NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams appears open to switching parties to become a Republican, as he declined to rule out a future change in political allegiances during a pair of interviews Friday that came as he has increasing warmed to President-elect Donald Trump. The comments from Adams, the top Democrat in one of the country’s most liberal cities, riled critics who have grown concerned over the mayor’s increasing willingness to throw his support behind Trump and his hardline immigration policies. Adams, who faces federal corruption charges , was a registered Republican in the 1990s and early 2000s but has spent his political career as a Democrat. In a Friday morning interview with the local cable news station NY1, Adams was asked if he would consider a return to the GOP. The Democrat appeared to leave open the possibility of a switch. “The party that’s the most important for me is the American party,” he said. “I’m a part of the American party. I love this country. This is the home of the free, the land of the brave.” In another interview about a half-hour later on PIX11, Adams said he would run for reelection as a Democrat but still appeared to leave some wiggle room for his future. RELATED COVERAGE Ex-police officer denies leaking confidential information to Proud Boys leader On pardons, Biden weighs whether to flex presidential powers in broad new ways Mother of Austin Tice, journalist missing in Syria, says new information proves her son is alive “So no matter what party I’m on or vote on, I’m going to push for the American values,” he said. “And I think America has told us, stop the squabbling, leaders, and start leading us out of the crisis that we’re facing.” Adams won office on a centrist platform and has spent significant time as mayor quarreling with the progressive wing of his party. But his rhetoric has taken a noticeable rightward turn in the weeks since Trump’s election victory, particularly on immigration, with Adams boosting the president-elect’s platform and appearing enthusiastic about the incoming administration. Rather than restricting cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as he once promised, Adams recently expressed a willingness to roll back the city’s so-called sanctuary policies, and he plans to meet with Trump’s top border official over concerns about what the mayor said was the “rising illegal alien crime rate in New York City.” He has also praised those in Trump’s orbit, including Elon Musk, who has claimed falsely that Democrats are illegally “importing” migrants to garner votes. “This is a racehorse that wanted to run its right pace and we’ve been holding back that racehorse out of fear of being canceled,” Adams said of the country Tuesday. “And now you have a bunch of people who are not afraid of being canceled.” The shift comes as Adams is trying to fight off an indictment on federal corruption charges while governing the city and gearing up to run for a second term. Adams has pleaded not guilty in his criminal case, in which he has been accused of accepting free or discounted overseas trips and illegal campaign contributions from people looking to gain his influence, including people connected to Turkey or the Turkish government. Adams’ critics have seized on his recent comments about the Trump administration as a move toward self-preservation, accusing the mayor of cozying up to the next president in an effort to secure a pardon in his corruption case. “Eric Adams continues to sound more like he is auditioning for a job in right-wing media than running for reelection in a Democratic primary,” said Zohran Mamdani, a state assembly member who is challenging against Adams in the mayoral primary. “Eric Adams is in City Hall because Democratic voters sent him there. To serve his own narrow self-interests, he is clearly prepared to betray them.” Zellnor Myrie, a state senator who is also challenging Adams in the primary, said “at a time when the Republican Party has never been more out of line with New York values, we need a mayor who isn’t scared to call himself a Democrat.” “Instead of playing footsie with the next president, we need a mayor with the courage to stand up for our city,” Myrie wrote on X. Adams on Friday did distance himself from the Trump administration’s potential plans to carry out mass deportations, saying, “You know, I’m not for mass deportation, but I’m not for mass saturation.” Still, the mayor’s recent remarks are a major departure from his stance before he took office. In June of 2021, a few weeks before winning the Democratic mayoral primary, Adams spoke to a room full of immigrant New Yorkers about the challenges facing city residents who are in the country illegally. “Too many of our neighbors live in the shadows,” he said at the time, “scarred by the abusive rhetoric and tactics of the Trump era and fearing a denial of their rights.” ___ Izaguirre reported from Albany.How Climate Affects Pressure Washing in Bellevue, WA
Same glitz and glamour for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and perhaps another Verstappen championship
President Bola Tinubu and the First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, have returned to Abuja from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where they have been attending the 19th G20 Leaders Summit. The Airbus A330 conveying the first couple arrived at the Presidential Wing of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, at 10.20 p.m. (Nigerian time). This concludes his 31st foreign trip since assuming office 18 months ago. Related News Tinubu, wife depart Brazil after G20 summit Again, LP denies working for Tinubu Tinubu asks Senate to confirm Oluyede as COAS The meeting brought together leaders from the world’s top 20 economies, including the European Union, the African Union, and multilateral financial institutions, among others. It comprises 19-member countries, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, the UK, and the US, along with the European Union. During the summit, held from Monday, November 18, to Tuesday, November 19, 2024, Tinubu engaged in bilateral discussions to advance Nigeria’s socio-economic reforms. He also joined world leaders to endorse the global alliance against hunger and poverty. The President held bilateral talks with Kristalina Georgieva, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, who commended his administration’s economic reforms and their indicators. He also presided over the signing of a $2.5bn Letter of Intent between the Nigerian government and JBS S.A., a Brazilian company and one of the top three largest meat processing companies globally. The G20 summit, hosted by Brazilian President Lula da Silva, focused on the theme, “Building a Just World and a Sustainable Planet.”” Discussions addressed sustainable development in economic, social, and environmental dimensions, global governance reforms, climate change, and the digital economy. The Nigerian leader’s participation is at the instance of the Brazilian President. Tinubu was accompanied by top government officials, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar; Ministers of Livestock Development, Idi Maiha; Minster of Art, Tourism, Culture and Creativity, Hannatu Musawa; Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Security, Dr. Aliyu Abdullahi; and the Director General of the National Intelligence Agency, Mohammed Mohammed. So far, he has logged 131 days abroad, visiting 17 countries and accumulated about 278 flight hours. He has visited Malabo, Equatorial Guinea; London, the United Kingdom (four times); Bissau, Guinea-Bissau (twice); Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Nairobi, Kenya; Porto Norvo, Benin Republic; The Hague, Netherlands; Pretoria, South Africa; Accra, Ghana; New Delhi, India; Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates; New York, the United States of America; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (twice); Berlin, Germany; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dakar, Senegal and Doha, Qatar.
Dan Walters: How three Trump policy decrees could affect California agricultureA 9th telecoms firm has been hit by a massive Chinese espionage campaign, the White House saysA federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few short months, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied TikTok's petition to overturn the law — which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January — and rebuffed the company's challenge of the statute, which it argued had ran afoul of the First Amendment. “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court's opinion, which was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.” TikTok and ByteDance — another plaintiff in the lawsuit — are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, though its unclear whether the court will take up the case. “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes said. Unless stopped, he argued the statute “will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.” Though the case is squarely in the court system, its also possible the two companies might be thrown some sort of a lifeline by President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term but said during the presidential campaign that he is now against such action. The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a years-long saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China. The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits, that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect — a concern mirrored by the European Union on Friday as it scrutinizes the video-sharing app’s role in the Romanian elections. TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its attorneys have accurately pointed out that the U.S. hasn’t provided evidence to show that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government, or manipulated content for Beijing’s benefit in the U.S. They have also argued the law is predicated on future risks, which the Department of Justice has emphasized pointing in part to unspecified action it claims the two companies have taken in the past due to demands from the Chinese government. Friday’s ruling came after the appeals court panel, composed of two Republican and one Democrat appointed judges, heard oral arguments in September. In the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the panel appeared to grapple with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to curtail potential influence from abroad on a foreign-owned platform. On Friday, all three of them denied TikTok’s petition. In the court's ruling, Ginsburg, a Republican appointee, rejected TikTok's main legal arguments against the law, including that the statute was an unlawful bill of attainder or a taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. He also said the law did not violate the First Amendment because the government is not looking to "suppress content or require a certain mix of content” on TikTok. “Content on the platform could in principle remain unchanged after divestiture, and people in the United States would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they desire on TikTok or any other platform of their choosing,” Ginsburg wrote, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China. Judge Sri Srinivasan, the chief judge on the court, issued a concurring opinion. TikTok’s lawsuit was consolidated with a second legal challenge brought by several content creators - for which the company is covering legal costs - as well as a third one filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc. Other organizations, including the Knight First Amendment Institute, had also filed amicus briefs supporting TikTok. “This is a deeply misguided ruling that reads important First Amendment precedents too narrowly and gives the government sweeping power to restrict Americans’ access to information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the organization. “We hope that the appeals court’s ruling won’t be the last word.” Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers who had pushed for the legislation celebrated the court's ruling. "I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on China. Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who co-authored the law, said “it's time for ByteDance to accept” the law. To assuage concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion to bolster protections around U.S. user data. The company has also argued the government’s broader concerns could have been resolved in a draft agreement it provided the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. It has blamed the government for walking away from further negotiations on the agreement, which the Justice Department argues is insufficient. Attorneys for the two companies have claimed it’s impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm - the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divesture plan - would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content. Still, some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. Both men said earlier this year that they were launching a consortium to purchase TikTok’s U.S. business. This week, a spokesperson for McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative, which aims to protect online privacy, said unnamed participants in their bid have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion in capital.