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      Police Investigate Threats to Mamdani in Mayoral Race’s Final Days

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      Voice mail messages promising violence against Zohran Mamdani, a progressive Democrat, came as attacks on politicians, judges and other government officials have skyrocketed.The New York Police Department is investigating threats against Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, one of the leading candidates in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary.Andrew Epstein, a spokesman for Mr. Mamdani, said he was cooperating with the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force after an unidentified man left a string of profane voice mail messages at his district office in recent weeks. One message left Wednesday morning threatened Mr. Mamdani, who is Muslim, and his family.The man called Mr. Mamdani a “terrorist” who “is not welcome in New York or America,” according to audio provided by the campaign. Although Mr. Mamdani does not own a car, the caller said he should be careful starting one.“The violent and specific language of what appears to be a repeat caller is alarming and we are taking every precaution,” Mr. Epstein said in a written statement.“While this is a sad reality, it is not surprising after millions of dollars have been spent on dehumanizing, Islamophobic rhetoric designed to stoke division and hate.”A police spokesman said there had been no arrests, but that an investigation was continuing.The threats came at a deadly moment for elected officials in the United States. Violence against politicians, judges and other government officials has skyrocketed in recent years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Adams Bars Reporter From News Conferences for Being ‘Disrespectful’

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      After a contentious exchange, Mayor Eric Adams said, “Make sure security knows he’s not allowed back into this room.”Chris Sommerfeldt, who covers City Hall for The Daily News, spent part of Tuesday reporting on ICE agents’ arrest of Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller, at a Manhattan courthouse.By then, he was already the subject of some interest himself, after Mayor Eric Adams took the extraordinary step of barring him in the future from the weekly City Hall news conferences that are reporters’ only regular chance to ask Mr. Adams whatever they want.The mayor, whose interactions with reporters have often been contentious, imposed the ban after calling Mr. Sommerfeldt “disruptive” and “disrespectful” for shouting questions without being called on first, as is the custom at the so-called off-topic events.Mr. Sommerfeldt, one of two Daily News reporters who cover City Hall, has not been called on at one of the weekly events in more than three months, the newspaper reported.The exchange that preceded the mayor’s unusual move came as he discussed his plans for the general election campaign.Elected as a Democrat in 2021, Mr. Adams is skipping the party primary this year and has said he intends to run for re-election on two ballot lines of his own creation: EndAntiSemitism and Safe&Affordable.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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      Leonard A. Lauder, Philanthropist and Cosmetics Heir, Dies at 92

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      He was best known for his success in business, notably the international beauty company he built with his mother, Estée Lauder. But he was also an influential art patron.Leonard A. Lauder, the art patron and philanthropist who with his mother, Estée Lauder, built a family cosmetics business into a worldwide juggernaut that supplied generations of women with the creams, colors and scents of eternal youth, died on Saturday at his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was 92.The death was announced by the Estée Lauder Companies.While best known for his business enterprises, Mr. Lauder was also one of America’s most influential philanthropists and art patrons. He gave hundreds of millions to museums, medical institutions, and breast cancer and Alzheimer’s research, as well as to other cultural, scientific and social causes. His art collections ranged from postcards to Picassos.In 2013, he pledged the most significant gift in the history of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a trove of nearly 80 Cubist paintings, drawings and sculptures by Picasso, Braque, Léger and Gris. Scholars put the value of the gift at $1 billion and said its quality rivaled or surpassed that of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Pompidou Center in Paris.After the gift was announced, he added another dozen major Cubist works, The New York Times reported in a profile of Mr. Lauder last year.The eldest son of Estée Lauder, who in 1946 founded the company that bears her name, Mr. Lauder was for decades a senior executive and the marketing expert and corporate strategist behind his mother, the flamboyant public face of the Lauder empire, who pitched its lipsticks, bath oils, face powders and anti-wrinkle creams with almost messianic zeal.In a business reliant on imagery and mythmaking, his mother, the daughter of a Queens merchant, had created a genteel Hungarian aristocratic past for herself and a name to go with it. Josephine Esther Lauter, the wife of a luncheonette owner, thus became the glamorous Estée Lauder.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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      Public Defender Is Charged With Smuggling THC-Laced Paper Into Rikers

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      Bernardo Caceres was at New York City’s jail complex to meet with a client when an envelope he had drew the attention of a Correction Department dog, officials said.A public defender has been charged with trying to smuggle contraband into the Rikers Island jail complex after, officials said, he brought papers to a client meeting that were laced with THC, the main psychoactive chemical compound in marijuana.The public defender, Bernardo Caceres of Queens Defenders, was arrested about 3 p.m. Wednesday at the complex’s Otis Bantum Correctional Center, a Correction Department spokeswoman and the correction officers’ union said on Friday.Mr. Caceres and a second lawyer were there to meet with a client being held on a burglary charge, a union spokesman said. The second lawyer was not affiliated with Queens Defenders.A yellow envelope Mr. Caceres had with him caught the attention of a Correction Department dog, the agency’s spokeswoman said. When an officer retrieved the envelope from the client and opened it, he found a stack of discolored legal-size paperwork, the spokeswoman said.Jail officials have said that such discoloration can indicate the presence of drugs, and the spokeswoman said testing had determined that over 130 sheets of the paper contained traces of THC. Mr. Caceres was arrested and charged with promoting prison contraband, officials said. The second lawyer was released after officers determined he did not know that the papers might contain drugs.A spokeswoman for the Bronx district attorney’s office said that Mr. Caceres had been issued a desk appearance ticket and that further testing was needed to confirm the Correction Department’s finding that the papers contained THC.It was unclear whether Mr. Caceres had a lawyer. The Queens Defenders, one of several organizations in the city that represent indigent clients under government contracts, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The officers’ union has long argued that all mail coming into the city’s jails should be digitized and made available to detainees via electronic tablets to prevent paper from being used as a vehicle for smuggling. The Board of Correction, which has oversight of the city’s jails, considered such a change in 2023 but ultimately did not approve it.Benny Boscio Jr., the union’s president, said the episode on Wednesday underscored why a move to paperless mail was necessary. “Allowing paper documents to continue to enter our facility only compromises the safety of everyone in our jails,” Mr. Boscio said.The smuggling of contraband into the Rikers complex is a longstanding problem that has sometimes involved those who work there. Last year, for instance, several correction officers were charged with sneaking cellphones, oxycodone, marijuana, fentanyl and sheets of paper soaked in drugs into the complex.The arrest of Mr. Caceres, 30, came the same day that a founder of Queens Defenders, Lori Zeno, and her husband, Rashad Ruhani, were charged with wire fraud, money laundering conspiracy and theft of funds.The couple, prosecutors said, spent tens of thousands of dollars in organization funds on personal expenses, including a vacation in Bali, rent for a luxury apartment and teeth-whitening procedures. More

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      Mamdani and Lander Will Cross-Endorse Each Other in N.Y.C. Mayor’s Race

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      Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, the two leading progressive candidates in the race, hope their partnership will help them leverage the ranked-choice voting system to defeat Andrew M. Cuomo.Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander, the leading progressive candidates in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City, will cross-endorse each other on Friday, creating a late-stage partnership designed to help one of them surpass former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in ranked-choice balloting.The candidates, who are second and third in the polls behind Mr. Cuomo, will encourage their supporters to rank them in the top two spots on their ballots. The city’s ranked-choice voting system allows primary voters to list up to five candidates in order of preference.If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of New Yorkers’ first-choice votes, ranked-choice tabulations will begin. When voters’ top choices are eliminated during that process, their support will get transferred to candidates who are lower on their ballots.The partnership, which is being announced one day before early voting begins, would effectively turn Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman, and Mr. Lander, the city comptroller, into something of a joint entry. They hope that one of them will eventually accumulate many of the other’s votes as a result.Mr. Mamdani, who has steadily risen in the polls and is running second behind Mr. Cuomo, said in a statement that at Thursday night’s debate, he and Mr. Lander had exposed Mr. Cuomo as “a relic of the broken politics of the past.”“I am proud to rank our principled and progressive comptroller No. 2 on my ballot because we are both fighting for a city every New Yorker can afford,” Mr. Mamdani 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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      5 Takeaways From the Debate for N.Y.C. Mayor

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      The two front-runners in the New York City mayor’s race, Andrew M. Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, traded barbs over their records, immigration and a host of other issues.In the final Democratic debate in the primary for mayor of New York City, seven candidates sparred over immigration, affordability and President Trump’s policies. But more often, the debate on Thursday devolved into sharp personal attacks.The most pointed exchanges involved former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the two front-runners in polls.Mr. Cuomo pummeled Mr. Mamdani, arguing that his inexperience was dangerous. Mr. Mamdani criticized the former governor as out-of-touch and beholden to the same special interests that support Mr. Trump.Other candidates often entered the fray. Brad Lander, the city comptroller, drew attention to Mr. Cuomo’s handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic and the sexual harassment allegations that led to his resignation as governor in 2021.The debate was the candidates’ best and possibly last chance to grab attention ahead of the start of early voting on Saturday. The primary will be held June 24.Here are five takeaways from the debate.Ganging up on CuomoMr. Cuomo is still clearly viewed as the front-runner based on the attacks he faced from his rivals. Several of the candidates mentioned the sexual harassment allegations, which he denied.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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      Inside the Jury Room at the Weinstein Trial, Rancor and Recrimination

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      As the panelists deliberated over whether the former Hollywood mogul should be convicted of sex crimes for a second time in Manhattan, accusations began to fly.Inside the jury room at the second New York sex crime trial of Harvey Weinstein, things were getting tense.The 12 jurors had already acquitted the former Hollywood mogul on one felony sex crime charge, and they had begun to deliberate on a second when the discussions suddenly turned pointed, and personal.One juror, who had been calm and had even prayed with the others, abruptly began accusing another of having been “bought out” by Mr. Weinstein or his lawyers.The moment, which occurred on the second day of deliberations in a case that was brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office after its earlier sex crime conviction against Mr. Weinstein was overturned, foreshadowed the rancor and dysfunction that would ultimately consume the panel, leading it to deadlock on Thursday over the question of whether Mr. Weinstein raped an aspiring actress in a hotel room in 2013.This account of what occurred in the jury room is based on interviews with several jurors, particularly one panelist who came forward twice to voice concerns to the judge about the behavior of his fellow jurors.That panelist, juror No. 7, described the interactions as having grown increasingly contentious and marked by personal attacks.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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      John L. Young, 89, Dies; Pioneered Posting Classified Documents Online

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      His site, Cryptome, was a precursor to WikiLeaks, and in some ways bolder in its no-holds-barred approach to exposing government secrets.John L. Young, who used his experience as a computer-savvy architect to help build Cryptome, a vast library of sensitive documents that both preceded WikiLeaks and in some ways outdid it in its no-holds-barred approach to exposing government secrets, died on March 28 at a rehabilitation facility in Manhattan. He was 89.His death, which was not widely reported at the time, was from complications of large-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his wife, Deborah Natsios, said.Cryptome, which Mr. Young and Ms. Natsios, the daughter of a C.I.A. officer, founded in 1996, offers up a grab-bag of leaked and obscure public-domain documents, presented in reverse chronological order and in a bare-bones, courier-fonted display, as if they had been written on a typewriter.The 70,000 documents on the site range from the seemingly innocuous — a course catalog from the National Intelligence University — to the clearly top secret: Over the years, Mr. Young exposed the identities of hundreds of intelligence operatives in the United States, Britain and Japan.“I’m a fierce opponent of government secrets of all kinds,” he told The Associated Press in 2013. “The scale is tipped so far the other way that I’m willing to stick my neck out and say there should be none.”Though he received frequent visits from the F.B.I. and his internet service providers occasionally cut off his website for fear of legal entanglements, he was never charged with a crime, and Cryptome was always soon back online.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