Which Quran is he reading? NYC mayor attacks Mamdani on prostitution issue
"I don't know what Quran he is reading. It's not in my Bible," he added. "As a man who said he is of faith, I don't quite understand what religion supports prostitution," Adams said.Adams criticised Mamdani after a news report highlighted Mamdani's past efforts to change the law that makes selling sex illegal in New York.It's an issue Mamdani has taken up multiple times since he ran for state assembly in 2020 and has continually supported since—but the 33-year-old socialist has been largely mum on the issue since he started his run for mayor, The New York Post reported.MAMDANI'S SUPPORT FOR LEGALISING SEX WORK MAY LEAD TO TRAFFICKING RISKS: ADAMSSlamming Mamdani's prostitution stance, Adams linked sex work to trafficking concerns."I think he's lost on the fact that sex trafficking is very much part of prostitution. We are trying to bring down crime and he is talking about legalising sex work," New York Post quoted the mayor as saying."You're not doing any service to a woman who is on the street who is forced to sell her body for whatever reason," the mayor further said. "No one should be on our streets selling their bodies. No one.""If that is his belief, it is a danger for our city," Adams was quoted as saying."Our city needs to be a safe city. It should not be a city where women are standing on corners, or boys are standing on corners, or young men standing on corners selling their bodies," he added.Since his 2020 campaign for the state assembly, Mamdani has consistently supported allowing sex workers to operate without fear of criminal prosecution."Not only must we decriminalise sex work, we need a comprehensive platform of justice for all," Mamdani said on the campaign trail in May 2020, according to The New York Post.Mamdani has co-sponsored several bills that would legalise prostitution across New York State while serving as a Queens assemblyman, The New York Post reported.advertisementThough state lawmakers must approve the change, as mayor he could push for it and direct the NYPD to deprioritise prostitution enforcement, according to the report.MAMDANI'S CAMPAIGN HITS BACK AT ADAMSMamdani's camp hit back, saying Adams' budget cuts put sex trafficking survivors at risk by taking away millions in support funding."Mayor Adams' reckless budget cut over $3 million in funding from Safe Horizon (a nonprofit victim assistance organisation), putting thousands of victims of crimes related to sex trafficking and prostitution in harm's way (sic)," a spokesperson from Mamdani's campaign said in a statement, according to The New York Post."As mayor, Zohran will prioritise genuine public safety for all, including investing $40 million through his Department of Community Safety towards victims' services," the spokesperson added.According to the report, people who support legal sex work say it would help protect sex workers from abuse by clients, pimps, and police.But some studies of places where it has been legalised, like Nevada and some European countries, have found human trafficking spikes to fulfil the demand for sex workers, as other forms of organised crime fester around the industry, The New York Post reported.- EndsTune InMust Watch
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News18
an hour ago
- News18
Trump vows to change how elections are run
Agency: PTI Last Updated: Washington, Aug 18 (AP) President Donald Trump on Monday vowed more changes to the way elections are conducted in the U.S., but based on the Constitution there is little to nothing he can do on his own. Relying on false information and conspiracy theories that he's regularly used to explain away his 2020 election loss, Trump pledged on his social media site that he would do away with both mail voting — which remains popular and is used by about one-third of all voters — and voting machines — some form of which are used in almost all of the country's thousands of election jurisdictions. These are the same systems that enabled Trump to win the 2024 election and Republicans to gain control of Congress. Trump's post marks an escalation even in his normally overheated election rhetoric. He issued a wide-ranging executive order earlier this year that, among other changes, would have required documented proof-of-citizenship before registering to vote. His Monday post promised another election executive order to 'help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm elections." The same post also pushed falsehoods about voting. He claimed the U.S. is the only country to use mail voting, when it's actually used by dozens, including Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Similar complaints to Trump's, when aired on conservative networks such as Newsmax and Fox News, have led to multimillion dollar defamation settlements, including one announced Monday, because they are full of false information and the outlets have not been able to present any evidence to support them. The announcement signals yet another way that Trump intends to stack the cards in his favor in the 2026 midterm elections, after he already has directed his attorney general to investigate a Democratic fundraising platform and urged states to redraw their congressional districts to help the GOP maintain its majority in the House of Representatives. Here's a breakdown of Trump's latest election post and why Congress is the one entity that can implement national election rules. Trump's post Trump for years has promoted false information about voting, and Monday was no exception. He claimed there is 'MASSIVE FRAUD" due to mail voting, when in fact voting fraud in the U.S. is rare. As an example, an Associated Press review after the 2020 election found fewer than 475 cases of potential fraud in the six battleground states where he disputed his loss, far too few to tip that election to Trump. Washington and Oregon, which conduct elections entirely by mail, have sued to challenge Trump's earlier executive order — which sought to require that all ballots must be received by Election Day and not just postmarked by then. The states argue that the president has no such authority, and they are seeking a declaration from a federal judge in Seattle that their postmark deadlines do not conflict with federal law setting the date of U.S. elections. Trump also alleged that voting machines are more expensive than 'Watermark Paper." That's a little-used system that has gained favor and investments among some voting conspiracy theorists who believe it would help prevent fraudulent ballots from being introduced into the vote count. Watermarks would not provide a way to count ballots, so they would not on their own replace vote tabulating machines. While some jurisdictions still have voters use electronic ballot-marking devices to cast their votes, the vast majority of voters in the U.S. already vote on paper ballots, creating an auditable record of votes that provides an extra safeguard for election security. In his post, Trump also claimed that states 'are merely an agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes" and must do what the federal government 'as represented by the President of the United States" tells them to do. Election lawyers said that's a misrepresentation of the U.S. Constitution. It also flies in the face of what had been a core Republican Party value of prioritizing states' rights. Thousands of elections, none under presidential control Unlike in most countries, elections in the U.S. are run by the states. But it gets more complicated — each state then allows smaller jurisdictions, such as counties, cities or townships, to run their own elections. Election officials estimate there are as many as 10,000 different election jurisdictions across the country. A frequent complaint of Trump and other election conspiracy theorists is that the U.S. doesn't run its election like France, which hand counts presidential ballots and usually has a national result on election night. But that's because France is only running that single election, and every jurisdiction has the same ballot with no other races. A ballot in the U.S. might contain dozens of races, from president on down to city council and including state and local ballot measures. The Constitution makes the states the entities that determine the 'time, place and manner" of elections, but does allow Congress to 'make" or 'alter" rules for federal elections. Congress can change the way states run congressional and presidential elections but has no say in the way a state runs its own elections. The president is not mentioned at all in the Constitution's list of entities with powers over elections. 'The president has very limited to zero authority over things related to the conduct of elections," said Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Courts have agreed — no presidential involvement Parts of Trump's earlier executive order on elections were swiftly blocked by the courts, on the grounds that Congress, and not the president, sets federal election rules. It's unclear what Trump plans to do now, but the only path to change federal election rules is through Congress. Although Republicans control Congress, it's unclear that even his party would want to eliminate voting machines nationwide, possibly delaying vote tallies in their own races by weeks or months. Even if they did, legislation would likely be unable to pass because Democrats could filibuster it in the U.S. Senate. Mail voting had bipartisan support before Trump turned against it during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, but it's still widely used in Republican-leaning states, including several he won last November — Arizona, Florida and Utah. It's also how members of the military stationed overseas cast their ballots, and fully eliminating it would disenfranchise those GOP-leaning voters. top videos View all The main significance of Trump's Monday statement is that it signals his continuing obsession with trying to change how elections are run. 'These kinds of claims could provide a kind of excuse for him to try to meddle," Hasen said. 'Very concerned about that." HIG HIG (This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI) view comments First Published: August 19, 2025, 02:15 IST News agency-feeds Trump vows to change how elections are run Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Loading comments...
NDTV
an hour ago
- NDTV
Son of Boko Haram Founder Arrested In Chad: Report
A young son of Boko Haram's founder has been arrested in Chad, where he was allegedly leading a jihadist cell, according to both an intelligence source and a former insurgent. Muslim Mohammed Yusuf was arrested alongside five other suspected members of the movement, which was founded in neighbouring Nigeria a few years before his birth by his father, radical preacher Mohammed Yusuf. The Islamist group has sown terror around the Lake Chad region for around 15 years, and has mounted increasingly brazen attacks on villages and military bases in recent months. Chadian police confirmed having arrested six Boko Haram members but could not say if one of them was the older Yusuf's son. A Nigerian intelligence source in the Lake Chad region told AFP at the weekend that they received a report of the arrest of a six-man jihadist cell in Chad. "The team was headed by Muslim, the youngest son of the late Boko Haram founder," said the source. The source however said that the cell belonged to the Islamic State West Africa Province group, a rival offshoot which splintered off from Boko Haram over ideological disagreements. The source added that Yusuf was an infant when his father was killed in 2009 during a military crackdown on Boko Haram that left some 800 people dead, giving his age as 18. Photos seen by AFP after the arrests in Chad, show a young, short and slender man in a blue tracksuit -- with a striking resemblance to Yusuf -- standing next to far older men. Yusuf, who goes by the alias Abdrahman Mahamat Abdoulaye, is the younger brother of ISWAP leader Habib Yusuf, alias Abu Mus'ab Al-Barnawi. A former lieutenant of Yusuf's father, who has denounced Boko Haram but has knowledge of the group's inner workings, also said Yusuf had been arrested. "He and the team were arrested by Chadian security. They are six in number," he told AFP. Chadian police said they had arrested "bandits who operate in the city... they are undocumented, they are members of Boko Haram", police spokesman Paul Manga told AFP from N'djamena. He said the cell was arrested "a few months ago". Nigeria's counter-terrorism centre and the national intelligence service did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment.
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
'Gut-wrenching': Kristi Noem reacts to Indian truck driver Harjinder Singh killing 3 in Florida in accident, blames Newsom
Indian truck driver who illegally entered US in 2018 was arrested for killing 3 people in a road accident in Florida which was caused as he took a wrong U-turn. Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said the death of three people in Florida caused by a semi truck's wrong U-turn was a gut-wrenching tragedy which should have never happened. Noem said DHS will work with the US Department of Transportation to ensure that illegal aliens do not get licenses from sanctuary jurisdictions. "3 innocent people were killed in Florida because Gavin Newsom's California DMV issued an illegal alien a Commercial Driver's License. This gut wrenching tragedy should have never happened," Noem posted. "Three innocent people were killed in Florida because Gavin Newsom's California DMV issued an illegal alien a Commercial Driver's License—this state of governance is asinine," DHS said in a statement. "How many more innocent people have to die before Gavin Newsom stops playing games with the safety of the American public? We pray for the victims and their families. Secretary Noem and DHS are working around the clock to protect the public and get these criminal illegal aliens out of America," the statement added. Florida accident: Why DHS fighting with California Harjinder Singh , the driver of the semi that took a wrong U-turn and caused the deaths of three people who were in their vehicle, got his driving license in California. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like AirSense 11 – Smart tech for deep sleep ResMed Buy Now Undo As California is Democratic ruled, the Trump administration and Governor Gavin Newsom's office started passing the buck on one another for the tragedy. While DHS blamed California for giving a driver's license to the illegal alien, Newsom's office said Singh entered the US in 2018 when Trump was the president. Did Harjinder Singh enter US illegally in 2018? DHS confirmed that Harjinder Singh entered the US illegally through the southern border in 2018 and was arrested within two days. But he said he was scared to go back to India -- a fear that was affirmed by US Citizenship and Immigration Services. At that time, he was released on a $5,000 immigration bond. His immigration proceedings remained pending since then but he managed to get a driver's license in California. California's Assembly Bill 60 (AB 60), enacted in 2015, allows undocumented immigrants to apply for a driver's license if they can provide proof of identity and California residency. These licenses are marked "not for federal identification."
