@nytimes

Letitia James, the New York attorney general who oversaw the inquiry into sexual harassment claims against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo that ultimately led to his resignation, declared her candidacy for governor on Friday, setting up a history-making, high-profile matchup in the Democratic primary. She begins the campaign as Gov. Kathy Hochul’s most formidable challenger, and her announcement triggers a start to what may be an extraordinarily competitive primary — a contest set to be shaped by issues of ideology, race and region in a state still battling its way out of the coronavirus pandemic. “I’m running for governor of New York because I have the experience, vision, and courage to take on the powerful on behalf of all New Yorkers,” James wrote on Twitter as she released her announcement video on Friday, two days after The New York Times and others reported that she and her team had begun informing key political players of her intentions. Her announcement also comes at a volatile moment in state politics, a day after Cuomo was charged in a sexual misconduct complaint based on the account of one of the women whose claims of sexual harassment were detailed in the attorney general’s report. James, a veteran Brooklyn politician and the first woman of color to be elected to statewide office in New York, is seeking to become the first Black female governor in the country; Hochul, who is white, is the state’s first female chief executive and the first governor in more than a century to have deep roots in western New York. Tap the link in our bio to read more. Photo by @dave_sanders

October 30, 2021

A New Yorker who started riding a motorcycle during the pandemic traveled to Sturgis, South Dakota, to visit a legendary rally and the heart of American biker culture. “Sturgis is not a single event so much as an unstoppable annual happening, like Christmas,” Jamie Lauren Keiles writes for @nytmag. “It has no one true organizer; people are likely to show up every year, whether somebody endorses it or not.” “Riding along, I thought about Harley and how its ultimate triumph as a brand was creating a mass fantasy in which men could role-play as outlaws on weekends. Much could be said here of boomer decline — from ‘Easy Rider’ to mortgaged homeowner, and so on — but for me, in that moment, such cynical truths did not feel so insidious.” Tap the link in our bio to read more about @jamielaurenkeiles’s experience at Sturgis. Photos by @chrismaggio

October 30, 2021

From @nytopinion: Greta Thunberg has given up on politicians when it comes to actively working towards fixing the climate crisis. “We have passed a social tipping point,” @gretathunberg, the young climate activist, says in an @nytopinion video guest essay. “We can no longer look away from what our society has been ignoring for so long.” “It is an existential crisis. We must now do the seemingly impossible. And that is up to you and me because no one else will do it for us.” In the guest essay, Thunberg criticizes the politicians who’ve used her platform for their own political points, but have yet to do anything meaningful when it comes to the fight to fix the climate crisis. Tap the link to learn more. Video by @crankbunny and @jaredpscott

October 30, 2021

The disproportionate weight of rural voters in Japan gives sparsely populated parts of the country more representation — and more government largess — than urban areas, perpetuating what critics call an unfair system. The mountain village of Chizu, for example, in western Japan, has long been in decline. Its population has dwindled to 6,600 people, close to half of them elderly. The once-dominant forestry industry has shriveled, and a year-end fair is no longer held. Yet last year, backed by a large dollop of central government funding, the village built a 12,000-square-foot library, erected a new nursery school in 2017 and construction workers constantly upgrade a sparsely traveled highway into the village. As voters prepare to select members of Parliament in a national election on Sunday, the residents of Chizu are acutely cognizant of the forces behind this largess. In Japan, rural votes count for more than urban ones, giving less-populated areas like Chizu a disproportionately large number of seats in Parliament, and more chances to register their concerns with national politicians. This structure plays to the advantage of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan for all but four years since 1955. The party is expected to eke out a majority in the parliamentary election, partly on the strength of support from the rural areas showered with taxpayer money. In some ways, the power of Japan’s rural population parallels the political landscape in the U.S., where each state has two senators regardless of population size — giving the Republican Party an outsize advantage because of its dominance of rural states. Tap the link in our bio to see more from Chizu and to read about how rural votes in Japan count more than those in big cities. Photos by @shihofukada

October 30, 2021

For those of you who love lasagna's edges, where sticky tomato meets crisp cheese, this whole dish is for you — even the middle. Tap the link in our bio for @itsalislagle's recipe for cheesy white bean-tomato bake in @nytcooking. Photo by @johnkernickphotography and food styling by @simoncooks.

October 30, 2021

On Friday, President Biden was welcomed by papal officials as he arrived at the Vatican, where he met with Pope Francis to discuss global challenges like the pandemic and climate change. The meeting — the president’s first with Francis since his inauguration — had deep emotional resonance for Biden, a Catholic. The president and the pope share common ground on many issues, and Biden seemed visibly excited as he headed into a private meeting, which lasted 90 minutes. During their meeting, Biden thanked Francis for his advocacy for the world’s poor and people suffering from hunger, conflict and persecution, the White House said, adding that he had also lauded the pope’s leadership in the climate crisis and his advocacy on coronavirus vaccines. The Vatican visit was the prelude to a five-day diplomatic marathon that is crucial not just for Biden, but also for the world. This weekend, at the Group of 20 summit of the world’s largest economies, leaders will gather amid a pandemic in which inequalities are increasingly stark and as supply chain woes and rising energy prices threaten economies worldwide. After that, Biden and many of the same leaders will travel to Scotland for COP26, a worldwide summit on climate change that is billed by many as a make-or-break moment to save a warming planet from disaster. Tap the link in our bio for the latest on Biden’s trip to Europe. Photo by @erinschaff

October 30, 2021

“The Phantom of the Opera” — the longest-running-show on Broadway — reopened this month, and its composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, D.J.-ed the after-party. From a booth built earlier that day on 44th Street in Manhattan, Lloyd Webber, whose career has lasted decades and who has won four Tonys and an Oscar, mixed music, clapped on all four beats, waved his hands in the air and bobbed his head before a crowd gathered outside. (He was sporting paprika-hued Beats by Dre headphones for the occasion.) The party followed the first performance of “Phantom” since the pandemic began, which was attended by members of the cast and famous faces such as Laura Linney, Joel Grey, several contestants of “The Bachelorette,” some “Real Housewives of New York” and Senator Chuck Schumer. Throngs of “Phantom of the Opera” devotees — known as “phans” — hoisted their phones to capture the 73-year-old composer playing D.J. as costumed cast members danced and lip-synced on the Majestic Theater’s balcony behind him. “I bet no other Broadway composer has done this!” shouted Madeleine Lloyd Webber, his wife, as she danced in the street. “You’re watching D.J. Webz,” she added, helpfully spelling out her husband’s nom de guerre as Lady Gaga’s “Rain on Me” blared. “We definitely want her to do one of our shows one day,” she said. Tap the link in our bio to read more from the “Phantom of the Opera” after-party. Photos by @ok__mccausland

October 30, 2021

What does it take to scare the candy corn out of someone? In the weeks leading up to Halloween, The New York Times spoke to performers at two of New York’s hallowed haunted attractions — Blood Manor in Manhattan and Headless Horseman in Ulster Park — who explained the secrets behind the shocks. Because it takes more than ghoulish makeup and vibrating vocal cords to make ticket holders scream. Such haunts, the industry term for a variety of haunted attractions, became popular in the 1980s. Spencer Terry, the president of the Haunted Attractions Association, estimates that there are about 1,800 professional haunts in the U.S. this year. While horror now thrives in sundry forms, these destinations offer something entirely immersive, a 360-degree experience in which audiences can star in their worst nightmares. “When I make a grown man scream and fall on his knees,” said Nicole Borbone, who performs at Blood Manor, “I’ve done my job.” Tap the link in our bio to read more about the actors — the clowns, killers, corpse brides and victims weeping silicone wounds — who really like to scare people. Photos by @eriktanner

October 30, 2021

Many Roma women face pressures to marry young and take on traditional gender roles. Pretty Loud, a hip-hop group from Serbia, wants girls to decide for themselves. Persecuted for centuries, many Roma people in Europe — the continent’s largest ethnic minority — live in segregated communities with limited access to amenities and health care. Women and girls also face gender expectations like being wives and mothers at a young age, which some say cause stress and isolation. The members of Pretty Loud, possibly the world’s first all-Roma female hip-hop group, focus their songs on the pains Roma women experience: marrying and having children too young, feeling like second-class citizens and not finishing high school. “Don’t force me, Dad, I’m too young for marriage,” the six members, who are in their midteens to late 20s, sing in one song.  The women of Pretty Loud are hoping their music, authenticity and visibility as performers — already rewriting social conventions in their community in Belgrade, the Serbian capital — can help women and girls elsewhere find their own voices. Video and photos by @laetitiavancon and @b.clendenin  Tap this link to read more about Pretty Loud: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/29/world/europe/roma-hip-hop-band-serbia-pretty-loud.html

October 30, 2021

City officials are bracing for the possibility that thousands of essential workers — including police officers, firefighters and sanitation employees — could be placed on unpaid leave starting Monday. The city’s sweeping mandate requiring that almost all municipal workers receive at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine takes effect on Monday. But defiance of the mandate is running high among some workers. In a protest outside the mayor’s residence, Gracie Mansion, on Thursday, many demonstrators wore shirts bearing Fire Department engine and ladder company numbers from across the city. Union leaders led chants of “Hold the line!” and took aim at Mayor Bill de Blasio for ordering vaccinations on what they said was too short a timeline. The mayor, a Democrat in his second term, predicted on Thursday that many city workers would get shots at the last minute, as happened just before similar mandates took effect in recent months for health care workers and school employees. “I am not having second thoughts,” de Blasio said, adding that he was confident the city would not face serious disruptions. Tap the link in our bio to read more about the new mandate that applies to roughly 160,000 city employees at some three dozen agencies. Photos by @jamesestrin

October 29, 2021

Facebook, under fire for spreading misinformation and other issues, has renamed itself Meta, part of its bet on a next digital frontier called the “metaverse.” On Thursday, the social networking giant took an unmistakable step toward an overhaul, de-emphasizing Facebook’s name and rebranding itself as Meta. The change comes with a new logo designed like an infinity-shaped symbol, slightly askew, almost like a pretzel. Facebook, Instagram and other apps will remain, but under the Meta umbrella. The move punctuates how Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, plans to refocus his Silicon Valley company on what he sees as the next digital frontier, which is the unification of disparate digital worlds into something called the metaverse. At the same time, renaming Facebook may help distance the company from the many social networking controversies it is facing, including how it spreads hate speech and misinformation. “I’ve been thinking a lot about our identity” with this new chapter, Zuckerberg said, speaking at a virtual event to showcase Facebook’s technological bets of the future. “Over time, I hope we’re seen as a metaverse company.” Zuckerberg has been committed to building the metaverse, a composite universe melding online, virtual and augmented worlds that people can seamlessly traverse. He has said the metaverse can be the next major social platform and that several tech companies will build it over the next 10-plus years. Tap the link in our bio to read more about Meta.

October 28, 2021

Desperate to meet its electricity needs, China is opening up new coal production exceeding what all of Western Europe mines in a year, at a tremendous cost to the global effort to fight climate change. The campaign has unleashed a flurry of activity in China’s coal country. Idled mines are restarting. Cottage-size yellow backhoes are clearing and widening roads past terraced cornfields. Long columns of bright red freight trucks are converging on the region to haul the extra cargo. China’s push will carry a high cost. Burning coal, already the world’s single biggest cause of human-driven climate change, will increase China’s emissions and toxic air pollution. It will endanger the lives of coal miners. And it could impose a long-term cost on the Chinese economy, even while helping short-term growth. World leaders are gathering next week in Glasgow to discuss ways to halt climate change. But China’s extra coal by itself would increase humanity’s output of planet-warming carbon dioxide by a full percentage point, said Jan Ivar Korsbakken, a senior researcher at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo. Tap the link in our bio to read the story. Photo by @gillessabrie

October 28, 2021