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for Gram Slattery

Donald Trump will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, after speaking with British Prime Minister Keith Starmer on Thursday evening.

The Republican candidate for the US presidential election announced these meetings, which will be held at the Trump Tower in New York, at a press conference.

Volodimir Zelensky and Keith Starmer, who are traveling to the United States to participate in the United Nations General Assembly, are among the heads of state and government who wanted to meet Donald Trump before the election on November 5.

Donald Trump spoke with the President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Wednesday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Neither the former US president’s campaign nor the United Arab Emirates embassy in Washington responded to a request for comment about the interview.

(with Michelle Nichols; French version by Camille Raynaud)

by Luke Cohen and Jonathan Temple

US prosecutors on Thursday accused Democratic New York Mayor Eric Adams of accepting illegal contributions during his municipal campaign from Turkish nationals trying to influence him.

In a 57-page indictment, prosecutors described an alleged scheme dating back to 2014 that primarily helped fund Eric Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign.

Eric Adams reportedly took luxury trips and dined in top restaurants.

In exchange, New York’s mayor pressured city officials to allow the new Turkish consulate, a 36-story building, to open despite security concerns, prosecutors say.

The New York mayor faces five charges and faces decades in prison if convicted.

Eric Adams has denied wrongdoing and said he would contest the charges in court, saying he would not resign.

He is expected to appear in court on Friday at noon (1600 GMT).

Neither the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the president’s office, nor the Turkish embassy in Washington responded to requests for comment.

Eric Adams, a former police officer, is the first New York mayor to face criminal charges during his term.

New York State’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, could be impeached, but such a process is complicated, said Bennett Gershman, a professor at Pace University Law School.

(By Bing Guan and Jonathan Allen in New York, Katharine Jackson and Doina Chiacu in Washington, writing by Andy Sullivan; French version by Camille Raynaud)

New York’s Democratic mayor Eric Adams was “watered down” in secrecy for years by bribes, a Manhattan prosecutor charged Thursday, citing the elected official’s conviction, which has now been severely weakened at the head of the largest city in the United States.

Released Thursday morning, the indictment from the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office specifically refers to acts of wire fraud, illegal solicitation of election campaign contributions from a foreign person and accepting bribes from a Turkish official.

In exchange, Eric Adams would have used his influence on a file for the construction of a skyscraper in which the mission of Turkey to the United Nations and its consulate general, we can read in the court document of more than 50 pages.

“He hid from the public that gifts had been secretly presented to him” and “kept the public in the dark year after year,” Manhattan federal prosecutor Damian Williams charged at a press conference.

“What is said in the indictment – the foreign money, the corporate money, the years of cover-up – shows that he (Eric Adams) has broken the bond of trust with the public to bad,” he told the prosecutor. Calls for the mayor’s resignation have multiplied among New York’s elected Democrats.

The mayor responded that he was “impatient” to defend himself, after declaring his innocence, at a press conference in front of his residence, which was searched early Thursday morning.

He promised to continue his work with New Yorkers, surprisingly refusing to resign.

But this conviction is like a bolt from the blue and undermines the mayor of the largest city in the United States (8.5 million inhabitants), who was an African-American police captain in New York who was elected in 2021 on security commitments, which saw its popularity. rate drop during his mandate, while matters focused on the town hall were multiplying.

– Four studies –

“I voted for him because he was a former police officer, I thought the town needed one. And I found that a black mayor was very positive after the +Black Lives Matter+ movement. But it’s disappointing, he has to resign,” New York voter Bartholomew Bland told AFP as he crossed the crowded Grand Central station in Manhattan.

His conviction also risks embarrassing the Democratic camp, forty days before the presidential election between Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump, neck and neck in the polls.

“I always knew that if I defended the interests of New Yorkers, I would be a target – and I became one,” defended Eric Adams. “If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight with all my strength and spirit,” said the 64-year-old mayor.

At least four federal investigations are underway, including three led by Manhattan prosecutors, targeting the mayor and those close to him, several of whom have fired him. quit a few days ago.

In November 2023, the federal police (FBI) seized the mayor’s cell phones and electronic devices and searched the home of a fundraising manager for his campaign.

News of the accusation comes after several of the mayor’s friends resigned a few days ago, including his health commissioner, and the Chancellor of Education, one of his close friends. The police chief, Edward Caban, was also targeted by the investigation, having resigned earlier in September, just a year after arriving at the head of the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the 36,000- his center.

On Wednesday, even before the mayor’s lawsuit was announced, New York MP and leftist figure Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Eric Adams to resign, “for the good of the city”.

Those calls intensified in the evening from several other elected Democrats.

Eric Adams won the 2021 Democratic primary on a promise to reduce crime, which had skyrocketed in New York during the Covid pandemic. He was able to credit a drop in violent crime, but New Yorkers also have to deal with rising living costs and a housing crisis that has pushed rents to unprecedented levels.

At the end of 2023, the mayor’s popularity had fallen to the lowest level, to 28% in a poll. In this context, several competitors have announced themselves as candidates for the party’s primary in 2025.

((Automatic translation by Reuters, see disclaimer https://bit.ly/rtrsauto))

(Detailing the decision, comments from the New York City Law Department, DoorDash, paragraphs 4-8 and 11-14) by Jonathan Stempel

A federal judge on Tuesday declared a New York City law requiring food delivery companies to share customer data with restaurants unconstitutional.

US District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan ruled for DoorDash

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Grub

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and Uber Eats

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claiming that the law violated the First Amendment by improperly regulating commercial speech.

New York City passed the law in the summer of 2021, one of several measures to help its thousands of restaurants weather the COVID-19 pandemic.

Delivery companies were required to provide restaurants with customers’ names, delivery addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, as well as the contents of the orders.

Although the city said those requirements protect restaurants from “exploitative practices” by delivery companies, it agreed not to enforce the law while the companies file suit.

They argued that the law violated consumers’ privacy rights and threatened the security of their data.

They also said the law hurt their own businesses because restaurants could use the data for marketing purposes and “poach customers.”

Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s legal department, said: “We are carefully reviewing the court’s decision: “We are carefully reviewing the court’s decision”

Ms. Torres said the city had not shown much interest in helping restaurants collect customer data from delivery companies, and that they did not have such intrusive ways to achieve that goal.

She said these included letting consumers decide whether to share data, providing financial incentives for businesses to share data, and subsidizing platforms online ordering for individual restaurants.

DoorDash said the decision “correctly recognizes that this law would have violated the fundamental First Amendment rights of how we protect New Yorkers’ data.”

UberEats, Grubhub and their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The law was supported by the New York City Hospitality Alliance, a trade group for the restaurant and nightlife industry.

Their executive director Andrew Rigie said Torres’ decision “hurts small businesses and consumers. We urge the city to appeal”