SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is co-hosting NBC’s “Today” on Friday morning as part of a campaign to proclaim that the state’s shore is ready for business seven months after being devastated by Superstorm Sandy.

The governor, who has made several appearances on national talk shows, follows Laura Bush and Sarah Palin as political figures who have been guest co-hosts on the morning show.

Christie has spent this week as promoter-in-chief with a series of events designed to boost tourism ahead of Memorial Day weekend, when crowds usually start flowing to the beach.

The show is to be broadcast from Seaside Heights, where the storm swept a roller coaster into the ocean, making for one of the superstorm’s iconic images.

The roller coaster was taken away this month, but Casino Pier, the seaside amusement park where it used to sit, plans to have 18 rides open this summer.

Up and down the coast, some boardwalks have been rebuilt — though not the one here — and beaches are open, though many of them are narrower this year. Southern New Jersey resorts such as Ocean City and the Wildwoods had relatively little damage.

When the storm hit in October, New Jersey sustained an estimated $37 billion worth of damage, with 360,000 houses and apartment units damaged.

Boosting the shore is important to New Jersey because tourism brings in more than $35 billion per year.

But some Democrats are complaining that Christie, a Republican, is promoting the shore as a way to promote himself as he seeks re-election this year. They take aim especially at a $25 million federally funded ad campaign for the shore. Christie and his family appear in a TV commercial as part of the campaign. He has said that not being in the ad because of fears of political criticism would have been a mistake.

The White House announced that President Barack Obama will tour the coastline with Christie on Tuesday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Police say actress Amanda Bynes has been arrested in midtown Manhattan after she heaved a marijuana bong out of a window.

It happened at an apartment building on West 47th Street at about 7:40 p.m. Thursday.

Police say a building official called police to complain that Bynes was smoking marijuana and rolling a joint in the building’s lobby.

The officers went to Bynes’ apartment where they saw heavy smoke and a bong, which Bynes then threw out the window in front of the officers.

Bynes was arrested on charges of reckless endangerment, tampering with evidence, and criminal possession of marijuana. It wasn’t clear if she had a lawyer.

Bynes rose to fame starring in Nickelodeon’s “All That” and has also starred in several films, including 2010′s “Easy A.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Six paintings by the famous Wyeth family of artists have sold for just over $2 million at a New York City auction.

New Jersey businessman Eric Sambol sold the works by Andrew, Jamie and N.C. Wyeth at Christie’s on Thursday.

They included three by Andrew, two by Jamie, and one by N.C.

The highlight of the sale was N.C. Wyeth’s “Norry Seavey Hauling Lobster Traps Off Blubber Island.” The 1938 oil of a fisherman off the coast of Port Clyde, Maine, sold for nearly $844,000.

The Wyeths summered in Maine and lived and worked in Chadds Ford, Pa.

Sambol began his collection in 2000. He’s a nature photographer and owns a construction company in Toms River, N.J.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Dan Brown‘s description of Manila as “the gates of hell” in the American novelist‘s latest book has not gone down well with officials in the Philippine capital.

The book “Inferno,” which is being sold in the Philippines, describes a visitor to the city who is taken aback by poverty, crime and the sex trade.

The chairman of metropolitan Manila, Francis Tolentino, wrote an open letter to Brown on Thursday, saying that while “Inferno” is fiction, “we are greatly disappointed by your inaccurate portrayal of our beloved metropolis.”

Tolentino objects to the “gates of hell” description, and to Manila being defined by what he calls terrible descriptions of poverty and pollution.

He says the novel fails to acknowledge Filipinos’ good character and compassion.

“Inferno” is already a best-seller a little over a week since its debut. The story drawn partly from Dante’s epic again features Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, the protagonist for Brown’s blockbuster “The Da Vinci Code” and its follow-up “The Lost Symbol.”