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    George Santos: the four strands of the Republican congressman’s web of lies

    George Santos’s extensive lies and financial improprieties have started to catch up to the New York representative, with criminal charges in New York and a newly released House ethics committee report.The congressman built a campaign on a fake résumé, made-up personal stories and a host of complex financial transactions that benefited his personal bank account, the report and other reporting show. His falsehoods ranged from serious to mundane and, at times, bizarre.“Representative Santos’ congressional campaigns were built around his backstory as a successful man of means: a grandson of Holocaust survivors and graduate from Baruch College with a Master’s in Business Administration from New York University, who went on to work at Citi Group and Goldman Sachs, owned multiple properties, and was the beneficiary of a family trust worth millions of dollars left by his mother, who passed years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a result of long-term health effects related to being at one of the towers,” the House ethics report says.“No part of that backstory has been found to be true.”Financial irregularitiesThe House ethics report concluded that Santos used campaign funds and his position to enrich himself. He allegedly claimed to have loaned his campaign money, despite not having done so, then paid himself back. His financial disclosure forms were not accurate, and, the report said, one was “filled with falsehoods designed to make him appear wealthier than he was and furthered the fictional persona he had concocted by falsely reporting more than half a million dollars in loans to the FEC”.He also used campaign funds for personal purposes. Some examples in the House report: purchases at Ferragamo and Hermès, hotel stays in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, ATM withdrawals, paying his personal rent and personal credit card bills, spa services like Botox and “smaller purchases” at OnlyFans, an adult content service.His campaign filed a list of false donors as another way to “artificially inflate” his required financial reports, the House investigation claims. The New York indictment further alleges Santos defrauded donors and charged their credit cards without authorization.The New York criminal charges include allegations that Santos improperly received unemployment insurance despite being employed at a $120,000-per-year job. He received more than $24,000 in unemployment benefits during the Covid-19 pandemic, the charges state.Ironically, Santos touted his financial acumen when running for office, claiming he had an “extensive background in money management/growth” and was “good at it”. This background would help the House during budgeting and serve his constituents well, he said.If they’d known about his inaccurate and false financial statements, the House ethics group said, “his constituents may have had cause to question whether he was actually ‘good at’ money management and growth, or balancing costs and budgets – or, indeed, whether he had any experience in finance at all”.Personal historyThe New York Times first detailed lengthy fictions Santos told about himself, his education and his work experience, finding that his résumé was beyond embellished and outright false. He didn’t receive degrees from the schools he claimed he had. He hadn’t worked jobs he included in his work history.He also claimed to be a landlord who owned 13 properties, though no records of any property ownership have been found for him.His background has also come into question. He claimed his grandparents were Jewish and fled Europe because of persecution during the second world war, but genealogical research by Forward contradicted his story.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSantos also said his mother was at the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks, but records show she was not in the US at that time.Stolen election claimsWhile claiming the 2020 election was stolen isn’t rare for congressional Republicans, Santos also boosted election denialism. In a speech on 5 January 2021, Santos claimed his election was stolen, as was Trump’s. He said he had been ahead in the vote count for days until the results changed, which happened because more ballots were counted.“They did to me what they did to Donald J Trump, they stole my election,” Santos said. He then asked the crowd: “Who here is ready to overturn the election for Donald J Trump?”Dog-related storiesA few stories about pets also plague Santos. He claimed to run a charity that rescued more than 2,500 animals, though the group wasn’t registered as a non-profit and it appears Santos’s claims related to its work were greatly exaggerated.In a strange side story, Santos was also charged with writing bad checks to dog breeders with “puppies” in the memo line, though he had the charge dismissed and his record expunged because he claimed someone stole his checkbook and wrote the checks in his name.In a separate fraud case in Brazil, Santos admitted he stole a man’s checkbook and made purchases with it.Yet another dog-related story claims Santos raised thousands of dollars in a GoFundMe to help a veteran who was homeless take care of his pit bull, then pocketed the money instead of helping the dog. More

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    George Santos will not seek re-election after House details ‘pervasive’ fraud

    The New York Republican congressman, fabulist and criminal defendant George Santos said he would not seek re-election next year, after the US House ethics committee issued a report detailing “grave and pervasive campaign finance violations and fraudulent activity” and recommended action against him.“I will NOT be seeking re-election for a second term in 2024 as my family deserves better than to be under the gun from the press all the time,” Santos said, calling the report “biased” and “a disgusting politicised smear”.But after the report detailed his conduct, moves for a new expulsion resolution began.“Representative Santos sought to fraudulently exploit every aspect of his House candidacy for his own personal financial profit,” the committee said.“He blatantly stole from his campaign. He deceived donors into providing what they thought were contributions to his campaign but were in fact payments for his personal benefit.“He reported fictitious loans to his political committees to induce donors and party committees to make further contributions to his campaign – and then diverted more campaign money to himself as purported ‘repayments’ of those fictitious loans.“He used his connections to high-value donors and other political campaigns to obtain additional funds for himself through fraudulent or otherwise questionable business dealings. And he sustained all of this through a constant series of lies to his constituents, donors, and staff about his background and experience.”Santos, 35, was elected last year, as Republicans retook the House in part thanks to a strong performance in New York. But as his résumé unraveled amid increasingly picaresque reports about his life before entering Congress, including questions about his actual name, he admitted “embellishing” his record.Allegations of criminal behaviour emerged. Santos has now pleaded not guilty to 23 federal criminal charges, including laundering funds and defrauding donors.He has survived attempts to expel him from the House, including from members of his own party. Most recently, 31 Democrats voted against making him only the sixth member ever expelled, saying he should not be thrown out without being convicted. Three congressmen were expelled in 1861, for supporting the Confederacy in the civil war. Two have been expelled after being criminally convicted, the last in 2002.Republican leaders, beholden to a narrow majority, had said they would wait for the ethics report.On Thursday, the New York Democrat Dan Goldman said: “More than 10 months after Congressman [Ritchie] Torres and I filed a complaint … the committee has … concluded that George Santos defrauded his donors, filed false Federal Election Commission reports, and repeatedly broke the law in order to fraudulently win his election last November.”Promising to “file a motion to expel Santos from Congress once and for all” after the Thanksgiving break, Goldman said Republicans “no longer have any fictional excuse to protect Santos in order to preserve their narrow majority”.Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who has tried to expel Santos, said Santos should “end this farce and resign immediately. If he refuses, he must be removed from Congress. His conduct is not only unbecoming and embarrassing, it is criminal. He is unfit to serve and should resign today”.Mike Johnson, the new Republican speaker, has said Santos deserves due process. Speaking to Fox News last month, he also said Republicans had “no margin for error”.But according to the Washington Post, citing an anonymous source, Michael Guest of Mississippi, the Republican committee chair, planned to file a motion to expel Santos on Friday, setting up a possible vote after the Thanksgiving holiday next week.Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said she “intend[ed] to vote yes on any privileged expulsion resolution … as the work of the committee is now complete, and I am no longer obligated to maintain neutrality”.Santos said: “If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the ‘ethics committee’, they would have not released this biased report. The committee went to extraordinary lengths to smear myself and my legal team about me not being forthcoming (my legal bills suggest otherwise).“It is a disgusting politicised smear that shows the depths of how low our federal government has sunk. Everyone who participated in this grave miscarriage of justice should all be ashamed of themselves.”Somewhat optimistically, he called for a constitutional convention to formalise action against Joe Biden for supposed crimes. More contritely, Santos said he was “humbled yet again and reminded that I am human and I have flaws”.The report was accompanied by extensive appendices including evidence of apparent malpractice. Santos was shown to have spent donor money on vacations, luxury goods, Botox treatment and the website OnlyFans.One exhibit showed a suggestion by a staffer to place a microphone under a table bearing donuts for reporters, an offering that made headlines earlier this year.The committee said Santos had not cooperated, “continues to flout his statutory financial disclosure obligations and has failed to correct countless errors and omissions in his past [financial disclosure] statements, despite being repeatedly reminded … of his requirement to do so.“The [committee] also found that, despite his attempts to blame others for much of the misconduct, Representative Santos was a knowing and active participant in the wrongdoing. Particularly troubling was Representative Santos’ lack of candour during the investigation itself.”The committee said it would refer its findings to federal prosecutors. Members of Congress, it said, should take any action “appropriate and necessary … to fulfill the House’s constitutional mandate to police the conduct of its members”.Outside Congress, Brett Edkins, of the pressure group Stand Up America, said: “This report has one clear conclusion: Santos is wholly unfit to hold office.“If George Santos had any shame or remorse over deceiving hard-working New Yorkers and his colleagues in Congress, he would resign immediately. Instead, he continues to use every possible lie and excuse to cling to power … since he refuses to step down, House Republicans should grow a backbone and expel him.” More

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    Trump complains of sister’s ‘merciless’ treatment by US media

    Donald Trump paid tribute on Tuesday to his sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, after her death at the age of 86, saluting her beauty and intellect but also complaining about what he called her “merciless” treatment by US news media after he became president in 2016.Barry retired from the federal bench in 2019 after investigations of Trump family tax affairs seemed to implicate her in avoidance schemes.She died on Monday at her home on the Upper East Side, in New York City.“My great sister, Maryanne, passed away yesterday at the age of 86,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Tuesday.“A truly beautiful woman, tall and elegant, with a presence like no other, she was also a tremendous student, intellect, and judge, in charge of the United States court of appeals for the third circuit, just below the US supreme court.”It long been known that Barry received her first judicial appointment, from Ronald Reagan in 1983, thanks in large part to Roy Cohn, an infamous mafia-linked lawyer who was then Donald Trump’s fixer. Barry was appointed to the appeals court in 1999, by Bill Clinton, and assumed senior status in 2011.Trump continued: “Her life was largely problem-free, PERFECT, until I made it difficult for her when I decided to run for president.“The Fake News, and others, went after her mercilessly, and because of the fact that she felt it inappropriate, due to her position, to defend herself, it just never stopped! While tough and strong, she was made to suffer in those years from 2016 until her retirement.”In 2018, the New York Times said a blockbuster report on Trump’s taxes, which he had kept from public view, was in large part fueled by the discovery of a “disclosure form that … Maryanne … filed related to her Senate confirmation hearing”.“In that document,” the paper added, its reporter “noticed a $1m contribution from an obscure family-owned company: All County Building Supply & Maintenance.”A year after Barry retired, her niece, the writer and Trump critic Mary L Trump, released recordings in which her aunt was harshly critical of the then president.Bemoaning “the phoniness of it all … the phoniness and this cruelty”, Barry said: “Donald is cruel.”She also criticised him for not being a reader, and said: “His goddamned tweet[ing] and lying, oh my God … I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”Donald Trump now faces 91 criminal charges, including 17 regarding election subversion, and assorted civil trials. Nonetheless, he leads polling regarding the Republican presidential nomination by vast margins nationally and in battleground states.He did not comment on Monday on his sister’s death. On Tuesday, before issuing his statement about his sister, he used his Truth Social platform to attack the New York attorney general, whose lawsuit over his business practices landed him and his family in court; to post favourable polling results; and to complain about the latest Marvel superhero film.Turning to his tribute to his deceased sibling, Trump said he would “never forget the many times people would come up to me and say, ‘Your sister was the smartest person on the court.’ I was always honoured by that, but understood exactly what they meant – they were right!“She was a great judge, and a great sister. She will be truly missed!” More

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    Maryanne Trump Barry, former judge and Donald Trump’s sister, dies aged 86

    Maryanne Trump Barry, a retired US federal judge and older sister of the former president Donald Trump, has died. She was 86.Multiple news outlets said Barry died at her home on the Upper East Side in New York City. A person familiar with the matter told the New York Times that Barry was found early on Monday morning. Her cause of death was unknown.The eldest daughter of prominent New York property developer Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump, Barry became an assistant US attorney in 1974 before being appointed to the US district court for New Jersey by Ronald Reagan in 1983. Her appointment to the federal bench, the Times said, was aided by Donald Trump’s then “fixer, the lawyer Roy M Cohn”. In 1999, Barry was appointed to the US court of appeals for the third circuit by Bill Clinton.In 2018, while Donald Trump was in the White House, a New York Times investigation of his tax affairs, aided by Mary L Trump, the president’s niece who had become alienated from the family, prompted a formal complaint over whether Barry engaged in tax schemes in the 1990s.The Times report claimed that Barry, who allegedly benefited financially, was able to use her position of power to benefit her family.Barry retired from the federal bench in 2019.She was long said to be close to her younger brother, but his rise to power and chaotic White House term seemed to change the relationship.In 2020, Mary Trump released recordings in which her aunt could be heard criticising the then president.At one point, Barry was heard to say “the phoniness of it all … the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel.”She also said: “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God … I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”Barry was married to the late John Barry, a trial and appellate lawyer.Fred Trump Jr, the oldest of Donald Trump’s siblings and father to Mary L Trump, died in 1981, aged 42.Robert Trump, a younger brother of the former president, died in 2020 aged 71. His funeral was held at the White House.Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana Trump, died aged 73 at her home in New York City last year. She is buried at Bedminster, the former president’s golf club in New Jersey.Donald Trump, 77, is the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination next year, despite facing 91 criminal charges and assorted civil threats.Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

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    Phones and iPad of New York mayor Eric Adams were seized by FBI, report says

    Electronic devices including at least two mobile phones belonging to New York City mayor Eric Adams were seized by the FBI as the agency escalated a corruption investigation into his victorious 2021 campaign, the New York Times reported Friday.It follows an FBI raid earlier this month on the home of Brianna Suggs, Adams’s leading campaign fundraiser, in which agents reportedly confiscated two laptop computers and three cellphones.Previous reports said Adams and his campaign team repeatedly refused regulators’ request to divulge the source of about $300,000 in donations, although it was not clear whether a violation of campaign finance rules was part of the inquiry.According to the Times, FBI agents earlier this week took “at least two cellphones and an iPad” belonging to Adams, days after the 2 November raid on Suggs’s Brooklyn residence.Sources told the newspaper that agents approached Adams in the street and asked his security detail to step away while they entered his vehicle and seized the devices under the authorization of a court-issued warrant.The paper added all the equipment was returned to him “within a matter of days”, noting that the warrant allowed the FBI to copy data contained on the devices.In a statement issued through a spokesperson on Friday afternoon, Adams, a former New York police department captain, said he had been fully cooperative.“As a former member of law enforcement, I expect all members of my staff to follow the law and fully cooperate with any sort of investigation, and I will continue to do that,” he said. “I have nothing to hide.”His campaign attorney, Boyd Johnson, said in his own statement: “The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing and continues to cooperate with the investigation.“After learning of the federal investigation, it was discovered that an individual had recently acted improperly. In the spirit of transparency and cooperation, this behavior was immediately and proactively reported to investigators.”Johnson did not elaborate on who the person was or what they were found to have done.The FBI investigation, the two sources told the Times, is looking into whether Adams’s 2021 campaign “conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers”.The warrant, it said, sought records about donations from Bay Atlantic University, a Washington DC college whose founder is Turkish and is affiliated with a school Adams is said to have visited when he went to Turkey as Brooklyn borough president in 2015.The donations previously reported to be in question came from about 500 different donors, the local New York City news publication the City said.Adams’s campaign counsel, Vito Pitta, said at the time: “The campaign has responded to every notice from [the campaign finance board] as appropriate.”The New York Times said the FBI and the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York declined comment Friday.Immediately after the raid on the home of Suggs, Adams returned to New York from Washington DC, where he had scheduled meetings with White House and congressional leaders to talk about immigration.He said he did so out of compassion for Suggs, a 25-year-old former intern promoted to be his chief fundraiser.“Although I am mayor, I have not stopped being a man and a human,” he said. More

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    ‘I don’t recall’: Ivanka Trump testifies in father’s New York fraud trial

    “I don’t recall,” Ivanka Trump repeatedly told a New York court on Wednesday as she took the witness stand at her father’s $250m fraud trial and was quizzed about deals prosecutors claim prove the Trump Organization knowingly misled lenders.Trump’s eldest daughter gave an orderly, calm performance after the often chaotic testimony of her father and brothers. She pointed out that she had not worked for the family firm since 2017 and said she did not recall many specific conversations but added: “I have no reason to doubt it.”But like her father and brothers, she consistently said she did not recall details about specific transactions or conversations. “There were many emails, many conversations,” she said.The trial is just one of a series that the Republican presidential frontrunner faces. Trump has been charged with 91 felony counts across criminal cases in New York, Florida, Washington and Georgia.New York’s attorney general is trying to prove that the Trump family and other executives knowingly inflated Trump’s wealth in order to secure favorable loans.In one exchange Ivanka Trump was shown a series of emails and other documents relating to a loan from Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management division. The loan was contingent on Trump maintaining a value in excess of $3bn. Ivanka Trump negotiated to get the net worth covenant reduced to $2.5bn after a Trump lawyer expressed some concerns.“It doesn’t get better than this,” Ivanka Trump said of the terms in 2011. “Let’s discuss asap.” That year Donald Trump would go on to claim he was worth $4.2bn. The prosecution alleges that Trump was not worth $2bn at the time.“I don’t recall,” she said, when asked about multiple documents and emails that showed she played a key role in deals to obtain financing for the Trump Organization.Asked about whether she understood that the financial statements at the center of the case were used to guarantee a loan to purchase the Old Post Office building in Washington DC, which became the now defunct Trump International hotel, Trump said: “I generally understand that there was a personal guarantee condition of the loan and a series of requirements that were fulfilled by the team in accordance to the terms.”Trump’s lawyers made the case that Deutsche Bank was delighted to do business with the family and favorable loans were part of their attempts to woo them. Ivanka Trump said one of its top bankers had “expressed tremendous excitement to have our account”. Deutsche Bank severed ties with Trump in 2021 after the deadly January 6 US Capitol attack.Last month, Ivanka Trump asked the court to remove her from the prosecution’s witness list, but the request was denied. Ivanka Trump tried to argue that appearing in court would cause her “undue hardship” if she was to testify during the school week. The attorney general’s office had wanted Trump’s eldest daughter to testify in court before the former president himself took the stand, but ultimately rescheduled her appearance because of her appeal.Ivanka Trump was once listed as a co-defendant on the case, along with her father and two adult brothers, but an appeals court tossed out the claims against her last summer, saying that her involvement with the Trump Organization had passed the statute of limitations.Before the trial started, Judge Arthur Engoron found Trump guilty of inflating the value of his assets on state financial statements that were used to broker deals and obtain loans. Though Trump’s team is appealing the decision, he stands to lose his state business licenses if the appellate court sides with Engoron. The actual trial is over the fine Trump will have to pay. Prosecutors are asking for at least $250m.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIvanka Trump had served as a top executive at the Trump Organization, alongside brothers Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, until 2017, when she stepped down to assist her father at the White House. Like her siblings, she helped her father broker deals with lenders to develop properties for the company.Brothers Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump testified last week, distancing themselves from the financial statements at the center of the case despite multiple documents showing they affirmed the statements’ financial representations and were, at times, consulted for the statements.Trump has not been present in the court for any of his children’s testimony. Ahead of his daughter’s appearance he once again lambasted the judge and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who brought the case against him, calling James, who is Black, “Corrupt and Racist,” on Truth Social, his social media site.Ivanka Trump has moved to distance herself from the family business since Trump’s election defeat. In April, she engaged her own lawyers in the New York case.Trump’s eldest daughter has also broken from the family’s line in previous testimony. In 2022 she told investigators looking into the January 6 Capitol insurrection that she did not believe the election was stolen, contrary to her father’s furious insistence. More

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    Abortion rights and historic wins: key takeaways from the US’s off-year elections

    Voters across the US went to the polls on Tuesday for an array of key races that may set the tone for the general election next year.The night delivered some historic wins and some surprise outcomes. Here’s a roundup of the notable races that have been call so far.Virginia voters stave off Republican agendaIn Virginia, where all 140 state legislative seats were up for election, Democrats retained their majority in the state senate, crushing Republican lawmakers’ hopes of gaining control of the legislature.In a surprising victory, Democrats also flipped the house of delegates, the lower chamber of the state house. That means they will be able to effectively block the Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s agenda, which includes a ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for rape, incest and medical emergencies.Gaining control of both chambers would have allowed Republicans to swiftly move ahead with conservative policy priorities. Though not all of the races have been called, Democrats are already celebrating in what was seen as a bellwether for 2024.A pro-choice victory in OhioIn the nation’s only race where abortion was on the ballot, Ohio voters overwhelming decided to enshrine abortion protections in their state constitution.The vote to approve “Issue 1” passed with nearly 60% of the vote on Tuesday after months of campaigning that saw millions of dollars pour in from both sides.As Carter Sherman, reporting for the Guardian in Akron, Ohio, writes: “Abortion access has been embattled in Ohio since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, sending the issue of abortion back to the states and leading 16 states to ban nearly all abortions. Ohio has a six-week abortion ban on the books, which briefly took effect until a court paused it. Tuesday’s results should prevent it from being reinstated.Democrat holds on to Kentucky governorshipFollowing a high-profile race that pitted two former law firm colleagues against each other, the Democratic incumbent, Andy Beshear, will retain his gubernatorial seat in the largely conservative state after Kentucky voters chose him over the Republican Daniel Cameron.Cameron, the state’s first Black attorney general, would have been the nation’s first Black republican governor of he were elected. During his campaign for the governor’s seat, Cameron faced criticism from the family of Breonna Taylor, who were angered at his handling of the the investigation into her killing.In Mississippi, a Republican governor keeps his jobBrandon Presley, a Democrat and relation of Elvis Presley, lost his race for governor, conceding to the incumbent Tate Reeves on Tuesday night. Reeves avoided what would have been a remarkable upset, calling his victory “sweet”, and congratulated Presley for “running hard all the way through”.It was a hard-fought contest that saw the candidates exchange verbal blows, writes the Guardian’s Adria Walker in Mississippi, “with Reeves alleging that Presley had been bought by out-of-state, liberal political interest groups. Presley hammered Reeves on his and his family’s alleged involvement in the state’s ongoing corruption scandal.”Election day was disrupted when polling places in the state’s largest county ran out of ballots and voters endured long lines in a key Democratic stronghold.Philly gets its first female mayorIn Philadelphia, voters elected Cherelle Parker as the 100th mayor, and first woman to lead the city. Parker beat out her Democratic opponents and was heavily favored over the Republican candidate David Oh. Parker ran as a moderate in Democratic stronghold where issues like crime, gun violence and blight are consistently top of mind. Parker has been involved in politics since she was a teenager and was a Pennsylvania state representative from 2005 to 2016 and a Philadelphia city council member from 2016 to 2022.Rhode Islanders are sending their first Black representative to CongressThe Democrat Gabe Amo, 35, defeated the Republican Gerry Leonard to win Rhode Island’s first congressional district. Amo, who grew up in Pawtucket as the son of Ghanaian and Liberian immigrants, claimed more than 32% of the vote and will fill the seat of fellow Democrat David Cicilline, who stepped down this summer to become president and CEO of the Rhode Island Foundation.From the ‘Central Park Five’ to New York City councilYusef Salaam won a seat on the New York City council, completing a stunning reversal of fortune decades after he was wrongly imprisoned in an infamous rape case. Salaam, a Democrat, will represent a central Harlem district on the city council, having run unopposed for the seat in one of many local elections held across New York state.The victory comes more than two decades after DNA evidence was used to overturn the convictions of Salaam and four other Black and Latino men in the 1989 rape and beating of a white jogger in Central Park. Salaam was arrested at age 15 and imprisoned for almost seven years. The group became known as the “Central Park Five”.“For me, this means that we can really become our ancestors’ wildest dreams,” Salaam said in an interview with the AP before the election.A loss for an Uvalde mother turned campaignerKim Mata-Rubio, the mother of one the 19 children killed at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, has lost her mayoral bid. After her 10-year-old daughter was killed in May 2022, Mata-Rubio became an outspoken gun violence prevention advocate.She announced her bid for mayor of Uvalde in June and ran on the promise of making the city “a place where every citizen feels heard, where we honor our past while building a brighter future, and where tragedies like the one my family experienced catalyze positive change for all”, according to her campaign website.Ohioans vote to legalize recreational marijuanaIn another rebuke to the Republican leadership, Ohio voters have made the state the 24th in the nation to legalize marijuana for recreational use. The legislation’s approval comes after Republican officials, including Governor Mike DeWine, publicly denounced the legalization over fears it would negatively affect workplace and road safety.Under the new law, people who are at least 21 years old are allowed to buy marijuana and possess up to two and a half ounces of it. “Marijuana is no longer a controversial issue,” said Tom Haren, a spokesman for the Coalition to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, which backed the Ohio proposal. More

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    Exonerated ‘Central Park Five’ member poised to win New York City council seat

    The exonerated “Central Park Five” member Yusef Salaam is poised to win a seat Tuesday on the New York City council, marking a stunning reversal of fortune for a political newcomer who was wrongly imprisoned as a teenager in the infamous rape case.Salaam, a Democrat, will represent a central Harlem district on the city council, having run unopposed for the seat in one of many local elections playing out across New York state on Tuesday. He won his primary election in a landslide.The victory will come more than two decades after DNA evidence was used to overturn the convictions of Salaam and four other Black and Latino men in the 1989 rape and beating of a white jogger in Central Park. Salaam was imprisoned for almost seven years.“For me, this means that we can really become our ancestors’ wildest dreams,” Salaam said in an interview before the election.Elsewhere in New York City, voters will decide whether to re-elect the Queens district attorney and cast ballots in other city council races. The council, which passes legislation and has some oversight powers over city agencies, has long been dominated by Democrats and the party is certain to retain firm control after the election.Local elections on Long Island could offer clues about how the city’s suburbs could vote in next year’s congressional elections.Races for Suffolk county executive and North Hempstead supervisor have been the most prominent, though the races are expected to have low turnout because they are happening in a year without federal or statewide candidates on the ballot.“Keeping an eye on Long Island, which has been a little counterintuitive in its election outcomes the last few years with a mix of national and local issues, gives you a chance to see what’s playing in a typical suburb that’s not unlike the ones in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia, Arizona, Nevada and other places that both parties believe are at play,” said Lawrence Levy, executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University on Long Island.Democrats lost in all four of Long Island’s congressional districts last year and have dedicated significant resources to the region for 2024. Republicans, bolstering campaigns with a focus on local issues such as crime and migrants, are aiming to hold on to the seats next year.In the city meanwhile, Salaam’s candidacy is a reminder of what the war on crime can look like when it goes too far.Salaam was just 15 years old when he was arrested along with Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise and accused of attacking a woman running in Central Park.The crime dominated headlines in the city, inflaming racial tensions as police rounded up Black and Latino men and boys for interrogation. Former president Donald Trump, then just a brash real estate executive in the city, took out large ads in newspapers that implored New York to bring back the death penalty.The teens convicted in the attack served between five and 12 years in prison before the case was re-examined.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA serial rapist and murderer was eventually linked to the crime through DNA evidence and a confession. The convictions of the Central Park Five were vacated in 2002 and they received a combined $41m settlement from the city.Salaam campaigned on easing poverty and combatting gentrification in Harlem. He often mentioned his conviction and imprisonment on the trail – his place as a symbol of injustice helping to animate the overwhelmingly Black district and propel him to victory.“I am really the ambassador for everyone’s pain,” he said. “In many ways, I went through that for our people so I can now lead them.”In a more competitive city council race on Tuesday, the Democrat Justin Brannan faces off against Republican Ari Kagan in an ethnically diverse south Brooklyn district. The race has become heated as the candidates neared election day, with the pair sparring over the Israel-Hamas war and New York’s migrant crisis.In a slight that symbolized the tension between the two men, Brannan recently tweeted a photo of a ribbon-cutting ceremony that he and Kagan attended, but the image had Kagan’s face blurred out.Statewide, New Yorkers will be voting on two ballot measures. One would remove the debt limit placed on small city school districts under the state constitution. The second would extend an exclusion from the debt limit for sewage projects. More