Good morning. It's Thursday. We'll follow the latest developments in the Brooklyn subway shootings, with the arrest of a suspect after he was recognized in a fast-food restaurant, and we'll take a closer look at the scheme that forced the resignation of Brian Benjamin as lieutenant governor. |
 | | Dave Sanders for The New York Times |
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"We got him," Mayor Eric Adams declared during a news conference, referring to the man the police wanted in the subway attack. "We got him." |
The man was apprehended after a 29-hour manhunt. The police combed the streets. They scoured surveillance-camera footage. They patrolled subway platforms. But none of that led them to the man they said had released two smoke grenades and opened fire with a semiautomatic pistol on Tuesday morning. |
It did not take officers long to get to the restaurant on First Avenue at East Sixth Street, but James had already left. They began driving around the neighborhood and found him on the corner of First and St. Marks Place, about five miles from where he is accused of having carried out the attack that injured at least 23 people. |
Officials said that after the attack, James left the N train he had been riding and boarded a local across the platform, an R train to which several of his victims had also fled. He rode that train to the next stop and managed to evade law enforcement for more than a day. |
He left behind clues that pointed to him, the authorities said. On the N train, the police found a credit card with his name on it and the key to a U-Haul van that he had picked up in Philadelphia on April 11. They found the van, abandoned, on a street in the Gravesend neighborhood several hours after the shooting. In the train, they also found a Glock 9-millimeter handgun and three ammunition magazines. |
And by Wednesday morning the police, who had initially identified James as a "person of interest" in their investigation, said he was the lone suspect. |
The arrest brought some relief to New Yorkers worried that a gunman was on the loose, and to officials who feared that another high-profile violent incident would diminish confidence in the safety of the city and its lifeline, the transit system. "Everybody's on edge because of what happened" in the subway, said Lee Lloyd, who was inside the bar he owns in the East Village when officers surrounded James on the street. "When we saw five cop cars come through, I was like, 'Oh, man, what now?'" |
Mayor Adams, who had increased the police presence in the subways before the shootings and said on Tuesday that he would increase it again, referred to "the problem of easy access to weapons." |
James himself had raised the subject of crime in disturbing videos posted to YouTube. He referred to himself as the "prophet of doom" and talked about race, global affairs and, in at least one video, threats of violence that he imagined taking place in New York's subway system. |
"He can't stop no crime in no subways," James said at one point, referring to Adams. "He may slow it down but he ain't stopping it." |
Prepare for a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon, with wind gusts and temps reaching the low 80s. Late at night, showers and thunderstorms continue, with wind gusts and temps dropping to the low 50s. |
Suspended today (Holy Thursday) and tomorrow (Good Friday). |
Cuba Gooding Jr. pleads guilty to forcible touching |
 | | Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times |
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Cuba Gooding Jr., the Academy Award-winning actor who had been accused by more than 20 women of groping or forcibly kissing them in encounters going back more than two decades, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of forcible touching. |
"I apologize for ever making anybody feel inappropriately touched," Gooding said during a hearing before Justice Curtis Farber of State Supreme Court in Manhattan. |
The judge asked if the charge to which he was pleading was true. "Yes, your honor," Gooding said. "I kissed the waitress on her lips." |
Under terms of the plea, Gooding must spend six more months in alcohol and behavior modification treatment that he has been undergoing since 2019 and can have no new arrests, the Manhattan district attorney's office said. If he satisfies those terms, he can withdraw the plea and plead to a lesser charge of harassment, a violation, with a sentence of time served, the office said. |
Gooding was originally charged in connection with an encounter in June 2019 at the Magic Hour Rooftop Bar, an expensive lounge at the Moxy NYC Times Square hotel in Manhattan. According to a criminal complaint, the accuser said that he placed his hand on her breast without her consent and squeezed. Additional charges filed later involved two incidents from the fall of 2018, one at a nightclub, the other at an Italian restaurant. |
The linchpin in the case that forced the lieutenant governor to resign |
 | | Brian Benjamin last week, days before his resignation.Cindy Schultz for The New York Times |
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In a city that often seems to revolve around megadeals, Gerald Migdol's real estate empire in Harlem was relatively modest. He also cultivated local Democrats. And he showcased his generosity, overseeing a charity for children that provided backpacks and Thanksgiving turkeys to families in need. |
Now he has become the centerpiece in the federal investigation that led to the resignation of Brian Benjamin as New York's lieutenant governor on Tuesday. The indictment against Benjamin said that when he was a state senator, he masterminded a secretive scheme, arranging a $50,000 state grant for Migdol's charity. |
Prosecutors said the plan was to steer state funds to Migdol in exchange for fraudulent campaign contributions. Only a handful of transactions were outlined when Migdol was indicted last fall, but prosecutors have asked witnesses about more than 40 different Benjamin campaign donors. Many of the donors in question have ties to Migdol and his family and made contributions around times in 2019 and 2020 when prosecutors have said that Migdol helped arrange bogus contributions. |
Several of the suspicious donations came within days of an email that Migdol sent to a small group of employees and contractors on July 6, 2020. The subject line read: "Everyone I need $250 from NYC residents." Accompanying the email was a form to donate to Benjamin's campaign. |
One of the recipients, a contractor named Amir Khan, said he donated $250 because he could not say no to Migdol, a longtime client. |
Three of my colleagues — Nicholas Fandos, Jeffery C. Mays and William K. Rashbaum — write that court documents, city contracts, nonprofit filings and other records suggest that Migdol's involvement with Benjamin was not the first time he had blurred the lines that separate politics, business and charity. He once prompted accusations before the City Council that he was trying to curry favor with tenants of a building he wanted to buy in the Bronx. |
Migdol has also drawn substantial revenue from New York City's homeless services programs. He has done business with two major operators who have faced federal criminal investigations while collecting at least $35 million in city funding through companies providing a range of for-profit and nonprofit services. |
Lawyers for Migdol and Benjamin declined to comment, as did spokesmen for the F.B.I. and U.S. attorney's office. |
Does it matter what others think of us? |
To find out, I gave my cognitive behavioral therapist's assignment a try: Get on a bus and call out the stops and points of interest, the whole route, loudly and clearly. |
I knew I was not likely to run into anyone I knew on the M14, so on a spring day, I stepped on one, paid my fare and began with barely a whisper: |
"Here's the Eye and Ear Infirmary," I said. |
"The Con Ed Building," I continued. |
By the time we got to Union Square and the site of the old Luchow's, I was belting out the sights and stops. |
Most everyone had edged away nervously or slipped out the back. |
Finally, at Seventh Avenue, I swung down the aisle. |
"Is this the last stop," I asked the driver. "Or do you head downtown?" |
"I don't know, lady," he said. "You're the tour guide." |
— Frances Schwartz Wheeler |
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
Melissa Guerrero, Jeff Boda and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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