Courtesy of Yahoo News

Dear Commons Community,

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a landmark bill aimed at establishing first-in-the-nation safety measures for large artificial intelligence models on Sunday.

The decision is a major blow to efforts attempting to rein in the homegrown industry that is rapidly evolving with little oversight. The bill would have established some of the first regulations on large-scale AI models in the nation and paved the way for AI safety regulations across the country, supporters said. As reported by The Associated Press and The Huffington Post.

Earlier this month, the Democratic governor told an audience that California must lead in regulating AI in the face of federal inaction but that the proposal “can have a chilling effect on the industry.”

The proposal, which drew fierce opposition from startups, tech giants and several Democratic House members, could have hurt the homegrown industry by establishing rigid requirements, Newsom said.

“While well-intentioned, SB 1047 does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data,” Newsom said in a statement. “Instead, the bill applies stringent standards to even the most basic functions — so long as a large system deploys it. I do not believe this is the best approach to protecting the public from real threats posed by the technology.”

Newsom on Sunday instead announced that the state will partner with several industry experts, including AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, to develop guardrails around powerful AI models. Li opposed the AI safety proposal.

The measure, aimed at reducing potential risks created by AI, would have required companies to test their models and publicly disclose their safety protocols to prevent the models from being manipulated to, for example, wipe out the state’s electric grid or help build chemical weapons. Experts say those scenarios could be possible in the future as the industry continues to rapidly advance. It also would have provided whistleblower protections to workers.

The bill’s author, Democratic state Sen. Scott Weiner, called the veto “a setback for everyone who believes in oversight of massive corporations that are making critical decisions that affect the safety and the welfare of the public and the future of the planet.”

“The companies developing advanced AI systems acknowledge that the risks these models present to the public are real and rapidly increasing. While the large AI labs have made admirable commitments to monitor and mitigate these risks, the truth is that voluntary commitments from industry are not enforceable and rarely work out well for the public,” Wiener said in a statement Sunday afternoon.

Wiener said the debate around the bill has dramatically advanced the issue of AI safety, and that he would continue pressing that point.

The legislation is among a host of bills passed by the Legislature this year to regulate AI, fight deepfakes and protect workers. State lawmakers said California must take actions this year, citing hard lessons they learned from failing to rein in social media companies when they might have had a chance.

Proponents of the measure, including Elon Musk and Anthropic, said the proposal could have injected some levels of transparency and accountability around large-scale AI models, as developers and experts say they still don’t have a full understanding of how AI models behave and why.

The bill targeted systems that require a high level of computing power and more than $100 million to build. No current AI models have hit that threshold, but some experts said that could change within the next year.

“This is because of the massive investment scale-up within the industry,” said Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who resigned in April over what he saw as the company’s disregard for AI risks. “This is a crazy amount of power to have any private company control unaccountably, and it’s also incredibly risky.”

The United States is already behind Europe in regulating AI to limit risks. The California proposal wasn’t as comprehensive as regulations in Europe, but it would have been a good first step to set guardrails around the rapidly growing technology that is raising concerns about job loss, misinformation, invasions of privacy and automation bias, supporters said.

A number of leading AI companies last year voluntarily agreed to follow safeguards set by the White House, such as testing and sharing information about their models. The California bill would have mandated AI developers to follow requirements similar to those commitments, said the measure’s supporters.

But critics, including former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, argued that the bill would “kill California tech” and stifle innovation. It would have discouraged AI developers from investing in large models or sharing open-source software, they said.

Newsom’s decision to veto the bill marks another win in California for big tech companies and AI developers, many of whom spent the past year lobbying alongside the California Chamber of Commerce to sway the governor and lawmakers from advancing AI regulations.

Legislation to regulate AI will become common as AI integrates into all aspects of our society.  Unfortunately, the major tech companies have the knowledge and financial resources to influence any such legislation as was the case in California.

Tony

New York Mayor Eric Adams

Dear Commons Community.

The New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, was at a recent dinner party that included New York City Mayor Eric Adams as a guest.  Here is an excerpt from her column commenting on Adams and his recent legal problems.

“And there, walking right past Andrews Cuomo to the bar, was Mayor Eric Adams. He reversed the host, Cindy Adams’mantra: He was invited, and now he’s been indicted.

I did a feature on the mayor in the summer of 2022, when he was six months into the job.

He had started with such flair and swagger, but by the time I was trailing around the city after him, his poll numbers were dropping. Some of the mayor’s aides at City Hall were getting very uneasy about his cronies and clubbing at the private Zero Bond. And later, some of his best aides began leaving his increasingly murky orbit.

“It’s like the second coming of ‘Beau James,’ Jimmy Walker,” one top Democratic politico told me, prophetically. Another Democratic mayor with flair, a star of the Roaring Twenties’ Tammany Hall machine, Walker was forced to resign after an investigation showed he had accepted a windfall from businessmen trying to secure municipal contracts. He argued that he took “beneficences,” not bribes, and avoided potential criminal prosecution by disappearing to Europe with his mistress, a Ziegfeld girl.

When I interviewed Adams, he was buoyant. He talked about his favorite show growing up, “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” and I asked him which animal he related to. “Clearly, I am a lion,” he said, laughing. “I am meant to rule the jungle.”

As the daughter of a police detective, I was hoping that the former New York police captain would shine, not tarnish his office.

His story was powerful: The Brooklyn native joined the force after being beaten by the police as a teenager. His mother scraped to support six kids with cleaning work; as a child, Adams would sometimes have to take a bag full of clothes to school in case they were evicted by the end of the day.

I wanted to believe that this moderate Democrat could root out bad cops and bring justice to Black victims while quelling crime and pushing back on defund-the-police and coddle-the-criminal rhetoric on the far left.

But warning signs kept bubbling up.

Our interview — conducted after we rushed to the scene of a murder — was over dinner at Osteria la Baia, a restaurant owned by his friends the brothers Petrosyants, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to an illegal check-cashing scheme designed to evade anti-money-laundering rules.

Mayor Adams had chosen Philip Banks as deputy mayor of public safety, even though he was an unindicted co-conspirator in a corruption scandal involving Bill de Blasio donors in 2014. He had made Frank Carone his chief of staff, despite questions about his past business dealings.

I asked the mayor about all this, and he replied that he wanted to see the best in his friends, to give them second chances.

“The worst day of your life should not define your life,” he said. “I just believe that because I’ve had some worst days.”

And some more worst days are to come. His sketchy associates weren’t the only graspy problem. Adams himself was, according to law enforcement officials.

In a stunning tableau on Friday, Adams was arraigned downtown. He is the first sitting mayor of New York to be charged with a federal crime — a reflection of just how sloppy Adams must have been.

He pleaded not guilty and claims, Trump-style, to be a target of a rigged system out to get him — while Hochul mulled whether to remove him and Cuomo still circled.

It’s hard to believe that a New York mayor could be had for a bunch of luxury hotel suites and business-class seats on Turkish Airlines — taking circuitous routes to Europe, Asia and Africa.

The indictment charges Adams with bribery, fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations, alleging he got emoluments for clearing away obstacles for Turkish officials, most frighteningly, pressuring the fire department to open a new high-rise Turkish diplomatic building, despite its having a faulty fire safety system.

When I wrote about Adams, his biggest scandal — which I learned at our dinner — was that he still ate fish even though he claimed to be a vegan.

But it seems that wasn’t the only fishy thing about him.

Tony

Joe Biden, Rosalynn Carter, and Jimmy Carter

Dear Commons Community,

Tomorrow, former President Jimmy Carter turns 100 years old and  Joe Biden sent the following good wishes.

“Mr. President, you’ve always been a moral force for our nation and the world. I recognized that as a young senator. That’s why I supported you so early. You’re a voice of courage, conviction, compassion, and most of all, a beloved friend of Jill and me and our family.

We know this is the first birthday without Rosalynn. It’s bittersweet, but we also know she’s always with you. She’s in your heart; she’ll never go away. She may be gone, but she’s always going to be with you. She’s always there, and I know you know that.

Your hopeful vision of our country, your commitment to a better world, and your unwavering belief in the power of human goodness continues to be a guiding light for all of us.

You know, you’re one of the most influential statesmen in our history. Even after you left office, the moral clarity you showed throughout your career showed through again in your commitment through the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity – resolving conflicts, advancing democracy, preventing disease, and so much more. It’s transforming the lives of people not only at home but around the world.

Put simply, Mr. President, I admire you so darn much.

Jill and I send to you and your incredible family our love. May God continue to bless you, Mr. President. You’ve been a good friend.”

Happy Birthday, President Carter!

Tony

Nate Silver
Alan Lichtman

Dear Commons Community,

The feud between historian Allan Lichtman and prognosticator Nate Silver is heating up on social media as Election Day approaches. As reported by USA TODAY.

Lichtman, an American University professor who has correctly predicted the outcome of nine out of the 10 most recent presidential elections, earlier this month forecasted that the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket would win the White House.

Since then, Silver, a political pollster and founder of FiveThirtyEight, released data showing vice president Harris ahead of former President Donald Trump in the national polling average by nearly three points – 48.9% to 46% – but Trump and vice presidential candidate JD Vance have a 56.2% chance of winning the Electoral College compared to Harris-Walz (43.5%).

On Friday, Silver questioned Lichtman’s abilities to read his own 13 keys used to make presidential election calls. “At least 7 of the keys, maybe 8, clearly favor Trump. Sorry brother, but that’s what the keys say. Unless you’re admitting they’re totally arbitrary?” Silver posted on X, the social media site previously known as Twitter.

To that, Lichtman responded back on X that Silver “claims to have applied my keys to predict a Trump victory. He doesn’t have the faintest idea how to turn the keys.”

Lichtman continued: “He’s not a historian or a political scientist. He has no academic credentials. He was wrong when he said I could not make an early prediction of Obama‘s re-election (in 2010). He’ll be wrong again in trying to analyze the keys.”

Lichtman reiterated his questioning of Silver’s ability to “turn the keys” in a video on TikTok Friday night.

The back and forth continued with Silver on Saturday posting on X that “Lichtman is comically overconfident and doesn’t own up to the subjectivities in his method, but you’ll legit learn a lot about presidential elections by reading his work, and he’s at least putting himself out there making testable predictions.”

Most of the online audience seemed to enjoy the squabble.

“If you don’t know what they’re talking about this whole exchange looks like two wizards bickering,” Capitol Forum reporter Paul McLeod commented.

Back in July after President Joe Biden’s first post-debate television interview, Silver suggested Biden should step back as a presidential candidate and let Vice President Kamala Harris run. “The most generous way to put it is that he doesn’t seem in command,” Silver posted on X.

Silver, who founded FiveThirtyEight in 2008, took his site to The New York Times in 2010, then to ESPN and ABC News in 2013.

After ABC News acquired the company and Silver left in 2023 amid layoffs at The Walt Disney Company, he started the Silver Bulletin Substack newsletter and website.

In July 2024, Silver became an advisor at Polymarket, a prediction market where you can bet on elections and other world events.

Lichtman, 77, is a distinguished professor of history at American University who lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

More than two decades ago, he and the late seismologist and mathematical geophysicist Vladimir Keilis-Borok, devised a way to predict presidential elections using Keilis-Borok’s work in earthquake pattern recognition.

“We re-conceptualized presidential elections in earthquake terms,” Lichtman told USA TODAY in May 2024. If there’s stability, “the party holding the White House keeps the White House,” he said. If not, “the party is turned out.”

Let’s hope that Lichtman is right!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

James Carville, who served as an adviser to President Bill Clinton, suggested that Democrats should embrace “autocracy” ahead of the November election, arguing not everyone should have “a seat at the table.”  As reported by The Hill.

“I would always tell people in campaigns: If you want a democracy after the election, you have to have an autocracy before the election,” Carville said during his Friday appearance on Politico’s “Playbook Deep Dive” podcast.

“When I hear people say, ‘We gotta be inclusive and we gotta listen to everybody,’ no you don’t,” he added in comments highlighted by Mediaite, citing differing skillsets.

Carville stated that the “shortcomings” of Democratic campaigns sometimes come from having too many voices and perspectives influencing the outcome.

“It’s been always, I think, a shortcoming of Democratic politics that everybody has a seat at the table, and everybody can be heard,” he said in the podcast. “No, not everybody’s skillset is equal.”

The Democratic strategist also discussed his upcoming documentary “Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid,” saying part of being a good campaign operative is having good instincts, a value that is not determined by college grades.

“Campaign skills are not determined so much about where you went to college, what your GPA was and anything else, it is more an instinctive thing that some people have and some people don’t,” he told the host.

The comments came just days after he said he has a “feeling” that Vice President Harris could win the election, now less than six weeks away.

“I don’t like to predict elections. I would just say, this just doesn’t feel like a race that Harris is gonna lose,” Carville said earlier this week on CNN, adding, “But that’s just a feeling. That’s just a feeling.”

Tony

Mark Cuban and Donald Trump.   Allen Berezovsky via Getty Images; Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

Mark Cuban slammed former President Donald Trump on Thursday over tariffs he proposed for John Deere Company should he win the election.

Trump, who has previously pledged to impose tariffs on foreign-made products from China and other countries in a proposal that several economists have warned about, threatened the agricultural equipment company Monday with a 200% tariff if it moves some of its manufacturing in the U.S. to Mexico.

“Donald Trump is trying to come in with a hammer and say, ‘You’re the nail, I’m gonna hit you with a 200% tariff, John Deere,’” said Cuban in an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

He continued, “Kamala Harris is saying, ’I’m gonna give you incentives to manufacture more. Which do you think is gonna work better with companies? Do you wanna be underneath a hammer?”

His comments arrive months after Fox Business Network reported that John Deere laid off hundreds of employees at plants in Illinois and Iowa. The company also announced that it was moving manufacturing of skid steer loaders and compact track loaders to Mexico by the end of 2026.

A spokesperson for the company, in response to Trump’s threat, noted in an email to The Gazette that under 5% of its U.S. sales are manufactured in Mexico whereas 75% of U.S. sales stem from American facilities.

John Deere isn’t “moving production to Mexico as continues to be reported,” the spokesperson said, and the company has instead “strategically leveraged our footprint in Mexico for cab production.”

Cuban, who has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and has referred to her as “pro-business,” wrote on social media earlier this week that imposing a 200% tariff on John Deere would be “insane.”

“Good way to destroy a legendary American company and increase costs to American buyers,” Cuban wrote in response to a clip of Trump’s comments.

Cuban, in his “Squawk Box” appearance, warned of what could happen if Trump wins and puts such a tariff on John Deere.

“When you put a 200% tariff on John Deere and then only a 10-20% tariff on their Chinese competitors, their Chinese competitors are now less expensive than John Deere,” said Cuban of Trump, who has falsely claimed that tariffs don’t “affect our country.”

The billionaire, in an interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on Wednesday, questioned why Trump has the “perception of tariffs being good on the economy.”

“I mean, he’s a good salesperson, you know? He talks a good game, but it doesn’t mean he follows through or gets the job done,” Cuban said.

Cuban knows what he is talking about.  Trump doesn’t!

Tony

Kamala Harris visits the Mexico border with U.S. Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief John Modlin in Douglas, Arizona. (Rebecca Noble/AFP)

Dear Commons Community,

Vice President Kamala Harris worked to turn the tables on border security, Donald Trump’s strongest issue against her in the coming presidential election, promising yesterday to take a harder line on those who cross the border illegally and accusing the former president of deliberately sabotaging legislation that would have helped solve the problem.  S.V. Date of The Huffington Post reported.

“It was the strongest border security bill that we have seen in decades. And it should be in effect today,” the Democratic presidential nominee said in a 24-minute speech near a port of entry in southern Arizona. “But Donald Trump tanked it…. He prefers to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem.”

Harris said she would continue President Joe Biden’s new policy that has dramatically cut illegal border crossings by ending asylum requests for those who did not come into the country at an authorized port of entry once such crossings exceeded 2,500 per day over seven straight days. And she said she would increase criminal penalties on repeat offenders.

“I believe we have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them,” she said.

Harris was introduced by a mother who lost a son to a fentanyl overdose, and she spent several minutes discussing the “scourge” of that drug’s effects on Americans. She reminded her audience that as a two-term attorney general of California, she prosecuted Mexican smuggling gangs.

“I walked through tunnels that traffickers used to smuggle contraband into the United States,” she said. “I’ve seen tunnels with walls as smooth as the walls of our living room, complete with lighting and air conditioning, making very clear that it is about an enterprise that is making a whole lot of money in the trafficking of guns, drugs and human beings.”

Harris also criticized Trump for making no effort to reform the immigration system during his four years in office, and she said she would make that a priority, particularly to offer a path to citizenship for those who were brought into the country illegally as children.

Biden, before he ended his reelection campaign, had been polling far behind Trump on the issue of illegal immigration, but Harris has managed to close that gap somewhat in recent polls. She has aggressively blamed Trump for scuttling the measure that would have added 1,500 more Border Patrol agents and paid for 100 new machines to detect fentanyl at ports of entry, which is where the vast majority of it has been coming into the country.

That Trump persuaded his GOP allies to stop the legislation early this year is not in dispute.

Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the lead negotiator for Republicans on the bill, supported it, saying his party was getting much of what they wanted on border security. He told Fox News that Trump personally lobbied his colleagues to kill the bill in an effort to help his campaign to regain the White House.

“Trump said don’t fix anything during the presidential election. It’s the single biggest issue, don’t resolve this. We’ll resolve it next year,” Lankford said.

And Trump himself acknowledged at the time that he did not want the bill to pass. “Please blame it on me. Please,” he said at a Jan. 27 rally.

Since Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee after Biden dropped out in July, Trump has accused her of failing to solve the illegal immigration problem despite being “the border czar.”

“She’s done the worst job, probably in the history of any border, not just our border,” he said in remarks to reporters Thursday in an attempt to rebut Harris’ Arizona visit in advance.

Harris has correctly noted, though, that her brief was to find and address the root causes of migration flows from Latin America into the United States, not to “secure” the border.

Harris has proved since becoming Trump’s opponent to be a more effective communicator than Biden. In her Sept. 10 presidential debate with Trump, for example, she answered an immigration question by making it entirely about Trump, accusing him of blocking the border bill solely to keep it alive as a campaign issue.

She then tangentially noted that Trump’s rally-goers leave his events before he has finished speaking, which then drew from him an angry response that devolved into his now infamous lies that Haitian immigrants were eating their neighbors’ pets in Ohio.

The coup-attempting former president, who is now also a convicted criminal awaiting sentencing, made illegal immigration a cornerstone of his 2016 presidential campaign and repeatedly promised he would force Mexico to pay for a massive border wall of reinforced concrete.

Upon election, however, Trump made no effort to get Mexico to pay and ultimately raided money earmarked for housing and schools for military service members and their families to build his promised wall, which by then had morphed into a slightly taller version of the steel border fence that been started by President George W. Bush and continued under President Barack Obama.

By the time Trump left office, there were only 52 new miles of fence built where there previously had been no barrier along the 1,954-mile border. An additional 400 miles of 18-to-30-foot steel fence was constructed to replace older fencing.

Kamala has Trump pegged right.  He whines, cries and does nothing!

Tony

C.E.O. Sam Altman.

Dear Commons Community,

Mira Murati, the chief technology officer, and two others are leaving OpenAI as C.E.O. Sam Altman works to transform it into a for-profit company.

Joining Ms. Murati are OpenAI’s chief research officer, Bob McGrew, and vice president of research, Barret Zoph. As reported by The New York Times.

OpenAI is controlled by the board of a nonprofit organization that Mr. Altman and his co-founders created in late 2015 to oversee the start-up’s technologies.

While becoming a for-profit company is not expected to happen until next year, OpenAI is in talks for a new round of investment that could value the company at as much as $150 billion, a huge leap from its last round at $80 billion. The United Arab Emirates’ technology investment firm, MGX, is among the potential investors, which also include Microsoft, Nvidia, Apple and Tiger Global, three people familiar with the conversations said.

OpenAI is seeking cash because its costs far outpace its revenue, the three people said. It annually collects more than $3 billion in sales while spending about $7 billion.

After years of public conflict between management and some of its top researchers, OpenAI is trying to look more like a more traditional tech company that can be a leader in the industry’s drive toward artificial intelligence.

But Wednesday’s executive departures followed months of similar exits by other OpenAI leaders. And they bookend a turbulent year for the company, which included the surprise ouster of Mr. Altman as chief executive and his reinstatement five days later.

Ms. Murati, who had joined OpenAI in 2018, was appointed to lead the company after Mr. Altman’s removal, but rejected the role just two days later. She has remained one of the public faces of the start-up, making frequent public appearances to discuss its technology.

A spokeswoman for OpenAI declined to comment beyond what the executives posted online.

In a reply to Ms. Murati on X, Mr. Altman thanked her for her years at the company and said he would provide more information on the leadership transition in the coming days.

“It’s hard to overstate how much Mira has meant to OpenAI, our mission, and to us all personally,” he wrote.

Late Wednesday, Mr. Altman said on social media that the departures of Mr. McGrew and Mr. Zoph were unrelated to the resignation of Ms. Murati but that “it made sense to now do this all at once, so that we can work together for a smooth handover to the next generation of leadership.”

OpenAI’s move to for-profit status will be watched closely especially in terms of major cash infusions which will cement its leadership position in AI development.

Tony

US vice-president Harris meets with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy in Washington
Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Dear Commons Community,

Kamala Harris denounced the Trump position of  ending Russia’s war against Ukraine as “proposals of surrender” as the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to present his own “victory plan”.

Addressing Zelenskyy at the White House, Harris said that “some in my country” would pressure Ukraine to accept a peace deal in which it surrendered its sovereign territory and neutrality in order to make peace with Vladimir Putin. As reported by The Guardian and The Associated Press.

“These proposals are the same as those of Putin, and let us be clear, they are not proposals for peace,” she said. “Instead, they are proposals for surrender, which is dangerous and unacceptable.”

While she did not mention Donald Trump or JD Vance by name, those terms for peace closely resemble ones laid out by the Republican vice-presidential nominee in an interview earlier this month.

Zelenskyy had publicly denounced Vance as “too radical” after those remarks, sparking a conflict with Trump allies that has culminated with accusations of election interference and Republican calls for Ukraine to fire its ambassador to Washington.

In an apparent U-turn late on Thursday, Trump told reporters he would meet Zelenskyy at Trump Tower in New York today.

When asked if Ukraine should give up territory, Trump was non-committal, saying: “Let’s get some peace … We need peace. We need to stop the death and destruction.”

Harris’s remarks came after Zelenskyy met Joe Biden at the White House for the formal presentation of Zelenskyy’s high-stakes proposal, which he has said can end the war with Russia with additional American aid.

The White House issued a short statement after the meeting, saying that the “two leaders discussed the diplomatic, economic, and military aspects of President Zelenskyy’s plan and tasked their teams to engage in intensive consultations regarding next steps”.

“President Biden is determined to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win,” the statement said.

Zelenskyy has kept the details of the plan secret, but US officials have said it includes additional American aid to prevent a Ukrainian rout on the battlefield and “provide the [Ukrainian] people with the assurance that their future is part of the west”.

Zelenskyy faces an uphill battle in securing support for the plan, because of caution among senior officials in the Biden administration about providing Russia with a pretext to escalate the conflict further, and the looming November presidential elections that could lead to a re-election of Donald Trump.

Before the meeting, Biden announced more than $8 billion in military assistance to Kyiv, calling it a “surge in security assistance for Ukraine and a series of additional actions to help Ukraine win this war”.

The aid includes the provision of a medium-range “glide bomb” munition fired from fighter jets that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike Russian troops and supply lines at safer distances.

The allocation included $5.5bn from the Ukraine security assistance initiative fund by the end of the year, as well as an additional $2.4bn in security assistance via the Department of Defense.

The package includes additional Patriot air defense batteries and missiles, unmanned aerial systems, and measures to strengthen Ukraine’s defense industrial base, Biden said. The US will also expand training for additional F-16 fighter pilots, with an extra 18 pilots to be trained next year.

But Biden was not expected to grant a key Ukrainian request that has been supported by the UK – permission to use arms such as long-range Atacms ballistic missiles to strike targets deeper inside Russia – due to fears of escalating the conflict with Russia.

“There is no announcement that I would expect [on that],” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters before the meeting.

Zelenskyy said in a social media post: “We will use this assistance in the most effective and transparent way possible to achieve our main common goal: a victorious Ukraine, a just and lasting peace, and transatlantic security.”

Biden also announced that he would convene a high-level meeting of the Ukraine defense contact group to coordinate aid to Ukraine among more than 50 allies as he enters the lame-duck period of his final three months in office.

US media have reported that the Biden administration and European allies have been skeptical of Zelenskyy’s plan to achieve victory, which is understood to need to secure maximal support from the west before potential negotiations with Russia.

“I’m unimpressed. There’s not much new there,” a senior official told the Wall Street Journal.

Zelenskyy had said the plan included decisions that can be taken “solely” by the United States and “is based on decisions that should take place from October through December” – meaning the end of Biden’s term in office.

Zelenskyy, in an interview with the New Yorker published this week, said he believed Trump “doesn’t really know how to stop the war” and criticized Vance for describing a vision for peace that included Ukraine ceding territories currently occupied by Russia.

Before the meetings, Zelenskyy met members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

Trump’s surrender would put all of Europe in danger of Russian incursions.  Then again Trump would do anything to ingratiate himself with Putin!

Tony

Eric Adams.  Photograph: Kent J Edwards/Reuters.

Dear Commons Community,

Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted on federal criminal charges, according to people with knowledge of the matter, and will be the first mayor in modern New York City history to be charged while in office.

The indictment is sealed, and it was unclear what charge or charges Mr. Adams, a Democrat, will face or when he will surrender to the authorities. Federal prosecutors were expected to announce the details of the indictment today.

In a speech recorded at his official residence, Adams said he would remain in office, describing any charges he may face as “entirely false, based on lies.”  As reported by The New York Times and The Associated Press.

“I always knew that if I stood my ground for all of you, that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said. “I will fight these injustices with every ounce of my strength and my spirit.”

It was not immediately clear what laws Adams is accused of breaking or when he might have to appear in court.

Federal investigators had seized Adams’ electronic devices nearly a year ago as part of an investigation focused, at least partly, on campaign contributions and Adams’ interactions with the Turkish government. Because the charges were sealed, it was unknown whether they dealt with those same matters.

It marks a stunning turn for Adams, a former police captain who won election nearly three years ago to become the city’s second Black mayor on a campaign that stressed his working class roots and commitment to public safety. But as Adams has made reducing crime a cornerstone of his administration, he has faced growing legal peril, with multiple federal investigations honing in on his top aides and his own campaign.

In the last two weeks alone, the leaders he appointed to oversee the country’s largest police force and largest schools system have announced their resignations.

Adams is the first mayor in New York City history to be indicted while in office. If he were to resign, he would be replaced by the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, who would then schedule a special election.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has the power to remove Adams from office. Hochul spokesperson, Avi Small, issued a statement late Wednesday that said “Governor Hochul is aware of these concerning news reports and is monitoring the situation. It would be premature to comment further until the matter is confirmed by law enforcement.”

The indictment comes against the backdrop of the United Nations General Assembly, which has brought dozens of world leaders to New York, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The federal investigations into Adams administration first emerged publicly on Nov. 2, 2023, when FBI agents conducted an early morning raid on the Brooklyn home of his chief fundraiser, Brianna Suggs.

At the time, Adams insisted he followed the law and said he would be “shocked” if anyone on his campaign had acted illegally. Days later, FBI agents seized the mayor’s phones and iPad as he was leaving an event in Manhattan.

Then on Sept. 4, federal investigators seized electronic devices from the city’s police commissioner, schools chancellor, deputy mayor of public safety, first deputy mayor and other trusted confidantes of Adams both in and out of City Hall.

Federal prosecutors declined to discuss the investigations, but people familiar with elements of the cases described multiple, separate inquiries involving senior Adams aides, relatives of those aides, campaign fundraising and possible influence peddling of the police and fire departments.

A week after the searches, the city’s police commissioner, Edward Caban, announced his resignation. Yesterday, Schools Chancellor David Banks announced he would retire at the end of the year.

Adams himself insisted he would keep doing the city’s business and allow the investigations to run their course.

Over the summer, federal prosecutors subpoenaed Adams, his campaign arm and City Hall, requesting information about the mayor’s schedule, his overseas travel and potential connections to the Turkish government.

Adams spent 22 years in New York City’s police department before going into politics, first as a state senator and then as Brooklyn borough president. He was elected as mayor in November 2021 — a victory he has repeatedly said was ordained by God.

But after more than two years in office, Adams’ popularity has declined. While the city has seen an increase in jobs and a drop in certain categories of crime, the administration has struggled with an influx of tens of thousands of international migrants who overwhelmed the city’s homeless shelters.

There has also been a steady drip of accusations and a swirl of suspicion around people close to the mayor.

In addition to the sprawling inquiries launched by Manhattan prosecutors, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are investigating another one of Adams’ close aides, Winnie Greco, who had raised thousands of dollars in campaign donations from the city’s Chinese American communities and later became his director of Asian affairs. Greco hasn’t commented publicly on the FBI searches of her properties and continues to work for the city.

When agents seized electronic devices from Caban, the former police commissioner, in early September, they also visited his twin brother, James Caban, a former police officer who runs a nightlife consulting business.

Agents also took devices from the schools chancellor; his brother Philip Banks, formerly a top NYPD chief who is now deputy mayor for public safety; their brother Terence Banks, who ran a consulting firm that promised to connect businesses to government stakeholders; and from First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who is David Banks’ domestic partner.

All denied any wrongdoing.

While those investigations churned, federal authorities also searched the homes of newly named interim police commissioner, Thomas Donlan, and seized materials unrelated to his police work. Donlon confirmed the search and said it involved materials that had been in his possession for 20 years.

In his speech last night, Adams appeared to cite that search as proof of overreach by federal investigators.

Hours before the charges were announced, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Adams to resign, the first nationally prominent Democrat to do so. Adams reacted with scorn, dismissing Ocasio-Cortez as self-righteous.

Adams, who is expecting a tough primary election next year, faced additional calls to resign once the indictment became public last night, including from many of his declared or expected Democratic challengers in the mayoral race.

Sad day for the Big Apple!

Tony