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      Un gran año electoral no debe distraer del deterioro democrático

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      Hay que prestar atención al declive institucional.No tengo idea de cómo llegué a mi oficina esta mañana. Quiero decir, sí lo sé: caminé a la estación del metro que está cerca de mi casa, me subí a un tren, unas paradas después transbordé a otro, me bajé cerca de mi oficina y luego entré al edificio, aunque antes fui rápido a una cafetería para comprar un sándwich para el desayuno.Pero esa lista de pasos describe el límite de mi conocimiento. No tengo ni idea de quién abrió la estación de metro ni de lo que se necesita para mantenerla en funcionamiento. (O, como fue el caso, por qué uno de los torniquetes estaba atascado a medio abrir y zumbaba a nadie en particular una quejumbrosa alarma sobre su situación). No sé conducir un tren y, desde luego, no sé cómo es su mantenimiento. Y estoy segura de que los londinenses están muy agradecidos de que yo nunca haya tenido que plantearme cómo excavar un túnel de metro o instalar una línea de tren.Y, sin embargo, si esas cosas no hubieran sucedido en el orden correcto, tal como las diseñaron los expertos y las llevaron a cabo los profesionales, Londres se paralizaría. De hecho, la semana pasada estuvo a punto de producirse ese colapso, debido a una huelga de transportes que se suspendió en el último momento.Lo mágico de las instituciones es esto: existen para que los procesos complejos puedan automatizarse, para que grandes grupos de personas puedan colaborar sin tener que crear nuevos sistemas para hacerlo y para que personas como yo podamos confiar en su pericia sin poseer ni un ápice de esa experiencia.Pero como las instituciones suelen funcionar en segundo plano, sin que se note, a veces es difícil determinar el momento en que empiezan a desmoronarse. Y, lo que es frustrante para mí, es que es aún más difícil escribir sobre el declive progresivo sin que suene tremendamente aburrido.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

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      Trump Cannot Be Unseen

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      Gail Collins: Hey Bret, good to be conversing again. Heck of a lot going on. Before we get to the border or the budget, though, let me admit I’m shallow and start with the Trump town hall on CNN.Bret Stephens: Not shallow, Gail. But you are depressing me.Gail: Trump lost your Republican vote a long time ago, but if you were still on the fence, was there anything on display that evening that would have had an impact?Bret: I’m not exactly a reliable gauge of how today’s Republicans think: In November, I wrote a column called “Donald Trump Is Finally Finished,” which I may have to spend the rest of my life living down.That said, I would guess that if you’re the sort of voter who liked 80-proof Trump, you’re gonna love 120-proof Trump. And that’s what he was in that CNN town hall: more mendacious, more shameless, more unapologetic, more aggressive, nastier. But also undeniably vigorous, particularly when compared with Joe Biden. My guess is the town hall will consolidate his lead as the Republican front-runner.Your take? Should CNN have given him the platform?Gail: Don’t see any reason CNN shouldn’t have done the interview. Except that it reduces pressure on Trump to show up for any Republican primary debates. Which he naturally wants to avoid, given his ineptitude when it comes to actual policy questions.Bret: I’m of two minds. The media has a responsibility to cover the Republican front-runner, and I thought Kaitlan Collins, the CNN moderator, handled the responsibility about as well as anyone could have. Yet nonstop media attention is the oxygen on which Trump thrives. The more attention we give him — which is what we are doing right now — the stronger he gets.Gail: About the impact: Yeah, if you liked Trump before, you wouldn’t be deterred by his willingness to let the nation default, or his being “inclined” to pardon a lot of the Jan. 6 rioters.Really would like to hear an everybody-in primary debate, though. Without Trump, I guess the only suspense would be whether Ron DeSantis is capable of being … not terrible.Bret: Well, as much as I dislike DeSantis for his views on abortion and Ukraine and free speech, I also have to ask whether I’d prefer him to Trump as the Republican nominee. And there the answer is a resounding yes, much as I’d much prefer a peptic ulcer to stomach cancer.Gail: I’m still not inclined to pick DeSantis over — pretty much anybody. Yeah, Trump is worse when it comes to personal morality, and DeSantis probably wouldn’t be as divisive in the sense of not being exciting enough to really rile up the base.But his position on social issues like abortion is scary: He truly believes in imposing his extremist convictions on the country.Bret: True, but Trump believes in imposing his despotic convictions on the country.I also think it’s imperative that Democrats — and I don’t mean Robert Kennedy Jr. — start thinking about challenging Biden in the primary. That Washington Post-ABC poll showing Biden with a 36 percent approval rating and running 6 points behind Trump should scare the bejeezus out of Democrats — and that’s before we wind up in a recession or a full-scale banking crisis or a shooting war with China (or all three).Gail: Real-life fact is that no Democrat with the standing to potentially win a primary would challenge a sitting president. Especially one like Biden whose performance is … not bad. He’s had some real achievements, particularly in the super-important battle against global warming. Overall yes, he’s unexciting, and these days incapable of forcing the House Republicans to do anything really constructive. But his standards and character are high.Bret: As you know, I will vote for him over Trump or DeSantis. But Democrats overstate his achievements and underestimate his unpopularity at their own — actually, our own — peril.Gail: We both were wishing he’d announce he wasn’t running and open the door for other promising candidates to jump in. But since it’s not gonna happen … it’s not gonna happen.Bret: Probably right. Next subject: Your thoughts about the budget negotiations?Gail: I have faith that there’s not going to be a crushing default — that in a total crisis the Fed will figure out something. But when it comes to the bottom line I’m on the side of Joe Biden. (Surprise!) You do not use the country’s credit standing to stage a stupid battle about cutting funds for the poor.Bret: Well, by the same token, you do not use the country’s credit standing to insist that no spending cuts should even be countenanced and that able-bodied single adults should not have to find work as a condition of obtaining government benefits.Gail: The Republicans are attacking the status quo, not some new program the Democrats are trying to push through. And I’ve always been wary of the must-work stuff because all the paperwork, even in our technological era, makes it so easy for people to get cut off for no reason except bureaucratic confusion.Bret: The conservative in me hates subsidizing indolence, especially when jobs are abundant. Welfare should go to those who truly need it, not people who just can’t be bothered to work.Gail: Also, I think this must-work discussion has to begin with quality child care for every low-income family that needs it. Very bottom bottom line is that kids come first.About the budget — I guess Congress could just decide there just shouldn’t be a debt ceiling. After all, we went more than 125 years without one. Is that something you think they should rally around?Bret: The debt ceiling reminds me a bit of the Doomsday machine in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.” In theory, it’s supposed to encourage restraint and responsibility. In practice, it’s likely to destroy the world. I’d be interested to see the administration test the theory that the 14th Amendment, which says that the public debt of the United States “shall not be questioned,” makes the debt ceiling unconstitutional, although I doubt they could win that case in court.The other crisis, Gail, is happening at the southern border. Looking back, anything the administration might have done to avert it?Gail: Not gonna be silly enough to claim the Biden folks have been completely on top of the whole situation.Bret: Our awesome veep ….Gail: But it looks like we’ll finally be getting a lot of new federal workers to deal with the people who show up at the border.And the Biden administration is working on it. The Trump administration was totally useless on the problem.Bret: Not useless but definitely cruel. But what voters will remember is that under Trump, we didn’t have this scale of a crisis.Gail: Not sure the scale is really going to be that overwhelming as the year moves on. And I still have to note that I hate, really hate, your idea of finishing that wall.Bret: A wall won’t stop all illegal immigration. But it can help deter the most dangerous and reckless border crossings, which have left thousands of migrants dead. It should be part of an overall immigration compromise that includes automatic citizenship for Dreamers and more permissive rules for legal immigration through normal consular channels in the migrants’ home countries. Right now we have the worst of both worlds: a totally chaotic border that makes a bipartisan legislative compromise a political nonstarter.Gail: Bret, these people have a lot of reasons for coming — including seeking asylum from government oppression. But most of them are coming for jobs, and as you’ve always pointed out, our economy really needs the workers. In New York, we’ve gotten a ton of newcomers. They’re having a terrible time, particularly with housing, but employers, especially in the service industries, are desperate for their help. We just need to work out a system to make it possible.Bret: Sadly, as our news-side colleague Hannah Dreier chronicled last month, many recent border crossers are children working in conditions worthy of Dickens or Dreiser. Seeing mothers with young children strapped to their backs while hawking candies at traffic stops was something I was accustomed to in my hometown of Mexico City. It’s jarring to encounter them at road intersections and on subway platforms in New York City. If Biden doesn’t get a handle on this, it could cost him the election and lead to an ugly public backlash that will make Trump’s immigration policy seem tame.Speaking of subways, Gail, your thoughts on the killing of Jordan Neely?Gail: We’re talking about a former Michael Jackson impersonator who used to entertain subway passengers, but had deteriorated into a homeless man who was mentally ill and sometimes scary.Bret: Very scary. He was a person who had previously been arrested more than 30 times. He had punched an elderly woman in the face. He had exposed himself and peed inside of a subway car. He had walked out on a residential treatment program. There was a warrant for his arrest at the time of his death — but cops probably wouldn’t have found out about it because a group sued to stop the police from detaining people solely to check for arrest warrants. He was the sort of guy who makes the subway frightening for a lot of passengers, particularly women. People ought to know these facts before rushing to judgment.Gail: Neely was acting out and frightening people on the day he died. Daniel Penny, the former Marine who tackled him, was trying to stop an unnerving incident from happening. But he used chokehold force in a way that killed Neely.I can’t absolve Penny. But the big problem here is that the low-or-no-income mentally ill need more services than they’re getting in New York or pretty much anywhere.Bret: Obviously, I don’t support vigilantism. But that’s what you get when police are hampered from maintaining public order. The answer is to give the police the authorities and resources they need to deal with someone like Neely before a tragedy occurs.Gail, this is too grim a note on which to end — and we haven’t even touched on George Santos’s indictment.Gail: Now there’s a high note!Bret: Before we go, I want to put in a word for Sam Roberts’s obituary for Mike Pride, a former editor of The Concord Monitor, who died last month in Florida at 76, and whom we both knew through his stewardship of the Pulitzer Prizes. Mike showed that you can often make the greatest difference as a newsman by writing about issues that are near to people’s everyday lives. He reminded us that local journalism matters. And that it’s at least one thing that deserves to be made great again.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The M.T.A.’s Money Woes

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      The New York area transportation authority is contending with reduced ridership, debt and inefficiency.Good morning. It’s Wednesday. We’ll look at what the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s looming budget deficit might mean for riders — and drivers. And, with an eye to next week’s primary, we’ll recap a key congressional race in Manhattan.Timothy Mulcare for The New York TimesThe Metropolitan Transportation Authority is facing a $2.5 billion budget deficit for 2025, 12 percent of its operating budget. That has New Yorkers who remember past financial emergencies worried about service cuts. I asked Ana Ley, a Metro reporter who covers transit in New York, to explain.The chairman of the M.T.A. told you that transit in New York City “is like air and water — we cannot exist without it.” But the M.T.A. cannot exist without revenue. Is that one reason the authority is talking about charging drivers as much as $23 to drive into Midtown Manhattan under a congestion pricing program?Congestion pricing is one way the M.T.A. can generate new sources of revenue, but that money is only supposed to be used for infrastructure upgrades, like building new platform barriers or elevators. The way congestion pricing works right now, it can’t be used for operating expenses, which are the dollars the M.T.A. uses for day-to-day costs to run the subways, buses and trains. A lot is used to pay employees. That’s the type of money it desperately needs right now.Some lawmakers have urged the M.T.A. to dip into money it has reserved for system improvements to pay for those everyday operating expenses. But government watchdogs warn that it could push the M.T.A.’s huge debt load even higher because the authority relies heavily on bonds for capital improvement projects.Transit advocates have said the state should move money from the federal government’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill from highway and road upgrades to pay for transit.And many experts agree that the M.T.A. — which has a reputation for huge overspending and labor redundancies — could address part of its problem by simply being more efficient.How bad is the M.T.A.’s financial picture?It has been bad for a long time. The pandemic just made it get a lot worse very quickly.The state let the M.T.A. issue bonds in the early 1980s to save it from economic decline at the time, and the authority’s debt load ballooned. Expenses have since outpaced income, and the authority has borrowed heavily to keep up.More troublingly, the M.T.A. relies more on fares than most other transit systems in the nation, and it lost a huge number of riders through the pandemic. The federal government offered a one-time bailout of more than $14 billion to keep it afloat, but that money will run out in two years. That’s why transit leaders are scrambling for a fix.How far from prepandemic ridership is the M.T.A. right now? What about earlier forecasts that said the M.T.A. by next year would carry 86 percent of the passengers it had before Covid hit?Ridership has struggled to rebound and hovers at about 60 percent of prepandemic levels. Forecasters predict they will reach only 80 percent of prepandemic levels by 2026, which is way down from earlier expectations of 86 percent by next year. As a result of that drop, the latest projections from the authority’s consultant, McKinsey & Company, estimate that the M.T.A. will bring in $7.9 billion in revenue in 2026, down considerably from a previous estimate of $8.4 billion. Before the pandemic, it had expected to make $9.6 billion that year.Those early pandemic estimates now seem too rosy because at the time that McKinsey made them, it didn’t expect the coronavirus to evolve so much and stifle the city’s recovery. We also didn’t know remote work would become so popular, or that riders would avoid transit after several high-profile violent incidents amplified the perception that the system has become more dangerous.So what can the M.T.A. do?Without help from the state, not much that would make riders or transit workers happy.It could cut service, raise fares or lay off employees. But its potential budget gap is huge, and those things alone would probably not fix it.Cuts would be especially devastating, because they could plunge the system into a so-called transit death spiral, where reduced service and delayed upgrades make public transit a less convenient option, which would reduce ridership and further shrink revenue until the network collapsed. The M.T.A. got a glimpse of that in 2010, when transit leaders cut their way out of a fiscal crisis triggered by the Great Recession, inconveniencing 15 percent of its transit riders and driving some away altogether.Today, any new service reductions risk deepening work force inequities that were laid bare by the pandemic. White-collar workers have had the option to stay home, but many lower-wage workers, who tend to be people of color with longer commutes, still need to travel to their jobs.WeatherExpect of chance of showers in the morning. The rest of the day is mostly sunny, with temperatures near 80. At night, temps will drop to around the high 60s.ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKINGIn effect until Sept. 5 (Labor Day).The latest Metro newsJefferson Siegel for The New York TimesCrimeProsecutor, advocate and now defendant: Adam Foss (above), a former Boston prosecutor who became a criminal justice reform advocate, pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and sexual abuse in Manhattan.Mafia clans charged: Nine members and associates of the Genovese and Bonanno families were charged with racketeering in a case that centered on money laundering and secret gambling parlors.HousingReduce emissions or face fines: Building owners are on high alert about upgrades needed to comply with city regulations to fight climate change.Apartment hunting tips: An investigative reporter gives backgrounding tips for your next apartment search, ProPublica reports.More local newsSocial services chief scrutinized: The city’s social services commissioner is being investigated after homeless families had to spend the night at a Bronx intake office.Digging deep at an amusement park: At Diggerland U.S.A., children can experience the thrill of operating real construction machinery. (Adults like it, too.)In Manhattan, congressional musical chairsFrom left: Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Dave Sanders for The New York TimesWith the Democratic congressional primary six days away, it’s time for a recap of a key race.It’s unusual for two incumbents to face off in a primary for the same seat. But that is what is happening in Manhattan, where a redistricting plan joined the East and West Sides above 14th Street in one district for the first time since before World War II.Representative Jerrold Nadler, from the West Side, and Representative Carolyn Maloney, from the East Side, are the players in this game of congressional musical chairs. The music will stop when the votes are counted next week.Both have served in Congress since the 1990s. Both have accumulated enough seniority to be committee chairs, he of Judiciary, she of Oversight. Also in the race is Suraj Patel, a 38-year-old lawyer who says it is time for a generational change.Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, is supporting Nadler. Many politicians and political operatives had expected him to sit out the primary, as nearly every other House Democrat from New York has done. So has Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. As might be expected, there’s some history between all of them: Maloney endorsed Gillibrand’s campaign for president in 2020. The first time Schumer ran for the Senate, in 1998, Nadler endorsed him.For Maloney and her allies, the race has increasingly focused on women. With the Supreme Court and Republican-led states rolling back reproductive rights, her supporters see this as a moment to rally behind a woman in Congress. Maloney has spent a sizable portion of the $900,000 she has lent the campaign reinforcing the message “you cannot send a man to do a woman’s job.”My colleague Nicholas Fandos writes that few women have ever had more influence in Washington or used it with such intense focus — pressing for the Equal Rights Amendment, paid family leave, protections against gender-based violence and a national women’s history museum. Maloney has support from the feminist Gloria Steinem, who called her “the most needed, the most trusted and the experienced.”The primary fight has been increasingly vicious. Nadler has cast himself as the progressive and has highlighted his status as the city’s last Jewish congressman. Maloney told Nicholas Fandos flatly that Nadler did not work as hard as she did, particularly on local issues.She also said that residents of one of the nation’s wealthiest and most liberal districts needed her, not Nadler or Patel. But Nadler’s team put together a Nadler women’s group led by two former Manhattan borough presidents, Gale Brewer and Ruth Messinger. Senator Elizabeth Warren appears in a Nadler television commercial, and he also has the backing of the actor Cynthia Nixon, who ran for governor of New York four years ago.METROPOLITAN diary(Central Park, 9 a.m.)Dear Diary:I had not breathedin yearsbut oneeveningpickeda windthe stringsof my sinewedthroatan old man-dolinand a melodymoved throughme— Rolli AndersonIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero More

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      A Subway Attack That Shook New York City

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      The gunman who injured 23 in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, escaped, but the police identified a person of interest.Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Two stories will dominate the conversation today: the attack in the subway that left at least 23 people injured, 10 from gunfire, and the resignation of Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin, hours after he was arrested on corruption charges.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesA man dressed in a neon-orange vest and a green construction helmet strapped on a gas mask, released two smoke grenades and began firing a gun he was carrying.It was the beginning of an attack that rattled the city — a mass shooting that turned the subway into another edgy symbol of a city worn thin by violence.Videos from the subway car where the smoke bomb went off and the shots rang out showed commuters running and just trying to breathe as they pulled their sleeves and their collars across their faces. My colleague Sarah Maslin Nir writes that there were a few panicked screams before the train pulled into the next stop, the doors opened and riders who could escape poured out, gasping in the smoke.“There’s been a shooting,” a woman said as she fled. Behind her a man limped out of the smoky subway car. Other passengers collapsed once they made it out, while in the car, wounded passengers lay on the blue seats or on the floor.The gunman — who had been on the train for eight stops, according to the police — apparently escaped in the maelstrom on the platform. At least one surveillance camera that could have captured the gunman was not working, Mayor Eric Adams said. The camera malfunction appeared to hamper the search as the police fanned out through Sunset Park. Police officials said they were looking for a “person of interest,” Frank R. James, a 62-year-old man who had rented a U-Haul van they found several miles from the station where the attack occurred. They said the van had been rented in Philadelphia.In the station, they said, they had found a nine-millimeter semiautomatic handgun, a hatchet and a bag with fireworks. Keechant Sewell, the police commissioner, added that there were online “postings possibly connected to the man where he mentions homelessness, he mentions New York and he does mention Mayor Adams.” As a result, she said, the mayor’s security detail was being tightened “in an abundance of caution”Adams, confined to Gracie Mansion after testing positive for the coronavirus this week, said in radio and television interviews that the police presence in the subways would be doubled and that officers assigned to day shifts would work into the evening. He said on NY1 that the shooting “really elevates the conversation” about the “crisis that is playing across our country” involving the proliferation of guns.It was not the first time in his 100-plus days in office that Adams had ordered more police attention on the subways. He announced plans in January to order hundreds of street-level patrol officers to inspect subway stations regularly and to redeploy officers from desk jobs onto the trains. Adams also announced plans to stop homeless people from sheltering on trains and platforms a few weeks after a woman was pushed to her death in front of a train.But crime has continued to increase. For January and February, felony assaults were up 10 percent over the same period last year, and for many passengers, safety is a paramount concern. In a recent survey by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency that runs the transit system, fear of crime and harassment were the top factors cited by people who said they no longer take the subway.On Tuesday, Marjorie Michele, a nursing technician from Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, took an Uber home from work. She said the subways were still snarled from the attack, but riding above ground also felt safer.“It could have been me,” she said. “It could have been any of my children.”WeatherIt’s a mostly cloudy day in the high 60s. Expect a slight chance of showers late at night when temps drop to the high 50s.alternate-side parkingIn effect today. Suspended tomorrow (Holy Thursday).The latest New York newsThe killing of a 12-year-old boy in East Flatbush reflected how a spike in shootings during the pandemic is complicating recovery in less affluent neighborhoods.A former lawyer and his husband filed a complaint against the city, saying they were denied insurance coverage because of a definition of infertility that excludes gay men.The “Fearless Girl” sculpture will continue to stand outside the New York Stock Exchange after city officials voted to extend the sculpture’s temporary permit.A lieutenant governor is indicted and resignsJefferson Siegel for The New York TimesOn his 216th day as the second-most powerful state official in New York, Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin resigned, hours after federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing him of directing a corruption scheme. The charges included trading state funds for illegal donations to his past campaigns for the State Senate and New York City comptroller.The five-count indictment accused him of bribery, fraud and conspiracy in directing $50,000 in state funds to a nonprofit group controlled by a real estate developer, Gerald Migdol. In return, Migdol arranged for illegal contributions to go to Benjamin’s failed campaign for city comptroller last year. Benjamin was also accused of offering to help Migdol win a zoning variance if he gave $15,000 to a separate fund for State Senate Democrats.“This is a simple story of corruption,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news conference before Benjamin’s resignation was announced. “Taxpayer money for campaign contributions. A quid pro quo. This for that. That’s bribery, plain and simple.”Benjamin pleaded not guilty in Federal District Court in Lower Manhattan before his resignation and was released on $250,000 bond.The fallout for the governorThe case complicated this year’s campaign for Hochul. After Andrew Cuomo resigned in disgrace last summer, one of her first major decisions was to appoint Benjamin.Now that decision has become a potentially consequential liability as she runs for a four-year term. My colleague Luis Ferré-Sadurní writes that Democratic and Republican rivals are already sharpening their attacks.She can select a new lieutenant governor in the coming weeks, but it will be difficult to replace Benjamin on the Democratic primary ballot in June. Because he was designated as the Democratic Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, election rules stipulate that his name could be removed at this point only if he were to move out of the state, die or run for another office.Benjamin left court without commenting on the case. He and his lawyers met with prosecutors last week, according to someone familiar with the matter, and Benjamin’s top aides were privately reassuring their allies that he expected to be cleared of wrongdoing.A charity gets $50,000 it did not ask forThe indictment said Benjamin had approached Migdol in March 2019, months before he announced his candidacy for comptroller, and that Migdol demurred, saying he needed to solicit the same potential donors for his charity, Friends of Public School Harlem.“Let me see what I can do,” Benjamin replied, according to the indictment. Then he arranged a $50,000 education grant for the charity that Migdol had not sought.Later, in a meeting in Benjamin’s office, Migdol handed over $25,000 in checks made out to Benjamin’s Senate campaign account. The prosecutors said he attempted to conceal his involvement by giving Benjamin checks drawn on the accounts of relatives or an L.L.C. he controlled. The indictment said Benjamin watched as Migdol, filling out campaign forms, signed the relatives’ names.The indictment also accused Benjamin of attempting a cover-up by falsifying campaign donation forms, misleading city authorities and giving incorrect information in a background check before he became lieutenant governor.What we’re readingLast month, our reporter Karen Zraick received a tip about elevator breakdowns at a high-rise residential building. It proved to be more than just griping.Curbed reported on four key landmarks in Little Ukraine in the East Village and how they reflect the community’s history.METROPOLITAN diaryLong tent dressDear Diary:A friend and I were on the subway to Brooklyn. We were standing and chatting, holding on to the pole at the end of the car.I was wearing a long tent dress from Marimekko. Since I am 6 feet tall, the dress presented as a large swath of fabric as I leaned on the pole.A seat next to us was empty, and construction worker in hard hat and work boots asked whether we would mind if he sat down. He said he had been injured at work that day.Of course, my friend and I said. We continued to chat as the train crossed the river. It was clear that the construction worker was eavesdropping on us.At a break in our conversation, he spoke.“Excuse me,” he said, “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but that dress would look a lot better with a belt.”— Celia RodriguesIllustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.Melissa Guerrero and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      Rash of MTA Subway Attacks Raise Worries With Service Set to Return

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      Hours after mayoral candidates clashed over how to address crime in the transit system, the police reported a series of early-morning assaults.In the span of 12 minutes early Friday, the police said, a group of men attacked commuters aboard a moving subway train, increasing concerns about public safety in New York City’s transit system just as 24-hour subway service is set to resume on Monday.The attackers, striking together on a southbound Lexington Avenue express train as it passed through several stations starting at around 4:30 a.m., slashed three riders, two in the face and one in the back of the head, the police said. A fourth person was punched. The attackers took a phone and a wallet from one of the victims.The three slashing victims, all men in their 40s, were hospitalized and in stable condition, according to the police. One of the attackers, they said, slashed at the three men as another urged him on. The attacks came amid rising concern about crime in New York. Much of that concern has focused on the subway, which is about to resume nonstop service after it was curtailed last May for the first time in the system’s history because of the pandemic.Despite the flurry of reported attacks, the overall trend in subway violence is less clear. Data suggests that crime per rider may be lower so far this year than in 2020, when ridership plunged amid a citywide lockdown, but up from 2019.And now, even as the system gears up for a full return, at least a dozen attacks and other violent episodes have taken place on train cars or at stations this month alone.The police initially said that two men in their 20s were responsible for the three early morning attacks. But at a news conference later on Friday, officials said the assaults were the work of a larger group that was involved in a fourth attack around the same time. In that incident, the police said, a 48-year-old man was stabbed in the eye with a knife. Like the other victims, he was taken to a hospital, where he was undergoing surgery, the police said.Jason Wilcox, an assistant police chief, said at the news conference that the investigation was continuing but that it appeared that the victims had been attacked by a group of men who were coordinating their actions and occasionally splitting into smaller groups. “It looks like they were pairing off, mixing off, as the train was moving down along the 4 line this morning,” Chief Wilcox said.Four men were subsequently taken into custody in connection with the attacks, the police said. They had not been formally charged as of Friday afternoon, the police said. The spate of assaults prompted transit officials to renew their call for more police officers in the subway. An additional 500 officers were deployed to the system in February after a homeless man was accused of stabbing four people in the subway.The issue of subway crime was among the issues discussed at a mayoral debate on Thursday. The eight leading Democratic candidates in the race all used the occasion to express concern about the system’s safety, but they were split over whether more officers were needed. Andrew Yang, Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia, Shaun Donovan and Ray McGuire said they would expand the police presence in the system. Scott Stringer, Dianne Morales and Maya Wiley said they would not.On Friday Sarah Feinberg — who, as the New York City Transit Authority’s interim president, has consistently raised concerns about the system becoming a de facto shelter for homeless people — lashed out at Mayor Bill de Blasio over the attacks.“The mayor is risking New York’s recovery every time he lets these incidents go by without meaningful action,” Ms. Feinberg said in a statement.In a background note appended to Ms. Feinberg’s statement, the authority pointed out which of the mayoral candidates had expressed support for assigning more officers to the subway. Ms. Feinberg was appointed to the authority’s board by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, who has frequently clashed with Mr. de Blasio, a fellow Democrat, on policies related to the transit system, and to the pandemic and its impact more broadly.Last week, Mr. Cuomo compared the current condition of the subway to what it was like in the 1970s, and he blamed city officials for failing to address the system’s problem.A spokesman for Mr. De Blasio, Bill Neidhardt, responded to Ms. Feinberg, saying that the city had diverted officers from desk duty to subway platforms and trains.“We’re going to keep putting massive resources into this fight to keep our subways safe,” Mr. Neidhardt said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the M.T.A. sends out statements that point fingers and talk about mayoral politics.”Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director for the Riders Alliance, a public transit advocacy group, said in a statement that the subway remained overwhelmingly safe, and he urged Mr. Cuomo not to spread fear about the state of the system.“The reality is that the governor’s fear-mongering may be scaring people away from public transit and making riders who need to travel less safe,” Mr. Pearlstein said in the statement.The victims of the dozen subway attacks this month include: a 60-year-old woman stabbed in the back; two men slashed in the face on separate days; a woman hit in the face with a skateboard; a man visiting from Ecuador attacked with a screwdriver; a transit worker punched in the face, and a subway conductor chased off a train by a razor-wielding man.Several of those episodes resulted in service being shut down, as did other incidents that did not involve attacks on people.On May 5, a man shouting incoherently about Covid-19 vaccines broke into an operator’s compartment on a train car and holed up there for 90 minutes, and hours later another man pulled the emergency brakes on a train, smashed the windows and fled. 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      The A Train and the Macarena: 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s Race

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceWho’s Running?5 TakeawaysCandidates’ N.Y.C. MomentsAn Overview of the RaceAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe A Train and the Macarena: 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s RaceCandidates sparred over their subway smarts and did some virtual dancing, while the former sanitation commissioner got support from influential women.When Andrew Yang wrote on Twitter that he was “Bronx bound” while on the A train, the criticism was immediate.Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersJeffery C. Mays, Dana Rubinstein and March 8, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETWhile Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s troubles dominated the headlines, the bevy of candidates running for New York City mayor trudged onward, dutifully showing up for yet more online forums and occasionally taking swings at their opponents’ foibles.The city’s new ranked-choice voting scheme is supposed to make the mayoral race nicer, since candidates are vying not only for first place, but also for second, third, fourth and fifth place, too. In such a scenario, it doesn’t pay to alienate a competitor’s supporters.That friendliness was on display after the Hotel Trades Council, a powerful union, endorsed Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president.Andrew Yang’s co-campaign managers made a point of saying nice things on Twitter. But the bonhomie didn’t last long.Adams and Yang spar over subwaysWhen Mr. Yang wrote on Twitter that he was “Bronx bound” while on the A train — a line that ends in Upper Manhattan — he gave new life to criticism that he lacked expertise about the city he hopes to govern.“Someone get Andrew Yang a subway map,” the New York Daily News wrote.The ribbing didn’t end there. The next day, Mr. Adams, who has placed second behind Mr. Yang in most polls, posted a photo of himself on Twitter suggesting that he knew how to get to the Bronx by subway.Chris Coffey, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, quickly responded: “Did your car and driver meet you in the Bronx?”Mr. Coffey pointed out that Mr. Yang had switched from the A train to the D train at 125th Street and traveled to 167th Street in the Bronx to tour small businesses with Vanessa L. Gibson, a councilwoman from the borough who is running for borough president.It wasn’t the first time last week that Mr. Adams had targeted Mr. Yang for criticism. The two men are also sparring over universal basic income, Mr. Yang’s signature proposal from his run for the Democratic nomination for president.Mr. Yang introduced a version of the plan for New York City that calls for providing 500,000 of the city’s poorest residents with an average of $2,000 per year, and would cost about $1 billion.Speaking Friday at a virtual event hosted by the Association for a Better New York, Mr. Adams touted his plan to boost the city’s earned-income tax credit to provide 900,000 New Yorkers with up to $4,000 per year.Mr. Adams never mentioned Mr. Yang’s name but his language was caustic: He referred to his opponent’s proposal as “UBLie” and “snake oil,” and said the city did not need “empty promises” from “hollow salesmen.”Mr. Adams’s criticisms are a sign that he’s worried, Mr. Coffey suggested.“Hitting Andrew Yang, who is widely credited with making cash relief mainstream, at the same time as stimulus is starting to go out defies logic,” he said. “It’s almost as silly as trying to mock a lifetime subway rider when you have had a car and driver for seven years.”Truth, dare or dance?The high school students at the Teens Take Charge mayoral forum on Thursday grilled the candidates on tough issues such as summer jobs, funding for the City University of New York and the specialized high school entrance exam. They were ruthless moderators, holding the candidates to the allotted time to answer questions and even cutting them off when necessary.But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have fun at an event that many participants called the best mayoral forum so far.During the first “truth, dare or dance” round of the 2021 mayoral election season, the candidates could choose a truth, a dare or a 15-second dance to a song that the students had randomly chosen.No candidates chose to dance, but as the segment was ending, Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, was apparently dismayed that he had not gotten a chance to bust a move.“Can we dance now?” Mr. Donovan asked. One of the hosts, Carmen Lopez Villamil, offered 15 seconds to allow all the candidates to dance at once.“For real, we’re going to dance?” Dianne Morales, a nonprofit executive, said with a shocked look.As the song “Macarena” began to play, Mr. Yang was the first one out of his seat, followed closely by Mr. Donovan and Maya Wiley, the former legal counsel for Mayor Bill de Blasio.“You’ve got to turn it up a little bit,” said Ms. Wiley.Ms. Morales swayed to the beat with verve and rhythm. Mr. Donovan did a spin. Mr. Yang looked like he was doing a bit of salsa dancing, while Scott Stringer, the New York City comptroller, stuck to a quick two-step while wiggling a bit. Ms. Wiley also looked like she was grooving, but she was too close to the camera for the audience to check out her moves.“I love to dance but hoped for the Black Eyed Peas,” Ms. Wiley told The Times. “The Macarena isn’t my flava.”Unfortunately — or maybe fortunately — no one actually did the Macarena.Mr. Donovan admitted to not knowing how to do the dance but said he saw the opportunity as the “antidote” to hours of Zoom conferences. Adams lands the second big union endorsementThe Hotel Trades Council endorsed Eric Adams last week.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesMr. Adams has taken to saying that he will be a “blue-collar mayor.” He talks about how his mother cleaned houses to support their family when he was growing up. Last week, the Hotel Trades Council endorsed Mr. Adams, calling him the “candidate of and for working-class New Yorkers.”The well-connected union has 31,000 workers, 22,000 of whom are registered to vote in the city. That can mean crucial votes in a crowded field, more small-dollar donations and campaign workers on the ground.It was the second big union endorsement in the race after Ms. Wiley was recently endorsed by Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union. It came as the pandemic has shut many city hotels and left workers unemployed. The number of visitors to New York City was down 66 percent in 2020 compared with the year before. Even with vaccination numbers on the rise, NYC & Company projects that tourism may not rebound until 2025. Mr. Adams recently endorsed a plan with another mayoral candidate, Carlos Menchaca, a councilman from Brooklyn, to turn underutilized hotels outside of Manhattan into affordable housing. Many of those hotels are nonunion.Mr. Adams is also in favor of a special citywide hotel permit for hotel construction, a policy Mr. de Blasio is trying to push through before his term is out. The Hotel Trades Council is backing the measure.If the city’s hospitality industry is to rebound, it needs tax relief, public safety, real-time reporting on vaccination rates and a “robust marketing effort,” Mr. Adams said.A biking mayor?There is a good chance that the next mayor will be a regular cyclist.The candidates showed off their cycling bona fides at a forum last week: Raymond J. McGuire showed off a sleek bike perched behind him in his elaborate Zoom setup, and Mr. Adams said he goes for a ride when he is feeling stressed.Mr. Yang said he got a bike when his first son was born and rode it from Hell’s Kitchen to the Financial District to take him to school. “It was a game changer for me,” Mr. Yang said. Many of the candidates said they want to continue to add protected bike lanes. Mr. Stringer plans to double bike ridership, move toward a car-free Manhattan and make sure that bike lanes are clearly separated from traffic so that his sons can ride safely.“We have to use our children as the barometer for whether we think a bike lane is safe,” he said at the forum.Mr. Donovan was perhaps the most serious cyclist: He once biked through the South to retrace the 1961 Freedom Rides.“I’m pretty sure no other candidate in this race has cycled 1,000 miles retracing the route of the Freedom Rides,” he said.Executive women support GarciaKathryn Garcia’s reform of the commercial garbage collection system has drawn admirers.Credit…Brendan Mcdermid/ReutersLet one thing be clear: Kathryn S. Wylde, the executive of the Wall Street-backed Partnership for New York City, is not endorsing Kathryn Garcia for mayor. She said she does not endorse because she will have to work with whoever gets elected.But she does think that Ms. Garcia, along with a couple of other candidates, would make for a very good mayor. That’s why she co-hosted a fund-raiser for Ms. Garcia, the former Sanitation Department commissioner, last week.So, too, did another business executive — Alicia Glen, a former deputy mayor in the de Blasio administration and one of the few de Blasio officials to earn plaudits from New York’s business class.Ms. Garcia said she interpreted Ms. Glen’s support as an endorsement, but deferred to Ms. Glen, who didn’t respond to requests for comment.Ms. Wylde said that she encouraged Ms. Garcia to run, much as she encouraged Mr. Donovan and Mr. McGuire, because she thinks Ms. Garcia would run the city well. She was particularly impressed by Ms. Garcia’s reform of the notoriously dangerous and inefficient commercial garbage collection system.“She’s somebody that brings people together to solve problems, and I’d like to see our next mayor be that kind of person,” Ms. Wylde said.Ms. Wylde has been working in politics since the late 1960s, when there were virtually no women in elected government. No woman has ever been mayor of New York. Ms. Wylde deflected when asked if she thought a woman could win this time around.“Historically, in any profession in New York City, women have a tough time getting ahead,” she said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More