New Jersey

Republicans are licking their wounds after Tuesday’s ballot box defeats. But there is a lesson to be learned here. The various elections in New York City, New Jersey and Virginia, viewed collectively, reminded us yet again of a perennial political truth: Americans still care first and foremost about their wallets.

Culture war-type issues often generate the most salacious headlines — and many of the Trump administration’s fights on these fronts, such as immigration enforcement and higher education reform, are just and necessary. Still, the economy remains the top political issue. Unless Republicans get more serious about advancing an actionable economic agenda to provide real relief to middle- and working-class Americans, the party risks losing even more ground in next year’s midterm elections.

When voters went to the polls in New York City, New Jersey and Virginia, they were often asking the simplest, most urgent questions: Can I pay the rent? Can I fill up my truck at the pump? Can I fill the fridge? Will my job still exist next year? Do I have reliable healthcare for my children? Across too many districts and communities, those answers remain uneasy. Inflation, while well down from its Biden-era peak, is still stubbornly higher than the Fed’s 2% target. Purchasing power is still eroded, and cost-of-living anxieties persist for far too many.

For Republicans, this is both a warning and an opportunity. Despite a concerted effort in recent years to rebrand as the party of the common man, including but hardly limited to Teamsters President Sean O’Brien getting a coveted speaking slot at last year’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, too many voters still associate the GOP with tax cuts for the donor class and a general indifference toward the tens of millions of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck. That’s the blunt truth. The perception of corruption in some of the highest corridors of power in Washington, especially when it comes to the influence wielded by the über-wealthy emirate of Qatar, doesn’t exactly assuage voters’ concerns.

If the GOP wants to regain the public’s trust, it must present a compelling vision of what a sound conservative economic stewardship entails in the 21st century.

That redefinition begins with a renewed focus on work, dignity and resilience. The Republican Party must build an economic narrative that centers on taming inflation, boosting wages, rebuilding America’s industrial base and greater healthcare security for the paycheck-to-paycheck class. Conservatives should pursue a pragmatic economic nationalism — one that ties together trade policy, manufacturing, energy production, workforce development and family formation. All proposed economic policies must be explained in concrete, local terms. The relevant questions each and every time should be: How does this policy tangibly benefit the average American, and how can the policy be messaged so that the benefit is clearly understood?

The voters Republicans need to reach are not tuning in to wonky policy seminars. They want results: lower energy bills, affordable groceries, job security and an economy that rewards hard work. The GOP must speak directly to these priorities with honesty and humility.

If economic anxiety persists through next fall’s midterms, voters will punish whichever party appears more indifferent to their struggles. The Trump administration and Republicans across the country need to get to work fast. That means more Trump-signed executive orders, within the confines of the law, that can provide real economic relief and security to the working men and women of America. And it certainly means a concerted congressional attempt to bolster the economic prospects of the middle and working classes, perhaps through the Senate’s annual budget reconciliation process.

Inflation must finally be tamed — including the Fed raising interest rates, contra Trump’s general easy-money instincts, if need truly be. Private health savings account access must be expanded and the ease of acquiring private healthcare must finally be divorced from the particular circumstances of one’s employment. More jobs and supply chains must be reshored. Concerns about child care affordability and parental leave availability must be addressed. And even more of our bountiful domestic energy must be extracted. These are just some of the various policies that voters might reward at the ballot box next fall.

Our searing cultural battles will continue — and they matter, greatly in fact. But when a family can’t afford its groceries or gas, such debates tend to fade into the background. Republicans must rebuild trust with voters on the most fundamental issue in American politics: the promise of economic opportunity and security.

It’s always dangerous to over-extrapolate and glean clear national lessons from a few local elections. But all three of the biggest recent races — for New York City mayor and for New Jersey and Virginia governors — had final winning margins for Democrats greater than most polling suggested. That seems like a clear enough rebuke. Accordingly, the Trump administration and Republicans across the country must deliver real economic results on the real economic issues facing the American people. If they don’t present a compelling economic vision and execute that vision capably and efficiently, there likely will be even greater electoral damage next fall.

That could all but doom the remainder of the Trump presidency. And what a disappointment that would be.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. X: @josh_hammer

NEW YORK — At the top of his victory speech at a Brooklyn theater late Tuesday, Zohran Mamdani — the 34-year-old democratic socialist just elected New York’s next mayor — spoke of power being gripped by the bruised and calloused hands of working Americans, away from the wealthy elite.

“Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it,” he said. “The future is in our hands.”

The imagery was apropos of the night more broadly — when a beaten-down Democratic Party, still nursing its wounds from a wipeout by President Trump a year ago, forcefully took back what some had worried was lost to them for good: momentum.

From coast to coast Tuesday night, American voters delivered a sharp rebuke to Trump and his MAGA movement, electing Democrats in important state and local races in New York, New Jersey and Virginia and passing a major California ballot measure designed to put more Democrats in Congress in 2026.

The results — a reversal of the party’s fortunes in last year’s presidential election, when Trump swept the nation’s swing states — arrived amid deep political division and entrenched Republican power in Washington. Many voters cited Trump’s agenda, and related economic woes, as motivating their choices at the ballot box.

The wins hardly reflected a unified Democratic Party nationally, or even a shared left-wing vision for a future beyond Trump. If anything, Mamdani’s win was a challenge to the Democratic Party establishment as much as a rejection of Trump.

His vision for the future is decidedly different than that of other, more moderate Democrats who won elsewhere in the country, such as Abigail Spanberger, the 46-year-old former CIA officer whom Virginians elected as their first female governor, or Mikie Sherrill, the 53-year-old former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor who won the race for New Jersey governor.

Still, the cascade of victories did evoke for many Democrats and progressives a political hope that they hadn’t felt in a while: a sense of optimism that Trump and his MAGA movement aren’t unstoppable after all, and that their own party’s ability to resist isn’t just alive and well but gaining speed.

“Let me underscore, it’s been a good evening — for everybody, not just the Democratic Party. But what a night for the Democratic Party,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during his own remarks on the national wins. “A party that is in its ascendancy, a party that’s on its toes, no longer on its heels.”

“I hope it’s the first of many dominoes that are going to happen across this country,” Noah Gotlib, 29, of Bushwick said late Tuesday at a victory party for Mamdani. “I hope there’s a hundred more Zohrans at a local, state, federal level.”

On a night of big wins, Mamdani’s nonetheless stood out as a thunderbolt from the progressive left — a full-throated rejection not just of Trump but of Mamdani’s mainstream Democratic opponent in the race: former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Mamdani — a Muslim, Ugandan-born state assemblyman of Indian descent — beat Cuomo first in the Democratic ranked-choice primary in June. Cuomo, bolstered by many of New York’s moneyed interests afraid of Mamdani’s ideas for taxing the rich and spending for the poor, reentered the race as an independent.

Trump attacked Mamdani time and again as a threat. He said Monday that he would cut off federal funding to New York if Mamdani won. He even took the dramatic step of endorsing Cuomo over Curtis Sliwa, the Republican in the race, in a last-ditch effort to block Mamdani’s stunning political ascent.

Instead, city voters surged to the polls and delivered Mamdani a resounding win.

“To see him rise above all of these odds to actually deliver a vision of something that could be better, that was what really attracted me to the [Democratic Socialists of America] in the first place,” said Aminata Hughes, 31, of Harlem, who was dancing at an election-night party when Mamdani was announced the winner.

“A better world is possible,” the native New Yorker said, “and we’re not used to hearing that from our politicians.”

In trademark Trump fashion, the president dismissed the wins by his rival party, suggesting they were a result of two factors: the ongoing federal shutdown, which he has blamed on Democrats, and the fact that he wasn’t personally on people’s ballots.

Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s chief advisors, posted a paragraph to social media outlining the high number of mixed-status immigrant families in New York being impacted by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and mass deportation campaign, which Miller has helped lead.

Democrats in some ways agreed. They pointed to the shutdown and other disruptions to Americans’ safety and financial security as motivating the vote. They pointed to Trump’s immigration tactics as being an affront to hard-working families. And they pointed to Trump himself — not on the ballot but definitely a factor for voters, especially after he threatened to cut off funds to New York if the city voted for Mamdani again.

“President Trump has threatened New York City if we dare stand up to him. The people of New York came together and we said, ‘You don’t threaten New York,’” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “We’re going to stand up to bullies and thugs in the White House.”

“Today we said ‘no’ to Donald Trump and ‘yes’ to democracy,” New Jersey Democratic Chair LeRoy J. Jones Jr. told a happy crowd at Sherrill’s watch party.

“Congratulations to all the Democratic candidates who won tonight. It’s a reminder that when we come together around strong, forward-looking leaders who care about the issues that matter, we can win,” former President Obama wrote on social media. “We’ve still got plenty of work to do, but the future looks a little bit brighter.”

In addition to winning the New York mayoral and New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, Democrats outperformed Republicans in races across the country. They held several seats on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and won the Virginia attorney general’s race. In California, voters passed Proposition 50, a ballot measure giving state Democrats the power to redraw congressional districts in their favor ahead of next year’s midterms.

Newsom and other Democrats had made Proposition 50 all about Trump from the beginning, framing it as a direct response to Trump trying to steal power by convincing red states such as Texas to redraw their own congressional lines in favor of Republicans.

Trump has been direct about trying to shore up Republicans’ slim majority in the House, to help ensure they retain power and are able to block Democrats from thwarting his agenda. And yet, he has suggested California’s own redistricting effort was illegal and a “GIANT SCAM” under “very serious legal and criminal review.”

Trump had also gone after several of the Democrats who won on Tuesday directly. In addition to Mamdani, Trump tried to paint Spanberger and Sherrill as out-of-touch liberals too, attacking them over some of his favorite wedge issues such as transgender rights, crime and energy costs. Similar messaging was deployed by the candidates’ Republican opponents.

In some ways, Trump was going out on a political limb, trying to sway elections in blue states where his grip on the electorate is smaller and his influence is often a major motivator for people to get out and vote against him and his allies.

His weighing in on the races only added to the sense that the Democrats’ wins marked something bigger — a broader repudiation of Trump, and a good sign for Democrats heading into next year’s midterms.

Marcus LaCroix, 42, who voted for Proposition 50 at a polling site in Lomita on Tuesday evening, described it as “a counterpunch” to what he sees as the excesses and overreach of the Trump administration, and Trump’s pressure on red states to redraw their lines.

“A lot of people are very concerned about the redistricting in Texas,” he said. “But we can actually fight back.”

Ed Razine, 27, a student who lives in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, was in class when he heard Mamdani won. Soon, he was celebrating with friends at Nowadays, a Bushwick dance club hosting an election watch party.

Razine said Mamdani’s win represented a “new dawn” in American politics that he hopes will spread to other cities and states across the country.

“For me, he does represent the future of the Democratic Party — the fact that billionaires can’t just buy our election, that if someone really cares to truly represent the everyday person, people will rise up and that money will not talk,” Razine said. “At the end of the day, people talk.”

The Associated Press and Times staff writer Connor Sheets contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City on Tuesday, capping a stunning ascent for the 34-year-old state lawmaker, who was set to become the city’s most liberal mayor in generations.

In a victory for the Democratic party’s progressive wing, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani must now navigate the unending demands of America’s biggest city and deliver on ambitious — skeptics say unrealistic — campaign promises.

With the victory, the democratic socialist will etch his place in history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage and the first born in Africa. He will also become the city’s youngest mayor in more than a century when he takes office Jan. 1.

Mamdani’s unlikely rise gives credence to Democrats who have urged the party to embrace more progressive, left-wing candidates instead of rallying behind centrists in hopes of winning back swing voters who have abandoned the party.

It was one of three victories by Democrats in high-profile races for elective office that were being viewed as a gauge of public sentiment toward President Trump in his second term. In California, voters were expected to approve Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50, a redistricting measure aimed at boosting Democrats’ chances in the midterm elections.

In New Jersey, Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill was elected New Jersey governor over Republican Jack Ciattarelli, who was endorsed by Trump.

New Jersey Democratic Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill speaks during an election night party in East Brunswick, N.J., on Tuesday.

(Matt Rourke / Associated Press)

Sherrill, a 53-year-old Navy veteran who represented a northern New Jersey district in the U.S. House for four terms, will be the state’s second female governor.

Democrat Abigail Spanberger won the Virginia governor’s race, defeating Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears to give Democrats a key victory heading into the 2026 midterm elections and make history as the first woman to lead the commonwealth.

Spanberger, 46, is a center-left Democrat and former CIA case officer who helped her party win a House majority during Trump’s first presidency.

Economic worries were the dominant concern as voters cast ballots for Tuesday’s elections, according to preliminary findings from the AP Voter Poll.

The results of the expansive survey of more than 17,000 voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City suggested the public was troubled by an economy that seems trapped by higher prices and fewer job opportunities.

Supporters celebrate during the election night watch party for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger as she is projected to win the race at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Mamdani has already faced scrutiny from national Republicans, including Trump, who have eagerly cast him as a threat and the face of what they say is a more radical Democratic Party.

The contest drove the biggest turnout in a mayoral race in more than 50 years, with more than 2 million New Yorkers casting ballots, according to the city’s Board of Elections.

Mamdani’s grassroots campaign centered on affordability, and his charisma spoiled Cuomo’s attempted political comeback. The former governor, who resigned four years ago following allegations of sexual harassment that he continues to deny, was dogged by his past throughout the race and was criticized for running a negative campaign.

There’s also the question of how he will deal with Trump, who threatened to take over the city and to arrest and deport Mamdani if he won. Mamdani was born in Uganda, where he spent his early childhood, but was raised in New York City and became a U.S. citizen in 2018.

New Yorkers celebrate as NY1 projects Zohran Mamdani the winner in the mayoral election at the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden on Tuesday.

(Jeremy Weine / Getty Images)

Mamdani, who was criticized throughout the campaign for his thin resume, will now have to begin staffing his incoming administration before taking office next year and game out how he plans to accomplish the ambitious but polarizing agenda that drove him to victory.

Among the campaign’s promises are free child care, free city bus service, city-run grocery stores and a new Department of Community Safety that would send mental health care workers to handle certain emergency calls rather than police officers. It is unclear how Mamdani will pay for such initiatives, given Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s steadfast opposition to his calls to raise taxes on wealthy people.

His decisions around the leadership of the New York Police Department will also be closely watched. Mamdani was a fierce critic of the department in 2020, calling for “this rogue agency” to be defunded and slamming it as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” He has since apologized for those comments and has said he will ask the current NYPD commissioner to stay on the job.

Mamdani’s campaign was driven by his optimistic view of the city and his promises to improve the quality of life for its middle and lower classes.

But Cuomo, Sliwa and other critics assailed him over his vehement criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Mamdani, a longtime advocate of Palestinian rights, has accused Israel of committing genocide and said he would honor an arrest warrant the International Criminal Court issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

New York Independent mayoral candidate former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo votes at the High School of Art and Design on Tuesday in New York City.

(Alexi J. Rosenfeld / Getty Images)

Going into the Democratic primary, Cuomo was the presumed favorite, with near-universal name recognition and deep political connections. Cuomo’s chances were buoyed further when incumbent Mayor Eric Adams bowed out of the primary while dealing with the fallout of his now-dismissed federal corruption case.

But as the race progressed, Mamdani’s natural charm, catchy social media videos and populist economic platform energized voters in the notoriously expensive city. He also began drawing outside attention as his name ID grew.

In New Jersey, Sherrill built her campaign around pushing back against Trump. She recently seized on the administration’s decision to abruptly freeze funding for a multibillion-dollar project to replace the aging rail tunnels that connect New Jersey to New York City beneath the Hudson River.

Spanberger’s victory in Virginia will flip partisan control of the governor’s office when she succeeds outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

“We sent a message to every corner of the commonwealth, a message to our neighbors and our fellow Americans across the country,” Spanberger told cheering supporters in Richmond. “We sent a message to the whole word that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship. We chose our commonwealth over chaos.”

Izaguirre and Colvin write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mike Catalini, Adriana Gomez Licon, Olivia Diaz and Bill Barrow contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — Voters were casting ballots in high-stakes elections on both coasts Tuesday, including for mayor of New York, new congressional maps in California and governor in both New Jersey and Virginia, states whose shifting electorates could show the direction of the nation’s political winds.

For voters and political watchers alike, the races have taken on huge importance at a time of tense political division, when Democrats and Republicans are sharply divided over the direction of the nation. Despite President Trump not appearing on any ballots, some viewed Tuesday’s races as a referendum on him and his volatile second term in the White House.

In New York, self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, 34, was favored to win the mayoral race after winning the Democratic ranked-choice mayoral primary in June. Such a result would shake up the Democratic establishment and rile Republicans in near equal measure, serving as a rejection of both former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a more establishment Democrat and Mamdani’s leading opponent, and Trump, who has warned that a Mamdani win would destroy the city.

On the eve of voting Monday, Trump threatened that a Mamdani win would disrupt the flow of federal dollars to the city, and took the dramatic step of endorsing Cuomo over Curtis Sliwa, the Republican in the race.

“If Communist Candidate Zohran Mamdani wins the Election for Mayor of New York City, it is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home, because of the fact that, as a Communist, this once great City has ZERO chance of success, or even survival!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Monday.

A vote for Sliwa “is a vote for Mamdani,” he added. “Whether you personally like Andrew Cuomo or not, you really have no choice. You must vote for him, and hope he does a fantastic job. He is capable of it, Mamdani is not!”

Mamdani, a Ugandan-born naturalized U.S. citizen and New York state assemblyman who already defeated Cuomo once in the primary, has promised a brighter day for New Yorkers with better public transportation, more affordable housing and high-quality childcare if he wins. He has slammed billionaires and some of the city’s monied interests, which have lined up against him, and rejected the “grave political darkness” that he said is threatening the country under Trump.

He also mocked Trump’s endorsement of Cuomo — calling Cuomo Trump’s “puppet” and “parrot.”

Samantha Marrero, a 35-year-old lifelong New Yorker, lined up with more than a dozen people Tuesday morning at her polling site in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn to cast her vote for Mamdani, whom she praised for embracing people of color, queer people and other communities marginalized by mainstream politicians.

Marrero said she cares deeply about housing insecurity and affordability in the city, but that it was also “really meaningful to have someone who is brown and who looks like us and who eats like us and who lives more like us than anyone we’ve ever seen before” on the ballot. “That representation is really important.”

New York mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo speaks to reporters as he marks his ballot in New York on Tuesday.

(Richard Drew / Associated Press)

And she said that’s a big part of why people across the country are watching the New York race.

“We’re definitely a beacon in this kind of fascist takeover that is very clearly happening across the country,” she said. “People in other states and other cities and other countries have their eyes on what’s happening here. Obviously Mamdani is doing something right. And together we can do something right. But it has to be together.”

Elsewhere on the East Coast, voters were electing governors in both Virginia and New Jersey, races that have also drawn the president’s attention.

In the New Jersey race, Trump has backed the Republican candidate, former state Rep. Jack Ciattarelli, over the Democratic candidate, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, whom former President Obama recently stumped for. Long a blue state, New Jersey has been shifting to the right, and polls have shown a tight race.

In the Virginia race, Trump has not endorsed Republican candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears by name, but has called on voters to “vote Republican” and to reject the Democratic candidate, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a 46-year-old former CIA officer whom Obama has also supported.

“Why would anyone vote for New Jersey and Virginia Gubernatorial Candidates, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger, when they want transgender for everybody, men playing in women’s sports, High Crime, and the most expensive Energy prices almost anywhere in the World?” Trump recently wrote on Truth Social, repeating some of his favorite partisan attacks on Democrats from the presidential campaign trail last year.

At a rally for Spanberger in Norfolk, Va., over the weekend, Obama put the race in equally stark terms — as part of a battle for American democracy.

“We don’t need to speculate about the dangers to our democracy. We don’t need to wonder about whether vulnerable people are going to be hurt, or ask ourselves how much more coarse and mean our culture can become. We’ve witnessed it. Elections do matter,” Obama said. “We all have more power than we think. We just have to use it.”

Voting was underway in the states, but with some disruptions. Bomb threats disrupted voting in some parts of New Jersey early Tuesday, temporarily shutting down a string of polling locations across the state before law enforcement determined the threats were hoaxes.

In California, voters were being asked to change the state Constitution to allow Democrats to redraw congressional maps in their favor through 2030, in order to counter similar moves by Republicans in red states such as Texas.

Leading Democrats, including Obama and Gov. Gavin Newsom, have described the measure as an effort to safeguard American democracy against a power grab by Trump, who had encouraged the red states to act, while opponents of the measure have derided it as an anti-democratic power grab by state Democrats.

Trump has urged California voters not to cast ballots by mail or to vote early, arguing such practices are somehow “dishonest,” and on Tuesday morning suggested on Truth Social that Proposition 50 itself was unconstitutional.

“The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Trump wrote, without providing evidence of problems. “All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED!”

Both individually and collectively, the races are being closely watched as potential indicators of political sentiment and enthusiasm going into next year’s midterm elections, and of Democrats’ ability to get voters back to the polls after Trump’s decisive win over former Vice President Kamala Harris last year.

Voters, too, saw the races as having particularly large stakes at a pivotal moment for the country.

Michelle Kim, 32, who has lived in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn for three years, stood in line at a polling site early Tuesday morning — waiting to cast her vote for Mamdani.

Kim said she cares about transportation, land use and the rising cost of living in New York, and appreciated Mamdani’s broader message that solutions are possible, even if not guaranteed.

“My hope is not, like, ‘Oh, he’s gonna solve, like, all of our issues,’” she said. “But I think for him to be able to represent people and give hope, that’s also part of it.”

Lin reported from New York, Rector from San Francisco. Times staff writer Jenny Jarvie in Atlanta contributed to this report.

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — If there’s agreement on anything in the two states with governor’s races this year, it’s that utility bills are a growing concern among voters.

One Virginia voter, Kim Wilson, lamented at a town hall recently that her electricity bill seems to go up every month, no matter how much she tries to mitigate the costs. She was drawn to the event in part by its title: “The energy bills are too damn high.”

“It’s way too high,” Wilson readily agreed.

In New Jersey, Herb Michitsch of Kenilworth said his electric bill has climbed to nearly $400 a month, or more than four times what it was when he and his wife moved into their home half a century ago.

“Something really has to be done,” Michitsch said.

That something must be done is pretty much where the agreement ends. It’s what must be done that splits politicians back into rival camps.

Democratic candidates in the two states are far more likely to embrace clean energy options like wind and solar than their Republican opponents. The two states’ Republican nominees are more closely aligned with the policies of President Trump, who has called climate change a “con job” and promotes more traditional energy sources like gas and coal. New Jersey Republican nominee Jack Ciattarelli has acknowledged that human-caused climate change is occurring, but he says Democrats have driven up costs with their clean energy push.

Which side voters land on in the off-year elections will give both parties plenty to consider in what feels destined to be an emerging economic issue heading into next year’s midterm elections.

At a recent rally in New Jersey, Democratic state Sen. Vin Gopal made clear that he stood with Democratic nominee Mikie Sherrill in support of her plans to lower costs. But Gopal acknowledged that the outcome could signal whether voters are ready to embrace the president’s approach or have simply grown weary of national politics.

“The whole country is watching what happens,” he said.

Technology drives up costs

The debate comes as people in the two states grapple with double-digit percentage increases in monthly electricity bills. The exploding costs are driven by soaring demand, particularly from data centers, and by the rapid onset of energy-intensive artificial intelligence technology. Virginia’s largest energy utility also has linked potential future rate increases to inflation and other costs.

In Virginia’s open race to succeed a term-limited GOP incumbent, Democrat Abigail Spanberger and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears are at odds over the development of renewable energy sources.

Spanberger has laid out a plan to expand solar and wind production in underused locations, praising a wind project off the coast of Virginia Beach. In a debate against her opponent, she also said she would “ensure that data centers pay their fair share” as costs rise. The state is home to the world’s largest data center market,

Republican Winsome Earle-Sears wasn’t having it.

“That’s all she wants, is solar and wind,” Earle-Sears said of Spanberger at the debate. “Well, if you look outside, the sun isn’t shining and the breeze isn’t blowing, and then what, Abigail, what will you do?”

In New Jersey, where Ciattarelli’s endorsement by Trump included recent social media posts praising his energy affordability plans, the GOP nominee blames rising costs on eight years of Democratic control of state government.

Ciattarelli says he would pull New Jersey out of a regional greenhouse gas trading bloc, which Democratic incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy reentered when he first took office in 2018.

“It’s been a failure,” Ciattarelli said at the final debate of the campaign. “Electricity is at an all-time high.”

He’s also come out as a strident opponent of wind energy off the state’s coast, an effort Democrats spearheaded under Murphy. A major offshore wind project ground to a halt when the Danish company overseeing it scrapped projects, citing supply chain problems and high interest rates.

At the center of Sherrill’s campaign promise on the issue is an executive order to freeze rates and build cheaper and cleaner power generation.

“I know my opponent laughs at it,” Sherrill said recently.

A growing concern among voters

The candidates’ focus on affordability and utility rates reflects an unease among voters. A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found electricity bills are a “major” source of stress for 36% of U.S. adults, at a time when data center development for AI could further strain the power grid.

Perhaps that’s why the statewide races have become something of an energy proxy battle in Virginia. Clean Virginia, a clean energy advocacy group that targets utility corruption, has backed all three Democratic candidates for statewide office in Virginia — a first for the organization. GOP statewide candidates, meanwhile, have accepted money from Dominion Energy, the largest electric utility in Virginia.

To further complicate an already complex issue: Virginia has passed the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which calls for utilities to sunset carbon energy production methods by 2045.

Republican House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore, who represents the southwest edge of Virginia, had failed to alter part of the state’s Clean Economy Act earlier this year. Kilgore, whose top donor is Dominion Energy, said in February: “If their bills go any higher, there are folks in my region that are not able to pay them now, they’re definitely not going to be able to pay them in the future.”

Evan Vaughn, executive director of MAREC Action, a group of Mid-Atlantic renewable energy developers, said candidates from both parties are in a tough spot because bringing down prices quickly will be difficult given broader market dynamics.

“Voters should look to which candidate they think can do the best to stabilize prices by bringing more generation online,” he said. “That’s really going to be the key to affordability.”

Michitsch, who’s backing Sherrill in the governor’s race and said he would campaign for her, said her proposal shows she’s willing to do something to address spiraling costs.

“We need to change,” he said. “And I think she is here to change things.”

Diaz and Catalini write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Wednesday that it was putting a hold on roughly $18 billion to fund a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey and the city’s expanded Second Avenue subway project because of the government shutdown.

The White House budget director, Russ Vought, said on a post on X that the step was taken due to the Republican administration’s belief that the money was “based on unconstitutional DEI principles,” a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion.

But an administration official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and insisted on anonymity to discuss the hold, said the government shutdown that started at midnight meant that the Transportation Department employees responsible for reimbursing workers on the projects had been furloughed, so the money was being withheld.

The suspension of funds is likely meant to target Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, whom the White House is blaming for the shutdown.

In a 2023 interview with the Associated Press, Schumer said he and then-President Biden were both “giddy” over the rail tunnel project, adding that it was all they talked about in the presidential limousine as they rode to the site.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, reacting to the news at a news conference about the federal government shutdown, told reporters, “The bad news just keeps coming” and that “they’re trying to make culture wars be the reason why.”

“That’s what a partnership with Washington looks like as we’re standing here. We’ve done our part, we’re ready to build, it’s underway,” she said. “And now we realize that they’ve decided to put their own interpretation of proper culture ahead of our needs, the needs of a nation.”

The Hudson River rail tunnel is a long-delayed project whose path toward construction has been full of political and funding switchbacks. It’s intended to ease the strain on a 110-year-old tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. Hundreds of Amtrak and commuter trains carry hundreds of thousands of passengers per day through the tunnel, and delays can ripple up and down the East Coast between Boston and Washington

The Second Avenue subway was first envisioned in the 1920s. The subway line along Manhattan’s Second Avenue was an on-again, off-again grail until the first section opened on Jan. 1, 2017. The state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority is working toward starting construction on the line’s second phase of the line, which is to extend into East Harlem.

Boak writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Anthony Izaguirre in Albany, N.Y., and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.

HARRY Styles takes the next step in his romance with Zoe Kravitz. 

The Sun revealed last month the pop star, 31, and actress, 36, were dating and now insiders say they are inseparable. 

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As they left Newark airport in New Jersey this week, Harry wore jeans and Zoe was in all black.

Friends said they were invited to singer Charli XCX’s second wedding in Sicily today. 

The popstar first sparked romance rumours with Zoe last month when they were seen together in Rome.

The One Direction hitmaker, who was then spotted looking loved up with his partner in NYC last week, has now suggested they’re getting very serious very quickly.

Harry was seen enjoying a lunch date with Zoe where he met her music star father Lenny in New York‘s West Village.

They put on a united front, holding hands as they entered the Sant Ambroeus venue before Lenny, 61, arrived solo.

The Ain’t Over Til It’s Over hitmaker donned a red sleeveless top and skintight jeans, with a black back thrown across his body.

He pulled on a pair of sunglasses as he strode through the streets to the venue, ready to meet his daughter’s new love.

Meanwhile Caught Stealing star Zoe cut a chic figure in a black vest and matching silk skirt.

She left her hair in a natural style flowing over her shoulders while also opting for a pair of shades.

The Batman movie alum walked hand in hand with Night Changes vocalist Harry, who kept a serious expression ahead of the family get-together.

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WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — A federal judge ruled Thursday that President Trump’s former lawyer, Alina Habba, has been unlawfully serving as the the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey.

The court, saying the administration used “a novel series of legal and personnel moves,” held that Habba’s term as the interim U.S. attorney ended in July, and the Trump administration’s maneuvers to keep her in the role without getting confirmation from the U.S. Senate didn’t follow procedures required by federal law.

“Faced with the question of whether Ms. Habba is lawfully performing the functions and duties of the office of the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, I conclude that she is not,” Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann wrote.

The opinion says that Habba’s actions since July “may be declared void.”

Brann, a President Obama appointee, said he’s putting his order on hold pending an appeal. It wasn’t immediately clear if that meant Habba would remain in charge of the U.S. attorney’s office.

A message seeking comment was sent to Habba’s office Thursday. The Justice Department said it intends to appeal the ruling.

Brann’s decision comes in response to a filing on behalf of New Jersey defendants challenging Habba’s tenure and the charges she was prosecuting against them. They sought to block the charges against them, arguing that Habba didn’t have the authority to prosecute the case after her 120-day term as interim U.S. attorney expired in July.

The defendants’ motion to block Habba, a onetime White House advisor to President Trump and his former personal defense attorney, is another high-profile chapter in her short tenure.

She made headlines when Trump named her U.S. attorney for New Jersey in March. She said the state could “turn red,” a rare, overt political expression from a prosecutor, and said she planned to investigate the state’s Democratic governor and attorney general.

She then brought a trespassing charge, which was eventually dropped, against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka stemming from his visit to a federal immigration detention center. Habba later charged Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver with assault stemming from the same incident, a rare federal criminal case against a sitting member of Congress other than for corruption. She denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

Volatility over her tenure unfolded in late July when the four-month temporary appointment was coming to a close and it became clear that she would not get support from home state Sens. Cory Booker and Andy Kim, both Democrats, effectively torpedoing her chances of Senate approval.

The president withdrew her nomination. Around the same time, federal judges in New Jersey exercised their power under the law to replace Habba with a career prosecutor when Habba’s temporary appointment lapsed, but Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi fired that prosecutor and renamed Habba as acting U.S. attorney.

In his opinion, Brann questioned the legal moves the administration conducted to keep Habba in place.

“Taken to the extreme, the President could use this method to staff the United States Attorney’s office with individuals of his personal choice for an entire term without seeking the Senate’s advice and consent,” he wrote.

The Justice Department has said in filings that the judges acted prematurely and that the executive has the authority to appoint his preferred candidate to enforce federal laws in the state.

Trump had formally nominated Habba as his pick for U.S. attorney on July 1, but Booker and Kim’s opposition meant that under long-standing Senate practice known as senatorial courtesy, the nomination would stall out.

A handful of other Trump picks for U.S. attorney are facing a similar circumstance.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

A woman will umpire a major league game for the first time Saturday when Jen Pawol works the bases during Saturday’s doubleheader between the Atlanta Braves and visiting Miami Marlins at Truist Park.

For Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, that announcement Wednesday brought one response: It’s about time.

“That’s great. I’ll be watching,” he said of Pawol, who will work behind the plate Sunday. “It’s good for the game. It’s fantastic.”

The NHL is the only major U.S. professional sport that hasn’t used female officials. The NBA was the first league to break the gender barrier, with Violet Palmer and Dee Kantner calling games in 1997. MLS followed a year later with Sandra Hunter and Nancy Lay-McCormick refereeing separate games on the same day.

The NFL’s first woman official was line judge Shannon Eastin, who made her debut in 2012.

Pawol, 48, was an all-state soccer and softball player in high school in New Jersey. She went on to play Division I softball at Hofstra, then played for the women’s national baseball team. She began umpiring NCAA softball games in 2010 and five years later enrolled in the minor league umpire training academy in Vero Beach, Fla., the first step toward a career in professional baseball.

That earned her a job in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League. By 2023, she had worked her way up to triple A, the highest rung on the minor league ladder. Last year she became the third woman, after Pam Postema, in 1988, and Ria Cortesio, in 2007, to umpire major league spring training games.

The careers of both women were later blocked by senior male umpires who, according to colleagues, colluded against them. Postema later filed a federal discrimination suit against the National and American leagues, triple A clubs and the office of umpire development, claiming sexual harassment and gender discrimination. The suit was settled out of court.

Pawol, conversely, said she has received nothing but support, saying the coaches and players have gone out of their way to acknowledge her example as a trailblazer for their daughters.

On Wednesday, Roberts added his name to that list.

“Congratulations to her,” he said. “Baseball has done a great job of being completely inclusive. “

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says bases in Indiana and New Jersey can house detained immigrants without affecting military readiness — a step toward potentially detaining thousands of people on bases on U.S. soil.

Hegseth notified members of Congress from both states this week of the proposal to temporarily house detained immigrants at Camp Atterbury in Indiana and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.

President Trump has moved to aggressively detain and deport people in the country illegally, a push that has swept up large numbers of immigrants, including many with no prior criminal records, and forced federal authorities to find places to house them.

Hegseth said the presence of the detainees would not negatively affect the bases’ operations or training. Officials have not said when detainees could begin arriving at the facilities or if other military bases are under consideration.

Speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump’s border chief, Tom Homan, said there are about 60,000 beds available for detained immigrants and the goal is to expand to 100,000.

“We’re looking for any available bed space we can get that meets the detention standards we’re accustomed to,” Homan said Friday. “The faster we get the beds, the more people we can take off the street.”

Democratic lawmakers from both states and civil rights advocates condemned the idea of housing immigrants at the bases, questioning the effect on military resources and the justification for so many detentions.

“Using our country’s military to detain and hold undocumented immigrants jeopardizes military preparedness and paves the way for [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids in every New Jersey community,” New Jersey’s Democratic delegation said in a statement.

Democratic Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana said his questions about detainee conditions have gone unanswered by the Trump administration.

He cited concerns raised about conditions at other facilities and said, “The fact that ICE has detained so many individuals that they now need to expand detention space in Indiana is disturbing.”

Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said in a statement that housing immigrants in military facilities sets a dangerous precedent “and is contrary to the values embedded in our Constitution.”

Both of the bases identified by Hegseth have housed Afghan or Ukrainian refugees in recent years.

During Trump’s first administration, he authorized the use of military bases to detain immigrant children — including Army installations at Ft. Bliss and Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas.

In 2014, President Obama temporarily relied on military bases to detain immigrant children while ramping up privately operated family detention centers to hold many of the tens of thousands of Central American families who crossed the border.

Klepper and Freking write for the Associated Press. AP writers Christine Fernando and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

“How the f— does this baby know if she loves her father?” asked River Gallo one day at Walmart, back in 2010, when they saw an infant sucking on a pacifier emblazoned with the words “I love my daddy.”

“That started the ball rolling about my own issues with my father and with this compulsory love that we have with our families, specifically with our parents, specifically in this instance with my father, her father, our fathers, and with masculinity in general,” says a radiant Gallo during a recent video interview.

The spontaneous moment of introspection planted the seed for what became a 10-minute performance piece while studying acting at NYU — then their USC thesis-turned-short film “Ponyboi,” released in 2017, which Gallo wrote, starred in, and co-directed with Sadé Clacken Joseph. That project ultimately evolved into “Ponyboi” the feature, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2024, became the first film produced under Fox Entertainment Studios’ indie label, Tideline, and was released June 27 in theaters across the United States.

A consummate multihyphenate, Gallo again wrote the screenplay, served as producer and stars as the titular character: an intersex, Latine sex worker in New Jersey who is desperate to escape their pimp (played by Dylan O’Brien) and the world of crime and violence that surrounds them.

Flashbacks to Ponyboi’s childhood, made difficult due to the medical procedures forced on them and the temperament of their classically macho Latino father, fill in the viewer on the protagonist’s past. Meanwhile, dreamy sequences with a handsome, cowboy hat-wearing stranger named Bruce (Murray Bartlett), an idealized embodiment of a positive masculinity, construct a rich world both visually and thematically in Ponyboi’s present.

“[At] face value, ‘Ponyboi’ can seem like, ‘Oh, it’s just a person-on-the-run kind of movie,’ but upon a closer look, it’s about someone finding freedom in the acceptance of their past and the possibility that, through transcending their own beliefs about themselves, perhaps their future could be a little brighter,” Gallo explains.

Gallo is the child of Salvadoran immigrants who escaped their country’s civil war in 1980 and lived undocumented in the U.S. Gallo grew up in New Jersey and showed interest in acting from an early age. It was a strict teacher’s unexpected encouragement, after Gallo appeared in a musical during their sophomore year of high school, that convinced them to pursue a life in art.

“My biology teacher, Mrs. Lagatol, came to see my musical, and the next day I was waiting for her to say something to me, and she didn’t say anything,” Gallo recalls. “Then she gave me back a test, and on the test was a little Post-it that said: ‘If you had been the only one on stage, it would’ve been worth the price of admission. Bravo.’”

Gallo still keeps that Post-it note framed.

Though their parents were supportive, Gallo admits feeling frustration in recent years that their family has not fully understood the magnitude of what they’ve accomplished as a marginalized person in entertainment: an intersex individual and a first-generation Latine.

“Not to toot my own horn, but for a graduate of any film program, getting your first feature to Sundance is the biggest deal in the world,” says Gallo. “There hasn’t been a person like me to do what I’m doing. There’s no precedent or pioneer in my specific identities.”

This desire for a more informed validation is even stronger in relation to their father.

“I don’t think my dad has seen any of my films. My mom has; she was at the premiere at Sundance, which was really beautiful, and so was my sister,” Gallo says. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if my dad never sees my movies. That’s hard, but he’s supportive in other ways.”

Halfway through our conversation, Gallo realizes they are wearing a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt. That’s no coincidence, since “The Boss,” a fellow New Jerseyan, influenced multiple aspects of “Ponyboi.” As they wrote the screenplay for the short version, Gallo was also reading Springsteen’s autobiography, “Born to Run,” and that seeped into their work.

“I remember taking a trip to the Jersey Shore that summer and then looking up at the Stone Pony, the venue where [Springsteen] had his first big performance, and just being like, ‘Stone pony, stone pony, pony, pony, pony boy, ponyboi. That’s a good name.’ And then that was just what I decided to name the character”

For Gallo, the emblematic American singer-songwriter represents “the idea of being working class,” which Gallo thinks “transcends political ideology.” As a child of immigrants, Springsteen’s work speaks to Gallo profoundly.

“My dad, who is more dark-skinned than me, was an electrician, and he was a union guy who experienced all this racism in New York unions,” Gallo says. “There’s so much of what I see in Bruce Springsteen in my father and also just in how Bruce Springsteen describes his relationship with his dad, who was also a man who couldn’t express his emotions.”

For the feature, Gallo enlisted Esteban Arango, a Colombian-born, L.A.-based filmmaker whose debut feature, “Blast Beat,” premiered at Sundance in 2020.

But while Gallo believes Arango understood the nuances of the narrative, it admittedly pained them to relinquish the director’s chair. But it was a necessary sacrifice in order to focus on the performance and move the project along.

“It was difficult because I went to school for directing,” Gallo explains. “But I just don’t think the movie would’ve happened on this timeline if I had wanted to direct it. It would’ve taken much longer, and we needed the film at this moment in time.”

Arango brought his own “abrasive” edge to the narrative. “I felt the story needed more darkness,” the director explains via Zoom from his home in Los Angeles. “The hypermasculine world of New Jersey is constantly trying to oppress and reject Ponyboi, because they have a much softer, feminine energy they want to project.”

The contrast between the tenderness of Ponyboi’s interiority and the harshness of their reality is what Arango focused on.

Though Arango hesitated to take on the film, given that he is not queer, his personal history as an immigrant functioned as an entry point into this tale of shifting, complex identities. Still, throughout the entire process, Arango was clear that, first and foremost, “Ponyboi” was a story centering intersex people — and all those who don’t fit into the rigid gender binary.

“Their plight should be our plight, because they are at the forefront of what it means to be free,” he says. “When somebody attacks them or doesn’t understand why they present themselves as they are, it’s really an attack on all of us, and it’s a reflection of our misunderstanding of ourselves.”

Back in 2023, Gallo was one of three subjects in Julie Cohen’s incisive documentary “Every Body,” about the intersex experience, including the ways the medical industry performs unnecessary procedures in order to “normalize” intersex people.

Gallo confesses that for a long time they thought being intersex was something they would never feel comfortable talking about — something they even would take “to the grave,” as they put it.

“There’s no other way that I can explain the fact that now I’ve made so much work reflecting on my identity other than it being an act of God,” Gallo says. “Because I just had the feeling that the world needed it now, and also that I needed it now. I’m glad that ‘Ponyboi’ taught me about the agency that I have over my art and myself and my life.”

Anti-trans legislation, Gallo explains, includes loopholes enabling doctors to “normalize” intersex bodies and continue the medically unnecessary, and at times nonconsensual surgeries on intersex youth. “The intersex narrative in [trans legislation] is invisible and not spoken about enough,” they say. “These are also anti-intersex bills.”

To fully understand Gallo as a person and an artist, one should watch both “Every Body” and “Ponyboi.” The doc shows the bones of what made Gallo who they are without symbols, just the raw facts of how their intersex identity shaped them. “Ponyboi,” on the other hand, exposes their interior life with the poetry that the cinematic medium allows for.

However, what happens with “Ponyboi” now isn’t as important to Gallo as the fact that the movie exists as a testament of their totality as a creative force.

“Love my movie, hate my movie, I don’t care, because my movie healed something deep inside of me that I was waiting a lifetime to be healed from,” Gallo states fervently. “Intersex people are still invisible in this culture, but I can at least say that I don’t feel invisible to myself anymore. And it was all worth it for that.”

NEW YORK — A federal judge on Friday ordered the U.S. government to free former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil from the immigration detention center where he has been held since early March while the Trump administration sought to deport him over his role in pro-Palestinian protests.

Ruling from the bench in New Jersey, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be “highly, highly unusual” for the government to continue to detain a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn’t been accused of any violence.

In reaching his decision, he said Khalil is likely not a flight risk and “is not a danger to the community. Period, full stop.”

He ordered Khalil released from a detention center in rural Louisiana later Friday.

The government had “clearly not met” the standards for detention, he said later in the hourlong hearing, which took place by phone.

Khalil was the first arrest under President Trump’s crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel’s devastating war in Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Khalil must be expelled from the country because his continued presence could harm American foreign policy.

Farbiarz had ruled earlier that the government couldn’t deport Khalil on those grounds, but gave it leeway to continue pursuing a potential deportation based on allegations that he lied on his green card application. Khalil disputes the accusations that he wasn’t forthcoming on the application.

Khalil’s lawyers had asked that he either be freed on bail or, at the very least, moved from a Louisiana jail to New Jersey so he can be closer to his wife and newborn son, who are both U.S. citizens.

The judge noted Khalil is now clearly a public figure given his prominence during the campus protests and since his detainment.

He was detained on March 8 at his apartment building in Manhattan over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. His lawyers say the Trump administration is simply trying to crack down on free speech.

Khalil isn’t accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. The international affairs graduate student served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists. He wasn’t among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics.

The Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be expelled from the country as it considers their views antisemitic.

The judge noted Khalil has no criminal record and the government has put forward no evidence to suggest he’s been involved in violence or property destruction.

Marcelo writes for the Associated Press.

DONALD TRUMP has made a surprise appearance at UFC 316 – but this time Elon Musk was nowhere to be seen.

The President was cageside to watch Merab Dvalishvili’s title scrap with Sean O’Malley on Saturday night.

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Trump was flanked by UFC kingpin Dana White in a one-man entourage as he entered the arena in Newark, New Jersey.

He received loud cheers from the capacity crowd at the Prudential Center before taking his seat close to boxing icon Mike Tyson.

Trump shook hands with former NFL stars Will Compton and Taylor Lewan as he settled in to watch a packed main card.

Son Eric, daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner were also in the audience, as well as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The 47th President arrived in New Jersey on Friday, where he stayed at his golf course in Bedminster.

Trump was on the end of a high five from Kevin Holland after his submission victory against fellow welterweight Vicente Luque.

And he later shared words of encouragement to Georgian star Dvalishvili following an epic end to the main event.

Trump’s appearance was also notable for the absence of former sidekick Elon Musk.

His relationship with the world’s richest man disintegrated earlier this week.

The former allies battled it out on social media after disagreeing on Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, with the President claiming Elon had “gone crazy”.

Musk, who is worth an estimated $330 billion, was a major contributor to Trump’s presidential campaign.

He reportedly spent $250 million in supporting the Republican’s race for the White House last year.

Musk accompanied Trump to his last UFC showing in April.

The President was given a thunderous reception as he entered the arena for UFC 314 in Miami, Florida.

But prior to Saturday’s action, Trump indicated his working relationship with Musk was irreparable.

“I’m too busy doing other things. I won an election in a landslide,” he said.

“I gave [Musk] a lot of breaks, long before this happened.

“I gave him breaks in my first administration, and saved his life in my first administration, I have no intention of speaking to him.”

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In the Octagon, it was a night to remember for Dvalishvili, who proved too strong for O’Malley in their main event rematch.

The reigning bantamweight champion secured his first-ever UFC submission following a brutal choke-out.

And he celebrated by vaulting out of the Octagon for a handshake and words with Trump.

The President also shook hands with a devastated O’Malley, who was able to leave the Octagon under his own steam after the choke.

“He was well trained, he was well prepared, and I knew that he was going to make changes,” Dvalishvili told reporters after the third round win.

“Every time I lost I made big changes and I learned from it.

“But I’m getting better and better. I wasn’t showing this technique [before] and I have more tools in my pocket I’m still working on, and then little by little I will show.

“Now it’s my time.”

Elsewhere on the main card, there were also wins for Kayla Harrison, Joe Pyfer, Holland, and Mario Bautista.

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NEWARK, N.J. — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka sued New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor on Tuesday over his arrest on a trespassing charge at a federal immigration detention facility, saying the Trump-appointed attorney had pursued the case out of political spite.

Baraka, who leads New Jersey’s biggest city, is a candidate in a crowded primary field for the Democratic nomination for governor next Tuesday. The lawsuit against interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba coincided with the day early in-person voting began.

The lawsuit seeks damages for “false arrest and malicious prosecution,” and also accuses Habba of defamation for comments she made about his case, which was later dropped.

Citing a post on X in which Habba said Baraka “committed trespass,” the lawsuit says Habba issued a “defamatory statement” and authorized his “false arrest” despite “clear evidence that Mayor Baraka had not committed the petty offense of ‘defiant trespass.’” The suit also names Ricky Patel, the Homeland Security Investigations agent in charge in Newark. Baraka’s attorney, Nancy Erika Smith, said they also expect to sue President Trump’s administration but are required to wait six months.

“This is not about revenge,” Baraka said during a news conference. “Ultimately, I think this is about them taking accountability for what has happened to me.”

Emails seeking comment were left Tuesday with Habba’s office and the Homeland Security Department, where Patel works.

Videos capture chaos outside the detention center

The episode outside the Delaney Hall federal immigration detention center has had dramatic fallout. It began on May 9 when Baraka tried to join three Democratic members of Congress — Rob Menendez, LaMonica McIver and Bonnie Watson Coleman — who went to the facility for an oversight tour, something authorized under federal law. Baraka, an outspoken critic of Trump’s immigration crackdown and the detention center, was denied entry.

Video from the event showed him walking from the facility side of the fence to the street side, where other people had been protesting. Uniformed officials then came to arrest him. As they did, people could be heard urging the group to protect the mayor. The video shows a crowd forming and pushing as officials led off a handcuffed Baraka.

He was initially charged with trespass, but Habba dropped that charge last month and charged McIver with two counts of assaulting officers stemming from her role in the skirmish at the facility’s gate.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andre Espinosa rebuked Habba’s office after moving to dismiss the charges. “The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of these trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrisome misstep by your Office,” he wrote.

McIver decried the charges and signaled she plans to fight them. A preliminary hearing is scheduled later this month.

Baraka said the aftermath of the withdrawn charge meant he had to explain it in the media and argue his case when he had done nothing wrong.

“I want somebody to apologize, write a letter, say this was wrong, come out and say, ‘We shouldn’t have done this,’” he said.

New Jersey targeted over its so-called sanctuary policies

Delaney Hall, a 1,000-bed facility, opened earlier this year as a federal immigration detention facility. Florida-based Geo Group Inc., which owns and operates the property, was awarded a 15-year contract valued at $1 billion in February. The announcement was part of the president’s plans to sharply increase detention beds nationwide from a budget of about 41,000 beds this year.

Baraka sued Geo soon after that deal was announced.

Then, on May 23, the Trump Justice Department filed a suit against Newark and three other New Jersey cities over their so-called sanctuary policies. There is no legal definition for sanctuary city policies, but they generally limit cooperation by local law enforcement with federal immigration officers.

New Jersey’s attorney general has a statewide directive in place prohibiting local police from collaborating in federal civil immigration matters. The policies are aimed at barring cooperation on civil enforcement matters, not at blocking cooperation on criminal matters. They specifically carve out exceptions for when Immigration and Customs Enforcement supplies police with a judicial criminal warrant. The Justice Department said, though, the cities won’t notify ICE when they’ve made criminal arrests, according to the suit.

It’s unclear whether Baraka’s role in these fights with the White House is affecting his campaign for governor. He’s one of six candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in the June 10 election to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.

On Tuesday, Baraka explained the timing of the suit as an effort to get the case before the court before it was too late. He described the arrest and fallout as a distraction during the campaign.

“But I also think that us not responding is consent,” he said.

In a video ad in the election’s final weeks, Baraka has embraced a theme his rivals are also pushing: affordability. He says he’ll cut taxes. While some of the images show him standing in front of what appears to be Delaney Hall, he doesn’t mention immigration or the arrest specifically, saying: “I’ll keep Trump out of your homes and out of your lives.”

Trump has endorsed Jack Ciattarelli, one of several Republicans running in the gubernatorial primary. Ciattarelli has said if he’s elected, his first executive order would be to end any sanctuary policies for immigrants in the country illegally.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed to this report.

IN the wee small hours of Sunday at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Paris Saint-Germain’s players were celebrating the greatest achievement of their lives.

They had ended the 14-year quest of their Qatari overlords to win the Champions League, having inflicted on Inter Milan the most comprehensive humping in the history of European Cup finals.

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But if Luis Enrique and his side had wanted to put their feet up and bask in this ultimate glory, then they were sadly mistaken.

Almost immediately after their 5-0 win, Enrique and his stars would be peppered with questions about their prospects at the Club World Cup — a 32-team, month-long tournament designed to carpet-bomb TV schedules with even more football, starting on Sunday week.

Does the Club World Cup now represent ultimate glory, rather than the Champions League?

Is that, in the words of Finchy in The Office, ‘the real quiz’?

Because football — even in the odd-numbered summers which used to give us a brief respite from the thing — must never, ever rest.

And so next week, PSG will go to America, where they will play the Urawa Red Diamonds, The Last Shadow Puppets and the Seattle Sounders — only one of which is really the name of an English band.

And on Sunday week, Bayern Munich will play Auckland City in Cincinnati.

And they WILL play.

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And there is nothing we can do to stop them playing. Even though we already know Bayern Munich are significantly better than Auckland City.

And Harry Kane will play. Even though his body is creaking.

Even though he hasn’t had a proper rest in years. Even though he surely can’t think of anything worse than having to play Auckland City.

Because Fifa are offering $1BILLION in prize money.

And two days later, you can watch in HD as Ulsan HD of South Korea play Mamelodi Sundowns, who are possibly an indie band who have  an afternoon slot on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage, or might be a football team from Pretoria in South Africa

Because in football there must be no sundown. Only the Mamelodi Sundowns.

And Manchester City and Chelsea will be there too, due to some  convoluted Uefa qualification system which it’s best not to ask about.

And Inter Miami will be there — not because of any system but because they employ Lionel Messi, who turns 38 this month and must be tired but must never, ever rest.

And the whole thing will go on for every bit as long as an actual World Cup, with countries, used to go on for.

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Although not as long as next year’s actual World Cup, which will have 48 nations and 104 matches in it and will go on for even longer.

Oh and there will still be a third-place play-off.

Because what else would we do with ourselves on Saturday July 18, 2026, if we couldn’t watch another game of football between two utterly deflated, exhausted teams?

Manchester United didn’t qualify for the Club World Cup.

But that doesn’t matter because, after the worst season in their modern history, United’s players travelled 14,000 miles to play post-season friendlies in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong so that the club could fulfil £10million worth of sponsorship commitments.

And yes ‘net zero’ is supposed to be an environmental policy rather than United’s goalscoring output against the ASEAN All-Stars. During the half-time interval of that 1-0 defeat in Malaysia, Andre Onana, Harry Maguire and Diogo Dalot were substituted so they could board a private jet to Mumbai to  promote Apollo tyres.

Because people in Mumbai will choose Apollo tyres if an error-prone Cameroonian goalkeeper tells them to.

And Michelin and Bridgestone and Pirelli won’t get a look in, just so long as Dalot presses home Apollo’s core messages, which are ‘Going The Distance’ and ‘Conquer Every Road’.

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While Maguire was flying to India, to tell people that ‘the journey is as important as the destination’, Amad Diallo was still in Malaysia, where he was giving the middle finger to a fan who had apparently abused his mother.

And then issuing a social-media apology, in which he said he didn’t actually regret giving the finger.

Because it isn’t enough that Amad’s mother is abused during the football season.

She needs to be abused during the close season as well.
And her son needs to retaliate.

Because there needs to be online content and, if the internet never sleeps, then why should football sleep, along with its content-creating by-product, the abuse of really tired footballers?

Last year, Tottenham and Newcastle made a 21,000-mile round trip to Melbourne to play each other, six weeks after they had previously done so. And the Toon won on penalties.

But is that really enough, when these footballers travelled in first-class luxury and stayed in excellent hotels?

The BBC’s Race Across The World is an extraordinarily successful TV show because contestants must travel on overnight buses and then muck out animals to raise extra cash.

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Why shouldn’t footballers do the same on post-season and pre-season tours? Wouldn’t that provide better content?

This Saturday, England will play a competitive match against Andorra, which won’t be competitive.

And next Tuesday, England will play Senegal, when they won’t really be England because so many of their players will be heading to the Club World Cup.

But it’s not as if we’d have to wait long for football without this new thing.

Next month, there will be a North London Derby in Hong Kong and Bournemouth will play Everton at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the venue for next summer’s World Cup final.

Because why wouldn’t we want to watch Bournemouth play Everton in July — even if, when the fixtures come out in a fortnight, we might find out that they are playing each other in August?

The thing is, Bournemouth versus Everton has been far too parochial until now.

When Bournemouth are at home, only 11,000 people get in to watch it.

What about the blue-collar workers of New Jersey, the people Bruce Springsteen writes ballads about?

Don’t they deserve their fix of Bournemouth versus Everton, instead of just shotgun, teenage weddings and dreaming about escaping from small towns on motorbikes, kind of stuff?

And the answer is, yes, they do deserve Bournemouth versus Everton. Just like you deserve Red Bull Salzburg, the second best team in Austria, versus CF Pachuca, the eighth best team in Mexico.

That one’s on Wednesday June 18 at 11pm. Followed by Al-Ain versus Juventus at 2am.

Eyes down, look in. We’ll sleep when we’re dead.

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