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      A Campaign to Finally Ban Asbestos

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      Most Americans believe asbestos is already banned, but it’s still killing people, according to a disease awareness group with a new billboard in Times Square.Good morning. Today we’ll look at how a group pushing for a federal ban on asbestos teamed up with a firefighters’ union to promote its cause in an eye-catching way. We’ll also find out the results of a state audit of Kendra’s Law, a treatment program for mentally ill people at risk of becoming violent.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesIt is an unusually serious message for a giant screen in Times Square: “Ban asbestos now.”Those words are appearing four times an hour in an ad for the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, which says that most Americans believe asbestos has been banned for more than 30 years. In fact, a federal appeals court, in 1991, overturned the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to prohibit most uses of asbestos.Asbestos, long linked to lung cancer and mesothelioma, has been used less widely in recent years, in part because of liability concerns.But the disease awareness group says that more than 300 tons of it came into the country last year. The group has been campaigning for a federal ban on such imports and has joined with the International Association of Fire Fighters, the largest union of firefighters and paramedics in the United States, to create the billboard ads.“We’re hoping to spark curiosity, and, by raising awareness, prevent exposure to asbestos,” said Linda Reinstein, the president of the disease awareness group.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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      In New York, Biden Courts Big-Money Donors and Attacks a ‘Dangerous’ Trump

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      In drawing rooms and ballrooms of the elite in Manhattan, any enthusiasm for a second Biden term seemed to be mingled with fear about the thought of a second one for Donald J. Trump.There is one thing a president can do when Congress is an ungovernable mess, polling numbers are blinking red and crises abroad show no signs of resolving themselves. And that thing is: get out of town.President Biden traveled to New York on Wednesday to headline three fund-raisers, where he presented himself as the last line of defense against the re-election of Donald Trump and as a dedicated — if imperfect — leader who had been around long enough to recognize the existential threat Mr. Trump poses to democratic institutions, including the presidency.“It is dangerous for us to be engaged in this kind of politics, because it ends up dragging us all to the bottom,” Mr. Biden said during his third reception, where his voice had lowered to a whisper after a day of shaking hands, taking selfies and delivering speeches.“It’s not that I’m so good, but you have to have someone who can beat somebody.”Mr. Biden also pre-empted criticism of his age by joking that he was not 81, but “40 times two.” But in the drawing rooms and ballrooms of New York City, any enthusiasm for a second Biden term seemed to be mingled with fear about the thought of a second one from Mr. Trump.Groups lined streets in Manhattan to see the president’s motorcade.Kent Nishimura for The New York Times“We’re here for him, and for the next four years,” said Maureen White, a Democratic donor and the host of Mr. Biden’s third reception of the day, as she stood next to the president. “But we’re also here because the consequences of not electing Joe Biden are terrifying.”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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      Scores of N.Y.C. Public Housing Workers Charged in Record Corruption Case

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      Manhattan’s federal prosecutor said the number of bribery charges, more than 60 in all, amounted to a single-day record for the Justice Department.Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged more than 60 current and former employees of the New York City Housing Authority with bribery and extortion, a sweeping indictment of a troubled organization.The unsealing of the complaints was announced early Tuesday, with additional details on the scope of the investigation to be unveiled by Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, at a late morning news conference.The defendants were charged with “accepting cash payments from contractors in exchange for awarding NYCHA contracts,” a news release said. It added that the more than 60 federal bribery charges amounted to a single-day record for the Department of Justice.Last year, officials at the housing agency estimated that it would need some $78 billion over the next two decades to renovate the aging system, which is home to hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in an expensive city starved for affordable apartments. Complaints about aging buildings, rodents, leaky pipes and broken elevators have dogged the agency, which operates more than 270 developments.In 2022, NYCHA collected just 65 percent of the rent it charged, the lowest percentage in its nearly 100-year history.This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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      Providence Officials Approve Overdose Prevention Center

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      The facility, also known as a safe injection center, will be the first in Rhode Island and the only one in the U.S. outside New York City to operate openly.More than two years ago, Rhode Island became the first state in the nation to authorize overdose prevention centers, facilities where people would be allowed to use illicit drugs under professional supervision. On Thursday, the Providence City Council approved the establishment of what will be the state’s first so-called safe injection site.Minnesota is the only other state to approve these sites, also known as supervised injection centers and harm reduction centers, but no facility has yet opened there. While several states and cities across the country have taken steps toward approving these centers, the concept has faced resistance even in more liberal-leaning states, where officials have wrestled with the legal and moral implications. The only two sites operating openly in the country are in New York City, where Bill de Blasio, who was then mayor, announced the opening of the first center in 2021.The centers employ medical and social workers who guard against overdoses by supplying oxygen and naloxone, the overdose-reversing drug, as well as by distributing clean needles, hygiene products and tests for viruses.Supporters say these centers prevent deaths and connect people with resources. Brandon Marshall, a professor and the chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health, said studies from other countries “show that overdose prevention centers save lives, increase access to treatment, and reduce public drug use and crime in the communities in which they’re located.”Opponents of the centers, including law enforcement groups, say that the sites encourage a culture of permissiveness around illegal drugs, fail to require users to seek treatment and bring drug use into neighborhoods that are already struggling with high overdose rates.Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, said that while supervised drug consumption sites “reduce risks while people use drugs inside them,” they reach only a few people and “don’t alter the severity or character of a neighborhood’s drug problem.”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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      Sandy Liang’s NYC Lunar New Year Party: Pink Bows, Red Gowns

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      On Wednesday night, more than 400 people flowed in and out of Sandy Liang’s Lunar New Year party held at Boom, the venue at the top of the Standard High Line Hotel.Some guests wore bright red, to symbolize good luck, but many were in looks adorned with bows and ballet flats, emblems associated with Ms. Liang’s playfully nostalgic namesake fashion brand.The evening was an early celebration of the Lunar New Year, which starts on Feb. 10; Ms. Liang grew up observing the holiday with her family in Queens. This is her second year hosting the event with the chef Danny Bowien, and she hopes her friends will embrace the holiday.“Maybe they’ll start their own traditions,” she said.Guests at Sandy Liang’s Lunar New Year party accessorized with red details and little bows.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDraped over Ms. Liang’s shoulder was a piece she was “test-driving” for her upcoming collection: a large baby-pink bow that served as a handle for a bag.“It just looks like a big bow, and then you pick it up and it’s actually a bag,” she said, while wearing an orchid hair bow and earrings from her new Lunar New Year collection.As Sandy Liang’s popular black and red Palermo bows floated around the room, guests crowded each corner of the dimly lit space, which was decorated with paper lanterns and flowers on each table.References to the Year of the Dragon abounded. Near the dance floor, there was a large floral arrangement shaped like a dragon egg. And guests were handed temporary tattoos that Ms. Liang said were inspired by a tattoo Angelina Jolie once had: These featured Ms. Liang’s name hovering above a dragon, instead of “Billy Bob,” the name of Ms. Jolie’s ex-husband.Ella EmhoffJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDanny BowienJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAliyah BahJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesYoung EmperorsJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesDelia CaiJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAntoni BumbaJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesParker RadcliffeJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesIvan LamJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAshleyJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesIzzi AllainJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesIsze CohenJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesPierce AbernathyJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAlia Ssemakula, left, and Faith KimJutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesElla Emhoff, a model and artist (and the stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris), slinked through groups elbow to elbow by the bar. Mr. Bowien, unintentionally matching Ms. Liang’s coat, lounged next to one of two fireplaces.Nearby, the fashion duo Young Emperors danced to classic hits by Kelis, Peaches and the Black Eyed Peas and modern singles by PinkPantheress and Aliyah’s Interlude, whose given name is Aliyah Bah. Ms. Bah was in attendance, mingling with the crowd wearing her signature “Aliyahcore” earmuffs and Y2K-era clothing.“I think my favorite thing about Sandy Liang, the person and the brand, is how unapologetically girly they are,” Ms. Bah said, while showing off her pink Hello Kitty bow and Lisa Frank-inspired nails.A dragon-egg-shaped floral arrangement for the Year of the Dragon.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesGirls often become alienated from girlhood, Ms. Bah said, but the Sandy Liang brand supports her in embracing it. “At the end of the day,” she added, “I’m literally just a girl.” More

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      ‘The Connector,’ a Show That Asks: Should News Feel True or Be True?

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      A new musical from Jason Robert Brown, Daisy Prince and Jonathan Marc Sherman explores the diverging trajectories of two young writers in the late 1990s.The director Daisy Prince had a flash of inspiration for a new show nearly 20 years ago: She wanted to explore the fallout from a string of partially or entirely fabricated news articles (by writers like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair). The show would be set at a New York City magazine with a storied history — a publication much like The New Yorker. Also, it would be a musical.“I had become somewhat fixated on all these falsified news stories — these larger questions about fact, truth and story,” said Prince, who directed Jason Robert Brown’s “The Last Five Years” and “Songs for a New World.”She jotted the thought down in her great big notebook of ideas. But by the time she finally returned to it, around 2010, she was certain she had missed out.“I thought by the time we were going to be able to tell this story, it would no longer be relevant,” she said.But then the Trump presidency arrived, along with his strategy of labeling unfavorable coverage as fake news — and the premise only became more timely. Now the show, titled “The Connector,” conceived and directed by Prince with music and lyrics by Brown and a book by Jonathan Marc Sherman, is premiering Off Broadway at MCC Theater, where it is set to open Feb. 6.Ben Levi Ross, left, as Ethan Dobson and Hannah Cruz as Robin Martinez in the musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe 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?  More

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      Mayor Adams Clashes With City Council Speaker on NYC’s Path

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      Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the City Council, has become one of Mayor Eric Adams’s most powerful critics as he struggles with crises and low approval ratings.As Mayor Eric Adams battles low poll ratings, a federal investigation and potential challengers to his re-election in New York City, a Democratic ally has emerged as an unexpected adversary: Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker.Ms. Adams, who shares many of the mayor’s moderate stances, has become one of his most powerful and vocal critics, unifying the most diverse City Council ever and empowering it as a forceful wedge against him.On Tuesday, Ms. Adams led the Council in overriding the mayor’s vetoes of a bill banning the use of solitary confinement in the city’s jails and another bill requiring police officers to record the race, age and gender of most people they stop.The actions were an unusual rebuke of a New York City mayor by his Democratic colleagues: It was only the second time in nearly a decade that the Council has overridden a mayor’s veto.When she was chosen as Council speaker in 2022, Ms. Adams was seen as a compromise candidate, a moderate Democrat who could work with Mayor Adams without being beholden to him. But in recent months, she has begun to regularly play the role of political antagonist to the mayor.She has questioned Mr. Adams’s management of the budget and criticized his approach to handling the influx of migrants as inhumane. She prompted the Council to pass the bills banning solitary confinement and improving police accountability, despite the mayor’s objections, and carried enough support to override his vetoes.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?  More