By JAKE OFFENHARTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — Andrew Cuomo is demanding that his opponent in New York City’s mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani, vacate his rent stabilized apartment, while pushing a longshot proposal that would bar other middle-class renters from accessing much of the city’s housing.

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“I am calling on you to move out immediately,” Cuomo wrote in a widely-viewed social media post this weekend, casting Mamdani as “a very rich person” occupying an apartment that could otherwise be used by a homeless family.

The line of attack drew tens of millions of views online and revived a long-standing debate about who should have access to New York’s highly sought-after rent stabilized units, which make up roughly 40% of the city’s rental stock and are currently open to people of all incomes.

It also illustrated the rhetorical lengths that Cuomo is willing to go to as he mounts an independent bid for mayor against Mamdani, a democratic socialist who defeated him handily in the Democratic primary on a platform that centered on affordability and freezing rent on stabilized units.

Mamdani, who earns $143,000 annually as a state legislator, has said he pays $2,300 per month for a one-bedroom apartment in Queens that he shares with his wife — a living situation that Cuomo called “disgusting.”

By contrast, Cuomo, a multimillionaire who previously served as the state’s governor, spends roughly $8,000 monthly on an apartment in Midtown Manhattan that he moved to last year from Westchester County, a wealthy suburb.

In recent weeks, the 67-year-old Cuomo has adopted a more aggressive social media presence, earning both praise and mockery for his use of millennial internet-speak and repeated references to his opponent’s “privilege.” Mamdani’s mother is a successful independent filmmaker and his father is a Columbia University professor.

On Monday, Cuomo went a step further, releasing a formal proposal, which he dubbed “Zohran’s Law,” barring landlords from leasing vacant rent stabilized units to “wealthy tenants,” defined as those who would pay less than 30% of their income toward the existing rent.

FILE – New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a press conference outside the Jacob K. Javits federal building Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, file)

The rent regulation program, which caps how much landlords can raise rent each year on roughly 1 million apartments, does not currently include any income restrictions — something opponents have long pushed to change.

While the average rent stabilized household makes $60,000 annually, it is not uncommon for middle- or higher-income New Yorkers to live in the units, which sometimes rent for several thousand dollars per month.

But Cuomo’s idea drew swift skepticism from some housing experts, who noted the cap would, by definition, mean all new tenants of rent stabilized units would give up a substantial portion of their income.

“The idea that we should only have people living in apartments they can’t afford seems to be setting people up for failure,” said Ellen Davidson, a housing attorney at The Legal Aid Society. “It’s not a proposal from somebody who knows anything about the housing market or New York City.”

The Real Estate Board of New York, a landlord group whose members overwhelmingly backed Cuomo in the primary, did not respond to an inquiry about whether they supported the proposal. But in an email, the group’s president, James Whelan, said that the “benefits of rent regulation are not well targeted” and that some form of means testing should be considered.

Under state law, hikes on rent-stabilized units are decided by an appointed board, rather than landlords.

“Rent stabilization has never been means tested because it’s not an affordable housing program, it’s a program about neighborhood stability,” said Davidson, the housing attorney, adding that the proposal would likely present a “bureaucratic nightmare.”

A spokesperson for Cuomo’s campaign, Rich Azzopardi, said in a text message that “the ultra wealthy and privileged should not be taking advantage of a program meant to aide working New Yorkers,” adding that the income threshold standards would fall under the same system that governs the city’s other programs for low-income housing.

Mamdani’s spokesperson, Dora Pekec, said the proposal proved that Cuomo was both desperate and out of touch.

“While Cuomo cares only for the well-being of his Republican donors, Zohran believes city government’s job is to guarantee a life of dignity, not determine who is worth one,” she added.

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — National Guard troops repeatedly rehearsed their role in an operation at a Los Angeles park intended as a show of force against undocumented people and those protesting the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, a deputy commanding general testified Tuesday.

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Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, who commanded Guard troops in Los Angeles, was testifying at a trial to determine whether the Trump administration violated federal law when it deployed the soldiers and U.S. Marines to Southern California this summer.

Sherman said the deployment of federal agents on horseback and on foot to MacArthur Park in the heart of a neighborhood with a large immigrant population was initially planned for Father’s Day, June 15. But the operation was moved to July 7 after he raised concerns the park could be crowded, he said.

“We assessed that there could be a large amount of people in the park (on Father’s Day), which could quickly overwhelm Border Patrol,” Sherman testified.

FILE – Federal agents stage at MacArthur Park, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Sherman said the decision to shift the timing of the operation came after discussion among the National Guard, the U.S. Northern Command, the Border Patrol, Department of Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth and Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

The Guard troops were deployed to protect the perimeter and were instructed only to exit their vehicles if there was a direct threat to federal agents, he said.

All troops remained in their vehicles during the brief but mighty show of force. Sherman said the operation took just 20 minutes because it had been rehearsed multiple times. The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t said if anyone was arrested.

Sherman testified during the second day of a three-day trial on whether President Donald Trump’s deployment of armed forces to Los Angeles following protests over immigration raids this summer violated the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. The law generally prohibits a president from using the military to police domestic affairs. All but about 300 Guard troops have since left Los Angeles.

FILE – Federal agents stage at MacArthur Park, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Sherman testified that he also raised concerns that military vehicles would park along Wilshire Boulevard, which traverses the park, instead of staying in the park’s perimeter.

After he raised his concerns, Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol’s El Centro sector chief in charge of the immigration crackdown in Los Angeles, questioned his loyalty, Sherman told the court Monday.

On July 7, federal agents, many of them in tactical gear, walked and rode their horses around the park, which was nearly empty since word had spread of a potential raid.

LA Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom called it a political stunt and spectacle meant to intimidate the city’s immigrant communities.

GORDON, Texas (AP) — Thirty-five cars of a Union Pacific train derailed Tuesday afternoon near a small Texas town, officials said.

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No injuries were reported and no evacuations have been ordered following the afternoon derailment, Union Pacific spokeswoman Robynn Tysver said.

News footage showed multiple train cars piled on top of one another on the railroad track located in a rural area. A grass fire and smoke could be seen beside the derailment site.

The emergency services district said the derailment was being treated as a hazardous material situation. But it was not immediately known what the derailed train cars were carrying.

The derailment occurred around 2 p.m. just east of the town of Gordon, Tysver said. Gordon is located about 65 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

None of the railroad cars were leaking their contents, according to a post on social media by the Palo Pinto County Emergency Services District 1.

In this image from video by WFAA, train cars are piled up off the track after a derailment near Gordon, Texas, on Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2025. (WFAA via AP)

“All personnel have been accounted for, and no injuries have been reported. The situation is currently stable, but not yet fully controlled,” the emergency services district said in a statement.

Some small grass fires were reported following the derailment.

“Fire officials are actively working to contain and extinguish them, and no structures are currently threatened,” the statement added.

The Palo Pinto Fire Department was working to contain a grass fire, Tysver said.

“Union Pacific crews are en route,” Tysver added.

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and JOSH BOAK

WASHINGTON (AP) — The director of the agency that produces the nation’s jobs and inflation data is typically a mild-mannered technocrat, often with extensive experience in statistical agencies, with little public profile.

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But like so much in President Donald Trump’s second administration, this time is different.

Trump has selected E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to be the next commissioner at the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni’s nomination was quickly met with a cascade of criticism from other economists, from across the political spectrum.

His selection threatens to bring a new level of politicization to what for decades has been a nonpartisan agency widely accepted as a producer of reliable measures of the nation’s economic health. While many former Labor Department officials say it it unlikely Antoni will be able to distort or alter the data, particularly in the short run, he could change the currently dry-as-dust way it is presented.

Antoni was nominated by Trump after the BLS released a jobs report Aug. 1 that showed that hiring had weakened in July and was much lower in May and June than the agency had previously reported. Trump, without evidence, charged that the data had been “rigged” for political reasons and fired the then-BLS chair, Erika McEntarfer, much to the dismay of many within the agency.

Antoni has been a vocal critic of the government’s jobs data in frequent appearances on podcasts and cable TV. His partisan commentary is unusual for someone who may end up leading the BLS.

For instance, on Aug. 4 — a week before he was nominated — Antoni said in an interview on Fox News Digital that the Labor Department should stop publishing the monthly jobs reports until its data collection processes improve, and rely on quarterly data based on actual employment filings with state unemployment offices.

The monthly employment reports are probably the closest-watched economic data on Wall Street, and can frequently cause swings in stock prices.

When asked at Tuesday’s White House briefing whether the jobs report would continue to be released, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration hoped it would be.

“I believe that is the plan and that’s the hope,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt also defended Antoni’s nomination, calling him an “economic expert” who has testified before Congress and adding that, “the president trusts him to lead this important department.”

Yet Antoni’s TV and podcast appearances have created more of a portrait of a conservative ideologue, instead of a careful economist who considers tradeoffs and prioritizes getting the math correct.

“There’s just nothing in his writing or his resume to suggest that he’s qualified for the position, besides that he is always manipulating the data to favor Trump in some way,” said Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law and Economics.

Antoni wrongly claimed in the last year of Biden’s presidency that the economy had been in recession since 2022; called on the entire Federal Reserve board to be fired for not earning a profit on its Treasury securities holdings; and posted a chart on social media that conflated timelines to suggest inflation was headed to 15%.

His argument that the U.S. was in a recession rested on a vastly exaggerated measure of housing inflation, based on newly-purchased home prices, to artificially make the nation’s gross domestic product appear smaller than it was.

“This is actually maybe the worst Antoni content I’ve seen yet,” Alan Cole of the center-right Tax Foundation said on social media, referring to his recession claim.

On a 2024 podcast, Antoni wanted to sunset Social Security payments for workers paying into the system, saying that “you’ll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes but never actually receive any of those benefits.” As head of the BLS, Antoni would oversee the release of the consumer price index by which Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation.

Many economists share, to some degree, Antoni’s concerns that the government’s jobs data has flaws and is threatened by trends such as declining response rates to its surveys. The drop has made the jobs figures more volatile, though not necessarily less accurate over time.

“The stock market moves clearly based on these job numbers, and so people with skin in the game think it’s telling them something about the future of their investments,” Albrecht said. “Could it be improved? Absolutely.”

Katharine Abraham, an economist at the University of Maryland who was BLS Commissioner under President Bill Clinton, said updating the jobs report’s methods would require at least some initial investment.

The government could use more modern data sources, she said, such as figures from payroll processing companies, and fill in gaps with surveys.

“There’s an inconsistency between saying you want higher response rates and you want to spend less money,” she said, referring to the administration’s proposals to cut BLS funding.

Still, Abraham and other former BLS commissioners don’t think Antoni, if confirmed, would be able to alter the figures. He could push for changes in the monthly press release and seek to portray the numbers in a more positive light.

William Beach, who was appointed BLS commissioner by Trump in his first term and also served under Biden, said he is confident that BLS procedures are strong enough to prevent political meddling. He said he didn’t see the figures himself until two days before publication when he served as commissioner.

“The commissioner does not affect the numbers,’’ Beach said. “They don’t collect the data. They don’t massage the data. They don’t organize it.”

Regarding the odds of rigging the numbers, Beach said, “I wouldn’t put it at complete zero, but I’d put it pretty close to zero.’’

It took about six months after McEntarfer was nominated in July 2023 for her to be approved. Antoni will likely face stiff opposition from Democrats, but that may not be enough to derail his appointment.

Sen. Patty Murray, a senior Democrat from Washington, on Tuesday slammed Antoni as “an unqualified right-wing extremist” and demanded that the GOP chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, hold a confirmation hearing for him.

Associated Press Staff Writers Paul Wiseman and Stephen Groves contributed to this story.