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      Eric Adams to endorse Andrew Cuomo in New York City mayoral race

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      The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, will endorse Andrew Cuomo in the city’s mayoral race, following months of tension between the two Democrats turned independents.Adams revealed his intention in an interview with the New York Times a month after he ended his own re-election campaign which saw him register poor polling numbers.The race has been dominated so far by the fight between Cuomo, the former New York governor, and the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, whose rise in the polls has created headlines around the world and symbolised hopes for a rejuvenated left wing of the Democrats.Just last month, Adams lashed out at Cuomo, calling him a “snake and a liar”, and accusing him of having “a career of pushing Black candidates out of races”. Despite that, Adams reversed course on Thursday, telling the New York Times that he now plans to campaign alongside Cuomo in neighborhoods where he maintains strong support.“I think that it is imperative to really wake up the Black and brown communities that have suffered from gentrification on how important this race is,” Adams told the newspaper.“They have watched their rents increase in terms of gentrification and they have been disregarded in those neighborhoods, and I’m going to go to those neighborhoods and speak one on one with organizers and groups and I’m going to walk with the governor in those neighborhoods and get them engaged,” he added.At an unrelated press conference later on Thursday, Adams told reporters asking about the endorsement plan: “I’ll be with Andrew later today.”On Thursday afternoon, Adams reiterated his endorsement, telling reporters: “I’m fighting for the family of New York. That’s why I’m here today to endorse Andrew Cuomo: to be part of this fight. And I’m going to give him my all these next few days.”The Guardian has contacted Cuomo’s campaign for comment.Adams’s interview with the Times took place a day after he and Cuomo were seen sitting courtside together at the New York Knicks’ season opener at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday evening. The game occurred right after a heated mayoral debate featuring Cuomo, Mamdani and the Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa.During the debate, both Mamdani and Sliwa said they would refuse Adams’s endorsement.Earlier this year, Adams launched his re-election campaign as an independent after being indicted on federal corruption charges which were later dismissed by Donald Trump in exchange for Adams’s cooperation with federal immigration raids across New York City.In response to Adams’s endorsement of Cuomo, Mamdani wrote on X: “The Art of the Deal” – referring to Trump’s 1987 book. More

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      Shouting and ready to ‘bump chests’ with Trump – but nobody moved the needle in the final New York mayoral debate

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      The second and final debate before early voting in New York City’s mayoral race was a bitter affair, with sharp exchanges and few courtesies.Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, worked to defend his polling lead while his chief rival, Andrew Cuomo, sought to puncture his credibility – dismissing the 34-year-old state lawmaker as a “kid” who, he said, Donald Trump would knock on his “tuchus”.Over the course of the hour and a half forum, the deep seated-rivalry between Mamdani and Cuomo – the 67-year-old former governor now running as an independent after losing the Democratic primary – dominated the stage.“Like two kids in a schoolyard,” said the swaggering Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa, who has defied pleas by Cuomo, wealthy donors and even his own former employer to drop out of the race.They clashed over education reform, transportation funding, Israel policy and whether to close the notorious prison on Rikers Island. But Wednesday’s showdown offered few breakthroughs that would shift the race’s trajectory.Both Cuomo and Sliwa argued that Mamdani lacked the experience required to lead the nation’s largest city, a familiar charge for the assemblyman, who is roughly half their age.“The issue is your inexperience,” Cuomo said of Mamdani, highlighting his own lengthy service in government at the state and federal level.“The issue,” Mamdani retorted later, “is that we’ve all experienced your experience.”To draw attention to Cuomo’s record as governor, the Mamdani campaign brought several guests to the debate, including Charlotte Bennett, one of the women to publicly accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment. Cuomo resigned during his third term as governor amid the scandal, which he has described as “political”. He has denied the allegations and on Wednesday noted that a portion of Bennett’s lawsuit was dismissed by a judge.Stepping into the fray, Sliwa – whom moderators described as “more of a New York character than a policy expert” – supplied some of the evening’s sharpest zingers: “Zohran, your résumé could fit on a cocktail napkin, and Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library.”Mamdani leads Cuomo in nearly every recent poll by at least a dozen points. Unless Sliwa drops out, Cuomo seems unlikely to close the gap before the 4 November election.Mamdani’s rise has excited progressives across the country, offering a fresh model of leadership at a time when the Democratic party’s old guard is under pressure to exit stage left.Throughout the evening, Mamdani sought to cast himself as the candidate of generational and political change. Cuomo and Sliwa, he said, “speak only in the past because that is all they know”.“I am the sole candidate running with a vision for the future of this city,” he continued, harshly denouncing Cuomo as “a desperate man, lashing out because he knows that the one thing he cares about, power, is slipping away from him” and “Donald Trump’s puppet”.Trump has not endorsed a candidate for mayor of his home town, but suggested on Tuesday that he’d prefer Cuomo to Mamdani.“You have never had a job, you’ve never accomplished anything,” Cuomo said, during one heated exchange with Mamdani. “There’s no reason to believe you have any merit or qualification for eight and a half million lives.”Yet the president loomed large over the race, as the candidates each insisted they were best equipped to handle the president.Cuomo, who is courting Republicans and Trump voters, returned repeatedly to his record of confronting the president, invoking the pandemic and their public feuds as proof that he alone has the mettle and experience to stand up to Trump’s threats. A Mamdani win, he warned, would be Trump’s “dream” scenario, arguing that the president would use his opponent’s progressive policies as a pretext for taking over the city.Mamdani pledged to “end the chapter of collaboration between City Hall and the federal government” and said he would oppose federal interventions in the city, calling ICE a “reckless entity that cares little for the law” in response to a question about an immigration enforcement raid that targeted Canal street vendors in Manhattan this week.But to Cuomo’s claims, Mamdani accused the former governor of fear-mongering.“I know what actually keeps you up,” Mamdani said, speaking directly to New Yorkers. “It’s whether or not you can afford to live a safe and dignified life in this city. I have plans for our future. My opponents only have fear.”Sliwa criticized his opponents’ approach, warning against antagonizing the famously mercurial president, whom he said holds “most of the cards”.“My adversaries have decided to bump chests with President Trump to prove who’s more macho,” Sliwa said. “You can’t beat Trump.”The bickering continued until the end, when the candidates were asked to name one thing that New York got right during the pandemic.Sliwa, who before taking the stage said he would rather be impaled Braveheart-style than work for Cuomo, said the former governor got nothing right.Mamdani recalled that it only took him 15 minutes to get his Covid-19 vaccine shot. “That was an efficient experience,” he said.“Thank you for the compliment,” Cuomo said, with a broad smile.Mamdani deadpanned that it was a “city-run vaccine site”.“No, it wasn’t,” Cuomo insisted. More

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      Personal attacks rather than policy: key takeaways from New York’s final mayoral debate

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      Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee and current frontrunner for New York City mayor, faced off with Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor now running as an independent, and Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, at the second and final New York mayoral election debate on Wednesday night.Here are some key takeaways from the evening.1. Tensions continued to rise between Cuomo and Mamdani The debate made clear that the most heated rivalry was between Cuomo and Mamdani. From the beginning, Cuomo accused Mamdani of lacking substance and relying on recycled ideas from Bill de Blasio’s administration, claiming the Democrat “has no new ideas”.Mamdani countered by arguing that Cuomo focused more on pushing other candidates to drop out than actually proposing solutions, while also pointing out what he called Cuomo’s failures as governor, including delays in housing initiatives.The tension escalated midway when Mamdani was questioned on being evasive or unclear on his ideology. He blamed Cuomo for slow housing progress during his governorship. Cuomo snapped back that governors didn’t build housing, prompting both to start speaking over each other. Later, Mamdani reignited the confrontation by directly questioning Cuomo about allegations of sexual harassment, asking:. “What do you say to the 13 women who you sexually harassed?” Cuomo dismissed the question as immature and insisted the cases were dropped, despite ongoing litigation. Their exchanges set the tone for a debate marked by personal attacks rather than policy clarity.2. The recent ICE raids in New York resurrect last week’s conversation on TrumpImmigration and the recent ICE raids in New York were among the first issues raised, bringing Donald Trump back into the conversation in a major way. Cuomo said that ICE should not go after low-level offenses like street vending, and he would have personally called Trump to intervene and rein in federal agents. This provoked Mamdani, who accused Cuomo of being too cozy with Trump and labeling the former governor as “Donald Trump’s puppet”.Sliwa, instead of outright rejecting Trump, said he’d negotiate with him to “get the best deal possible for New York”. The candidates then argued over who Trump supposedly supports. Cuomo claimed Trump wanted Mamdani to win so he could “come in and take over the city”, calling Mamdani “Trump’s dream”. Mamdani rejected the claim, saying it was part of Cuomo’s fear-based campaigning. Ultimately, the ICE conversation quickly shifted to become a proxy battle over how each candidate would deal with Trump himself: either confront him or cooperate with him.3. Sliwa threw out a handful of zingers, at both Cuomo and MamdaniMuch like last week’s performance, Sliwa offered brief moments of levity throughout – particularly whenever he served as the middle man between Cuomo and Mamdani. At one point, he referred to both men as “fighting like kids in a school yard”.“Zohran, your résumé could fit on a cocktail napkin. And, Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City,” he said.When Cuomo blamed rising homelessness on policies enacted after he left the governorship, Sliwa mocked him, saying: “You didn’t leave. You fled from being impeached.”Regarding a potential endorsement from the current mayor, Eric Adams, Cuomo said yes; Mamdani and Sliwa said no. “Absolutely not, put that crook in jail!” said Sliwa.4. The safety of Jewish New Yorkers becomes a topic of debate for the second timeThe treatment and safety of Jewish New Yorkers became a major point of contention, especially surrounding Mamdani’s candidacy. Cuomo referenced a public letter signed by 650 rabbis accusing Mamdani of threatening “the safety and dignity of Jews in every city”. He accused Mamdani of enabling rising antisemitism and “stoking the flames of hatred against Jewish people”.Sliwa went further, claiming Mamdani supports “global jihad”, a charge Mamdani firmly denied, saying: “I have never, not once, spoken in support of global jihad.” Mamdani argued the attacks were politically motivated and based on his identity as a Muslim candidate positioned to possibly lead the city. He defended his record and laid out plans to ensure Jewish safety, including expanding public school lessons on Jewish history and protecting Jewish children at schools and synagogues. 5. Mamdani was attacked by both Cuomo and Sliwa for evading questionsA recurring criticism aimed at Mamdani throughout the debate was his perceived tendency to dodge hard questions and give vague answers. This became most apparent when he was asked about education reform. He spoke about the importance of quality public education and improving literacy but did not outline a detailed plan. When pressed on zoning amendments under the “City of Yes” reforms, Mamdani said he “has not yet taken a position” on them, which Cuomo and Sliwa used to suggest he avoided commitment on contentious issues.Cuomo repeatedly accused Mamdani of lacking the knowledge or experience to govern, saying: “You don’t know how to run a government and you don’t know how to handle an emergency.” Sliwa joined in, saying Mamdani lives in “fantasies, not reality”, and dismissed his ideas like a $30 minimum wage and universal free buses as unrealistic. 6. The status quo ultimately did not shiftThe 90-minute debate seemed unlikely to have changed the minds of voters as election day, which is in less than two weeks, comes closer.Cuomo kept hammering home the point that his experience should make him the right choice, given his long career in government at the state and federal level, as opposed to Mamdani, the state assemblyman who is almost exactly half his age.Mamdani, for his part, cast himself as the candidate of change, focused on affordability and trying to reverse a situation in which New York is becoming “a museum of where working-class people used to be able to live”.Sliwa is an engaging presence on television, but did little to change the perception that he remains more of a quirky cultural figure than a likely government administrator.Robert Mackey contributed reporting More

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      Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliwa fling zingers in New York mayoral debate as they try to win over voters

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      New York City’s three mayoral contenders had a fiery debate on Wednesday night in their final televised face-off less than two weeks before voters decide the city’s next leader on 4 November.Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, independent Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa participated in a tense and often chaotic discussion. The current mayor, Eric Adams, who dropped out of the race weeks earlier, once again did not attend.“It’s us versus them,” Sliwa declared in his opening remarks, grouping Cuomo and Mamdani together despite their mutual disapproval of one another.Mamdani opened by accusing both rivals of focusing more on urging each other to drop out than on offering new ideas. The former governor’s allies have urged Sliwa to withdraw to consolidate anti-Mamdani votes, though it is unclear how many conservatives would back Cuomo.Cuomo claimed Mamdani “has no new ideas” and merely rehashed ideas from former mayor Bill de Blasio, prompting Mamdani to fire back: “I have plans for our future, my opponents only have fear.”Beginning with the topic of ICE raids in New York, Cuomo said federal immigration agents should not focus on quality-of-life offenses like street vending, calling those a police matter. He added he would have personally called Donald Trump to rein in ICE.Sliwa countered that, unlike Cuomo and Mamdani, he would “negotiate with Donald Trump and try to get the best deal possible”. Mamdani hit back, calling Cuomo “Donald Trump’s puppet”.The two then sparred over which candidate Trump preferred. Cuomo claimed Trump wanted Mamdani elected so he could “come in and take over the city”, calling the progressive “Trump’s dream”.The debate later turned to the city’s record 150,000 homeless students. Mamdani spoke about plans to double a program pairing shelter families with city workers for regular check-ins. Cuomo said the “homeless rate has more than doubled” since he left office, without clarifying his figures.Sliwa quipped, “You didn’t leave. You fled from being impeached,” earning one of the night’s loudest rounds of applause.On housing, Mamdani said he would “freeze the rent” but also help landlords. Cuomo defended past rent hikes as needed and insisted Mamdani could not freeze rents because he doesn’t control the city’s rent guidelines board.“If you want a candidate for mayor who tells you everything he can’t do, then Andrew Cuomo is your choice,” Mamdani replied, clarifying that the mayor appoints board members.When the “City of Yes” zoning reforms came up, Sliwa opposed them while Cuomo and Mamdani voiced conditional support. Pressed further, Mamdani said: “I have not yet taken a position on those ballot amendments.”Questions about Mamdani’s support for Jewish New Yorkers dominated the middle portion of the debate. Cuomo cited a letter from 650 rabbis claiming Mamdani threatened “the safety and dignity of Jews in every city”. He accused the Muslim candidate of helping “stoke the flames of hatred against Jewish people”.Sliwa went further, alleging Mamdani supports “global jihad”. Mamdani replied, “I have never, not once, spoken in support of global jihad,” and suggested this attack was being fabricated because he was the first Muslim on the verge of leading the city.He added that he would ensure the safety of Jewish children and expand a new public-school curriculum on Jewish history “so that children in this city learn about the beauty and the breadth of the Jewish experience”.All three candidates said they would retain Jessica Tisch, the city’s police commissioner.Things heated up even more between Cuomo and Mamdani nearly halfway through the debate after the latter was questioned on being evasive or unclear on his ideology.Mamdani initially said: “When it comes to our schools, I believe that every single child should have an excellent public education.” He then mentioned public school funding and a need for greater literacy levels, but did not further explain his plan for overhauling schooling in New York City. He switched gears and called out Cuomo specifically for taking so long during his tenure as governor to establish more housing.Cuomo immediately fired back to note that the governor doesn’t build housing, prompting Mamdani to interject: “Not if it’s you!”Things quickly escalated as the men talked over each other with increasingly louder comebacks. Cuomo, again, mentioned Mamdani’s inexperience while Mamdani took aim at Cuomo for his shortcomings as governor.“You don’t know how to run a government and you don’t know how to handle an emergency,” Cuomo said to Mamdani at one point.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAfter being told by moderators to keep order, Sliwa weighed in and said his fellow candidates were “fighting like kids in the school yard”. Of Mamdani, Sliwa said, “Your résumé could fit on a cocktail napkin,” while of Cuomo he said, “Your failures could fill a public school library.”One moderator, Errol Louis, had to remind the candidates that “they know how this works”, warning them against talking over one another.Sliwa described his son’s experience with gang violence and said the perpetrators got only “a pat on the wrist” under juvenile law. Later, amid a discussion of psychiatric hospital capacity, Cuomo jibed that he’d “save one for Sliwa”.When asked whether they would accept a potential Eric Adams endorsement, Cuomo said yes while Mamdani and Sliwa said no.“Absolutely not – put that crook in jail!” said Sliwa.During candidate questioning, Mamdani confronted Cuomo about harassment allegations against the former governor, noting accuser Charlotte Bennett was in the audience: “What do you say to the 13 women who you sexually harassed?”Cuomo dismissed this, saying Mamdani was not “mature” and that the cases were dropped, though litigation is still ongoing.During the debate, one of Cuomo’s accusers – Lindsey Boylan – called out Cuomo on X and celebrated Mamdani for mentioning the allegations.“I am one of these women. I have been legally abused by Andrew Cuomo for years after being harassed as his staffer. Now he wants to be mayor. Shame on you Cuomo and thank you ⁦[Mamdani]⁩ for speaking out on this injustice,” she wrote.Speaking about Rikers Island, Sliwa and Cuomo opposed the mandated 2027 closure while Mamdani supported it, calling the jail a “stain on the history” of New York. Cuomo warned its closure would “release 7,000 criminals into New York City”. Mamdani said Adams has made it “nearly impossible” to meet the deadline but pledged to try.The exchange devolved again into bickering. Cuomo touted infrastructure projects such as the Second Avenue Subway and the Mario Cuomo Bridge to highlight his experience. Mamdani retorted: “You will hear from Andrew Cuomo about his experience as if we don’t know about it. We experienced your experience! The issue is your experience!”Discussing wages, Mamdani said New York was becoming “a museum of where working-class people used to be able to live”, proposing to phase in a $30 minimum wage.“Zohran Mamdani deals with fantasies, not reality,” Sliwa replied.The candidates also clashed over Mamdani’s plan for universal free buses. Cuomo said it would “subsidize the rich”.In a contentious debate full of quarrels and zingers, the night ended rather predictably, with all three mayoral candidates declining to name a candidate that they would like to see run for president in 2028.Election day for the New York City mayoral race is Tuesday, 4 November. Early voting begins on 25 October and runs through 2 November. More

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      Letitia James asks New Yorkers to share footage of ICE after Chinatown raid

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      The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, rolled out a “Federal Action Reporting Portal” form urging New York residents to share photos and videos of federal immigration enforcement action across the state, just one day after a high-profile ICE raid rattled Manhattan’s Chinatown and prompted hundreds to come out in protest.“Every New Yorker has the right to live without fear or intimidation,” James wrote in a statement announcing the portal.“If you witnessed and documented ICE activity yesterday, I urge you to share that footage with my office. We are committed to reviewing these reports and assessing any violations of law.”The form offers spaces to submit images and video footage of the raid, as well as a place to indicate location information. Before submitting, users must check a box that indicates that “the Attorney General may use any documents, photographs, or videos I provided in a public document, including in a legal proceeding or public report or statement.”The Guardian has contacted James’s office for more information.The Chinatown raid, which onlookers say involved more than 50 federal agents, took place in a well-known area of Manhattan where counterfeit handbags, accessories, jewelry and other goods are sold daily en masse – often to tourists.Videos of Tuesday’s raid show multiple masked and armed federal agents zip-tying and detaining a man, and shoving away onlookers. Throngs of New Yorkers followed the agents through the streets and down the sidewalks. An armored military vehicle was also seen rolling through the city streets.Outrage over the ICE raid quickly spread – all three mayoral candidates condemned the raid, as did Governor Kathy Hochul.“Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety. It must stop,” mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani wrote on X.New York City immigrant rights groups spoke out as well.“ICE descended on Manhattan’s Chinatown with military-style vehicles, masked agents and riot gear to target street vendors trying to make a living. This operation had nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with terrorizing immigrant families and communities,” said Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigrant Coalition.ICE raids have been cropping up increasingly in New York and around the country this year.A 16 October raid in midtown Manhattan was the first known raid on a migrant shelter of the current Trump administration. Protests against ICE are ubiquitous as are allegations of violence and inhumane treatment.Most recently, a letter submitted by the ACLU and other civil rights groups alleged medical neglect of pregnant women in ICE facilities. More

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      US sanctions major Russian oil companies and calls for Moscow to accept immediate Ukraine ceasefire – live

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      The Trump administration said on Wednesday it is “imposing further sanctions as a result of Russia’s lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.Donald Trump just shared the news by posting a press release from the US treasury, headlined “US treasury sanctions major Russian oil companies, calls on Moscow to immediately agree to ceasefire”, on his social media platform.According to the treasury, the new measures from the US office of foreign assets control (OFAC) “increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy. The United States will continue to advocate for a peaceful resolution to the war, and a permanent peace depends entirely on Russia’s willingness to negotiate in good faith. Treasury will continue to use its authorities in support of a peace process.”“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said in a statement. “Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine. Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump’s effort to end yet another war. We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”The treasury said the sanctions target Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.After imposing new sanctions on Russian oil firms he called “tremendous” Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he had canceled a planned meeting with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president in Budapest.“We cancelled the meeting with President Putin. It just, it didn’t feel right to me. It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I cancelled it. But we’ll do it in the future,” Trump said, while sitting with Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, in the Oval Office.Asked by a reporter to comment on his treasury secretary’s statement that Putin had not been honest in his talks with Trump, the president said: “Well I think that, in terms of honesty, the only thing that I can say is, every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations and then they don’t go anywhere, they just don’t go anywhere.”Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, told Fox Business News, “President Putin has not come to the table in an honest and forthright manner, as we’d hoped. There were talks in Alaska, President Trump walked away when he realized that things were not moving forward.”“These are tremendous sanctions,” Trump also said. These are very big against their two big oil companies — and we hope that they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled.”Jeff Merkley, a Democratic senator from Oregon, just yielded the Senate floor after speaking for 22 hour and 37 minutes.Merkley said at the start of his speech that he was “holding the floor to protest Trump dragging us further into authoritarianism.”In particular, the Oregon senator said, he objected to the idea of letting Donald Trump claim, against all evidence, that he had the right to send military forces to Portland because the city a small protest constituted “an insurrection”.“Our founders did not want the president to be a king,” Merkley said. “A king can decide on a whim to deploy troops against his own people, presidents cannot.”The Trump administration said on Wednesday it is “imposing further sanctions as a result of Russia’s lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.Donald Trump just shared the news by posting a press release from the US treasury, headlined “US treasury sanctions major Russian oil companies, calls on Moscow to immediately agree to ceasefire”, on his social media platform.According to the treasury, the new measures from the US office of foreign assets control (OFAC) “increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector and degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy. The United States will continue to advocate for a peaceful resolution to the war, and a permanent peace depends entirely on Russia’s willingness to negotiate in good faith. Treasury will continue to use its authorities in support of a peace process.”“Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire,” the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said in a statement. “Given President Putin’s refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin’s war machine. Treasury is prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump’s effort to end yet another war. We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions.”The treasury said the sanctions target Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.A federal district court judge in Portland, Oregon, rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately lift a temporary restraining order that blocks the deployment of national guard troops in the city.The judge, Karin Immergut, previously issued two orders blocking the deployment of national guard troops, after finding that Donald Trump’s claim that the city she lives in is “War ravaged” was “simply untethered to the facts”.Immergut’s first order, blocking the deployment of Oregon national guard troops, was reversed by a three-judge appeals court panel on Monday, but her second order, which bars the deployment of national guard troops from any state or the District of Columbia, remains in effect because the government appealed only her first order and not the second one.Immergut, who was nominated to the bench by Trump in his first term, issued the second order in response to Trump’s clear attempt to evade her first order by flying troops from California’s national guard to Oregon.Justice department lawyers asked Immergut to dissolve the second order based on the reasoning of the two appeals court judges who accepted Trump’s claim that a small protest against immigration raids in Portland, by dozens of protesters, required the deployment of the military.Instead, she scheduled a hearing for Friday morning in Portland. The judge’s orders to the lawyers for Trump and Oregon asks them to address the possible rehearing of the three-judge panel’s decision by a larger panel of the appeals court, which that court will consider on Thursday.A federal judge in Chicago on Wednesday agreed to extend her order blocking Donald Trump’s deployment of national guard troops to the Chicago area, possibly by 30 days.The district court judge, April Perry, said at a hearing that her order will extend until she decides the case, unless the US supreme court steps in to lift it, as the Trump administration has requested.In a filing on Tuesday, the solicitor general, John Sauer, one of Trump’s former personal defense attorneys, urged the supreme court to issue an emergency order lifting the temporary restraining order (TRO) that would let federalized guard troops be deployed.“Every day this improper TRO remains in effect imposes grievous and irreparable harm on the Executive,” Sauer wrote.The surprise demolition of the East Wing of the White House, to make room for Donald Trump’s vast ballroom, is not going down well with former staffers of the office of the first lady, which had been located in the East Wing for decades.“My heart is breaking for the evident loss of prestige for the first ladies and their staffs,” Penny Adams, who worked in the East Wing for former first lady Pat Nixon, told East Wing Magazine, a newsletter that covers first ladies present and past.“The photos were jarring when I first saw them,” Michael LaRosa, a press secretary for Jill Biden wrote in an email to the same newsletter. “Initially, they felt like a gut punch. It was also a bit eerie and sad to see some of the interior reduced to rubble.”Adams also said that some former Nixon staffers had tried, and failed, “to push back on this devastation”.One of Trump’s most cherished possessions is a 1987 letter from Richard Nixon, the disgraced former president, who passed on praise of the future president’s appearance on a daytime talkshow that year from the former first lady.“Dear Donald,” Nixon wrote. “I did not see the program, but Mrs Nixon told me you were great on the Donahue show.”“As you can imagine, she is an expert on politics and she predicts that whenever you decide to run for office, you will be a winner!”As we prepare for the meeting between Nato secretary Mark Rutte and Donald Trump, a reminder of the context of these talks.This is a snap meeting, put together as progress between Ukraine and Russia has stalled. Recently, the White House said there were no immediate plans for the president to meet with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, despite Trump touting a second bilateral meeting in Budapest.The last time Rutte was in Washington was for a meeting with Trump, Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders in August.According to Nato officials, cited by multiple outlets, Rutte is hoping to discuss a 12-point peace plan with Trump. Drawn up by Europe and Ukraine, the plan calls for a ceasefire based on current battle lines, return of the deported children and a prisoner exchange.The White House did not respond to a question from the Guardian today about when demolition of the East Wing would be completed, as construction continues. An administration official did say that “the scope and size of the project has always been subject to vary and the process developed”. They added that the National Capital Planning Commission “does not require permits for demolition, only for vertical construction” and that “permits will be submitted to the NPC at the appropriate time”.The New York Times reported that the teardown should be completed by this weekend, according to an official speaking anonymously.Earlier, my colleague Lauren Aratani reported that the White House had yet to submit plans for Donald Trump’s new ballroom to the federal agency that oversees construction of federal buildings, though demolition is already under way.The treasury secretary Scott Bessent just gaggled with reporters outside the White House.He said that a “substantial pickup” in sanctions on Russia are coming soon. “We are going to announce either after the close this afternoon, or first thing tomorrow,” he said.As Jeff Merkley hits the 20th hour of his Senate floor speech, his Democratic colleagues in the upper chamber have praised his efforts, and joined him on the floor to ask questions and give him small breaks as he continues his marathon monologue.The senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, called it “incredible”, characterizing the speech as part of the “fight to protect American families from Trump’s reckless and corrupt administration”.Earlier, senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, said that it “says a lot” about the Trump administration that Merkley can spend hours “talking all the different ways Trump is hurting hardworking Americans and not run out of things to say”.Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey who currently holds the record for longest floor speech (coming in at over 25 hours), said Merkley was “demonstrating how Trump is moving us towards tyranny, instead of standing up for American ideals”.Donald Trump has urged US cattle farmers to “get their prices down” in order to encourage Americans to buy their beef.On Truth Social, the president said that ranchers throughout the country “don’t understand” that the only reason they are “doing so well” is because of Trump’s tariffs on several countries, “including a 50% Tariff on Brazil”.He added:
      If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years – Terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!
      Over the weekend, Trump told reporters he was considering importing beef from Argentina in order to lower prices for consumers.The revelation that a top federal prosecutor used an encrypted messaging application and had messages set to auto-delete after eight hours is “deeply troubling” and may be illegal, a watchdog group said.Lindsey Halligan, the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, used Signal to communicate with Anna Bower, a journalist for Lawfare, about the criminal case she is pursuing against New York attorney general Letitia James. Bower published the full conversation Monday evening and said Halligan had set messages to auto-delete after eight hours.“The story about US attorney Lindsey Halligan’s use of Signal is deeply troubling. That she used the app apparently to discuss government business with a reporter and configured her messages to disappear after eight hours, raises serious concerns that she is actively violating the Federal Records Act and the justice department’s own records-retention rules,” said Chioma Chukwu, the executive director of American Oversight, a non-profit that frequently files lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain federal records.“Even if portions of the conversation might contain information not typically subject to immediate public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, federal law still requires that such records be preserved for specified periods. Setting such communications to automatically delete is not only inconsistent with those obligations but patently unlawful,” she said. “If Halligan failed to ensure these Signal messages were preserved, her actions may have violated federal law and warrant investigation or corrective action by attorney general Pam Bondi and acting archivist Marco Rubio.”The justice department did not return a request for comment.Federal law generally requires government employees to preserve official government records and sets penalties for destroying them.Per my last post, it’s worth underscoring that Platner has achieved significant momentum since he entered the race to challenge incumbent Republican senator Susan Collins.Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, launched her bid for Senate recently – making the schism between the old and new guard of the party abundantly clear.Meanwhile, Jordan Wood, another Maine Democratic candidate for Senate, said today that Platner’s Reddit comments are “disqualifying and not who we are as Mainers or as Democrats”.He added:
      With Donald Trump and his sycophants demonizing Americans, spewing hate, and running roughshod over the constitution, Democrats need to be able to condemn Trump’s actions with moral clarity. Graham Platner no longer can. More

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      Protests erupt in New York City after Ice raids Chinatown over ‘counterfeit goods’

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      Hundreds showed up to protests that broke out in New York City on Tuesday evening after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids related to “selling counterfeit goods” were conducted in the Chinatown neighborhood earlier in the day and resulted in an unknown number of people being detained.Hours after federal agents descended on lower Manhattan, demonstrators were seen assembling near the 26 Federal Plaza Immigration Building where they believed detainees were taken. Many shouted chants including “Ice out of New York” and “No Ice, no KKK, no fascist USA.”Videos of the raid show multiple masked and armed federal agents zip-tying and detaining a man, and shoving away onlookers. Throngs of New Yorkers followed the agents through the streets and down the sidewalks. An armored military vehicle was also seen rolling through the city streets.“Is this worth the paycheck? Selling your soul?” one woman can be heard shouting at agents.The raid, which onlookers say involved more than 50 federal agents, took place in a well-known area of Manhattan where counterfeit handbags, accessories, jewelry and other goods are sold daily en masse – often to tourists.It was unclear how many people were detained in the raid, but a witness told the New York Daily News that he saw at least seven individuals taken into custody.The Department of Homeland Security told the New York Times that the operation was “focused on criminal activity relating to selling counterfeit goods”. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for DHS, said the operation was led by the Ice agency, the FBI, US border patrol and others.The Guardian has contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment.Murad Awawdeh, vice-president of advocacy at the New York Immigration Coalition, condemned the raid to reporters on Tuesday night and said that between 15 and 40 vendors were arrested. Awawdeh also noted that least two locals were taken into custody for protesting and blocking Ice’s efforts.“You don’t see these scenes in democracy. You see them in fascist regimes,” Awawdeh told a crowd. “We need to continue to stand up and fight back.”Local city council member Christopher Marte told the City that he too was alarmed by the agents’ conduct.“The amount of weapons that they had on the street pointed at bystanders, something I’ve never seen in my life,” he said.The NYPD distanced itself from the raids, tweeting that it had “no involvement in the federal operation that took place on Canal street this afternoon”. However, onlookers noted that NYPD riot cops appeared to arrest several people protesting the Ice raid.Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, quote-tweeted the NYPD’s missive and emphasized: “New York City does not cooperate with federal law enforcement on civil deportations, in accordance with our local laws.”“While we gather details about the situation, New Yorkers should know that we have no involvement. Our administration has been clear that undocumented New Yorkers trying to pursue their American Dreams should not be the target of law enforcement, and resources should instead be focused on violent criminals,” he wrote.New York City mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo shared similar notes of criticism, with Mamdani calling the raid “aggressive and reckless” and Cuomo calling it “more about fear than justice, more about politics than safety”.Both men – and Kathy Hochul, New York governor – took aim at Donald Trump directly.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“[Donald Trump] claims he’s targeting the ‘worst of the worst.’ Today his agents used batons and pepper spray on street vendors and bystanders on Canal Street. You don’t make New York safer by attacking New Yorkers,” Hochul wrote.“Once again, the Trump administration chooses authoritarian theatrics that create fear, not safety. It must stop,” wrote Mamdani.“Today’s ICE raid in Chinatown was an abuse of federal power by the Trump administration,” wrote Cuomo.New York City councilmember Shahana Hanif also condemned the Ice raids in a press conference, saying that politicians across the city and the state were resolutely opposed to Ice raids.“We are against Ice’s blatantly violent tactics. Hordes of Ice agents showing up is unacceptable, immoral, unjust,” Hanif said.Ice raids with masked agents and have become commonplace in immigrant enclaves across the country as have protests against them. Protests against Ice have brought federal crackdowns to cities including Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland.Tuesday’s Chinatown raid is not the first in the New York City area in recent weeks. A 16 October raid in midtown Manhattan was the first known raid on a migrant shelter of the current Trump administration.Notably, many Ice raids have come with documented violence. Ice has used extreme force in Chicago including pepper balling a priest, pepper-balling the inside of a journalist’s car, and body-slamming a US congressional candidate.In New York, an Ice agent was “relieved of his duties” after body-slamming a woman to the ground in an immigration court house, but was reportedly back on the job shortly thereafter.Immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in Ice detention, and the agency has detained at least 170 US citizens in 2025. More

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      Trump says he has commuted sentence of George Santos in federal fraud case

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      Donald Trump announced on Friday he had commuted the sentence of George Santos, the disgraced former New York representative and serial fabulist who had been sentenced to more than seven years in prison after a short-lived political career marked by outlandish fabrications and fraudulent scheming.Santos left the Federal Correctional Institution Fairton in New Jersey just hours later and was “on his way home”, his attorney Joseph Murray told Agence France-Presse by phone late on Friday.In a Truth Social post, Trump called Santos “somewhat of a ‘rogue’” but expressed sympathy for the New York Republican. Santos was sentenced in April after pleading guilty last year to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.“I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump said in the lengthy post. “Good luck George, have a great life!”The United States pardon attorney tweeted a photograph of the signed commutation shortly after Trump’s post, writing that he was “honored” to have “played a small role” Trump granting Santos clemency.“Thank you, Mr. President for making clemency great again,” he wrote.Murray also thanked Trump, posting on Santos’s X account: “God bless President Donald J Trump the greatest President in US history!”Santos reported to a federal prison in New Jersey in July and began serving an 87-month sentence for charges that ultimately led to his expulsion from Congress in 2023. Trump’s post suggested he was moved by a letter penned by Santos that was published in a local Long Island newspaper this week. Santos wrote about his life in solitary confinement and made direct plea to the president for a “chance to rebuild”.Trump issued the commutation after a push from key Republicans allies, most notably Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene, a prominent former House colleague of Santos, had called his conviction a “grave injustice” and urged intervention after the sentence was handed down. She also sent a letter in August asking the justice department for a commutation.Asked at the time whether he might consider clemency for Santos, Trump, who has a history of rewarding supporters with pardons, did not rule it out, but said he had not been asked.“He lied like hell,” Trump told Newsmax, adding: “But he was 100% for Trump.”On Friday, Greene thanked the president for the commutation and said of Santos: “He was unfairly treated and put in solitary confinement, which is torture!!”Elsewhere in his post on Friday, Trump compared Santos with the Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. He made reference to the decades-old claims that Blumenthal “made up” aspects of his military record. Blumenthal admitted in 2010 that he misrepresented his military service after saying he had been “in” Vietnam. Blumenthal served as a Marine Corps reservist during the Vietnam War, but was not deployed in Vietnam.Trump, who never served in the military, has repeatedly attacked Blumenthal. His account of the senator’s past misstatements have even become increasingly exaggerated in recent years.“This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!” Trump wrote of Blumenthal on Friday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBefore and after entering Congress, Santos lied prolifically about his biography. Despite making history as the first out LGBTQ+ Republican elected in Congress, his fabulist tendencies caught up with him with the release of a damning report from the House ethics committee. That report detailed how Santos used campaign funds for things like travel, cosmetic treatments and luxury goods and helped fuel his spectacular fall.But Santos, who catapulted from relative anonymity to pop culture sensation almost overnight, shared Trump’s love of the national spotlight – even when trained on his misdeeds.“Well, darlings … The curtain falls, the spotlight dims, and the rhinestones are packed,” Santos wrote in a tweet pinned to the top of his X account. “From the halls of Congress to the chaos of cable news what a ride it’s been! Was it messy? Always. Glamorous? Occasionally. Honest? I tried … most days.”The judge overseeing Santos’s case sided with federal prosecutors, who argued the former congressman ​had failed to show genuine remorse​ despite his legal team’s insistence to the contrary. That lack of contrition, they said, warranted a tougher sentence.​S​antos’s commutation marks the latest in a string of high-profile ​interventions ​by Trump, who has resumed the use of presidential clemency to reward political allies since returning to the White House in January.Trump, in May, issued a pardon to Michael Grimm, a former Republican congressman from New York who admitted to concealing income and wages related to a Manhattan restaurant he owned. Also pardoned was John Rowland, the former Connecticut governor whose political ascent collapsed under the weight of a federal corruption case and two prison terms.​At the same time, Trump has directed his justice department to bring criminal charges against his political enemies, including his former national security adviser turned prominent critic John Bolton, who was indicted this week and has pleaded not guilty.​Trump last year became the first former American president to be convicted of felony crimes, stemming from a hush money case in New York that he continues to dismiss as a witch hunt. More