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New York mayor Eric Adams launched his re-election campaign Thursday by taking direct aim at the credentials of his presumed Democratic opponent, Zohran Mamdani.”It’s a choice between a candidate with a blue collar and one with a suit and a silver spoon,” Adams, who was elected in 2021 as a Democrat but is running as an independent, told supporters outside City Hall.Adams, 64, is now facing off against 33-year-old Mamdani, a self-declared socialist who on Tuesday surprisingly beat out former governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Party primary.Mamdani’s win has yet to be certified, but Adams is already campaigning against him with accusations of empty idealism and false promises of “giving everything to everyone for free.””They have a record of tweets. I have a record on these streets. A record of results. They talk about problems? I fix them. That’s the difference. You don’t lead this city from a soapbox,” Adams said of Mamdani.Mamdani’s surprise win resonated as a political thunderclap, drawing the ire of US President Donald Trump and his collaborators, who accuse the left-leaning Democrat of being a radical extremist.In response Thursday, Mamdani said he launched his campaign to target Adams’s corruption and his failure to address affordability.”New Yorkers have been suffocated by a cost of living crisis and this mayor has taken almost every opportunity to exacerbate it, all while partnering with Donald Trump to tear our city apart,” Mamdani said.He promised to “end this era of corruption, incompetence and the betrayal of working class New Yorkers.”Adams faced a series of major federal corruption charges, but they were dropped by the Justice Department after Trump took office in January.Mamdani and other New Yorkers have accused Adams of allowing the Trump administration to conduct immigration raids in exchange for burying the charges.Polling currently shows Mamdani ahead of Adams and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa for the November election.Cuomo, though defeated in the primary, is still weighing a possible run as an independent, which could further complicate the race.

Famed composer Lalo Schifrin, who created themes for a host of hit Hollywood films and television shows — including the instantly recognizable “Mission: Impossible” score — died Thursday aged 93, US media reported.Born in Argentina, Schifrin blended the influences of his classical and symphonic training with jazz and modern sounds in his diverse and vast oeuvre, which includes the scores for around 100 films, some of them the best-known of their generation.His death was confirmed by his son, Ryan Schifrin, to several entertainment trade publications.Schifrin’s work for film includes “The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and “Bullitt” (1968), both with Steve McQueen, Paul Newman’s “Cool Hand Luke” (1968), and Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” (1971).He also created the score to the 1960s “Mission: Impossible” television series, which inspired the theme of the massive film franchise starring Tom Cruise.A pipe-smoker in his younger years and bespectacled with a mane of silver hair later, he was also a highly respected international orchestra conductor and jazz pianist.Boris Claudio Schifrin was born in Buenos Aires on June 21, 1932 into a musical family, his father Luis Schifrin being the concert master of the city’s Philharmonic Orchestra for 25 years. He learned piano at a young age, developing an extensive knowledge of classical music.His introduction in his teens to jazz and the American sound — through its greats such as Charlie Parker, George Gershwin and Louis Armstrong — was like a conversion, he would say later, and set his life on a new course.After training in Paris, Schifrin returned to Buenos Aires and set up his own big band, with a performance notably impressing jazz legend trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.”So after we finished, Dizzy came to me and said, did you write all these charts? And I said, yes. Would you like to come to United States? I thought he was joking. He wasn’t,” Schifrin recounted to NPR in 2007.”I wouldn’t be here had it not been for that moment,” he told the US radio.Schifrin moved to the United States in 1958 and became a US citizen over a decade later.In Hollywood, television producer Bruce Geller asked him to create scores for his television series “Mission: Impossible” (1966) and “Mannix” (1969). Geller’s brief was for “a theme that’s exciting, promising, but not too heavy” and anticipates the action to follow, Schifrin told NPR in 2015.Geller said that when “people go to the kitchen and get a Coca-Cola, I want them to hear the theme and say, Oh, this is ‘Mission: Impossible’,” he recounted.The score he delivered earned Schifrin two Grammy music awards in 1967, adding to two for the albums “The Cat” (1964) and “Jazz Suite On The Mass Texts” (1965).Shifrin received several Academy Award nominations for his film work including for “Cool Hand Luke.”In 2018, he received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement, presented by Eastwood.

US President Donald Trump made his final pitch at a White House event Thursday for his massive tax relief and spending cuts package as the Senate eyes a vote in the coming days. The so-called “One, Big Beautiful Bill” would extend Trump’s expiring first term tax cuts at a cost of $4.5 trillion — but strip health care from millions of the poorest Americans and add more than $3 trillion to deficits over a decade.Trump told officials and supporters the package was “one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of our country.” “And that’s everybody saying that — virtually everybody,” the Republican leader added. “The one big, beautiful bill (will) secure our borders, turbo charge our economy and bring back the American dream.”Senate Republicans want to begin a weekend of votes on the package — which Trump sees as crucial to his legacy — on Friday, with hopes of getting it to Trump’s desk by July 4.But those self-imposed deadlines look set to slip with deep divides over spending and debt dividing Republicans in both the Senate and the House.They are using a special process to avoid having to rely on votes from the minority Democrats but currently lack the support on their own side to get the package across the line.Independent analysis shows that the bill would pave the way for a significant redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 percent of Americans to the richest.  It is deeply unpopular across multiple demographic, age and income groups, according to extensive recent polling. A handful of Senate Republicans are opposed to provisions that would gut the Medicaid health care program for low-income Americans and threaten scores of rural hospitals with closure. More than a dozen House Republicans have warned they won’t support the Medicaid cuts, yet lawmakers in both chambers have complained that the savings in the package don’t go far enough.  Although the House has already passed its own version, both chambers have to agree on the same text before it can be signed into law.Republican leaders were working Thursday to hammer out a version that can get a quick rubber-stamp in the House without returning to the negotiating table.Majority Leader John Thune can only lose three Senate Republicans on any vote, and the margin in the House — depending on attendance — is similar. Trump was joined in the White House by “everyday Americans” who would benefit from the bill, according to the White House, including waiters, food delivery drivers and border patrol agents. “We’re going to be celebrating for a long time, because we’re turning our country around,” Trump said. “We’re getting our country back, and we’re ruling with common sense.”

A medical panel appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted Thursday to recommend a new preventive shot against RSV, a common respiratory illness that is the leading cause of hospitalization for infants in the United States.The vote marked the first by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) since Kennedy dismissed all members of the influential group of independent experts and replaced them with his own nominees, a move that made this decision a test of the new panel’s intentions.Clesrovimab was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a shot for newborns and young babies experiencing their first respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) season.Marketed under the name Enflonsia by its manufacturer Merck, the antibody immunization shot was shown in clinical trials to be safe and effective at significantly reducing RSV infections and hospitalizations among infants.The ACIP panel was asked to adjudicate the next step after approval — namely, whether it should now be recommended for infants under eight months old entering their first RSV season who are not already protected by an RSV vaccine administered to their mother during pregnancy.They voted 5-2 in favor.The two dissenters were Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at MIT who has questioned the safety of Covid-19 vaccines, and Vicky Pebsworth, a nurse and member of the anti-vaccine National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).”I don’t feel this is ready to be administered to all healthy babies. I think we should take a more precautionary approach,” said Levi, explaining his “no” vote.Pebsworth did not offer comments, but the NVIC previously opposed the earlier-approved RSV antibody, nirsevimab.Kennedy — who spent decades spreading vaccine misinformation before becoming President Donald Trump’s top health official — abruptly fired all 17 members of the ACIP earlier this month, accusing them of conflicts of interest.

A newly appointed US medical panel voted Thursday to oppose the use of a vaccine ingredient long targeted by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over debunked claims it causes autism.Thimerosal, a preservative that prevents bacterial and fungal contamination in multidose vials, has been extensively studied, with authorities including the World Health Organization finding no evidence of harm beyond minor injection-site reactions.Although the substance is now rarely used in US vaccines, the recommendations by the influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices alarmed experts, who say the move has effectively embedded talking points championed by the anti-vaccine movement into national policy.Kennedy — who spent decades spreading vaccine misinformation before becoming President Donald Trump’s top health official — abruptly fired all 17 ACIP members earlier this month, accusing them without evidence of conflicts of interest.Across three votes, his new panelists recommended that thimerosal be removed from influenza vaccines for children, pregnant women and finally all adults.Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth University and the lone voice of dissent, said: “The risk from influenza is so much greater than the nonexistent risk as far as we know from thimerosal,” adding that he was worried about the decision’s global impact.Although 96 percent of US flu vaccines in the 2024-2025 season did not contain thimerosal, the preservative remains important in lower income countries because they are more likely to use lower cost multidose vials that must be punctured repeatedly, raising the risk of contamination.Thimerosal contains an artificial form of mercury called ethylmercury that is cleared from the body far more quickly than the form of the chemical found in nature. US manufacturers voluntarily removed it from most pediatric vaccines in 2001.- ‘Platform for anti-vaccine talking points’ -“The fact that it’s being brought up again — something that’s already been adjudicated — shows how the ACIP is becoming a platform for anti-vaccine talking points to come back to life long after most of us thought they’d been put to rest,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP.Ahead of the vote, Lyn Redwood, a nurse and former leader of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, which Kennedy once chaired, was invited to present arguments against thimerosal. A previous version of her slideshow, which was posted online before the meeting, was removed without explanation after it was found to contain a fabricated citation.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had prepared a rebuttal to Redwood’s presentation, but it was removed from the meeting website. Robert Malone, a new panel member known for spreading misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic, including promoting the antiparastic drug ivermectin to treat the virus, said the CDC document had not been approved by the Office of the Secretary.”We now have a CDC ACIP that is voting based on vibes from an embarrassingly bad presentation from an external speaker,” Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician and editor-in-chief of MedPage Today, told AFP. “Taking thimerosal out of the few vaccines it’s in won’t change anything other than give credence to discredited notion. That will undermine confidence in vaccines, not improve it.”

The Trump administration went on the offensive against the media Thursday over coverage of strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, insisting the operation was a total success and berating journalists for reporting on an intelligence assessment that raised doubts.American B-2 bombers hit two Iranian nuclear sites with massive GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs last weekend, while a guided missile submarine struck a third site with Tomahawk cruise missiles.President Donald Trump “created the conditions to end the war, decimating — choose your word — obliterating, destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a news conference at the Pentagon, referring to a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran.Trump himself has called the strikes a “spectacular military success” and repeatedly said they “obliterated” the nuclear sites.But US media revealed a preliminary American intelligence assessment earlier this week that said the strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months — coverage sharply criticized by Hegseth and others.”Whether it’s fake news CNN, MSNBC or the New York Times, there’s been fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment,” Hegseth said.The document was “leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn’t successful,” he said.Trump — who has also personally slammed coverage of the intelligence report, calling for journalists to lose their jobs — on Thursday accused Democrats of leaking the assessment and said they should be prosecuted.- ‘Get a big shovel’ -White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt meanwhile told journalists that the Iran strikes were “one of the most successful operations in United States history,” and joined Trump in lashing out personally at CNN’s Natasha Bertrand — one of the reporters who broke the story on the preliminary assessment.Bertrand has been “used by people who dislike Donald Trump in this government to push fake and false narratives,” Leavitt said.CNN has issued a statement saying it stands behind the journalist and her reporting.In his remarks Thursday morning, Hegseth did not definitively state that the enriched uranium and centrifuges at the heart of Iran’s controversial nuclear program had been wiped out. He cited intelligence officials as saying the nuclear facilities were destroyed, but gave little detail.”If you want to know what’s going on at Fordo, you better go there and get a big shovel, because no one’s under there right now,” he said, referring to the deep-underground nuclear site.Among the officials cited by Hegseth was US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who said the previous day that “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.”He also referred to a statement by CIA chief John Ratcliffe, who pointed to a “historically reliable and accurate” source of information indicating that “several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”Israel launched an unprecedented air campaign targeting Iranian nuclear sites, scientists and top military brass on June 13 in a bid to end the country’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is for civilian purposes but Washington and other powers insist is aimed at acquiring atomic weapons.Trump had spent weeks pursuing a diplomatic path to replace the nuclear deal with Tehran that he tore up during his first term in 2018, but he ultimately decided to take military action.The US operation was massive, involving more than 125 US aircraft including stealth bombers, fighters and aerial refueling tankers as well as a guided missile submarine.

Magazine legend Anna Wintour stepped down as editor of US Vogue on Thursday after 37 years in which she was often hailed as the single most influential figure in the fashion world.Wintour, 75, was famous for making Vogue’s front covers an authoritative monthly statement on contemporary fashion, and for her total control over the glamorous pages inside.She will no longer run day-to-day editing of the fashion bible, but magazine group owner Conde Nast was quick to scotch suggestions that she was retiring.She will continue to hold senior roles at the group and as Vogue’s global editorial director, a company source said.British-born Wintour came to wider public renown as the inspiration for “The Devil Wears Prada,” a hit 2003 novel and 2006 movie, in which Meryl Streep played the role of a tyrannical magazine editor.Wintour, who took the helm at US Vogue in 1988, announced at a staff meeting in New York that the publication would seek a new head of editorial content, several US media reported.- Global magazine -She was made a British dame in 2017 and in February this year was made a companion of honour, joining a select group never numbering more than 65 recognized for major contributions in their field.At the ceremony in London in February, Wintour removed her trademark sunglasses to receive the award and said she had told King Charles III that she had no plans to stop working.Wintour, who was raised in the UK by a British father and an American mother, reigned over Vogue in the heyday of glossy magazines.She took the title global, with huge budgets to spend on models, design, photographs and journalism funded by lavish advertisements and high subscription rates.Wintour was known for axing work without discussion, and was a fixture in the front row at catwalk shows with her unchanging bob haircut.A 2015 documentary about her life pointed to her ice queen image and steely ambition but also revealed her warmer human side.As Conde Nast’s chief content officer, she will continue to oversee publications including Vogue, Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, Conde Nast Traveler and Glamour.

It will go down as the summit where US President Donald Trump learned to stop worrying and love NATO.Trump reveled in gushing praise from leaders in The Hague — including being called “daddy” by alliance chief Mark Rutte — and a pledge to boost defense spending as he had demanded. But it went further than just lapping up flattery. Trump also spoke of what sounded like an almost religious conversion to NATO, after years of bashing other members as freeloaders and threatening to leave.”I came here because it was something I’m supposed to be doing, but I left here a little bit differently,” Trump said at his closing press conference on Wednesday.”I watched the heads of these countries get up, and the love and the passion that they showed for their country was unbelievable. I’ve never seen quite anything like it. “It was really moving to see it.”A day after returning to the White House, Trump still sounded uncharacteristically touchy-feely about his time with his 31 NATO counterparts. “A wonderful day with incredible and caring Leaders,” he posted on his Truth Social platform on Thursday.- Turnaround -It was a remarkable turnaround from the US president’s first term.Trump repeatedly berated allies as not paying up and threatened to pull the United States out of NATO as part of his wider disdain for international institutions and alliances.At his first summit in 2017 in Brussels, Trump memorably shoved aside Montenegro’s prime minister Dusko Markovic as he made his way to the front of the stage.A year later Trump publicly lambasted Germany and privately talked about wanting to quit.But this time NATO leaders had carefully choreographed the trip. They massaged the numbers to give Trump the defense spending deal he craved. And while Trump headed to the summit dropping F-bombs in frustration at a shaky Iran-Israel ceasefire, NATO leaders love-bombed him from the moment he arrived. The Netherlands put him up overnight in the Dutch king’s royal palace and gave him a royal dinner and breakfast — “beautiful,” according to Trump — while NATO organizers kept the summit deliberately short.Frederick Kempe, the chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council, said Trump had “waxed poetic” about NATO in a way he had never done before.”Trump — the vilifier of European deadbeats on defense and crusader against allies for what he sees as unfair trade practices — sounded like an altered man,” he said in a commentary.- ‘Daddy’s Home’ -The question now is what it means for NATO when the alliance’s priorities end up guided by one man.The final summit statement’s language on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was watered down from previous years. It also made no mention of Ukraine’s push to join NATO.Reporters were not allowed into Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The move was partly because of their Oval Office bust-up in February, but it also deprived Zelensky of the set-piece he had craved.”The biggest loser was Ukraine,” said Ed Arnold of the Royal United Services Insitute in London.Trump also hinted at what lies in store for any backsliders on the defense spending pledge, threatening to make Spain “pay” on trade over its resistance to commit to the new target.As with any relationship, the pressure will now be on NATO to keep up the first flush of love over the three summits that are due to take place over the rest of Trump’s second term.”The real worry is that NATO will be unable to keep up the hype,” said Arnold.For now, though, Trump and his administration seem to be content. As he arrived back in Washington, the White House posted a video of summit highlights, with the caption: “Daddy’s Home.”

Sean “Diddy” Combs used “power, violence, and fear” as the head of a decades-old criminal enterprise, a prosecutor said Thursday in closing arguments in his high-profile trial.”He counted on silence and shame to keep his crimes hidden,” Christy Slavik told the jury as the government began wrapping up its case against the once-powerful music mogul.The 55-year-old Combs was seated behind the prosecutor as she delivered her closing arguments, passing an occasional message to his lawyers.Slavik methodically walked the jury through the charges against Combs, which include racketeering and sex trafficking. “He used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted,” she said, and relied on a network of “loyal lieutenants” — none of whom testified at his trial — to cover up his crimes, which included forced labor, bribery and witness tampering.”He became more powerful and more dangerous because of the support of his inner circle and his businesses,” she said. “This is Mr Combs’s kingdom.”Slavik told the jury the case was not about criminalizing unorthodox sex.”It’s not about free choices at all,” she said.The women involved were “drugged, covered in oil, sore, exhausted” as Combs made them have sex with escorts for hours, she said.The famed producer coerced two women — the singer Casandra Ventura and later a woman who testified under the pseudonym Jane — into years of drug-addled sex with paid escorts, prosecutors say.- Potential life sentence -The most serious charge, racketeering — which includes the existence of a criminal enterprise that committed a pattern of offenses — could send Combs to prison for life.He faces two charges of sex trafficking and two more for transportation for purposes of prostitution.Combs denies it all. His lawyers have argued that the artist’s relationships were consensual and have sought to convince jurors that many of the witnesses who testified were doing so for financial gain or jealousy.Along with alleged victims, government witnesses included former assistants and other employees, as well as escorts, friends and family of Ventura, and a hotel security guard who said he was bribed with $100,000 in a paper bag.Combs opted against testifying on his own behalf, a common strategy of defense teams who are not required to prove innocence, only to cast doubt on government allegations of guilt.The government’s evidence included thousands of pages of phone and text records, and hours of testimony involved meticulous readings of some of the most explicit and wrenching exchanges.Many of those records appear to indicate distress on the part of the alleged victims. But a lot of the messages also show affection and desire — texts the defense underscored again and again.- Sex parties -Jurors have seen video evidence of the sex parties prosecutors say were criminal, while the defense has exhibited exchanges they say imply consent.Also in evidence are reams of financial records — including CashApp payments to escorts — as well as flight and hotel records.Since early May the proceedings have gripped the Manhattan federal courthouse where they’re taking place. And though electronics are barred from the building, dozens of influencers and content creators have buzzed around the courthouse’s exterior every day, delivering hot takes to eager social media fans.Combs is incarcerated and does not enter or exit the courthouse publicly. But some of the high-profile attendees and witnesses do, including members of the music mogul’s family and figures like Kid Cudi, the rapper who testified that Combs’s entourage torched his car.The closing arguments by the prosecution are expected to wrap up on Thursday and the defense is likely to start its closing on Friday.The jury of 12 New Yorkers could get the case as early as Friday afternoon.

For Alejandro Barranco, a Marine veteran, it’s difficult to process the way his father, a Mexican gardener, was detained in a raid in California as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the United States.”They handled this situation in a very unprofessional manner. These are not the standards of the United States government,” Alejandro said in an interview with AFP.Narciso Barranco, father of three Marines, was intercepted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Saturday while trimming a garden at a restaurant in Santa Ana, a city south of Los Angeles. The incident was captured by witnesses in videos that spread like wildfire on social media. From different angles, Barranco, 48, is seen running with a weed whacker in hand before several agents beat, subdue and pepper-spray him. “It’s very hard to watch,” said Alejandro, 25.Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement to AFP that Barranco tried to flee and “brandished a weed whacker directly at an officer’s face,” so officers took appropriate action. McLaughlin added that they used “the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation in a way that prioritized the safety of the public and our officers.”But Alejandro disputes the claims. “The video shows (Narciso) moving the weed whacker. I think it’s natural instinct because he was sprayed with something seconds before…but he never brandished it directly at an officer,” he said. “There’s a guy holding his gun sideways, finger on the trigger pointing at a vehicle. I don’t see how that makes sense. The minimum amount of force doesn’t include restraining a man and repeatedly hitting him in the neck and face areas. I think that’s the maximum amount of force short of lethal force.” – ‘Swallowing orders’ -The case has sparked criticism in California, in part because Barranco’s three sons are in or have been in the United States Marine Corps. Alejandro has left the military, while two brothers are stationed at Camp Pendleton, also in Southern California.The arrest also occurred amid a tense climate in the Democratic state, with protests against the raids, and where Trump sent thousands of National Guard troops and 700 Marines to support immigration operations among other things. Alejandro says he knows these troops and understands that they are “swallowing orders” and doing their job. “I do feel that some of them are suffering. Some are confused because perhaps some of their relatives are undocumented and they see all this, and I think it’s hard for them.” Trump returned to the White House riding an anti-immigration wave and promising to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, whom he called “criminals” and “the worst of the worst.” However, under pressure from immigration authorities to increase daily arrests, street operations have shaken workplaces such as car washes, hardware stores and street vendors. Activists, non-governmental organizations and families denounce the detention of people without criminal records, identified for staying or entering the United States illegally. The case of Narciso Barranco, who emigrated from Mexico in the 1990s, follows that of the wife of another former Marine in Louisiana, who was detained in May after leaving an immigration appointment to process her legal status. – ‘There has to be a change’ -Alejandro saw his father for the first time on Tuesday at a detention center in downtown Los Angeles.He told AFP that his father is being held in a cell with at least 70 other people, with only one toilet, very little food, and “minimal water, like once a day.”Narciso, with wounds and bruises, received medical attention Tuesday night, Alejandro said, adding that his father hasn’t been able to wash and still has blood on his shirt, the same one he was wearing when he was arrested.”There needs to be a change,” Alejandro said in a calm but sad tone, referring to Trump ‘s immigration policy. “They’re taking away workers who came here to make this country even greater.”They came to give their children a good education and teach them to serve, to give back, and to be grateful for this country, as my brothers and I are.”