Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is standing by his endorsement of embattled Graham Platner in Tuesday's Maine Democratic primary, even after a deluge of sexual misconduct allegations rocked the political newcomer's campaign in the lead-up to the election.
Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, announced Monday that 'you're going to see more ICE than you've ever seen in New York City.'
There's a reason it's Jenny from the block, not Jenny fresh off the boat. Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio was hopping mad when pop singer and actress Jennifer Lopez dared to define what makes a New Yorker.'Everybody wants to claim our city.'"Everybody wants to claim our city, but you have to be born in New York. You have to be born in one of the five boroughs to be a New Yorker," Lopez said.Purity testLopez's offhand comments, which she made while appearing on "SubwayTakes with Kareem Rahma," prompted the Democrat former mayor, who led the city from 2014 to 2021, to call Lopez's definition "absolutely outrageous." "There is no purity test," de Blasio claimed — asserting that New York is the "ultimate city of immigrants."The 65-year-old continued his vehement defense of immigration by telling the New York Times the city's culture is actually the inverse of what Lopez was suggesting."In fact, it's been the opposite. We've said, 'Come here and become one of us.'"RELATED: Diddy's Big Circus New York state of mindDe Blasio attempted to explain that his self-identification as a New Yorker comes from "how long I've lived here and because I raised my family here," not the fact that he was born in Manhattan in 1961."This place gave me everything in life," the former mayor went on. "Your definition of home is the place that means the most to you. New York City has been my whole world."It's a definition that Lopez would no doubt reject. In her appearance, she stressed that even if a person had lived in NYC for 50 years, he still wasn't cut from the same cloth as those who were born there."I have to say, no, you live in New York. You take on characteristics of New Yorkers. ... When you're born in New York is when you're really a New Yorker."RELATED: Superstar singer debuts trans kid at high school graduation Raymond Hall/GC Images Emotional rescueLopez finished the short interview by advocating for schools to teach "self love" from elementary school through college, saying that if students couldn't pass tests based on being a good person, they shouldn't be allowed in society."Because they teach us things intellectually, but an intellectual motherf**ker with no emotional intelligence is dangerous! It's a dangerous person. Okay?" she remarked.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Over the course of both Trump terms, he and his allies have used a “flood the zone” approach where they attempt to overwhelm opponents with controversial actions and statements so quickly that response becomes impossible. Now, the court wrangling over President Donald Trump’s controversial ballroom reveals that he applies a similar strategy to his vanity and construction projects: “move fast and break things and nobody has standing.”This is according to Lawfare senior editor Molly Roberts, who was directly quoting the judge overseeing the case — a characterization with which Trump’s lawyers openly agreed. Roberts was on hand for the oral arguments between attorneys representing the White House and those for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the latter of which had filed for an injunction barring construction while the case was heard. That injunction was granted while allowing only construction “strictly necessary to ensure the safety and security of the White House and its grounds” to continue pending appeal. The White House then tried to argue that the ruling actually allowed for the construction of the ballroom, arguing that the whole thing was vital for security, which the judge did not buy, reaffirming that aboveground construction must halt until approved by Congress. The president’s ‘break things’ approach was revealed in the subsequent appeal.According to Roberts, these latest appeal proceedings are “simultaneously more like and more unlike your typical litigation than those following the matter might have expected. More like, because the lawyer presenting for the government sounds like a lawyer and not the president on a Truth Social spree… Less like, because what this lawyer is saying is that neither these judges nor any can stop the administration from building what it wants to build once it has started building them. Not now, not ever.”During oral arguments, after much back and forth, the White House lawyers essentially argued that once the president had already taken certain actions on the basis of security — such as, say, bulldozing the White House East Wing — there was no legal mechanism allowing a lawsuit to be brought against the government. The judge then raised a specific example: what if the White House were gone? Say an administration decides that security justifies an entirely new building, tears down the White House, and then someone decides to sue. Would such a suit be legal?According to Roberts, White House lawyers argued that it would not be if the destruction of the original White House had already occurred.“So move fast and break things and nobody has standing?” asked the judge. “Bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, and as long as the government does it fast enough, too bad, nothing to be done?”“I think that’s right,” said the White House attorney.What’s more, the judge had an important question about what would happen were construction allowed to proceed while the case was heard. If the government lost a year or so down the line and the ballroom was declared illegal, would the White House tear it down, or would its argument, “for the same safety and security reasons, be we can’t take it down?” The White agreed with the latter. “So your position is this can’t be stopped by a court?” the judge asked. “That court, this court, the Supreme Court, no court could stop the building of this?”The White House agreed.“If this were complete lawlessness by the government,” the judge pressed, “it couldn’t be stopped?”“Yes,” Roberts explained. According to the Trump administration, “even if the ballroom construction were complete lawlessness by the government, only Congress — not the courts — would have any independent role in stopping it.”
A former New Mexico attorney general is speaking out about how federal prosecutors shut down his state investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's sprawling New Mexico ranch — a property where survivors allege rape, sex trafficking, forced births, and possibly worse.Hector Balderas, a Democrat who served as New Mexico's attorney general from 2015 to 2023, told Scripps News he was deep into building a state case against Epstein in 2019 — and had just returned from interviewing a survivor — when the Southern District of New York called."They were concerned that we were getting parallel interviews from the same survivors they were going to use in an aggressive prosecution as well," Balderas said.He paused the state probe, he said, after then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey promised the DOJ would share evidence and allow New Mexico to pursue state charges later. Neither happened. Federal investigators never executed a search warrant on the property."I think that they absolutely impacted our case, and I don't think that they were forthright, and I don't [think] they were operating in good faith," Balderas said.Now he wishes he'd pressed on alone."We would have absolutely gone alone and bet on the case that we currently had at the time," he said.The stakes couldn't be higher. At least 10 girls and young women have alleged they were groomed or assaulted at Zorro Ranch, Epstein's remote compound about 40 miles south of Santa Fe. Allegations tied to the property include rape, sexual assault of minors, forced births, and eugenics. An anonymous 2019 tip — which the FBI didn't enter into its system until 2021 — claimed the bodies of two foreign girls were buried on the grounds on orders from Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. That tip never reached Balderas' office."I'm very angry," Balderas said. "They didn't meet the standard of what a good prosecution team should be working and collaborating with other partners."The ranch has never been searched by federal authorities, though New Mexico state investigators conducted their own search of the property in March. New Mexico reopened its criminal investigation this year after the DOJ released millions of Epstein-related files. A bipartisan legislative Truth Commission announced last week it is issuing 14 subpoenas targeting the Epstein estate, banks, and other entities tied to the late sex offender.Balderas says the answers aren't in what's already been made public."I'm convinced that those answers are not in the documents that have been released," he said. "But they're in the millions of documents that are currently being withheld."
The center could be a model for other cities exploring ways to make life more affordable for workers.
President Donald Trump is planning to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals as his hometown team, the New York Knicks, host the San Antonio Spurs — one of the city’s hottest sports tickets in years.