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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.