NYCHA residents can now look up housing code violations for their buildings online, something tenants in privately-owned properties have long been able to do. The new data comes a week after the partial collapse of a NYCHA building in the Bronx that’s reignited fears about conditions in public housing.

Peeling paint at in the lobby of a senior building at NYCHA’s Mitchel Houses in the Bronx. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

For the first time, housing code violations issued by the city at NYCHA properties are now publicly available—what advocates say is a win for transparency, giving public housing residents information about their buildings that tenants in privately-owned properties have long had access to. 

The city’s Department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD) has begun publishing the NYCHA violations in its online portal, as well as on the NYC Open Data website, as part of a legal settlement approved in June. The records so far date back about a month, and include more than 500 violations issued following court-ordered apartment inspections (HPD inspectors typically only come to NYCHA-owned apartments if ordered to so by housing court).

“This transparency will empower NYCHA residents to better understand their apartment conditions and advocate for themselves and their communities,” Danielle Tarantolo, director of the Special Litigation Unit at New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG), said in a statement Tuesday.

The legal services group filed a lawsuit over the issue last year on behalf of NYCHA tenants, including Stewart Gracia, who moved into NYCHA’s Jacob Riis Houses in lower Manhattan five years ago, where he experienced “a bedroom ceiling leak, chronic roach infestation, lack of heat, mold and hot water outages,” according to NYLAG.

“But because HPD did not publish information about violations in his and his neighbors’ apartments, he could not investigate violations in the building before he moved in, could not determine whether there were open housing code violations in his building for the same or similar housing conditions, and could not search the HPD website for open housing code violations to use as evidence in his Housing Court case,” NYLAG said in a press release.

The change comes a week after the partial collapse of a NYCHA building in the Bronx that’s reignited fears about conditions in public housing. On Oct. 1, officials say there was an explosion in a chimney at the Mitchel Houses in Mott Haven—and while no injuries were reported, the incident spurred concerns from lawmakers, advocates and tenants alike.

“NYCHA residents have been sounding the alarm about crumbling infrastructure for decades,” Community Voices Heard, an advocacy group whose members include public housing tenants, said in a statement following the collapse. “Our members’ pleas fell on deaf ears. How many more buildings have to collapse? How many more families have to be displaced before our elected officials prioritize the lives and safety of public housing residents?”

The partially-collapsed building at NYCHA’s Mitchel Houses on
Oct. 1, 2025. (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

The housing authority says it has an estimated $78 billion in repair needs across its roughly 2,500 buildings. In recent years, citing decades of government disinvestment, NYCHA has turned to alternative funding models, including leasing its land to private developers to drum up more money for fixes.

As of August, NYCHA had more than 614,000 open work orders. In a statement Tuesday, NYCHA Chief Operating Officer Eva Trimble pointed to the housing authority’s “ongoing transformation” and said tenants with issues are encouraged to call the Customer Contact Center to schedule repairs directly with its staff.

Residents can go a step further and ask a housing court judge to order an HPD inspection; the court would then be responsible for issuing orders or penalties for any violations found, according to HPD.

“NYCHA has worked closely with our partners at HPD to facilitate public access to Housing Court-ordered inspection information,” Trimble said.

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org. Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post City-Issued Violations at NYCHA Developments Are Now Public, Following Legal Settlement  appeared first on City Limits.

By Brian Womack, The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS — Mary Kay wants to introduce you to your new personal styling guru: artificial intelligence.

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In a bid to appeal to younger makeup users, the storied North Texas-based brand has unveiled a new AI-powered digital service to help users pick the ideal foundation for their beauty routines, according to Lucy Gildea, chief brand and scientific officer. The service provides some simple technology tools to take the guesswork out of the process of selecting the right shade by just looking into a camera on a device.

“Beauty is very personal; shade matching is very personal,” Gildea said in an interview. “And so finding the right foundation match is a really key piece. And so being able to utilize a proprietary tool that’s scientifically developed using a broader scale for shade ranges was really, really important.”

The AI Foundation Finder was unveiled recently, and it’s getting some positive feedback. Of the users who chose to like or dislike the tool, less than 5% chose the negative option early in the rollout of the service at last check, Gildea said.

Mary Kay, the cosmetics company known for its consultants and pink Cadillacs, is extending its reach to more youthful generations as it seeks to evolve and expand amid competition from massive rivals around the world. The new tool helps reach customers who are more accustomed to using their smartphones and other devices to figure out what they want to buy.

“We’re about enabling women entrepreneurs no matter where you are and no matter what age you are; and so it’s really important for us to connect with a more digitally sophisticated consumer no matter … their age,” Gildea said. “Younger consumers grew up as digital natives, and so that is just like a default point of entry with them.”

May Kay isn’t a stranger to technology that can enhance makeup choices. For more than a decade, it’s offered “Mirror me,” a service that lets users try on makeup options to see what they will look like. Folks can look at different color-based products that are not necessarily the foundation shade matching.

The company has been working on the AI Foundation Finder service for over a year with help from multiple teams, including technology and research and development, along with marketing.

The effort involved thousands of images to get the best option for users and help the system better understand skin tones. Another key step was multiple tests internally with company consultants in five markets.

With the new AI-enabled service, users don’t have to download an app to use it, but can log into marykay.com — and the smartphone will scan their face. The service was designed to be inclusive of a wide range of skin tones.

The tech takes about 150 different points of a face with the scan to figure out the facial hues — and then crunches what the best shade can be for the customer. There are more than 50 shades of two finishes among the options.

AI has been getting investments and attention elsewhere at Mary Kay in areas such as the supply chain, research and development and creative ad and marketing campaigns. It also has prompted the creation of a committee to help ensure new ideas are held to a high standard, including questions around privacy.

“There’s just so many different ways that we are using it internally to really just help improve our efficiency but also give us some novel insights that we wouldn’t have had before,” Gildea said.

©2025 The Dallas Morning News. Visit at dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

MPR News host Angela Davis shared Tuesday that she has been diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer. She will be taking a leave of absence to focus on her health.

“Angela is deeply grateful for the support of her colleagues and listeners, and she asks for privacy during this time,” reads a story on MPR News’ website. “We look forward to welcoming her back when she is ready.”

Davis, 57, grew up on a tobacco farm in Virginia and attended the University of Maryland on a full four-year scholarship and graduated with a journalism degree.

After spending a few years at CNN and stations in Lexington, Ky., and Washington, D.C., Davis took a job at KSTP in 1994 and, beyond a brief stint living in Dallas, the Twin Cities has been her home ever since.

After decades at KSTP and WCCO, Davis made the decision to move to public radio and landed a hosting gig at the 11 a.m. hour in 2018. She moved to 9 a.m. in 2021.

Davis’ husband, Duchesne Drew, is the senior vice president at American Public Media Group and president of Minnesota Public Radio. The couple live in St. Paul’s Highland Park.

“With my talk show, I try to focus on solutions and getting people to think about what we as individuals have control over,” Davis told the Pioneer Press in 2021. “I hope the conversation sparks new conversations and listeners start talking and thinking about issues they may not have spent time thinking about before.”

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Located about a block east of the Marshall Avenue bridge, the 1921 Eastcliff mansion has overlooked the Mississippi River in St. Paul for the past century, having spent most of the past 70 years housing presidents of the University of Minnesota.

Its 20 rooms — including seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms — and Colonial Revival architecture recently hosted the family of Gov. Tim Walz for 19 months while the governor’s Summit Avenue residence was under repair.

University officials say they expect Eastcliff — originally known as the Edward Sr. and Markell Brooks House, and built by lumber magnate Edward Brooks — will continue to house U of M presidents for the foreseeable future, though it won’t necessarily do so under the auspices of the U.

Transfer to foundation

On Thursday, members of the university’s Board of Regents are expected to discuss and potentially greenlight a property sale to transfer ownership of 176 Mississippi River Boulevard N. to the University of Minnesota Foundation, a nonprofit philanthropy overseen by its own board of directors.

While officially independent of the U, the foundation’s primary mission is to support the university by receiving and managing gifts on behalf of the school and individual departments.

The $2.2 million sale would still allow the university to retain ownership of the land that Eastcliff sits on. That land would be leased to the foundation for 40 years, even as the foundation leases the historic mansion back to the school for 40 years rent-free.

In July 2024, the Eastcliff Property Task Force called for placing the mansion in philanthropic hands to remove capital and operating costs from public resources, according to a staff board report. The task force began mulling that possibility or a potential sale in December 2022, after concluding that maintaining the historic mansion at an annual operating cost of $300,000 was not central to the university’s mission.

Retaining Eastcliff as an asset

The U and Regent Board Chair Douglas Huebsch released a joint written statement on Tuesday noting that the decision, which is still pending, could actually strengthen the university’s commitment to retaining Eastcliff as a school asset.

“This transfer deepens the partnership between the University of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota Foundation,” reads the statement. “It allows the University to continue its fiscally responsible stewardship of public dollars while also ensuring that Eastcliff remains an important gathering place for the University community for many years to come.”

Still, the likelihood of a property sale has raised questions with some members of the Board of Regents, including District 4 Regent James Farnsworth, who represents the area. He said the item likely will be removed from the Finance and Operation Committee’s consent agenda, where votes are considered en masse, for individual discussion.

Under the proposed arrangement, the university would still be responsible for Eastcliff’s operations and maintenance expenses, so there would be no cost savings related to day-to-day upkeep.

“It’s a convoluted deal, and I’m not exactly sure why we would do it this way,” said Farnsworth, in a phone interview on Tuesday. “It does not appear to be about financial savings.”

In June, facing what they described at the time as an unprecedented fiscal climate, the Board of Regents agreed to hike tuition by 6.5% while making program cuts across all campuses in an effort to balance a $5.1 billion budget.

Donated to the U in 1958

The Brooks family donated Eastcliff to the university in 1958. Since 1961, the 10,000 square foot mansion has been home to eight university presidents and one governor, and hosted visiting dignitaries for special events, including the Dalai Lama in 2011.

The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in June 2000.

The Walz family relocated from Eastcliff in February, once the governor’s mansion was repaired. The property is now being prepared for the arrival of Dr. Rebecca Cunningham, the university’s 18th president, who began her appointment in July 2024.

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