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Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani under fire for plan to tax ‘richer and whiter neighborhoods’

Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani under fire for plan to tax ‘richer and whiter neighborhoods’

Socialist Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, is facing criticism over a campaign policy document that explicitly calls for shifting the city’s tax burden onto “richer and whiter neighborhoods.” Mamdani caused a political earthquake in this week’s primary, trouncing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a stunning upset, all but securing his place on the November ballot. Housing affordability has been a central pillar of his campaign. A policy document titled “Stop the Squeeze on NYC Homeowners” from Mamdani’s mayoral campaign website argues that the city’s current property tax system disproportionately benefits wealthy, White homeowners, particularly in Manhattan and affluent areas of Brooklyn, by allowing them to pay far less in taxes due to outdated assessment caps. CITY-RUN GROCERY STORES, DEFUNDING POLICE, SAFE INJECTION SITES: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT NYC’S NEXT POTENTIAL MAYOR In contrast, Black, Latino and immigrant homeowners in neighborhoods like Brownsville and Jamaica in the outer borough of Queens are overburdened and at higher risk of foreclosure. His solution? “Shift the tax burden from overtaxed homeowners in the outer boroughs to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods,” the proposal reads. “The property tax system is unbalanced because assessment levels are artificially capped, so homeowners in expensive neighborhoods pay less than their fair share.” The proposal would reduce the taxable portion of assessed property values citywide, and offset that by raising actual tax rates in wealthier areas. The result: lower tax bills for lower-income neighborhoods and higher ones for affluent areas — which the campaign describes as “richer and whiter.” The racial component of the policy position has come in for criticism online, with broadcaster Mark Levin sharing a New York Post story about the proposal and writing “Oh, and Mamdani is racist, too.” Political commentator Eric Daugherty also brandished it as explicitly “racist” on X, while the New York Post editorial board also slammed the proposal as “pure racism.” Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani’s campaign for comment but did not immediately receive a response.  The campaign document also highlights racial disparities in deed theft and “tangled titles,” which are situations where someone lives in a home they believe they own — often through inheritance — but their name is not on the deed, creating legal uncertainty about ownership. The document states that predominantly Black neighborhoods face these challenges at much higher rates than White neighborhoods. To address this, Mamdani is proposing a $10 million “Tangled Title Fund” to help city residents hire lawyers and clear legal titles so they can secure full homeownership rights and benefits. REPUBLICANS USE MAMDANI BOMBSHELL VICTORY OVER CUOMO AS AMMUNITION TO BLAST DEMOCRATS AS EXTREMISTS Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose preamble discusses a way to “end white supremacy and racial oppression because its destruction is in the interest of all workers, including white workers.” Overall, the housing document frames the city’s housing inequities as structurally racist and economically unjust. The document also claims that the city’s tax lien sale system is exploitative and racist. When a homeowner falls behind on property taxes under the system, the city sells that debt to a private trust of Wall Street-backed investors, usually at a discount. instead of collecting the debt directly. “The tax lien sale has been particularly harmful to Black, brown, and working-class homeowners, leading many homeowners to lose their home to foreclosure, or forcing them to sell below market value in order to pay off their accumulating debts,” the document reads. “The city is six times more likely to sell a tax lien in a Black neighborhood than a white neighborhood. This policy is extracting wealth from Black, brown, and working-class communities and stripping New Yorkers of their homes.” Mamdani said he will end the system on his first day in office and create a new tax collection system that provides “additional opportunities” for homeowners to enter into payment plans, pay down their debt and stay in their homes. The Queens assemblyman wants to build 200,000 new publicly-subsidized affordable homes and immediately freeze rents for the city’s 2.4 million stabilized tenants. His proposals call for multi-year rent freezes and massive investment in public housing. Critics argue his proposals could worsen existing problems in the rental market, Fox News’ Madison Colombo contributed to this report. 

AOC’s childhood nickname revealed amid ‘Bronx girl’ claims

AOC’s childhood nickname revealed amid ‘Bronx girl’ claims

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s tough Bronx persona is under fresh scrutiny with a resurfaced childhood nickname from her suburban upstate New York upbringing casting doubt on that publicly portrayed image. The progressive champion’s latest spat with President Donald Trump over the Iran strikes again called into question her true upbringing when she declared on X that she was a “Bronx girl” to make a point against the president.  The 35-year-old “Squad” member wrote in part on X last week: “I’m a Bronx girl. You should know that we can eat Queens boys for breakfast. Respectfully,” she said, referring to the president’s upbringing in Queens as she called for his impeachment over his decision to bypass Congress in authorizing U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.  AOC’S CONSTITUENTS WEIGH IN ON PRESIDENTIAL RUN, RECALL HER STUNNING 2018 POLITICAL UPSET Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx but moved to Yorktown – which is nearly an hour outside New York City — when she was 5 years old and went on to attend Yorktown High School, from where she graduated in 2007. She was considered an accomplished student there and well-thought of by teacher Michael Blueglass, according to a 2018 report by local media outlet Halston Media News.  “There, known by students and staff as ‘Sandy,’ she was a member of the Science Research Program taught by Michael Blueglass,” the report states. “She was amazing,” Blueglass said, per the report. “Aside from her winning one of the top spots and going to the [Intel International Science and Engineering Fair], she was just one of the most amazing presenters in all of the years I’ve been at Yorktown. Her ability to take complex information and explain it to all different levels of people was fantastic.” After high school, Ocasio-Cortez attended Boston University, where she majored in economics and international relations, per the report. Ocasio-Cortez’s “Sandy” nickname — which carries a more suburban and preppy tone — appears to undercut her politically crafted image as a tough, inner-city fighter, one she has portrayed since her famous 2018 congressional campaign, where she eventually ousted former 10-term Congressman Joe Crowley.  AOC, DEMS CALLED OUT AS ‘HYPOCRITES’ FOR IMPEACHMENT TALK FOLLOWING US STRIKES ON IRANIAN NUCLEAR SITES  New York GOP Assemblyman Matt Slater, who now represents Yorktown, added to the scrutiny of Ocasio-Cortez’s persona in the wake of her brush with Trump and released images of Ocasio-Cortez from his high school yearbook. He claimed he and the rising Democratic star attended Yorktown High School at the same time when she was a freshman and he was a senior.  “I saw the attacks on the president and her [Ocasio-Cortez] claims that she’s a big, tough Bronx girl,” said Slater. “To sit there and say that she’s a Bronx girl is just patently ridiculous.”  “Everybody in our community knows this is just a bold-face lie,” said Slater on “Fox & Friends First” last week. “She grew up in Yorktown, she was on my track team.”  “She’s lying about her background, she’s lying about her upbringing,” Slater claimed.   CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Slater’s post sent social media ablaze and prompted Ocasio-Cortez to respond after an image of her family’s home in Yorktown was posted online.  “I’m proud of how I grew up and talk about it all the time,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on X Friday, responding to the post. “My mom cleaned houses and I helped. We cleaned tutors’ homes in exchange for SAT prep.” “Growing up between the Bronx and Yorktown deeply shaped my views of inequality & it’s a big reason I believe the things I do today!” Fox News’ Madison Colombo contributed to this report. 

Obama, Bush decry ‘travesty’ of Trump’s gutting of USAID on its last day

Obama, Bush decry ‘travesty’ of Trump’s gutting of USAID on its last day

Former United States Presidents Barack Obama and George W Bush have delivered a rare open rebuke of the Donald Trump administration in an emotional video farewell with staffers of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Obama called the Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID “a colossal mistake”. Monday was the last day as an independent agency for the six-decade-old humanitarian and development organisation, created by President John F Kennedy as a soft power, peaceful way of promoting US national security by boosting goodwill and prosperity abroad. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered USAID to be absorbed into the US State Department on Tuesday. The former presidents and U2 singer Bono  – who held back tears as he recited a poem – spoke with thousands in the USAID community in a videoconference, which was billed as a closed-press event. They expressed their appreciation for the thousands of USAID staffers who have lost their jobs and life’s work. Their agency was one of the first and most fiercely targeted for government cuts by Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk, with staffers abruptly locked out of systems and offices and terminated by mass emailing. Trump claimed the agency was run by “radical left lunatics” and rife with “tremendous fraud”. Musk called it “a criminal organisation”. Obama, speaking in a recorded statement, offered assurances to the aid and development workers, some listening from overseas. “Your work has mattered and will matter for generations to come,” he told them. Advertisement Obama has largely kept a low public profile during Trump’s second term and refrained from criticising the seismic changes that Trump has made to US programmes and priorities at home and abroad. “Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy. Because it’s some of the most important work happening anywhere in the world,” Obama said. He credited USAID with not only saving lives, but being a main factor in global economic growth that has turned some aid-receiving countries into US markets and trade partners. The former Democratic president predicted that “sooner or later, leaders on both sides of the aisle will realise how much you are needed”. Asked for comment, the State Department said it would be introducing the department’s foreign assistance successor to USAID, to be called America First, this week. “The new process will ensure there is proper oversight and that every tax dollar spent will help advance our national interests,” the department said. USAID oversaw programmes around the world, providing water and life-saving food to millions uprooted by conflict in Sudan, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, sponsoring the “Green Revolution” that revolutionised modern agriculture and curbed starvation and famine. The agency worked at preventing disease outbreaks, promoting democracy, and providing financing and development that allowed countries and people to climb out of poverty. Bush, who also spoke in a recorded message, went straight to the cuts in a landmark AIDS and HIV programme started by his Republican administration and credited with saving 25 million lives around the world. Bipartisan blowback from Congress to cutting the popular President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, helped save significant funding for the programme. But cuts and rule changes have reduced the number getting the life-saving care. “You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work – and that is your good heart,” Bush told USAID staffers. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you,” he said. More than 14 million of the world’s most vulnerable, a third of them young children, could die because of the Trump administration’s move, a study in the Lancet journal projected Tuesday. “For many low- and middle-income countries, the resulting shock would be comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict,” study co-author Davide Rasella, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said in a statement. Advertisement Bono, a longtime humanitarian advocate in Africa and elsewhere, was announced as the “surprise guest”. he recited a poem he had written to the agency about its gutting. He spoke of children dying of malnutrition, a reference to millions of people who Boston University researchers and other analysts say will die because of the US cuts to funding for health and other programmes abroad. “They called you crooks,” Bono said, “when you were the best of us.” Adblock test (Why?)

Trump formally orders lifting of Syria sanctions

Trump formally orders lifting of Syria sanctions

US Treasury says it removed 518 Syrian individuals and entities from its list of sanctions after president’s decree. Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to dismantle a web of sanctions against Syria, a move that will likely unlock investments in the country more than six months after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. Trump’s decree on Monday offers sanction relief to “entities critical to Syria’s development, the operation of its government, and the rebuilding of the country’s social fabric”, the US Treasury said in a statement. The Syrian government has been under heavy US financial penalties that predate the outbreak of the civil war in the country in 2011. The sprawling sanction programme, which included provisions related to the former government’s human rights abuses, has derailed reconstruction efforts in the country. It has also contributed to driving the Syrian economy under al-Assad to the verge of collapse. Trump promised sanctions relief for Syria during his visit to the Middle East in May. “The United States is committed to supporting a Syria that is stable, unified, and at peace with itself and its neighbours,” the US president said in a statement on Monday. “A united Syria that does not offer a safe haven for terrorist organisations and ensures the security of its religious and ethnic minorities will support regional security and prosperity.” The US administration said Syria-related sanctions against al-Assad and his associates, ISIL (ISIS) and Iran and its allies will remain in place. While the US Treasury said it already removed 518 Syrian individuals and entities from its list of sanctions, some Syria penalties may not be revoked immediately. Advertisement For example, Trump directs US agencies to determine whether the conditions are met to remove sanctions imposed under the Caesar Act, which enabled heavy penalties against the Syrian economy for alleged war crimes against civilians. Democratic US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar had partnered with Republican lawmaker Anna Paulina Luna to introduce earlier this week a bill that would legislatively lift sanctions on Syria to offer long-term relief. Real relief for the Syrian people requires repealing certain laws. My bill with @RepLuna permanently repeals the sanctions and gives the post-Assad Syria a fighting chance. https://t.co/gExbLiKS7z — Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) June 30, 2025 As part of Trump’s order, the US president ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to review the designation of interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist”. Moreover, the US president ordered a review of the status of al-Sharaa’s group, al-Nusra Front – now Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – as a designated “foreign terrorist” organisation. Al-Nusra was al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, but al-Sharaa severed ties with the group in 2016. Al-Nusra later became known as Jabhat Fath al-Sham before merging with other rebel groups as HTS. Al-Sharaa was the de facto leader of a rebel enclave in Idlib in northwest Syria for years before leading the offensive that overthrew al-Assad in December 2024. Trump met with al-Sharaa in Saudi Arabia in May and praised the Syrian president as “attractive” and “tough”. The interim Syrian president – who was previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Julani – has promised inclusive governance to allay concerns about his past ties to al-Qaeda. But violence and kidnappings against members of al-Assad’s Alawite sect by former rebel fighters over the past months have raised concerns among some rights advocates. Al-Sharaa has also pledged that Syria would not pose a threat to its neighbours, including Israel, which has been advancing in Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights and regularly bombing the country. Adblock test (Why?)

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,223

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,223

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, July 1: Fighting The Russian-installed governor of the occupied Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, Leonid Pasechnik, said that Russian troops are now in full control of the entire region. If confirmed, that would make Luhansk the first Ukrainian region fully occupied by Russia after more than three years of war. Luhansk is one of four regions that Russia now claims as its own. Russia’s state media and war bloggers also said that Russian forces have taken control of the first village in the central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk. This came as Moscow-appointed officials said Ukrainian forces attacked the city of Donetsk in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region, killing at least one person, damaging several buildings and setting a market on fire. Also in Donetsk, Russian forces have occupied one of Ukraine’s most valuable lithium deposits near the village of Shevchenko, The Kyiv Independent reported, citing Roman Pohorilyi, the founder of the open-source mapping project Deep State Map. The Ukrainian Air Force, meanwhile, said it detected 107 Russian Shahed and decoy drones in the country’s airspace overnight, a day after the country experienced the biggest aerial attack from Russian forces since 2022. Russian strikes in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region left two civilians dead and eight wounded, including a 6-year-old child, regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Outside the immediate region, Bloomberg reported an explosion on an oil tanker near Libya, in the latest unexplained blast on vessels that had previously called at Russian ports. Advertisement Politics and diplomacy Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged the United States to consider whether new sanctions on Russia would help the Ukraine peace effort after a top Republican senator said he had received US President Donald Trump’s blessing to move forward on a bill introducing punitive measures against Moscow. US envoy Keith Kellogg responded to Peskov’s comments, describing them as “Orwellian”. “Russia cannot continue to stall for time while it bombs civilian targets in Ukraine,” Kellogg said in a post on X. German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul, speaking during a visit to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of making “pure mockery” of peace talks. “His apparent readiness to negotiate is only a facade so far,” Wadephul said, adding that Germany was trying to help Ukraine get to a point where it could “negotiate more strongly”. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Moscow was introducing “reciprocal measures” restricting access to 15 media outlets from the European Union, in retaliation for the latest round of EU sanctions on Russia. In North Korea, images on state television showed leader Kim Jong Un draping coffins with the country’s national flag in what appeared to be the repatriation of soldiers killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine, according to the Reuters news agency. Norway said it would deploy F-35 fighter jets to Poland to protect Polish airspace and a key logistical hub for aid to Ukraine, a day after Warsaw scrambled aircraft in response to Russian air attacks on western Ukraine, near the border. Economy The International Monetary Fund said it would provide $500m to Ukraine, after completing a routine review of its $15.5bn four-year support programme. Adblock test (Why?)