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Year: 2023

Incumbent Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall wins bid for second term

Incumbent Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall wins bid for second term

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Incumbent Erin Mendenhall has won her reelection bid for mayor of Utah’s capital in a ranked-choice contest that included a challenge by Salt Lake City’s former Mayor Rocky Anderson. Ballot returns released Wednesday, which included all scannable ballots in the Salt Lake County clerk’s possession, showed Mendenhall with 58% of the vote to Anderson’s 34%, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. UTAH REPUBLICAN SEEKING TO REPLACE ROMNEY ACCUSED OF FALSIFYING ENDORSEMENTS, STRONG-ARMING GOP FOR SUPPORT “As seemed pretty clear last night, these more final results clearly indicate that Mayor Mendenhall has won reelection,” Anderson said. “I wish her the very best and I hope she and her team succeeds.” Mendenhall’s campaign said Anderson called the mayor Wednesday afternoon to concede. Though the position of mayor is officially nonpartisan, the city is largely Democratic in a mostly Republican state. At her election night party Tuesday, Mendenhall told her supporters she would “regroup for a second term” with new energy and urgency. “This election ends with voters saying loudly and clearly that they want Salt Lake City to keep moving forward together,” Mendenhall said. “Salt Lakers are not afraid of our incredible future. We’re excited by it. This election was a repudiation of cynicism, and it was a rejection of the politics of fear.” An Oct. 24 debate that included three of the mayoral candidates touched on several of the main issues: conserving water, fighting climate change, reducing crime and addressing homelessness. Anderson, who served two terms from 2000-2008, had criticized Mendenhall for not doing enough to ease the rising cost of housing. He proposed mixed income housing built by the city to help solve the problem rather than Mendenhall’s approach, which involves working more closely with developers. This was the first Salt Lake City mayor’s race since the capital, along with a number of Utah cities, instituted ranked-choice voting in 2021. The system allows voters to rank the three candidates, regardless of party. If no candidate claims a majority, the candidate who finishes third is eliminated, and voters’ second- and third-choice picks determine the winner.

City Hall denies reported sexual assault allegations against Mayor Eric Adams

City Hall denies reported sexual assault allegations against Mayor Eric Adams

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has denied bombshell sexual assault allegations made in a legal filing by a woman who claims to be a former colleague .  “The mayor does not know who this person is. If they ever met, he doesn’t recall it. But he would never do anything to physically harm another person and vigorously denies any such claim,” a City Hall spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement.  Adams is named as a defendant in a summons filed Wednesday night in the state Supreme Court in Manhattan, The Messenger reported on Thursday morning. The woman who filed the documents is seeking a trial and at least $5 million in damages, the report said.  “Plaintiff was sexually assaulted by Defendant Eric Adams in New York, New York in 1993 while they both worked for the City of New York,” the summons says, according to the report.  ADAMS SAYS ‘DC HAS ABANDONED US’ AS NYC SLASHES BUDGETS OVER MIGRANT CRISIS The lawsuit also names the transit bureau of the New York Police Department and the Guardian Association of the NYPD as co-defendants.  The three-page summons reported by The Messenger did not reveal specific details of the alleged assault.  New York civil court permits a plaintiff to file a summons with legal notice to trigger a lawsuit which will be followed by a full complaint with details of the allegations.  NYC MAYOR ERIC ADAMS SAYS PARENTS MAY NEED TO HELP IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS AMID MIGRANT CRISIS: ‘ALL HANDS ON DECK’ The plaintiff’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The court filing was made under the Adult Survivors Act, a 2022 law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul which allows victims of sexual offenses for which the statute of limitations has passed to file civil lawsuits against their alleged abusers for a one-year period. The summons naming Adams was filed just a day before the Nov. 24 deadline. The controversial New York law opened a floodgate of lawsuits against famous men accused of sexual misconduct, including former President Donald Trump, rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and actor and comedian Russell Brand.  More than 2,500 lawsuits have been filed during the one-year period, some of which have targeted employers, or institutions such as hospitals, accused of failing to do enough to stop abuse by doctors or other workers. The large majority, though, have been filed against the state, New York City and local counties and involve allegations of abuse at state prisons and local jail systems. NYC FBI PROBE: ADAMS ADMITS CONTACTING FDNY COMISSIONER ON TURKISH CONSULATE The act was modeled after a previous New York law offering people abused as children a temporary window to file claims. By the time the Child Victims Act’s two-year window closed in August 2021, almost 11,000 people filed lawsuits, many involving the Roman Catholic Church. Adams, a 22-year veteran of the NYPD who achieved the rank of captain, was elected mayor of New York in 2021.  He is currently the subject of an FBI probe for allegedly pressuring FDNY officials to open a Manhattan skyrise that now serves as the Turkish consulate before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited New York City to attend the United Nations General Assembly, despite safety concerns about the structure.  Federal authorities have not publicly disclosed the nature of the FBI’s probe into New York City politics, and City Hall Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg told reporters on Tuesday, “my expectation is that any improper leaks by federal law enforcement officers will be fully investigated by federal law enforcement.”  The FBI seized cellphones and electronics from Adams last week. Last month, FBI agents searched the Brooklyn home of Adams’ top campaign fundraiser, Brianna Suggs, prompting the mayor to cancel a planned trip to meet with White House officials in Washington and instead return to New York.  Adams has denied any wrongdoing.  Fox News’ Danielle Wallace and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Taxpayers are paying for transgender transition procedures in US prisons, internal docs show

Taxpayers are paying for transgender transition procedures in US prisons, internal docs show

Taxpayers are paying for transgender inmates in U.S. prisons to transition to another gender if a medical assessment deems it necessary, according to a June Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) memo obtained by the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project. The memo, discovered through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request this week, details the “immediate implementation” of a new pathway for inmates to undergo invasive surgery to transition to their desired gender. The last time clinical guidance for BOP was released was in 2016. All evaluations and procedures are overseen by an advisory group called the Transgender Clinical Care team. Medical review meetings are attended by a pharmacist, psychiatrist, physician and social worker from the group. “Healthcare providers should utilize a gender-affirming approach, including using the individual’s preferred name and pronouns during each clinical encounter,” the memo reads under the section Gender-Affirming Medical Assessment. “This also includes using non-gender specific terminology (ex. genital instead of penis/vagina or chest instead of breast) for anatomical body parts or asking if the patient has a preferred term to be used.” ACLU SUES INDIANA OVER DENIAL OF SEX REASSIGNMENT SURGERY FOR INMATE WHO STRANGLED 11-MONTH-OLD TO DEATH Some operations listed in the BOP clinical guidelines funded by taxpayers include hormone therapy, feminization and masculinization procedures such as permanent hair removal, male chest contouring, breast augmentation, scrotoplasty, hysterectomy and other surgical operations. “It’s crazy when you look at the document, the sophistication of the apparatus they built to govern just transitioning prisoners,” Mike Howell, director of the Oversight Project — Heritage Foundation’s investigative branch — told Fox News Digital in an interview. “And we have other investigative work that shows in state prisons, overwhelmingly and disproportionately transgender prisoners account for sex crimes,” he said. “And we’re just like, diluting these people with taxpayer dollars and giving them surgeries.” TRANSGENDER INMATE TO BE TRANSFERRED TO WOMEN’S FACILITY, GET SURGERY AFTER LAWSUIT Sam Dewey, Heritage Foundation’s attorney, said the BOP guidelines apply to all federal inmates, regardless of what crime they are serving time for. “So this policy applies not to some kid who made some mistake, got caught up with the wrong people on the streets,” he told Fox News Digital. “This would apply here and there for hardened criminals.” “And why are our tax dollars going to that, when these people are in jail to be punished?” he said. Lawsuits have already been underway for transgender inmates seeking sex reassignment surgery. A Minnesota transgender inmate is being moved to a women’s prison and will receive a vaginoplasty as well as $495,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections, according to a June ruling. ACLU, LGBT GROUPS SUE MISSOURI AG OVER GENDER TRANSITION EMERGENCY RULE The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in August against the Indiana Department of Corrections on behalf of a transgender inmate, Jonathan C. Richardson, also known as Autumn Cordellionè, who was convicted of strangling his 11-month-old stepdaughter to death in 2001. Fox News Digital has reached out to BOP for comment.