mayors

Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, has energised liberal voters and has strongly condemned Israel’s war on Gaza.

Polling places have opened for the start of in-person voting for one of the year’s most closely watched elections in the United States, the New York City mayor’s race.

New Yorkers on Saturday began choosing between Democrat Zohran Mamdani, who has built up a sizeable lead in the polls, Republican Curtis Sliwa and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat appearing on the ballot as an independent. The incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, is also on the ballot, but dropped out of the race last month and recently threw his support behind Cuomo.

Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, has energised liberal voters, drawn to his proposals for universal, free child care, free buses, and a rent freeze for New Yorkers living in about 1 million rent-regulated apartments.

Cuomo has assailed Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, over his criticism of Israel.

Mamdani, who has weathered anti-Muslim rhetoric during the contest, says Israel’s military actions in Gaza have amounted to genocide, a view shared by a UN inquiry, genocide experts and numerous rights groups.

In an emotional speech on Friday, Mamdani said the attacks against him are “racist, baseless”.

“To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does,” said Mamdani, who in June beat Cuomo to achieve a landslide victory in the Democratic mayoral primary.

Cuomo has portrayed Mamdani’s policies as naive and financially irresponsible. He has appealed to voters to pick him because of his experience as the state’s governor, a position he gave up in 2021 after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment.

New York has allowed early voting since 2019, and it has become relatively popular. In June’s mayoral primary, about 35 percent of the ballots were cast early and in person, according to the city’s campaign finance board.

In neighbouring New Jersey, the governor’s race is also being closely followed. It features Republican state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli against Democratic US Representative Mikie Sherrill. New Jersey adopted early voting in 2021.

The off-year elections in the two states could be bellwethers for Democratic Party leaders as they try to decide what kinds of candidates might be best to lead their resistance to Republican President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The races have spotlighted affordability and cost of living issues as well as ongoing divisions within the Democratic Party, said Ashley Koning, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

“New York City pits the progressive wing against the establishment old guard in Mamdani versus Cuomo, while New Jersey is banking on moderate candidate Mikie Sherrill to appeal to its broad middle,” she said.

The New Jersey gubernatorial candidates, in their final debate earlier this month, sparred over the federal government shutdown, Sherrill’s military records, Trump’s policies and the high cost of living in the state.

The winner would succeed Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, who is term-limited.

Oct. 23 (UPI) — Outgoing New York Mayor Eric Adams officially endorsed former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to replace him.

Adams ended his campaign for re-election in late September after a federal bribery indictment and the Campaign Finance Board’s decision to withhold millions in public matching funds. After Cuomo pressured him to leave the race, Adams called him a “snake and a liar,” The New York Times reported.

But now the two are friends again, announcing the endorsement together on a sidewalk in East Harlem. “Brothers fight,” Adams said. “But when families are attacked, brothers come together.”

On Wednesday night, Cuomo, a Democrat running as an independent, participated in the final debate of the election season, facing off against front-runner Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist running as a Democrat; and Republican Curtis Sliwa.

In an interview with The Times Thursday, Adams said that he would campaign with Cuomo in neighborhoods where the mayor is most popular and try to urge people to vote for Cuomo.

“I think that it is imperative to really wake up the Black and brown communities that have suffered from gentrification on how important this race is,” Adams said. “They have watched their rents increase in terms of gentrification and they have been disregarded in those neighborhoods, and I’m going to go to those neighborhoods and speak one on one with organizers and groups, and I’m going to walk with the governor in those neighborhoods and get them engaged.”

Mamdani released a statement after the announcement.

“Today confirms what we’ve long known: Andrew Cuomo is running for Eric Adams’s second term,” Mamdani said. “It’s no surprise to see two men who share an affinity for corruption and Trump capitulation align themselves at the behest of the billionaire class and the president himself. We are going to turn the page on the politics of big money and small ideas that these two disgraced executives embody and build a city every New Yorker can afford.”

Sliwa brushed off the endorsement at a press conference Thursday. He told reporters that the two men were “corrupt birds of a feather flocking together.”

“The guy who called Andrew Cuomo a snake is now the snake charmer,” Sliwa said. “Are you surprised by that?”

As President Trump declared Washington, D.C., a crime-ridden wasteland in need of federal intervention last week and threatened similar actions in other Black-led cities, several mayors compared notes.

The president’s characterization of their cities contradicts what they began noticing last year: that they were seeing a drop in violent crime after a pandemic-era spike. In some cases the declines were monumental, due in large part to more youth engagement, gun buyback programs and community partnerships.

Now members of the African American Mayors Assn. are determined to stop Trump from burying accomplishments that they already believed were overlooked. And they’re using the administration’s unprecedented law enforcement takeover in the nation’s capital as an opportunity to disprove his narrative about some of the country’s greatest urban enclaves.

“It gives us an opportunity to say we need to amplify our voices to confront the rhetoric that crime is just running rampant around major U.S. cities. It’s just not true,” said Van Johnson, mayor of Savannah, Ga., and president of the African American Mayors Assn. “It’s not supported by any evidence or statistics whatsoever.”

Trump has deployed the first of 800 National Guard members to the nation’s capital, and at his request, the Republican governors of three states pledged hundreds more Saturday. West Virginia said it was sending 300 to 400 Guard troops, South Carolina pledged 200, and Ohio said it would send 150 in the coming days, marking a significant escalation of the federal intervention.

Beyond Washington, the Republican president is setting his sights on other cities including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and Oakland, calling them crime-ridden and “horribly run.” One thing they all have in common: They’re led by Black mayors.

“It was not lost on any member of our organization that the mayors either were Black or perceived to be Democrats,” Johnson said. “And that’s unfortunate. For mayors, we play with whoever’s on the field.”

The federal government’s actions have heightened some of the mayors’ desires to champion the strategies used to help make their cities safer.

Some places are seeing dramatic drops in crime rates

Trump argued that federal law enforcement had to step in after a prominent employee of his White House advisory team known as the Department of Government Efficiency was attacked in an attempted carjacking. He also pointed to homeless encampments, graffiti and potholes as evidence of Washington “getting worse.”

But statistics published by Washington’s Metropolitan Police contradict the president and show violent crime has dropped there since a post-pandemic-emergency peak in 2023.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson scoffed at Trump’s remarks, hailing the city’s “historic progress driving down homicides by more than 30% and shootings by almost 40% in the last year alone.”

Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, where homicides fell 14% from 2023 to 2024, called the federal takeover in District of Columbia a performative “power grab.”

In Baltimore, officials say they have seen historic decreases in homicides and nonfatal shootings this year, and those have been on the decline since 2022, according to the city’s public safety data dashboard. Carjackings were down 20% in 2023, and other major crimes fell in 2024. Only burglaries have climbed slightly.

The lower crime rates are attributed to tackling violence with a “public health” approach, city officials say. In 2021, under Mayor Brandon Scott, Baltimore created a Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan that called for more investment in community violence intervention, more services for crime victims and other initiatives.

Scott accused Trump of exploiting crime as a “wedge issue and dog whistle” rather than caring about curbing violence.

“He has actively undermined efforts that are making a difference saving lives in cities across the country in favor of militarized policing of Black communities,” Scott said via email.

The Democratic mayor pointed out that the Justice Department has slashed more than $1 million in funding this year that would have gone toward community anti-violence measures. He vowed to keep on making headway regardless.

“We will continue to closely work with our regional federal law enforcement agencies, who have been great partners, and will do everything in our power to continue the progress despite the roadblocks this administration attempts to implement,” Scott said.

Oakland officials this month touted significant decreases in crime in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2024, including a 21% drop in homicides and a 29% decrease in all violent crime, according to the midyear report by the Major Cities Chiefs Assn. Officials credited collaborations with community organizations and crisis response services through the city’s Department of Violence Prevention, established in 2017.

“These results show that we’re on the right track,” Mayor Barbara Lee said at a news conference. “We’re going to keep building on this progress with the same comprehensive approach that got us here.”

After the president gave his assessment of Oakland last week, Lee, a steadfast Trump antagonist during her years in Congress, rejected it as “fearmongering.”

Social justice advocates agree that crime has gone down and say Trump is perpetuating exaggerated perceptions that have long plagued Oakland.

Nicole Lee, executive director of Urban Peace Movement, an Oakland-based organization that focuses on empowering communities of color and young people through initiatives such as leadership training and assistance to victims of gun violence, said much credit for the gains on lower crime rates is due to community groups.

“We really want to acknowledge all of the hard work that our network of community partners and community organizations have been doing over the past couple of years coming out of the pandemic to really create real community safety,” Lee said. “The things we are doing are working.”

She worries that an intervention by military troops would undermine that progress.

“It creates kind of an environment of fear in our community,” she said.

Patrols and youth curfews

In Washington, agents from multiple federal agencies, National Guard members and even the United States Park Police have been seen performing law enforcement duties including patrolling the National Mall and questioning people parked illegally.

Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said the National Guard troops will not be armed, but he declined to elaborate on their assignments to safety patrols and beautification efforts.

Savannah’s Johnson said he is all for partnering with the federal government, but troops on city streets is not what he envisioned. Instead, he said, cities need federal assistance for things like multistate investigation and fighting problems such as gun trafficking and cybercrime.

“I’m a former law enforcement officer. There is a different skill set that is used for municipal law enforcement agencies than the military,” Johnson said.

There has also been speculation that federal intervention could entail curfews for young people.

But that would do more harm, Lee said, disproportionately affecting young people of color and wrongfully assuming that youths are the main instigators of violence.

“If you’re a young person, basically you can be cited, criminalized, simply for being outside after certain hours,” she said. “Not only does that not solve anything in regard to violence and crime, it puts young people in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system.”

A game of wait-and-see

For now, Johnson said, the mayors are closely watching their counterpart in Washington, Muriel Bowser, to see how she navigates the unprecedented federal intervention. She has been walking a fine line between critiquing and cooperating since Trump’s takeover, but things ramped up Friday when officials sued to block the administration’s naming its Drug Enforcement Administration chief as an “emergency” head of the police force. The administration soon backed away from that move.

Johnson praised Bowser for carrying on with dignity and grace.

“Black mayors are resilient. We are intrinsically children of struggle,” Johnson said. “We learn to adapt quickly, and I believe that we will and we are.”

Tang writes for the Associated Press.

LONDONERS have seen a 75 per cent rise in the “Sadiq Khan stealth tax” during the mayor’s time in office, we can reveal.

The levy — officially known as the mayoral precept — is added to council tax bills in all 32 city boroughs and has risen steadily since the Labour politician’s 2016 election.

For a Band D home, it has jumped from £280.02 in 2017 to £490.38 today.

In comparison, Liverpool asks £24, Cambridge £36 and Greater Manchester £128.95.

West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker charges nothing.

Much of this year’s London fee — £319.13 — goes to the Met Police to pay for cops.

Another £71.72 is for the London Fire Brigade and £77.09 for transport services.

The Greater London Authority, which includes Mr Khan’s office, takes the remaining £22.44.

The Sun told last week that he is on course to rake in £14million, most of it from motorists failing to pay the £12.50 daily ultra low emission zone (Ulez) charge.

City Hall Conservative Group leader Susan Hall said: “Sadiq Khan has taxed the life out of our city. Where has it all gone? Crime is out of control, traffic is at a standstill, nightlife is dead, house building’s virtually stopped and the green belt is at risk.

“To paraphrase the president of the USA, he’s a terrible mayor.”

A spokesman for the mayor said a record £1.16billion had been invested in policing this year, providing 935 neighbourhood cops.

He added: “Keeping Londoners safe is Sadiq’s top priority.”

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NEW YORK — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday he will campaign for mayor of New York City as an independent candidate, staying in a crowded field running against left-wing Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani.

In a video, Cuomo, who last month suffered a bruising loss to Mamdani in the Democratic primary, announced he was making another run to combat the progressive Mamdani, who he said “offers slick slogans but no real solutions.”

“The fight to save our city isn’t over,” Cuomo said. “Only 13% of New Yorkers voted in the June primary. The general election is in November and I am in it to win it.”

Incumbent Mayor Eric Adams also is running as an independent in the general election, and Curtis Sliwa — founder of the 1970s-era Guardian Angels anti-crime patrol — is again on the Republican line.

People opposed to Mamdani’s agenda, which includes higher taxes on the wealthy, have called on donors and voters to unite behind a single candidate for the November election. They fear multiple candidates will splinter the anti-Mamdani vote, increasing the Democrat’s chances to win.

Mamdani’s campaign responded to Cuomo’s announcement by saying the ex-governor and mayor are cozying up to “billionaires and Republicans” while the Democratic nominee remains focused on affordability issues.

“That’s the choice this November,” campaign spokesperson Jeffrey Lerner said in a statement.

Cuomo’s decision to continue on in the race is the latest chapter in his comeback attempt, launched almost four years after he resigned as governor in 2021 following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations. He denied wrongdoing during the campaign, maintaining that the scandal was driven by politics.

Cuomo was treated as the presumed front-runner for much of the Democratic primary, with the former governor boasting deep political experience, universal name recognition and a juggernaut fundraising operation. He limited media interviews, held few unscripted events and avoided mingling with voters.

That strategy contrasted with Mamdani’s energetic street-level campaign centered around affordability issues. The 33-year-old amassed a legion of young volunteers who blanketed the city to build support, while the candidate’s savvy social media persona won him national acclaim.

Lagging behind Mamdani in the vote count, Cuomo conceded the race last month on primary night. Final results released after the city ran through its ranked choice voting calculations showed Mamdani besting the former governor by 12 percentage points.

Despite the Democratic primary loss, Cuomo had also qualified to run on an independent ballot line in November under a party he created called “Fight and Deliver.”

As he weighed whether to stay on as an independent, Cuomo began losing support from traditional allies. Key labor unions backed Mamdani, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, an influential Black leader, urged Cuomo to step aside.

Some deep-pocketed contributors have meanwhile aligned behind Adams, who is running as an independent. Although he’s still a Democrat, Adams pulled out of the primary shortly after a federal judge dismissed a corruption case against him at the request of President Trump’s Justice Department, arguing that the case had sidelined him from campaigning.

Cuomo, 67, served as governor for over a decade and modeled himself as a socially progressive Democrat who got things done. He pushed through legislation that legalized gay marriage and tackled massive infrastructure projects, such as a three-mile bridge over the Hudson River that he named after his father.

Cuomo’s national profile peaked in the early days of the nation’s COVID-19 outbreak during his televised daily briefings. The governor leavened stern warnings for people to wear masks with heartfelt expressions of concern for his elderly mother or brotherly banter with Chris Cuomo, a TV journalist.

His reputation was soon tainted when it emerged that the state’s official count of nursing home deaths had excluded many victims who had been transferred to hospitals before they succumbed.

Cuomo resigned shortly after New York’s attorney general released the results of an investigation that found he had sexually harassed at least 11 women.

July 5 (UPI) — Three Turkish mayors who are members of a political party that opposes Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were arrested on corruption charges Saturday morning.

The three mayors are Nuhittin Bocek, Abdurrahman Tutdere and Zeydan Karlar and are members of Turkey’s Republican People’s Party, Politico reported.

Karalar is the mayor of Adana, while Tutdere is the mayor of Adiyaman and Bocek the mayor of Antalya.

Republican People’s Party Chairman Burhanettin Bulut said the arrests are politically motivated, Euronews reported.

“Those who use the judiciary as a stick for political revenge do not care about the law, but about protecting their own power,” Balu said in a social media post.

“We will never submit to this dirty system that strikes a blow to the will of the nation.”

Police detained Tutdere at his house in Ankara in the morning and then took him to Istanbul.

Reports do not say if Karalar or Bocek also were taken to Istanbul.

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office made the arrests as part of its investigation into an alleged criminal organization operating in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

Erdogan has supported the investigation and similar arrests, which he says are due to political corruption by the respective mayors and others.

Hundreds have been detained during recent raids in several of Turkey’s largest cities.

The first raids were carried out in Istanbul and spread to locations in Izmir Province and other cities.

Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo took a break on a warm day, wiped his brow and pointed out the Folgers coffee can in the corner of his office.

He’s told the story many times, but felt it was worth repeating, given recent events.

For years, Gordo’s parents were undocumented. They crossed the border from Zacatecas, Mexico, when he was a young child, settled in Pasadena and raised their family. Gordo’s father was a dishwasher and cook; his mother was a seamstress in a factory that used to be across from City Hall. The family lived in a converted garage.

“Under my parents’ bed was a Folgers coffee can, and in that can was cash, a list of names and phone numbers, copies of birth certificates and identification cards,” said Gordo, who was the oldest child and describes himself as a latchkey kid.

“If my parents didn’t come home, I was to take that can and go knock on the neighbor’s house” and get help, Gordo said.

The can in his office isn’t the original. It’s a replica, and a reminder.

Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo is the son of immigrant parents.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

With federal raids across Southern California, families and neighborhoods have been reeling. People have been afraid to leave the house following arrests at car washes, building supply centers, restaurants, the Garment District and street vending locations.

Gordo knows how they feel.

“We lived in fear, and that’s what’s so offensive about this, and painful, frankly,” he said.

In Pasadena, Gordo said, it hasn’t been clear whether the sweeps are being conducted by legit federal agents or vigilantes. Their cars are unmarked. Their faces are shielded. Their uniforms don’t answer any questions.

In recent days, a man exited a vehicle in Pasadena and pointed a gun in the direction of protesters before speeding away, emergency lights flashing. At a bus stop, several men were detained, some of whom were on their way to work on construction sites in the post-fire rebuilding of Altadena, according to Gordo.

And the city canceled some swimming and other recreational programs Saturday amid fears of increased federal enforcement activity. Gordo told The Times that masked men with guns and vests had chased several men at Villa Parke.

“They’re creating volatile, dangerous situations,” Gordo told me, saying he fears that bullets will fly through neighborhoods, or that police will arrive on scene and not know what’s what or who’s who.

Even people with legal status are wary, Gordo said, because some of the raids appear to be arbitrary and indiscriminate. As my colleague Rachel Uranga reported, the majority of those arrested in the first 10 days of June in Southern California had no criminal records, despite Trump’s vow to reel in “the worst of the worst.”

“I’m carrying my passport with me,” Gordo said.

Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo outside City Hall in Pasadena.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

“The overreach is stigmatizing an entire swath of our society. Whether you look or sound like an immigrant, in the eyes of others, you are automatically considered an outsider, and that’s morally and legally wrong.”

Gordo’s positions on immigration enforcement haven’t always gotten straight A’s from immigrant rights advocates. In 2017, L.A. Progressive said Gordo’s coffee can story was compelling, but accused the then-councilman of waffling on a proposed city ordinance prohibiting police contacts with any federal law enforcement agencies.

The article said Gordo was opposed to local police “having contacts with ICE,” but said on one occasion that he “favored an exception for bad guys.”

Gordo ultimately voted in favor of that ordinance, which passed unanimously, and told me he feels now as he did then. The vast majority of undocumented immigrants are here to work hard and create opportunities for their families, he said. Same as his family. But there have to be consequences for “bad actors,” he added, and that’s a criminal justice matter, not an immigration issue.

“If the federal government or our own police believe there is someone who has violated the law, they should address that issue,” Gordo said. “But they should do it respecting the Constitution of the United States, and what the federal government is doing now is missing due process.”

Also missing, says Gordo, is any conversation about immigration reform that would serve the needs of employers and give immigrants a pathway to making even greater contributions.

He recalled that when he was about 10, his family moved back to Mexico temporarily as part of the process of establishing legal status in the U.S., which was made possible under the Carter administration. His father is a U.S. citizen, as was his late mother. Gordo and a sibling became attorneys; another is a doctor and yet another is an educator.

Now, said Gordo, there’s no path to legalization. There’s just this hypocritical system in which there is demand for immigrant labor in many industries, along with demonization of these very contributors.

Pablo Alvarado, a Pasadena resident and executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told me he’s had differences with Gordo over the years. But he thinks the events of the last month have prompted the mayor to more fully embrace his immigrant identity.

“He’s stepping up to the moment and I’m very proud of what he’s doing,” said Alvarado, who has joined Gordo at vigils and demonstrations. “It’s one thing to tell the story of where you came from, and another thing to … confront the powers … behind these unlawful ICE operations. … I think he’s been fearless.”

Gordo told me he visited the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles on June 18, with Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) and state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra), to check on arrestees. They were denied entry, but Gordo met a distraught woman from Pomona who was not being allowed to deliver heart medication to her husband.

Gordo offered his services as an attorney and was allowed entry along with the woman. He said he later learned that the husband had been arrested during his lunch break on a landscaping job, had been in the country 22 years with no criminal record and was in the process of obtaining a green card.

Gordo said that when he and the woman entered the detention center, the husband and wife were separated by a glass partition.

“She was crying and shaking,” Gordo said. “He was telling her it was all going to be okay. He was comforting her, and trying to smile.”

The partition had a small opening. They couldn’t fit their hands through it, but Gordo watched as the pair hooked their pinky fingers.

“All she could muster was, ‘I told you,’” Gordo said. “‘I told you not to go to work.’”

[email protected]

June 24 (UPI) — New Yorkers are facing scorching temperatures Tuesday as they head to the polls in local elections that include the hotly contested Democratic primary race for New York City mayor between former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani.

According to returns released as of 3 p.m. EDT, by the Board of Elections, more than 326,000 New Yorkers had voted Tuesday. More than 384,000 cast their ballot during early voting last week, which is more than double the number of early votes during the 2021 primaries for mayor.

Temperatures reached into the triple-digits Tuesday, hitting 102 degrees at John F. Kennedy International Airport, as voters in New York City braved the heat to cast their ballots. One polling site in Brooklyn had no air conditioning, leaving it up to poll workers to bring their own electric fans from home as New York’s Board of Elections provided only paper fans.

“I went to the management office and they said they didn’t convert it from heat to A/C. The air conditioning system wasn’t converted,” said a poll coordinator at the Taylor Wythe Community Center polling site. “It was supposed to be converted in April.”

One voter criticized New York City’s government for not doing better.

“Where are my tax dollars going?” said a woman, who did not want to give her name. “It’s 2025, who lets people work in this heat with no A/C?”

Primary elections in New York City use ranked-choice voting, allowing voters to express their preferences beyond just a single choice in an effort to prevent runoff elections. The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated first, until one candidate secures 50% of the votes. New York City’s last mayoral primary took several weeks to be decided.

The turnout and interest in the Democratic race for New York City’s mayor comes as two very different candidates are pitted against each other, with nine other candidates trailing far behind the two frontrunners.

Mamdani, 33, has been a New York State representative for the 36th district of Queens since 2021. During his run for mayor, Mamdani has called for free city buses, public child care, a rent freeze and affordable housing. He has received endorsements from progressive politicians, including Democrats Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and he has been accused of being anti-Semitic while arguing he is only holding Israel accountable.

Just after 5 p.m. EDT, Mamdani reminded voters, in a post on X, that there were “less than four hours to go” before the polls close.

If elected, Mamdani would become New York City’s first Muslim mayor. He has criticized a super PAC, backing Cuomo, for being Islamophobic for altering images of him in a campaign mailer.

“Fix the City” PAC defended the mailers.

“Every Fix the City ad and mailer presents Mr. Mamdani unaltered; the photos, policies and plans are his,” said Liz Benjamin, a spokesperson for the PAC.

“When you strip away his Hollywood tinsel, what you realize is that Mr. Mamdani has repeatedly embraced the rhetoric of hate,” Benjamin added. “It is far past time to disavow his own calls to ‘globalize the intifada,’ which many understood is an invitation to violence.”

Cuomo, 67, resigned as governor of New York in 2021 after more than a dozen women accused him of sexual harassment. Last month, the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation into the former governor over accusations he lied to Congress about the number of nursing home deaths in the state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, Cuomo urged New Yorkers to vote early to beat the heat and reminded residents, in a post on X, that the polls are open until 9 p.m. The Board of Elections says results in the first round of voting should be released by 10 p.m. EDT.

“It’s Election Day. Together, we will save our city,” Cuomo wrote.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams is not on Tuesday’s ballot since he is running for re-election as an Independent after dropping out of the Democratic primary in April.

“No such thing as a slow day in NYC! Temps hitting 100 degrees, so we’re keeping everyone cool and healthy. Primary Day across the five boroughs,” Adams wrote Tuesday in a post on X. “Drink your water and stay cool, everyone.”

NEW YORK — A judge blocked New York Mayor Eric Adams from letting federal immigration authorities reopen an office at the city’s main jail, in part because of concerns Adams had invited them back in as part of a deal with the Trump administration to end his corruption case.

New York Judge Mary Rosado’s decision Friday is a setback for the Democratic mayor, who issued an executive order permitting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to maintain office space at the Rikers Island jail complex. City lawmakers filed a lawsuit in April accusing Adams of entering into a “corrupt quid pro quo bargain” with the Trump administration in exchange for the U.S. Justice Department dropping criminal charges against him.

Rosado temporarily blocked the executive order in April. In granting a preliminary injunction, she said City Council members have “shown a likelihood of success in demonstrating, at minimum, the appearance of a quid pro quo whereby Mayor Adams publicly agreed to bring Immigration and Customs Enforcement … back to Rikers Island in exchange for dismissal of his criminal charges.”

Rosado cited a number of factors, including White House border advisor Tom Homan’s televised comments in February that if Adams did not come through, “I’ll be in his office, up his butt saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’”

Adams has repeatedly denied making a deal with the administration over his criminal case. He has said he deputized his first deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, to handle decision-making on the return of ICE to Rikers Island to make sure there was no appearance of any conflict of interest.

Rosado noted that Mastro reports to Adams and “cannot be considered impartial and free from Mayor Adams’ conflicts.”

Mastro said in a statement Friday that the administration was confident it would prevail in the case.

“Let’s be crystal clear: This executive order is about the criminal prosecution of violent transnational gangs committing crimes in our city. Our administration has never, and will never, do anything to jeopardize the safety of law-abiding immigrants, and this executive order ensures their safety as well,” Mastro said.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is running in the Democratic primary for mayor, called the decision a victory for public safety.

“New Yorkers are counting on our city to protect their civil rights, and yet, Mayor Adams has attempted to betray this obligation by handing power over our city to Trump’s ICE because he is compromised,” she said in a statement.

It was the first and possibly the most dramatic act by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass after she took office: declaring a city emergency on homelessness.

That move, backed by the City Council, gave Bass the power to award no-bid contracts to nonprofit groups and to rent hotels and motels for interim homeless housing. It also allowed Bass to waive regulations limiting the size and scale of certain types of affordable housing.

Now, two and a half years into Bass’ tenure, some on the council are looking to reassert their authority, by rescinding the homelessness emergency declaration.

Councilmember Tim McOsker said he wants to return city government to its normal processes and procedures, as spelled out in the City Charter. Leases, contracts and other decisions related to homelessness would again be taken up at public meetings, with council members receiving testimony, taking written input and ultimately voting.

“Let’s come back to why these processes exist,” McOsker said in an interview. “They exist so the public can be made aware of what we’re doing with public dollars.”

McOsker said that, even if the declaration is rescinded, the city will need to address “the remainder of this crisis.” For example, he said, the homeless services that the city currently provides could become permanent. The city could also push county agencies — which provide public health, mental health counseling and substance abuse treatment — to do more, McOsker said.

Bass, for her part, pushed back on McOsker’s efforts this week, saying through an aide that the emergency declaration “has resulted in homelessness decreasing for the first time in years, bucking statewide and nationwide trends.”

“The Mayor encourages Council to resist the urge of returning to failed policies that saw homelessness explode in Los Angeles,” said Bass spokesperson Clara Karger.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, also known as LAHSA, reported last summer that homelessness declined by 2.2% in the city of L.A., the first decrease in several years. The number of unsheltered homeless people — those who live in interim housing, such as hotels and motels, but do not have a permanent residence — dropped by more than 10% to 29,275, down from 32,680.

The push from McOsker and at least some of his colleagues comes at a pivotal time.

Last month, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted to pull more than $300 million from LAHSA, the city-county agency that provides an array of services to the unhoused population.

Meanwhile, the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, which has been battling the city in court over its response to the crisis, is pushing for a federal judge to place the city’s homelessness initiatives into a receivership.

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for the alliance, said the city has “very little to show” for its emergency declaration in terms of progress on the streets.

“It’s our view that a state of emergency around homelessness is appropriate, but that the city is not engaged in conduct that reflects the seriousness of the crisis — and is not doing what it needs to do in order to solve the crisis,” he said.

Inside Safe, Bass’ signature program to bring homeless people indoors, has moved 4,316 people into interim housing since it began in 2022, according to a LAHSA dashboard covering the period ending April 30. Of that total, nearly 1,040 went into permanent housing, while nearly 1,600 returned to homelessness.

Council members voted this week to extend the mayor’s homelessness emergency declaration for another 90 days, with McOsker casting the lone dissenting vote. However, they have also begun taking preliminary steps toward ending the declaration.

Last week, while approving the city budget, the council created a new bureau within the Los Angeles Housing Department to monitor spending on homeless services. On Tuesday, the council asked city policy analysts to provide strategies to ensure that nonprofit homeless service providers are paid on a timely basis, “even if there is no longer a declared emergency.”

The following day, McOsker and Councilmember Nithya Raman — who heads the council’s housing and homeless committee — co-authored a proposal asking city policy analysts to report back in 60 days with a plan addressing the “operational, legal and fiscal impacts” of terminating the emergency declaration.

That proposal, also signed by Councilmembers John Lee and Ysabel Jurado, now heads to Raman’s committee for deliberations.

While some on the council have already voiced support for repealing the emergency declaration, others say they are open to the idea — but only if there is a seamless transition.

“I want to make sure that if we do wind it down, that we do it responsibly,” said Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who represents the southwest San Fernando Valley.

Blumenfield wants to protect Executive Directive 1, which was issued by Bass shortly after she declared the local emergency, by enshrining its provisions into city law. The directive lifts height limits and other planning restrictions for 100% affordable housing developments, which charge rents below market rates.

Raman said the city must confront a number of issues stemming from the homelessness crisis, such as improving data collection. But she, too, voiced interest in exploring the end of the emergency declaration.

“This is also an extremely important conversation, and it is one I am eager to have,” she said.

Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada pledges to continue ‘relentless fight against insecurity’.

Two top aides to the mayor of Mexico City have been shot dead in the latest attack against public officials in the Latin American country.

Private secretary Ximena Guzman and adviser Jose Munoz were shot dead on Tuesday in an early morning ambush in the central neighbourhood of Moderna, city authorities said.

Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada condemned the killings and pledged to continue her administration’s “relentless fight against insecurity”.

“Investigating, clarifying and ensuring there is no impunity is our commitment,” Brugada said during a news conference.

Mexico has one of the highest murder rates on the planet, largely due to violence driven by drug cartels, but the capital is known for its relative security compared with the rest of the country.

Reporting from Mexico City, Al Jazeera’s John Holman said there had been 50 political murders in the country in the first three months of the year alone, though political killings are relatively rare in the capital.

“The reasons for this one are still unknown. But there are powerful criminal groups in the capital fighting for territory and control of lucrative rackets,” Holman said.

“Politicians can get in the way, as elsewhere in the country.”

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, a Brugada ally who previously served as the capital’s mayor, expressed condolences over the killings and said her government would ensure that “justice is served”.

“We express our solidarity and support for the families of these two individuals who have worked in our movement for a long time,” Sheinbaum said.

“We know them, we stand with their families, and we will give her [Brugada] all the support the city needs from the Mexican government.”

In 2020, Mexico City’s security chief, Omar Garcia Harfuch, survived an ambush by gunmen that killed two of his bodyguards and a bystander.

Federal prosecutors alleged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey pushed and grabbed officers while attempting to block the arrest of the Newark, N.J., mayor outside an immigration detention facility, according to charges in court papers unsealed on Tuesday.

In an eight-page complaint, interim U.S. Atty. Alina Habba’s office said McIver was protesting the removal of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka from a congressional tour of the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark on May 9.

The complaint says she attempted to stop the arrest of the mayor and pushed into agents for Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She faces two counts of assaulting, resisting and impeding an officer.

McIver has denied any wrongdoing and has accused federal agents of escalating the situation by arresting the mayor. She denounced the charge as “purely political” and said prosecutors are distorting her actions in an effort to deter legislative oversight.

Habba had charged Baraka with trespassing after his arrest but dismissed the allegation on Monday when she said in a social media post that she instead was charging the congresswoman.

Prosecuting McIver is a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress for allegations other than fraud or corruption.

The case instantly taps into a broader and more consequential struggle between a Trump administration engaged in overhauling immigration policy and a Democratic Party scrambling to respond.

Within minutes of Habba’s announcement, McIver’s Democratic colleagues cast the prosecution as an infringement on lawmakers’ official duties to serve their constituents and an effort to silence their opposition to an immigration policy that helped propel the president back into power but now has emerged as a divisive fault line in American political discourse.

Members of Congress are authorized by law to go into federal immigration facilities as part of their oversight powers, even without advance notice. Congress passed a 2019 appropriations bill that spelled out the authority.

A nearly two-minute clip released by the Homeland Security Department shows McIver on the facility side of a chain-link fence just before the arrest of the mayor on the street side of the fence. She and uniformed officials go through the gate and she joins others shouting they should circle the mayor. The video shows McIver in a tightly packed group of people and officers. At one point, her left elbow and then her right elbow push into an officer wearing a dark face covering and an olive green uniform emblazoned with the word “Police” on it.

It isn’t clear from body camera video whether that contact was intentional, incidental or a result of jostling in the chaotic scene.

The complaint says she “slammed” her forearm into an agent and then tried to restrain the agent by grabbing him.

Tom Homan, President Trump’s top border advisor, said during an interview on Fox News on Tuesday that “she broke the law and we’re going to hold her accountable.”

“You can’t put hands on an ICE employee,” he said. “We’re not going to tolerate it.”

McIver, 38, first came to Congress in September in a special election after the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. left a vacancy in the 10th District. She was then elected to a full term in November. A Newark native, she served as the president of the Newark City Council from 2022 to 2024 and worked in the city’s public schools before that.

House Democratic leaders decried the criminal case against their colleague in a lengthy statement in which they called the charge “extreme, morally bankrupt” and lacking “any basis in law or fact.”

Catalini, Richer and Tucker write for the Associated Press.