By MICHAEL R. SISAK, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday gave new life to President Donald Trump’s bid to erase his hush money conviction, ordering a lower court to reconsider its decision to keep the case in state court instead of moving it to federal court.

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A three-judge panel in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein erred by failing to consider “important issues relevant” to Trump’s request to move the New York case to federal court, where he can seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

But, the appeals court judges said, they “express no view” on how Hellerstein should rule.

Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton, twice denied Trump’s requests to move the case. The first time was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment; the second followed Trump’s May 2024 conviction and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that presidents and former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts.

In the later ruling, at issue in Thursday’s decision, Hellerstein said Trump’s lawyers had failed to meet the high burden of proof for changing jurisdiction and that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records involved his personal life, not official actions that the Supreme Court ruled are immune from prosecution.

Hellerstein’s ruling, which echoed his previous denial, “did not consider whether certain evidence admitted during the state court trial relates to immunized official acts or, if so, whether evidentiary immunity transformed” the hush money case into one that relates to official acts, the appeals court panel said.

The three judges said Hellerstein should closely review evidence that Trump claims relate to official acts.

If Hellerstein finds the prosecution relied on evidence of official acts, the judges said, he should weigh whether Trump can argue those actions were taken as part of his White House duties, whether Trump “diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump has been convicted and sentenced in state court.

Judges Susan L. Carney, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Myrna Pérez made their ruling after hearing arguments in June, when they spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the appellate chief for Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

Carney and Lohier were nominated to the court by Democratic President Barack Obama. Pérez was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose allegations of an affair with Trump threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim, said he did nothing wrong and has asked a state appellate court to overturn the conviction.

It was the only one of the Republican’s four criminal cases to go to trial.

In trying to move the hush money case to federal court, Trump’s lawyers argued that federal officers, including former presidents, have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks that Trump wrote while he was president.

Trump’s lawyer, Jeffrey Wall, argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. He also said they erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under that ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

“The district attorney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall told the three-judge panel in June. “He doesn’t have to introduce this evidence.”

In addition to reining in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts, the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling restricted prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Wall, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, called the president “a class of one,” telling the judges that “everything about this cries out for federal court.”

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the district attorney’s office, countered that Trump was too late in seeking to move the case to federal court. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment. Exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.

Hellerstein concluded that Trump hadn’t shown “good cause” to request a move to federal court as such a late stage. But the three-judge panel on Thursday said it “cannot be confident” that the judge “adequately considered issues” relevant to making that decision.

Wall, addressing the delay at oral arguments, said Trump’s team did not immediately seek to move the case to federal court because the defense was trying to resolve the matter by raising the immunity argument with the trial judge, Juan Merchan.

Merchan rejected Trump’s request to throw out the conviction on immunity grounds and sentenced him Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Advocates hailed Zohran Mamdani’s victory as a win for rent-burdened tenants, while building owner groups decried his proposed rent freeze as a threat to the city’s stabilized housing stock.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani at a campaign event in Queens on Oct. 6. (RonAdar/Shutterstock.com)

A year ago, then newly-announced mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani ran the New York City marathon with a promise on his t-shirt: “Eric Adams raised my rent,” it read. “Zohran will freeze it.”

On Election Day Tuesday, his message proved a compelling one to voters. More than 2 million people showed up at the polls—a level of turnout not seen since 1969—and more than 1 million cast their ballots for Mamdani, a 34-year-old assemblymember who’ll take office at City Hall come January.

His win caps a contentious election season where much of the debate focused on the city’s cost of living crisis—and in particular, its impact on renters, who make up 69 percent of households in the five boroughs. Roughly 2 million live in rent-stabilized apartments and would be affected by Mamdani’s rent freeze, if he’s successful in pulling it off.

“Tenants are the majority in New York. In June, we sent a clear message to the real estate industry: you can’t buy this city. Tonight, tenants beat back millions to prove it again,” Cea Weaver, director of the New York State Tenant Bloc, said in a statement Tuesday night following Mamdani’s win. “We are ready to freeze the rent with the mayor-elect.”

Stabilized tenants, whose rent changes are set each year by the mayoral-appointed Rent Guidelines Board, saw four hikes in a row under outgoing Mayor Eric Adams.

These households have a median income of 60,000 a year, and despite the regulated status of their homes, 46 percent are rent-burdened, meaning they spend at least a third of their earnings on housing. More than half of the city’s renters more widely meet that definition.

“We are at a pivotal moment. New York City faces a severe affordability crisis that no Mayor can solve alone,” the Association for Neighborhood Housing and Development (ANHD), a community development and advocacy group, said in a statement Tuesday. “Families throughout the city are unable to afford rent and other necessities.”

But property owner groups, and some affordable housing experts, argue a flat rent freeze is the wrong way to address that problem. They say owners of buildings with stabilized units, particularly those with few or no market-rate apartments that can charge higher rents, need annual increases to offset other rising costs, like insurance and taxes.

Freezing rents will give those building owners less to draw from to make repairs and maintain aging properties, critics argue. A recent report from Enterprise Community Partners and the National Equity Fund, two groups that work in affordable housing, found that more than half (57 percent) of the more than 400 affordable projects it analyzed took in less revenue than what they spent in 2024.

A rent freeze would “destroy rent-stabilized housing,” Kenny Burgos, CEO of the New York Apartment Association, which represents rent regulated building owners, said in a statement Tuesday. “Thousands of buildings are in deep fiscal distress and bankruptcies are growing. If nothing is done, the city will lose this vital housing forever,” Burgos said.

Mamdani has countered such criticism by saying his administration would look to help struggling landlords by tackling rising insurance and property tax rates.

Rent stabilized tenants on a protest march to Gracie Mansion in October, the day the most recent rents increases for stabilized apartments went into effect. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Beyond a rent freeze, Mamdani’s housing plan calls for building 200,000 “truly affordable” apartments, and expanding city programs that finance homes for seniors and very low-income tenants. He’s pledged to double the city’s capital funding for NYCHA repairs, and says he’ll push Albany to invest more in public housing. 

“We will hold bad landlords to account because the Donald Trumps of our city have grown far too comfortable taking advantage of their tenants,” he said in his victory speech Tuesday night. “We will work tirelessly to make lights shine again in the hallways of NYCHA developments where they have long flickered.”

On Wednesday, Mamdani announced the first members of his transition team, led by Maria Torres-Springer—a veteran of city government who most recently served as deputy mayor for housing under Mayor Adams (she resigned from that post in February).

“I love that there is ambition in his and many other plans. It’s clear that the number one issue is affordability,” Torres-Springer told City Limits in a July interview about Mamdani, and housing more generally this election cycle.

The mayor elect nodded to the ambitiousness of his plans during his election night speech. While some have deemed his ideas unrealistic—including his rent freeze proposal, which could be hard to achieve, at least at first, if Mayor Adams appoints new Rent Guidelines Board members on his way out the door.

But Mamdani maintains he can get it done.

“Democrats can dare to be great,” he told his future constituents Tuesday. “Our greatness will be anything but abstract. It will be felt by every rent-stabilized tenant who wakes up on the first of every month knowing the amount they’re going to pay hasn’t soared since the month before.”

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post ‘Ready to Freeze the Rent’: Housing Groups React to Mamdani’s Mayoral Win appeared first on City Limits.

Nada Hassanein, Stateline.org

Racial health disparities may widen as states, universities and nonprofits grapple with federal funding cuts to programs that were aimed at filling gaps in care, public health experts say.

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As part of its federal restructuring and crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, the Trump administration has been shuttering federal offices and rescinding grants dedicated to addressing worse health care access and outcomes for racial minorities.

The shake-up has caused some state agencies and nonprofits to pause programs and some groups and universities to apply for foundation grants instead.

Hundreds of grants have been terminated for state, local and territorial health departments as well as nonprofits and universities, many of which addressed health equity across rural, low-income and communities of color.

The nation’s racial health disparities were laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the virus killed Black, Hispanic and Indigenous people at higher rates than white people. The police murder of George Floyd in May 2020 also fueled a racial reckoning across the nation, prompting efforts by states, universities, health systems and the federal government to address racial health disparities.

Those approaches ranged from targeted vaccine campaigns and efforts to enroll more people of color in clinical trials to corrections of diagnostic tests that relied on inaccurate information about race and biology.

Communities of color have long had less access to health care, increased exposure to environmental pollutants and higher rates of certain chronic illnesses and cancer deaths. They also have more diabetes-related amputations because of a lack of access to care. And specific genetic diseases, such as sickle cell disease, disproportionately affect Black people.

“COVID revealed the impact of health disparities to individual health — as well as how not addressing these disparities undermines the health system for everyone,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Now, many of the programs trying to address health disparities are being rolled back.

As a result, health policy experts, clinicians and researchers fear those disparities will widen as states, universities and nonprofits grapple with lost federal dollars while the administration continues to limit federal funding for DEI programs. In July, the U.S. Department of Justice released guidance saying such initiatives should not receive federal funding, alleging they are “discriminatory.”

Entities that receive federal funds “must ensure that their programs and activities comply with federal law and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, or other protected characteristics—no matter the program’s labels, objectives, or intentions,” the news release said.

Several state and local health officials were reluctant to speak with Stateline on the record about how the federal administration’s DEI crackdown has left them in a bind, fearing retaliation or targeting by the federal government. The White House did not respond to Stateline’s request for comment.

“My concern about what the administration is doing is that they are, in effect, making these disparities worse,” Benjamin said. “Everybody’s health is not the same. … It’s important to know that the disparities are really profound.”

Benjamin added that the cumulative effect of disparities means more late-stage disease — costing both patients and health systems more.

“There’s a trope or misunderstanding out there that DEI is a ‘woke’-related agenda. DEI is not a ‘woke’ agenda. DEI is an American agenda, because it’s really one that is the same thing as ‘rising tides lift all boats,’” said Brandon Wilson, senior director of Health Innovation and Public Health at Community Catalyst, a health equity advocacy organization. “When you cut [resources] off, you’re actually disproportionately impacting those who are already impacted.”

‘Increasing need’

The administration canceled billions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Many of the grants helped recipients create solutions tailored to their communities’ needs and strengths.

At least three dozen state, local and territorial health departments have had pandemic-era grants that addressed health equity terminated. While originally focused on COVID-19, agencies have since used that grant money for other public health efforts: testing and contact tracing for a wide range of diseases, better data reporting, and community partnerships that address social and environmental effects on health.

The money was part of a $2.2 billion national health equity initiative that aimed to address vulnerabilities and protect those communities ahead of the next outbreak.

The Department of Health and Human Services told media such cancellations were due to the pandemic emergency ending in 2023.

At NIH, the administration terminated more than 5,400 NIH research grants, although about 2,800 were reinstated. Canceled grants included research toward illnesses like HIV and AIDS, which disproportionately affect Black and Hispanic people as well as gay and transgender people.

The Trump administration has also gutted federal offices dedicated to fighting disparities, including the Offices of Minority Health under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Department of Health and Human Services.

At the state level, the Arkansas Department of Health recently shut down its own minority health-focused office. Ashley Whitlow, a spokesperson for the department, said in a statement that it “relies on federal grant funding to support a variety of public health programs.”

“The recent reduction in program staff reflects the Arkansas Department of Health’s ongoing efforts to operate more efficiently with the resources available. Despite these changes, ADH remains fully committed to serving communities across the state,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Maryland’s Department of Health said its minority health office is funded through state general funds and not directly impacted by the federal cuts.

The nation has seen a spike in congenital syphilis cases, which disproportionately occur among Black and Indigenous families.

“Regardless of whether you’re at the highest risk, any outbreak that’s not controlled can spread widely and broadly, and you can see that that’s what’s happening with measles,” said Dr. Julie Morita, former executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former health commissioner Chicago Department of Public Health.

But states likely can’t replace all the lost federal dollars.

“You’ve got declining capacity, and increasing need — which is a formula for problems,” said Richard Frank, director of the Brookings Institution Center on Health Policy.

“It’s impossible to make all that up with state and local dollars,” he continued. “You’re going to see programs that serve real people getting pulled back.”

Frank and Wilson also expressed concern about the Medicaid changes included in the broad tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed in July. The law is projected to cut federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $911 billion over the next decade, largely because new work requirements will push people off the rolls. Data shows the majority of Medicaid enrollees already work, and experts say many will be kicked off the rolls due to difficulties in states’ reporting processes. Black and Hispanic people are disproportionately represented on the Medicaid rolls.

OB-GYN Dr. Versha Pleasant, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan, directs the Cancer Genetics and Breast Health Clinic at Von Voigtlander Women’s Hospital. She treats patients at high risk for breast and ovarian cancers. Black women have an almost 40% higher risk of death from breast cancer than white women.

“That, to me, is unacceptable,” she said, adding that such disparities speak to the need for ongoing programs to “provide everyone with a fair chance at leading a long and healthy life.”

“If we don’t make a special effort to save the most vulnerable lives … where does that leave us?” she continued. “The changes that we’re seeing are only going to magnify preexisting challenges.”

Data and dollars

Dr. Sarah Rudman, acting public health officer at the Santa Clara County Public Health Department in California, and others have told Stateline that federal officials are informing health agencies that race and ethnicity data are no longer required to be reported.

“We are being asked to change the way we collect our own data here and report it,” Rudman said, adding that her county is going to continue collecting data to “understand who is here, who’s experiencing what health outcome and what they need.”

Many families, in the shadow of the county’s Silicon Valley, still struggle with poverty — more than 27,000 children suffer food insecurity, United Way Bay Area says.

“It is sometimes surprising and striking to people to understand how much poverty and other types of vulnerability are hidden among the more visible wealth of Silicon Valley, and that’s where we’ve dedicated our resources,” Rudman said.

“It’s hard to even imagine what my colleagues in smaller areas of California or in other parts of the country are experiencing,” she added about lower-income counties. “We are feeling extremely strained and already in our second round of layoffs, knowing that many more are likely. So I think that the hits are going to be that much more significant in areas who have less resources than we do.”

Federal officials also canceled the county’s $5.7 million grant to address COVID-19-related disparities, used to shore up vulnerable communities ahead of the next disease outbreak, natural disaster or heat wave, Rudman said. The money helped the county conduct basic laboratory testing and vaccine outreach for a wide range of diseases, not just COVID-19.

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.