Political Glance
This brings our live coverage of the final New York mayoral debate to a close.
We will have analysis from our politics team shortly.
Overall, the 90-minute event seemed unlikely to have changed many minds, with the main focus being an extended argument between Zohan Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, and Andrew Cuomo, the former governor he defeated in the primary, now running as an independent.
Cuomo kept hammering the point that his experience should make him the right choice, given his long career in government at the state and federal level, as opposed to Mamdani, the state assemblyman who is almost exactly half his age.
Mamdani, for his part, cast himself as the candidate of change, focused on affordability and trying to reverse a situation in which New York is becoming “a museum of where working-class people used to be able to live”.
Sliwa is an engaging presence on television, but did little to change the perception that he remains more of a quirky cultural figure than a likely government administrator.
New York City mayoral debate: Mamdani, Sliwa and Cuomo trade jabs over Israel, rent and Trump – as it happened
University of Virginia agrees to Trump administration demands over admissions and hiring
The University of Virginia (UVA) has become the latest institution to agree to the Trump administration’s demands concerning discrimination in admissions and hiring following significant pressure from the justice department.
The deal, which the department announced on Wednesday, comes after the president of the esteemed public university resigned in June to resolve a justice department investigation into UVA’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
If the president, Jim Ryan, had stayed in the job, he was told “hundreds of employees would lose jobs, researchers would lose funding, and hundreds of students could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld”, according to Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia.
The deal means the justice department will end its investigation into the school, while the school agreed “not engage in unlawful racial discrimination in its university programming, admissions, hiring or other activities. UVA will provide relevant information and data to the Department of Justice on a quarterly basis through 2028,” the announcement states.
These voters want to overturn Missouri's new gerrymandered congressional map
Lately, on any given day, you'll find Leann Villaluz knocking on doors around Kansas City to get people to sign a petition that would let voters decide the fate of the state's new congressional map.
"There's a sense of resentment, even to regular voters who aren't as involved," Villaluz says. "We have to pick up the slack for representatives who have been elected to do their simple duty and carry out the will of the voters. Instead, they think that we don't know what's best for ourselves."
Missouri is the second state in the country, alongside Texas, to gerrymander its congressional map after President Donald Trump set off a nationwide redistricting battle in July to try to maintain control of the U.S. House in the 2026 midterms.
Multiple other states, including North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Ohio and Kansas could soon follow. California is trying to counter the Republican effort by redistricting in favor of Democrats, if voters pass a constitutional amendment next month.
Trump commutes former Republican Rep. George Santos sentence for fraud
President Donald Trump commuted U.S. Rep. George Santos’ seven-year prison sentence, releasing him from jail on Oct. 17.
Santos, a 37-year-old Republican from New York, reported to the Federal Correctional Institution Flatiron Satellite Camp in New Jersey on July 25 to begin a seven-year prison sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. As part of the plea, he admitted to filing false campaign finance reports, charging donors’ credit cards without authorization and fraudulently receiving unemployment benefits, among other acts that began years before he ran for Congress in 2022.
Santos represented parts of Queens and Long Island for 11 months. He recently published an open letter directly appealing to Trump in fawning language.
“George Santos was somewhat of a “rogue,” but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” wrote Trump in a Truth Social post. “At least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN! George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!”
‘He may be watching’: Mamdani on Fox News speaks directly to Trump
Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate to be the next mayor of New York, stepped into the lion’s den on Wednesday when he sat for an interview with Fox News, the rightwing news organization that has spent weeks demonizing him and his democratic socialist goals.
Speaking to host Martha MacCallum, Mamdani was asked about funding for his proposals, which include freezing increases on rent-stabilized apartments, providing free buses and offering free childcare – and whether other services would be cut to achieve those goals.
“I don’t think we have to cut,” Mamdani said. “I’ve spoken about raising taxes on the wealthiest. And, frankly, this is an issue that we have here in New York City, and, frankly, even across this country.”
Mamdani said he had spoken to people who voted for Donald Trump in New York who told him it was the “cost of living” that “drove them to vote” for the president.
Mamdani said that, despite that, “what we’re seeing time and time again is we’re more focused on the question of billionaires and the most profitable corporations than we are on people who can’t even afford to make ends meet in the city”.
US revokes visas from six foreign nationals for social media comments critical of Charlie Kirk
“The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans,” the US state department said in a statement posted on X. “The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
The state department then listed six “examples of aliens who are no longer welcome in the U.S.” in a thread on the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, the Trump donor who called himself “a free speech absolutist” before buying the site formerly known as Twitter.
The thread included screenshots and quotes from people identified as foreign nationals of Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, Paraguay and South Africa.y, Mexico, Paraguay and South Africa.
None of the individuals was identified by name, but the screenshots made it possible to trace the identities of two people, including one who had been singled out for abuse by conservatives on X.
None of the individuals was identified by name, but the screenshots made it possible to trace the identities of two people, including one who had been singled out for abuse by conservatives on X.
Trump bemoans his Time magazine cover. ‘The picture may be the Worst of All Time’
Time posted the cover for the upcoming Nov. 10 issue on X, which features a photo of Trump taken from low down with the sun creating a halo effect where his hair blurs into the light. It features three titles: "His triumph," "The leader Israel needed," and "How Gaza heals." The X post links to a story about how the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas could be a signature achievement in Trump's second term.
But Trump took to Truth Social in the early hours of the morning as he flew back to the U.S. from Egypt to criticize the picture.
"Time Magazine wrote a relatively good story about me, but the picture may be the Worst of All Time. They 'disappeared' my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one," Trump wrote. "Really weird! I never liked taking pictures from underneath angles, but this is a super bad picture, and deserves to be called out. What are they doing, and why?"
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