiders some access into how its political ads were used in the past, it has restricted the amount of information that could be seen, citing privacy reasons. Critics have claimed that the company’s system has been flawed and sometimes buggy, and have frequently asked for more data.That has led to conflicts. Meta previously clashed with a group of New York University academics who tried ingesting large amounts of self-reported data on Facebook users to learn more about the platform. The company cut off access to the group last year, citing violations of its platform rules.The new data that is being added to the Facebook Open Research Transparency project and the Ad Library is a way to share information on political ad targeting while trying to keep data on its users private, the company said.“By making advertiser targeting criteria available for analysis and reporting on ads run about social issues, elections and politics, we hope to help people better understand the practices used to reach potential voters on our technologies,” the company said in a statement.With the new data, for example, researchers browsing the Ad Library could see that over the course of a month, a Facebook page ran 2,000 political ads and that 40 percent of the ad budget was targeted to “people who live in Pennsylvania” or “people who are interested in politics.”Meta said it had been bound by privacy rules and regulations on what types of data it could share with outsiders. In an interview, Jeff King, a vice president in Meta’s business integrity unit, said the company had hired thousands of workers over the past few years to review those privacy issues.“Every single thing we release goes through a privacy review now,” he said. “We want to make sure we give people the right amount of data, but still remain privacy conscious while we do it.”The new data on political ads will cover the period from August 2020, three months before the last U.S. presidential election, to the present day. More

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      More Results Expected in the Mayor’s Race

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      [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Tuesday. Weather: Humid and mostly sunny, with a high in the mid-90s, and watch out for a severe storm this evening. Dangerously hot weather is expected through tomorrow. Alternate-side parking: In effect until July 19 (Eid al-Adha). Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesIt has been two weeks since New York City residents last cast ballots in the Democratic mayoral primary. And while Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, holds a lead in the results released so far, it is not yet clear who will win.Today, elections officials are poised to release a new tally of results that could shed more light on who will ultimately prevail: a tabulation that incorporates for the first time the votes of tens of thousands of New Yorkers who cast ballots by mail.How did we get here?Under the city’s new ranked-choice system, voters could rank up to five candidates on their ballots in order of preference.Two weeks ago, elections officials began releasing preliminary results that included the first-choice votes of people who cast their ballots in person during the early-voting period or on Primary Day. In those results, Mr. Adams led Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, by 9.6 percentage points, and Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, by 12.5 points.But since Mr. Adams did not get more than 50 percent of the first-choice votes, the ranked-choice system kicks in: lowest-polling candidates are eliminated a round at a time, with their votes reallocated to whichever remaining candidate those voters ranked next.A preliminary ranked-choice tabulation was conducted last week, showing Ms. Garcia trailing Mr. Adams by only two percentage points.That tally, however, did not include the votes of any of roughly 125,000 outstanding absentee ballots.What happens today?Elections officials are expected to conduct another ranked-choice tabulation that includes most of those absentee ballots.For either Ms. Garcia or Ms. Wiley to beat Mr. Adams, they would need a strong showing in these results.Is it over after today?No. Voters are still allowed to correct errors with mail-in ballot envelopes that might prevent their ballots from being counted until this Friday. Final results are expected to arrive sometime next week.And the campaigns of Ms. Wiley, Mr. Adams and Ms. Garcia have filed lawsuits preserving their right to challenge the election results.From The Times‘Maybe We Can Be Friends’: New Yorkers Re-emerge in a Changed CityA Gifted Writer Returns With a Supremely Harrowing NovelMoving Downtown, to the Center of the ActionMet Opera Strikes Deal With Stagehands Over Pandemic PayWant more news? Check out our full coverage.The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.What we’re readingAbout 65,000 shells and aerial effects were launched from five barges near Midtown and Long Island City in what organizers billed as the biggest July 4 show ever. [Gothamist]A 33-year-old man was fatally shot outside a public housing development in the Bronx, police said. [Daily News]City officials are considering a proposal to create 24-hour entertainment districts where people can party all night. [Associated Press]And finally: A library transformed The Times’s James S. Russell writes:Muddling along for four decades in a nondescript former department store, the Mid-Manhattan library, at Fifth Avenue and 40th Street, served a growing swarm of local residents and commuters. But the branch steadily became dilapidated — an “embarrassment” to the New York Public Library system, as Anthony W. Marx, its president, put it.After three years of construction and $200 million, the library system was ready to reopen its largest circulating branch in spring 2020. Instead, the pandemic extended the closure. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, as it is now known (after a $55 million gift), finally threw open its doors to unlimited browsing in June.Its theatrically expressive heart is a dramatic atrium billowing upward from the second floor, displaying the vast circulating collection of up to 400,000 volumes. The branch is phasing in its extensive programming over the coming months. (The New York and Queens library systems will fully reopen today, and Brooklyn will follow a few days later.)Libraries have taken on the great task of helping people acquire knowledge, whatever the means of delivery, and have become more central to community life. The sociologist Eric Klinenberg made libraries Exhibit A in his 2018 book, “Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life.” He argued that “social infrastructure” — public places where people mingle and interact — can help reduce crime, isolation, and even strengthen communities.It’s Tuesday — how about a new book?Metropolitan Diary: Last car Dear Diary:I parked my car at an outdoor lot near Madison Square Garden while my friend and I went to the Rangers game. After the game, we walked to Virgil’s and spent some time catching up over a leisurely barbecue dinner.On the way back to the car, I got a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach when the parking lot came into view. From a distance, it appeared that my car was the only one left in the lot.My uneasy feeling was soon justified. When I left the car there earlier in the evening, I had somehow failed to notice the sign clearly stating that the lot closed at 11 p.m.As my friend and I stood helplessly at the locked gate pondering our stupidity and predicament, I saw a piece of paper taped to the fence and flapping in the wind. It was a handwritten note.“I’m in the Irish pub around the corner,” it said. “Meet me there.”— Vincent BucciIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Read more Metropolitan Diary here.New 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. More

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      Cuomo Under Fire Over Sexual Harassment Allegations

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Harassment Claims Against CuomoWhat We KnowCuomo’s ApologySecond AccusationFirst AccusationMayoral Candidates ReactAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York TodayCuomo Under Fire Over Sexual Harassment AllegationsMarch 1, 2021Updated 5:07 a.m. ET [Want to get New York Today by email? Here’s the sign-up.]It’s Monday. [embedded content]Weather: Chance of light rain, turning blustery tonight with a slight chance of snow showers. Alternate-side parking: In effect until Mar. 28 (Passover). Credit…Cindy Schultz for The New York TimesFor much of the past year, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s profile appeared to be rising. His daily news conferences during the pandemic drew a national following and provided a foil to President Trump’s dismissive response to the crisis. Some Democrats mused about putting Mr. Cuomo on the presidential ticket.Now, a scandal unfolding over allegations that he sexually harassed aides has cast a cloud over the three-term governor’s tenure, drawn calls for an independent investigation and prompted some politicians to suggest that Mr. Cuomo should consider resigning.The allegations come as Mr. Cuomo’s administration already faces a federal inquiry over its handling of nursing homes in the pandemic. A number of accusations of bullying behavior have also recently surfaced from lawmakers and former staff members.[Private conversations are starting to unfold about who might be best positioned to challenge Mr. Cuomo in next year’s gubernatorial elections.]The allegationsA 25-year-old former aide to the governor, Charlotte Bennett, accused Mr. Cuomo on Saturday of sexual harassment, saying he told her in June that he was open to dating women in their 20s and spoke to her in discomfiting ways about her own experience with sexual assault.On Wednesday, another aide, Lindsey Boylan, described several years of uncomfortable interactions with Mr. Cuomo, including an invitation to play strip poker on a government airplane.Mr. Cuomo’s responseMr. Cuomo has denied Ms. Boylan’s allegations.In an initial response to Ms. Bennett’s allegations, Mr. Cuomo said that he believed he had been acting as a mentor and had “never made advances toward Ms. Bennett, nor did I ever intend to act in any way that was inappropriate.”On Sunday, the governor went further, acknowledging that “some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation” and apologized.His promise of an investigation also underwent revisions: He first said on Saturday that he would appoint a former federal judge, Barbara Jones, to lead an inquiry into the allegations, but backtracked after critics pointed out the judge’s close ties to one of the governor’s longtime advisers.Then he said he would ask Letitia James, the state attorney general, and Janet DiFiore, the chief judge of the court of appeals, to “jointly select an independent and qualified lawyer” to review the allegations.But Ms. James and others said the plan did not empower her to do an investigation with subpoena power.Late Sunday, Mr. Cuomo again changed course, saying in a statement that Ms. James alone would be responsible for choosing an outside investigator and granting subpoena power to that person.From The TimesHe Won a Varsity Letter at 16. He Finally Got It When He Was 79.She Was Seen as a Victim in the Sarah Lawrence Cult Case. Now She’s Charged.Cuomo’s Crisis and Republicans Clash: 5 Takeaways from the Mayor’s Race3 Injured in Manhole Fire and Explosion in ManhattanWant more news? Check out our full coverage.The Mini Crossword: Here is today’s puzzle.What we’re readingA man who spent more than 40 years working in subway token booths died while riding a train home from work. [Daily News]A carriage horse that was euthanized after collapsing in Central Park last year, prompting protests from animal rights’ activists, probably had a genetic muscular disease, according to an examination released by the drivers’ union. [N.Y. Post]When wedding receptions resume in New York in two weeks, guests can dance only with members of their immediate party, household or family seated at the same table, according to new guidelines. [N.Y. 1]And finally: The women who shaped the New York Public Library In 1929, when Jennie Maas Flexner helped launch the New York Public Library’s first “Reader’s Advisory Office,” a novel service that would help readers find books based on their interests or desires, the library made a deliberate attempt to not tell the press. Too many people might overwhelm the library’s staff, officials reasoned. “The aim has been from the first, because of staff limitations, to serve the reader who comes rather than to reach great numbers of people,” Ms. Flexner wrote with a colleague in a 1934 report.In the decades since, such services have become widespread, a consequence of Ms. Flexner’s efforts at the New York Public Library, where she worked until her death in 1944. She is one of 20 New York librarians the public library will highlight this month, Women’s History Month.Five librarians will be highlighted every week. In addition to Ms. Flexner, this week’s list includes:Augusta Braxton: Ms. Braxton was hired in 1937 as a children’s librarian and worked for the library for nearly 40 years. In 1953, she became the first Black librarian in an administrative position at the New York Public Library and pushed the library to showcase books that better portrayed people of color.Pura Belpré: She was hired in 1921, becoming the first Puerto Rican librarian at the New York Public Library. She pushed the library to carry Spanish-language books and held bilingual storytelling sessions.Esther K. Johnston: She joined the New York Public Library in 1916 and became acting head of the library’s branches in 1943 when her predecessor was called away to serve in World War II. She was officially appointed to the position in 1947, becoming the highest-ranking female librarian in the country.Genevieve Oswald: Ms. Oswald joined the public library in 1944 and founded its dance collection. She never stopped advocating for dance to be considered a legitimate field of study, despite being told to “go off and have babies” at one point.It’s Monday — turn the page.Metropolitan Diary: Frothy Dear Diary:I had a job at a cafe on the Upper East Side. When I was first hired, the owner taught me how to froth milk for the perfect latte using very cold milk and a small metal cup.One very busy morning I was making lattes by frothing the milk directly in the paper to-go cups. This was a huge faux pas, but also a great time saver.After the morning rush ended, I noticed that the small metal cap that screws onto the nozzle and directs the steam was missing.I checked the counter and the floor, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Eventually, I realized that it must have fallen into a drink. My mind filled with an upsetting thought: What if someone swallows it and chokes?As closing time neared, I was moping behind the bar when a woman stepped one foot into the cafe, shook a to-go coffee cup like a maraca, pulled out the missing cap and placed it on a nearby counter.“Thought you might want this back,” she said.— Danielle MannoNew 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.coMonAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More