Papini, 43, told authorities in 2016 that she was abducted by two Hispanic women and held captive for three weeks that year. In 2022, she pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the fake kidnapping and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
But in an interview with ABC News on Friday to promote her new memoir, Papini is saying she was indeed kidnapped after all.
This time, she’s claiming that she was kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend, James Reyes. During the investigation into her lies, authorities concluded that Papini was staying with Reyes in secrecy while her husband, two children and officials searched for her in 2016.
“I’m not actually asking anyone to believe anything,” she told ABC News. “I just am free now, and I have the capacity to speak for myself without being afraid and without having to lie and not being as fearful as I have been before.”
Reyes could not immediately be reached for comment.
Papini said that she lied to authorities about who kidnapped her because she was in an emotionally abusive relationship with her now ex-husband.
“Prison was far safer than the consequences that I would suffer if my ex-husband found out I was having an emotional affair,” she said. “I’d prefer prison over telling Keith Papini that I was having an emotional affair.”
Authorities began to question Papini’s kidnapping claims when they found male DNA on her clothing.
The DNA belonged to Reyes, who, at the time, told authorities that Papini had asked him to hit her to make it appear that she was abused during her fake kidnapping. Instead, he held a hockey stick for her to run into and branded her upon her request, he told officials.
Reyes then dropped Papini along Interstate 5 when she said she wanted to go back home, according to authorities.
Authorities found her about 145 miles south of where she had vanished. She was emaciated with a chain around her waist and self-inflicted injuries, according to officials.
When asked what she would like to say to Reyes, Papini told ABC News that “it’s time to tell the truth.”
“I’ve done it. I’ve suffered for it. You watched me burn for it, go to prison and lose custody of my children … and it’s time to come forward and tell the truth to everyone. He knows what happened,” she said.
Sitting to the south of Iran’s capital, Tehran, the Fordo plant is used to enrich uranium for the production of nuclear energy or, potentially, a bomb. But although this uranium and its chemical byproducts can be harmful to ingest or touch without protective equipment — they won’t create a wider blast or regional contamination, analysts say.
That would only be the case if Fordo housed nuclear reactors or warheads, which international watchdogs and experts say is not the case.
“If you’re down there and it gets bombed, you’re stuffed,” Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, the ex-commanding officer of the British military’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, told NBC News on Thursday.
A satellite image of the Fordo uranium enrichment facility, south of Tehran.Maxar Technologies / AFP via Getty Images
“But that’s because this is a 2,500-kilogram (about 5,500-pound) warhead we are talking about here,” he said, referring to the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (or MOP), the largest non-nuclear bomb in the world, which only the U.S. has.
Less of a bunker-buster and more of a mountain-buster, this is perhaps the only conventional ordnance in the world that could do the job if Trump did decide to bomb Fordo.
“But if anyone thinks this would be like Chernobyl — absolutely not,” de Bretton-Gordon said. “Blowing up uranium will not create a nuclear explosion; that is a very complex piece of science, which is why it’s so bloody difficult to make nuclear bombs.”
There is also little chance of a wider radiation leak or spill impacting the surrounding area, according to Mark Nelson, founder and managing director of Radiant Energy Group, a research consultancy based in Chicago.
That’s because “the nuclear substances at Fordo are only very weakly radioactive,” he said. Were this a nuclear plant or missile site, there could be “fission products” — the stuff uranium breaks down into during a nuclear reaction — which can cause a wider catastrophe.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office earlier this year.Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images
Iran’s most advanced enrichment facility, Fordo was refining uranium to 60%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That’s far more than the 3-5% needed for power plants — and far closer to the 90% required to build a warhead.
Until 2018, Iran had been complying with a landmark deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, that offered Tehran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for agreeing to curb its nuclear program.
The agreement was sealed by President Barack Obama in July 2015, along with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — the U.S., Russia, France, China and the United Kingdom — as well as Germany and the European Union. Most independent observers said it was successfully limiting Iran’s nuclear program.
That effectively collapsed when Trump walked away from the pact three years later.
The watchdog has been nonetheless concerned about Fordo, where uranium’s naturally mined form is turned into a gas and spun at high speed inside centrifuges. That separates its heavier isotope, uranium-238, from the lighter uranium-235 that can be used for civilian purposes or otherwise.
Observers such as de Bretton-Gordon say the U.S.’s enormous MOP bomb might be powerful enough not only to destroy this facility but effectively incase it under the collapsed mountain. That could produce a similar effect to the sarcophagus built around Chernobyl after the disaster in 1986, Bretton-Gordon said.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986.Wojtek Laski / Getty Images
Whereas Chernobyl’s protective enclosure is 40 feet thick, “at Fordo we would be talking about a sarcophagus 200-feet thick,” de Bretton-Gordon said.
That’s not to say the risk of contamination would be zero.
If the uranium gas is released, it would partly decompose into hydrofluoric acid, a deadly substance that causes deep-tissue burns if touched without protective gear, and potentially fatal problems for the heart, lungs and nervous system if inhaled.
“It’s a nasty chemical to be around without correct safety equipment and procedures,” said Nelson at the Radiant Energy Group. Any blast survivors, or rescuers without the necessary safety equipment, would face “extremely severe” consequences, he said, but caveated that “you have to be really close and really unprotected.”
There is also a chance that radioactive material could seep into any water source that’s running through the mountain. But the likely radioactive levels would be low — detectable rather than harmful — both Nelson and de Bretton-Gordon said.
Ultimately, Nelson agreed, all of these risks pale in comparison with the threat posed by the MOP bomb itself, whose payload is upward of 5,500 pounds and weighs a total of 30,000 pounds.
“The danger at the seaside of saltwater ingestion is real — even a few liters could kill you,” he analogized. “This danger, however, is relatively small compared to drowning.”
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said Friday that he doesn’t expect tariffs to boost inflation significantly so policymakers should be looking to lower interest rates as early as next month.
In a CNBC interview, the central banker said he and his colleagues should move slowly but start to ease as inflation is now longer a major economic threat.
“I think we’re in the position that we could do this and as early as July,” Waller said during a “Squawk Box” interview with CNBC’s Steve Liesman. “That would be my view, whether the committee would go along with it or not.”
The comments come two days after the Federal Open Market Committee voted to hold its key interest rate steady, the fourth straight hold following the last cut in December.
President Donald Trump, who nominated Waller as a governor during his first term in office, has been hectoring the Fed to lower interest rates to reduce borrowing costs on the $36 trillion national debt.
In his remarks, Waller said he thinks the Fed should cut to avoid a potential slowdown in the labor market.
“If you’re starting to worry about the downside risk labor market move now don’t wait,” he said. “Why do we want to wait until we actually see a crash before we start cutting rates? So I’m all in favor of saying maybe we should start thinking about cutting the policy rate at the next meeting, because we don’t want to wait till the job market tanks before we start cutting the policy rate.”
Whether Waller will be able to marshal much support for his position is unclear.
The FOMC, Waller included, voted unanimously to hold at this week’s meeting, keeping the benchmark federal funds rate locked in a target range of 4.25%-4.5%.
According to the “dot plot” of individual officials’ expectations for interest rates this year, seven if the 19 meeting participants said they see rates holding steady this year, two saw just one cut likely, while the remaining 10 expect two or three reductions. The dispersion reflected a sense of uncertainty around policymakers about where rates should head.
Trump has called for dramatic moves, saying he thinks the benchmark rate should be at least 2 percentage points lower and even suggested it should be 2.5 percentage points below the current level of 4.33%.
However, Waller said he thinks the committee should be move slowly.
“You’d want to start slow and bring them down, just to make sure that there’s no big surprises. But start the process. That’s the key thing,” he said. “We’ve been on pause for six months to wait and see, and so far, the data has been fine. … I don’t think we need to wait much longer, because even if the tariffs come in later, the impacts are still the same. It should be a one-off level effect and not cause persistent inflation.”
Other officials have been reluctant to cut as they wait to see what longer-term impact Trump’s tariffs have, primarily on inflation but also on the labor market and broader economic growth.
Chair Jerome Powell said repeatedly at his post-meeting news conference Wednesday that he believes the Fed can stay in its wait-and-see mode as the labor market continues to hold up. Inflation data of late has shown little pass-through so far as companies burn off inventory accumulated in the run-up to the tariff announcement, and amid concerns that consumer demand is slowing and reducing pricing power.
Futures market pricing indicates virtually no chance of a rate cut at the July 29-30 meeting, with the next move expected to come in September.
TAMPA, Fla. — Rays pitcher Hunter Bigge was carted off the field in a frightening scene and taken to a hospital after getting struck in the face by a foul ball lined into the Tampa Bay dugout Thursday night.
Bigge was placed on a backboard and gave a thumbs up before being driven by ambulance to a nearby hospital for tests. He never lost consciousness and was able to converse with first responders, Rays manager Kevin Cash said.
In the top of the seventh inning, Baltimore Orioles catcher Adley Rutschman sharply pulled a pitch into the Tampa Bay dugout on the first base side and the ball hit Bigge, a 27-year-old right-hander currently on the injured list.
Emergency medical personnel quickly arrived to attend to Bigge. After several quiet minutes, as visibly concerned Rays players knelt in the field, Bigge was loaded onto a stretcher and carted off.
After the game, Cash said Bigge was struck in the face. The ball left Rutschman’s bat at 105 mph, according to Statcast.
Bigge, on the 15-day injured list with a lat strain, received a standing ovation from the Steinbrenner Field crowd as he was loaded onto a cart. The game resumed after an eight-minute delay, and Baltimore held on for a 4-1 victory.
Bigge was selected by the Chicago Cubs in the 12th round of the 2019 amateur draft from Harvard and made his major league debut for them on July 9 last year. He was traded 19 days later to Tampa Bay along with Christopher Morel and minor leaguer Ty Johnson for All-Star third baseman Isaac Paredes.
In 32 career appearances, including one start, Bigge has a 2.51 ERA and one save. This season, he has a 2.40 ERA in 13 relief outings covering 15 innings.
Donald Trump said he would decide whether the U.S. should take action in Iran within two weeks. An appeals court ruled the deployment of California National Guard troops was within the president’s rights. And the parents who were jailed in their 7-year-old son’s traffic death speak out from jail.
Here’s what to know today.
Trump weighs potential action in Iran with small circle of advisers
President Donald Trump will decide within two weeks whether the U.S. should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran, the White House said yesterday.
This is “based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future,” he said in a message read to reporters in the White House by press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister is set to hold talks in Geneva today with his counterparts from the U.K., France and Germany. Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, won’t be in attendance.
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As he weighs what to do, Trump is increasingly relying on a small group of advisers for critical input, according to two defense officials and a senior administration official.
While the president routinely asks a broader group of people what they think he should do, including officials in his own administration as well as foreign leaders and contacts outside the government, Trump tends to make many decisions with just a handful of people. That includes Vice President JD Vance, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump also leans on Witkoff when he weighs decisions that fall under his portfolio, an official said.
But the president has sidelined National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and has not been routinely turning to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to two defense officials and a senior administration official. A Defense Department spokesperson denied the assertion about Hegseth.
Israel’s Air Force and Navy have successfully intercepted hundreds of missiles launched toward the country, military officials say. And key buildings at an Iranian heavy water reactor were damaged, a U.N. nuclear watchdog said. Follow our live blog for the latest updates.
Entire neighborhoods in Tehran are emptying out amid the barrage of missiles, and residents who remain in Iran’s capital are mostly staying indoors.
Appeals court backs California National Guard deployment
An appeals court ruled that Trump is within his rights to deploy the California National Guard amid immigration protests in Los Angeles, allowing the president to keep control of the troops.
The ruling last night from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined the federal government made a required “strong showing” in arguing it would prevail against California’s challenge to the legality of the deployment of troops usually under the governor’s control. However, the court said it disagreed with the administration’s stance that the federalization of National Guard Troops is “completely insulated from judicial review.” Read the full story here.
Earlier Thursday, the Los Angeles Dodgers said it blocked federal immigration agents from entering their stadium after agents “requested permission to access the parking lots.” ICE responded to the Dodgers on social media, saying, “False. We were never there.”
But a source familiar with Dodgers operations said that after the agents were denied entry E, they processed multiple detainees just outside the ballpark. Meanwhile, demonstrators outside the stadium’s gates, including a Los Angeles City Council member, held signs and chanted “ICE out of L.A.” Read more about the incident at Dodger Stadium.
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from forcing 20 Democratic-led states to cooperate with immigration enforcement in order to receive billions of dollars in transportation funding.
Latino Trump voters who participated in focus groups observed by NBC News said they approve of Trump’s handling of illegal immigration, and most approved of his actions broadly as president. But a small divide is emergingamong these voters over how deportations are being carried out.
When Change Healthcare, a unit of UnitedHealthcare experienced a massive hack in February 2024, the subsidiary shuttered its systems and halted all reimbursements owed to hospitals and doctors. To help medical providers stay afloat, Optum, another UnitedHealth subsidiary that includes a bank, began offering “temporary” no-interest loans.
Pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Catherine Mazzola was among those tapping into the program and her practice in New Jersey received $535,000, documents show. Mazzola’s practice began repaying the loans, but in January of this year, Optum demanded that it repay the money in full and within five business days. Mazzola pleaded for more time, but by mid-February, she stopped receiving reimbursements. Months later, she learned UnitedHealthcare had drawn up reimbursement checks payable to her practice and then deposited those checks into its own bank account, records shared with NBC News show.
Her case sheds light on something few patients know about: the behind-the-scenes battles doctors say they must wage with insurers over reimbursements and the increasingly aggressive tactics taken by huge payers like UnitedHealthcare. Mazzola, as well as other doctors who spoke to senior financial reporter Gretchen Morgenson, said they were never reimbursed for many claims, and some say they are out millions as a result. On top of that, patients were hurt by the hack, too. Read the full story here.
Chris Brown pleads not guilty to 2023 nightclub bottle attack charge
US rapper Chris Brown (C) leaves Southwark Crown Court in London.Carlos Jasso / AFP via Getty Images
Singer Chris Brown has pleaded not guilty to a charge in connection with an alleged 2023 London nightclub attack and will face trial later this year.
Brown appeared in person at London’s Southwark Crown to enter a not guilty plea to one count of attempting to cause “grievous bodily harm” in connection with a February 2023 altercation, where he allegedly attacked a music producer with a bottle.
Brown is also charged with one count of assault and one count of possessing an offensive weapon and will enter pleas on those charges at a later hearing.
Omololu Akinlolu, an American rapper who performs under the name “Hoody Baby,” also pleaded not guilty to the same charge of attempting to cause “grievous bodily harm.”
Akinlolu and Brown are both accused of attacking music producer Abe Diaw at Tape nightclub in London’s upmarket Mayfair district.
Brown, 36, faces a possible prison sentence of between two and 16 years if he is convicted. Read the full story here.
Read All About It
Trump extended a potential TikTok ban by another 90 days, until Sept. 17, to give parent company ByteDance more time to find an American owner.
The NBA Finals are going to Game 7 for the first time since 2016 after the Indiana Pacers staved off elimination and won 108-91 against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
A 9-year-old Florida girl who is recovering from surgery after a shark nearly bit her hand off recalled the attack: “I didn’t see anything. … something hard bit me.”
Some ready-to-eat fettuccine Alfredo meals sold at Walmart and Kroger were voluntarily recalled after a listeria outbreak linked to three deaths and 17 illnesses.
Staff Pick: Parents speak out from jail after their arrest in their 7-year-old son’s traffic death
Jesse Barber for NBC News; Courtesy Renae Jenkins
Earlier this month, NBC BLK reporter Curtis Bunn wrote about a child whose parents were arrested after he accidentally stepped out into traffic and was fatally struck by a car. Curtis’s initial reporting raised more questions, so we knew we needed to find out more.
After Curtis made contact with the family, he headed to North Carolina to spend time with people who were both grieving the loss of a bright 7-year-old family member and advocating for the child’s parents, who are in jail and face multiple charges in his death. (The unnamed 76-year-old woman who hit the child has not been charged.)
In addition to the faithful grandparents, aunties and friends who are stepping up to care for the couple’s remaining six children, Curtis spoke with the two parents trying to be strong for their family from behind bars. — Michelle Garcia, NBC BLK editorial director
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Multiple lawyers interviewed by NBC News reviewed the loan agreement Mazzola’s practice signed and characterized it as a contract of adhesion — in which one party calls the shots and the other has little choice but to agree. The financial ruin Mazzola and other doctors faced because of the hack, an event caused by inadequate security at Change Healthcare, made the loans even more one-sided, some lawyers said. As a result, doctors may have legal recourse after the aggressive actions UnitedHealth Group took to extract loan repayments.
The central question surrounding UnitedHealth Group’s reimbursement actions is “whether they abused their use of this remedy by insisting on repayment before it was appropriate for them to do so given the damages that they caused,” Daniel Schwarcz, a professor at the University of Minnesota law school, said in an email.
Amid its clashes with doctors, UnitedHealth Group announced earnings of $9 billion from operations in the first quarter of 2025, a 15% jump from the same period last year. Revenue for the three months was $110 billion.
Even after Change Healthcare restarted claims processing, doctors who spoke with NBC News said they were never reimbursed for many claims because the disruption meant they couldn’t submit them within insurers’ required time periods. The doctors also said their costs increased after the hack because they had to pay staff members to chase reimbursements.
Mazzola, who estimates that her practice lost $1 million because of the hack, has asked Optum to reimburse her for costs her practice incurred as a result of the breach. But the terms Optum offered would have barred her from being able to sue it because of the hack. So she declined to accept it.
“I really believed that Optum, who was orchestrating these loans, would give physicians and physician groups a reasonable amount of time to repay the loans with the understanding that this financial crisis almost bankrupted us,” Mazzola said. “I mean literally, you’re talking about $0 in your bank account, and you have 70 employees to pay.”
Dr. Catherine Mazzola.Zach Gross for NBC News
Delays of patient careDoctors say they weren’t the only ones hurt by the hack. Patients, too, were harmed when providers didn’t have the reimbursement revenue needed to buy medicine, for example.
“There were a lot of delays of patient care as a result of it,” said Dr. Pruvi Parikh, an allergist and immunologist in New York City who is medical director of a practice with six locations in New York and 15 in New Jersey.
Parikh’s group borrowed $400,000 from Optum to survive the hack. By the end of 2024, it had repaid all but $102,000 of it, documents show.
On Jan. 7, Optum threatened to withhold reimbursements to Parikh’s practice if the rest of the loan wasn’t repaid in days, an email shows.
“Coming up with that amount of money in five business days is not possible for the majority of private practices,” Parikh said in an interview. “Not only did they not give us time to get back on our feet, they were like, ‘Pay it now.’”
While the practice met Optum’s demand, she estimated it is out $2 million because of the hack.
In a statement, Change Healthcare said it started clawing back funding it had provided “more than one year post the event and with services restored.” The company said it is reaching out to those “that have not been responsive to previous calls or email requests for more information.”
The main reason doctors like Parikh and Mazzola are in this crucible, antitrust experts and physicians say, is that UnitedHealth Group operates so many cogs in the nation’s health care machinery. By acquiring an array of health care operations in recent years—including physician practices and pharmacy benefits management, technology, claims processing and financial services — UnitedHealth Group can exert market muscle over weaker participants like doctors and patients.
Cuomo has loomed over the field since before he even jumped in, the clear front-runner thanks to his near-unanimous name recognition, his decadeslong relationships with key communities and leaders across the city and the fundraising prowess that comes with being a national Democratic figure once seen as a possible presidential hopeful before he resigned.
His support comes not just from longtime allies but also from those who haven’t always been on his side. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed him in a statement that acknowledged their past “differences.” (Bloomberg has since given $8.3 million to a pro-Cuomo super PAC.)
Other prominent Democrats who called on Cuomo to resign in 2021 are back in his corner, including Rep. Gregory Meeks, who is also the powerful chair of the Queens Democratic Party, and progressive state Sen. Jessica Ramos, who just months ago panned Cuomo’s “mental acuity.”
And while the New York Times editorial board didn’t officially endorse a candidate, it gave Cuomo a bump by telling New Yorkers not to rank Mamdani while adding that Cuomo “would be better for New York’s future.”
The throughline for many of the politicians backing Cuomo comes right from the songbook he has sung on the stump and TV ads have tried to hammer home — that Donald Trump’s presidency represents a unique crisis for the city, one that only Cuomo has the experience to navigate.
In an address at a rally at the National Action Network, a group led by the Rev. Al Sharpton, the longtime civil rights activist and MSNBC host, Cuomo warned that Trump is an “existential threat” and “worse than he was in his first term.” (MSNBC and NBC News have the same parent company, NBCUniversal.)
Inside the campaign strategy
Part of Cuomo’s pitch also takes on Mamdani directly, an implicit nod to Mamdani’s status as his top foil. Cuomo’s allied super PAC has spent millions of dollars framing Mamdani as too liberal on issues like policing, calling him “a risk New York can’t afford.” Cuomo has also criticized him for comments he has made about Gaza and Israel’s war with Hamas.
Mamdani, who would be the city’s first Muslim mayor, argued that Cuomo is trying to divide by trying to weaponize allegations of antisemitism, and he has accused his rivals of trying to characterize him as a “monster.”
Sharpton, who hasn’t yet endorsed but praised Cuomo at his recent rally, told NBC News that Cuomo has a structural advantage of being able to lean on strong support among Black and Latino voters.
“When Hillary beat Bernie, Bernie was packing stadiums, and she beat him using that base,” Sharpton said of Hillary Clinton’s strong support among voters of color in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries against Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. “Is it possible to turn that around? Yes, but there hasn’t been any sign yet.”
Mamdani, 33, a legislator running the biggest race of his career, has surged by capturing progressives’ attention with his direct-to-camera, energetic appeals, along with a platform that includes free city buses, rent freezes and other progressive proposals.
“This victory will be historic not just because of who I am — a Muslim immigrant and a proud democratic socialist — but for what we will do: make this city affordable for everyone,” he said at a rally this month.
Public polling continues to show Mamdani as Cuomo’s main challenger, and he has tried to leverage cross-endorsement deals with other candidates to urge supporters to include them all on their ranked-choice ballots in hopes of picking up steam if progressive voters’ first choices are eliminated — appearing with Lander and former Democratic National Committee Vice Chairman Michael Blake to ask their supporters to rank them both on their ballots.
Those deals embody the “don’t rank Cuomo” rallying cry that has cut across supporters of multiple candidates, a dynamic Lander directly called out when he announced the deal with Mamdani: “We both know what we need to do to save our city from Andrew Cuomo.”
Rupert, the former Wiley campaign manager, told NBC News that while the anti-Cuomo field has the extra challenge of having to explain the intricacies of the ranked choice system (and how supporters can use it to their benefit), the rules provide progressives with an opportunity.
She pointed back to the city’s first ranked choice election in 2021, when Wiley came less than 2 percentage points from making the final round and former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia fell short of Mayor Eric Adams by a similar margin.
“If some of Maya’s voters, a small percentage, had not ranked Adams, it may have gone to Garcia — that could have made the difference,” Rupert said.
“There are people who are going to hear a message now and be more inclined to respond to it in real time,” she said.
It’s all another reason that even as prominent progressives throw their weight behind candidates, they’re careful to include endorsements for other slots on the ballot and quick to emphasize opposition to Cuomo as big parts of their endorsements.
“It does not help the election of Zohran if you just fill out a No. 1 rank and not the rest of your ballot. We have to fill out the entire ballot — and do not rank Andrew Cuomo anywhere,” Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at a Mamdani rally this month.
“Not ranking Andrew Cuomo is the right thing to do in solidarity with survivors of sexual harassment and assault. It is the right thing to do to turn the page on the future of a Democratic Party that does not continue to repeat the mistakes that have landed us here,” she continued.
Sharpton called Lander a “political martyr” in the interview with NBC News, adding that his blend of experience and progressive chops could lead to a rise. And while Rupert “strongly” condemned the arrest, she added that “the way it will reflect on the campaign will be a net positive.”
The result will almost certainly not be clear Tuesday night, unless one candidate shocks the city by winning the majority of first-place votes outright. It’s more likely that the result will become clear in the coming weeks, as all the votes are counted and the bottom rungs of candidates fall off and their votes are re-allocated during the ranked choice tabulation.
As in 2021, Democrats across the country will be looking to the city as an early indicator of what their voters want from them.
A longtime New York Democratic strategist who requested anonymity to discuss the dynamics among the crowded field called the race an “interesting microcosm of what’s transpiring nationally among Democrats.”
“Centrist versus progressive, moderate versus liberal, these are not just currents here in the city, which are obviously being reflected front and center in the mayoral. They are the political crosscurrents in the party nationally,” the strategist said.
“Is there a potential for surprise?” the person continued. “Absolutely.”
ACAPULCO, Mexico — Authorities in southern Mexico were still assessing damage and watching rising rivers as rain from the remnants of Hurricane Erick doused the region.
Torrential rains over steep coastal mountains and the landslides and flooding they could generate became ongoing concern for officials after Erick dissipated following a landfall early Thursday on a sparsely populated stretch of coast.
At least one death was confirmed late Thursday, a 1-year-old boy who drowned in a swollen river.
Erick came ashore down southern Mexico’s Pacific coast in the morning as a Category 3 major hurricane, but it landed between the resort cities of Acapulco and Puerto Escondido.
Authorities reported landslides, blocked highways, downed power lines and some flooding as coastal residents, above all in Acapulco, took the storm seriously with memories of the devastating Hurricane Otis in 2023 still fresh in their minds.
Mexican Navy members help with repair tasks following the passage of Hurricane Erick in Bahia Principal, Mexico, on Thursday.Carlo Echegoyen / AFP via Getty Images
With a steady rain falling on Acapulco, residents and remaining tourists emerged to walk outside or visit businesses opening gradually as the remnants of Hurricane Erick scraped by just inland of the resort.
In Puerto Escondido, fishermen searched for and inspected storm-tossed boats and residents cleared downed trees and other debris.
The threat of heavy rain remained in the mountains that rise abruptly behind Acapulco’s famed beaches. Erick spent the day dragging through the coastal mountain range, dropping torrential quantities of rain.
It was expected to dissipate Thursday night over the mountains in Michoacan state.
Erick once had Category 4 strength
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Erick was centered about 95 miles north-northwest of Acapulco Thursday night. Its maximum sustained winds were 30 mph, degrading it to a low pressure area. It was moving northwest at 13 mph.
Erick had strengthened to a Category 4 storm as it approached the coast but weakened before making landfall to a Category 3.
Having doubled in strength in less than a day, Erick churned through an ideal environment for quick intensification. Last year, there were 34 incidents of rapid intensification — when a storm gains at least 35 mph in 24 hours — which is about twice the average and causes problems with forecasting, according to the hurricane center.
One death reported
President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday “the people have reacted very well so far.”
But authorities warned the heavy rain would now become the problem.
Forecasters expected up to 16 inches of rain could fall across Oaxaca and Guerrero, with lesser totals in Chiapas, Michoacan, Colima and Jalisco states. The rainfall threatened flooding and mudslides, especially in areas with steep terrain.
Late Thursday, Guerrero state Civil Defense Director Roberto Arroyo said that a 1-year-old boy had died in San Marcos, an inland community southeast of Acapulco in the path of Erick. The child’s mother had tried to cross a swollen river while carrying the child, but he slipped from her arms and drowned.
Residents venture out
Restaurants, shops and supermarkets gradually reopened in Acapulco, but schools were to remain closed across Guerrero on Friday as authorities continued to assess damage, clear debris and monitor rising rivers.
“Many of us were frightened, but now it has passed,” said Juan Carlos Castañeda, a 49-year-old security guard at an Acapulco condominium complex. He said the “tragedy of Otis marked all of us.”
Despite the rain, Castañeda decided to go out for a walk.
Down the coast in the fishing village of Barra Vieja, the wind-whipped surf battered the shore and heavy rain kept residents sheltered indoors.
Perla Rosas, however, was among the few who ventured out, umbrella in hand, to get to her job at a convenience store. “I feel more relaxed now, so I decided to come to work.”
Acapulco still scarred by Otis
Acapulco residents had braced for Erick’s arrival with more preparation and trepidation because of the memory of the devastation two years earlier.
The city of nearly 1 million was hit in October 2023 by Hurricane Otis, a Category 5 hurricane that rapidly intensified and caught many unprepared. At least 52 people died in Otis and the storm severely damaged almost all of the resort’s hotels.
President Donald Trump did not formally mark Juneteenth on Thursday, complaining instead that there are “too many non-working holidays,” while his predecessor, Joe Biden, celebrated the occasion at a Black church in Texas.
The split-screen moment showed starkly different approaches to the 160th anniversary of the moment in Texas when Union troops arrived to enforce the end of slavery there.
“Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed,” Trump said Thursday on Truth Social without explicitly mentioning Juneteenth.
Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had no plans to sign a Juneteenth proclamation and indicated it was a normal working day. Trump had issued statements commemorating Juneteenth, before it was a federal holiday, during his first term.
“We’re working 24/7 right now,” she said.
A few hours later, Biden got a warm welcome at Reedy Chapel AME Church in Galveston, Texas, where he criticized those who he said seek to “erase our history.”
In 2021, Biden signed legislation that established Juneteenth as a federal holiday in the aftermath of the racial justice protests sparked by the death of George Floyd.
“Some say … it doesn’t deserve to be a federal holiday,” Biden said. “They don’t want to remember.”
He also criticized the Trump administration’s move to rename military bases that were changed under Biden to remove references to Confederates. Trump has said he wants to restore the original names.
President Donald Trump is within his rights to deploy the California National Guard amid protests against federal law enforcement over immigration raids, an appeals court ruled Thursday night.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government made a required “strong showing” in arguing it would prevail against California’s challenge to the legality of the deployment of troops usually under the governor’s control.
The court stated that it disagreed with the Trump administration’s stance that “The President’s decision to federalize members of the California National Guard … is completely insulated from judicial review.”
But it argued the office of the president carries unusual weight in the matter.
“Under longstanding precedent … our review of that decision must be highly deferential” to the president, the panel wrote in its ruling. “Affording the President that deference, we conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority.”
The recent activation of the National Guard troops to Los Angeles was the first by a president without the governor’s permissionsince 1965.
Trump and members of his administration argued that protesters angry over immigration raids in Los Angeles, many of whom gathered outside federal buildings in the region, were not under the control of local police.
Additionally, the panel said, even if the governor didn’t agree with the deployment this month, using the defense secretary to order the troops into action was a legal avenue that “likely satisfied the statute’s procedural requirement that federalization orders be issued ‘through’ the Governor,” it said.
Thursday night’s ruling overturned a temporary restraining order that had been paused during appeals.
The panel said, “Our conclusion that it is likely that the President’s order federalizing members of the California National Guard was authorized.”
It also argues that the temporary restraining order could have done harm to “the public interest” at a time of mass protest.
The court granted a motion to stay the lower court’s order during further appeals, which gives control of the troops to Trump.
“This is much bigger than Gavin, because all over the United States, if our Cities, and our people, need protection, we are the ones to give it to them should State and Local Police be unable, for whatever reason, to get the job done,” Trump said. “This is a Great Decision for our Country.”
Newsom “expressed disappointment” that the court is allowing Trump to retain control of the California National Guard, but he saw hope in the ruling, too.
“The court rightly rejected Trump’s claim that he can do whatever he wants with the National Guard and not have to explain himself to a court,” Newsom said in a statement. “The President is not a king and is not above the law. We will press forward with our challenge to President Trump’s authoritarian use of U.S. military soldiers against citizens.”
State Attorney General Rob Bonta added in his own statement, “This case is far from over.”
Bonta filed the federal lawsuit against the Trump administration on June 9, arguing that Trump’s federalization of the troops was “unlawful” and “infringes on Governor Newsom’s role as Commander-in-Chief of the California National Guard.”
