No More Playing Nice: 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s Race

When the candidates were asked if they would disband the police unit that tries to move homeless people from street to shelter, one of them, Loree Sutton, said she would not, and that she would “team up police with peer-to-peer counselors.”

Mr. DaBaron explained to her how “outreach” is practiced by the police. “Where they were telling me they were going to help me, and I submitted to the help, I ended up in handcuffs,” he said. “They brought me to a police station, made me take off my sneakers and threw me into a cell and then threatened to give me a ticket unless I entered the shelter system.”

In response to a question about plans for the unsheltered people the city has placed in hotels during the pandemic, Shaun Donovan, a longtime government official, offered a mini-filibuster touting his college volunteering, his work with veterans under Mr. Obama and the importance of “reimagining the right to shelter as a right to housing.”

Mr. DaBaron asked his co-moderator, Corinne Low of UWS Open Hearts, an organization that supports shelters on the Upper West Side, to pose the question to Mr. Donovan again, suggesting that the candidate had not really answered it.

Mr. DaBaron, who tweets as Da Homeless Hero, garnered some raves on Twitter.

One person praised him for “not letting any candidate talk about anything other than the content of the questions”; another suggested he might consider running for office.

“@homeless_hero for mayor!” the user @SoBendito wrote.

Maya Wiley chose Gracie Mansion over her own TV show

Two candidates had to abandon high-profile jobs as television pundits to run for mayor: Ms. Wiley, a legal analyst at MSNBC, and, Mr. Yang, a commentator at CNN.

But for Ms. Wiley, the sacrifice might have been more substantial.

Speaking to more than 170 women on a “Black Women for Maya” virtual event on Wednesday, Ms. Wiley said she had an opportunity to audition to replace Joy Reid’s weekend talk show “AM Joy” as Ms. Reid was being promoted to host her own prime-time show.