New York Today: The Latest on Eric Schneiderman

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/09/nyregion/new-york-today-latest-on-eric-schneiderman.html

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Good morning.

Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, resigned abruptly on Monday night after several women accused him of physical assault.

Much has happened since then, so let us catch you up.

The country reacted.

Mr. Schneiderman had cast himself as the anti-Trump, and a possible backstop to the special counsel’s investigation of the president. His resignation left both Democrats and Republicans wondering: Where does this leave the work his office was doing to oppose the Trump administration?

His past was re-examined — and questioned.

Since graduating from Harvard Law School in the 1980s, Mr. Schneiderman spent his career championing women’s rights, including supporting legislation to protect domestic violence victims and being an advocate for reproductive rights. (Some of his past statements on women’s issues are collected here.)

Most recently, he filed a lawsuit against the Weinstein Company, demanding justice for those who suffered at the hands of the filmmaker Harvey Weinstein and positioning himself at the forefront of the #MeToo movement. In Albany, those who worked with him were shocked by the apparent chasm between his public and private lives.

An investigation was opened, then another.

On Tuesday, the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., began an investigation into the accusations against Mr. Schneiderman, which included choking, slapping and spitting on women with whom he was intimately involved. But by Tuesday evening, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had pulled the inquiry away from Mr. Vance, assigning a special prosecutor to look into the claims. Legal experts said Mr. Schneiderman could face a host of criminal charges, including assault, harassment and forcible touching.

The search for his replacement began.

New York’s solicitor general, Barbara D. Underwood, will lead the attorney general’s office for now, but the State Assembly and the Senate will select a formal replacement for Mr. Schneiderman. State legislators met in Albany on Tuesday to begin brainstorming.

Many officials, including the governor, said a woman should be tapped for the job. Here are some of the leading candidates.

Here’s what else is happening:

Here’s a small antidote to the political drama.

It’s another delightful day with bright skies, sunshine and a high near 73.

(Here’s your allergy forecast.)

• City Councilman Ritchie Torres is going to bat for journalists, creating a bill that would require the city to send information no later than six months after a reporter requests it. [New York Times]

• Christiane Crasemann Collins, a scholar who fought Columbia on converting a West Harlem park into a university gymnasium in 1968, has died at 92. [New York Times]

• In About New York, the columnist Jim Dwyer explores Albany’s reaction to the resignation of the attorney general — that is, how officials there can use it for political advantage. [New York Times]

• A professor of psychology at the New School of Social Research was found beaten to death in the basement of his Brooklyn home. The police arrested the man they found hiding in his closet. [New York Times]

• Plans are in the works for the former Brooklyn Law School building in Downtown Brooklyn to be turned into a 21-story condo tower. [Bklyner]

• City Council members and sanitation workers are calling for the mayor to suspend the operating license of a garbage truck company after multiple deaths and a poor safety record. [Streetsblog NYC]

• Today’s Metropolitan Diary: “At the Morgan Library”

• For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Morning Briefing.

• CitiBabes hosts a children’s watercolor art class at the Elizabeth Street Garden in NoLIta. 3:45 p.m. [Free]

• “Armors,” Steinunn Thorarinsdottir’s exhibition featuring replicas of suits of armor from the Met, opens with a reception at Fort Tryon Park in Washington Heights. 5 p.m. [Free]

• Isabel Wilkerson speaks about her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration,” at the Museum of Arts and Design on the Upper West Side. 6:30 p.m. [$20]

• Learn to double dutch with instructors from Double Dutch Empire at the Pier 2 picnic tables in Brooklyn Bridge Park. 7 p.m. [Free]

• The journalist and best-selling author Anna Quindlen joins Randy Cohen’s talk show, “Person Place Thing,” at J.C.C. Manhattan on the Upper West Side. 7:30 p.m. [$20]

• We’re still taking recommendations on what to add to our New York Survival Kit. Let us know your never-leave-home-without-it item by sending an email to nytoday@nytimes.com.

• Mets at Reds, 12:35 p.m. (SNY). Yankees host Red Sox, 7:05 p.m. (YES).

• Alternate-side parking remains in effect until tomorrow.

• For more events, see The New York Times’s Arts & Entertainment guide.

Calling all flag bearers. (Or New Yorkers who, like us, are still spring-cleaning.)

The state’s Office of General Services is collecting old American flags for its annual Memorial Watchfire, a military tradition hosted by local Vietnam War veterans to properly retire the red, white and blue on Memorial Day weekend.

Collection centers opened across the state yesterday, and will continue accepting star-spangled banners until May 23.

If you live in the five boroughs, you can take yours to the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building, on West 125th Street in Harlem, or to the Shirley A. Chisholm State Office Building, on Hanson Place in Brooklyn.

New York Today is a morning roundup that is published weekdays at 6 a.m. If you don’t get it in your inbox already, you can sign up to receive it by email here.

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