WASHINGTON: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he had a productive meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, discussing issues including housing and student detentions by federal immigration authorities.

It was the second meeting between them since Mamdani’s mayoral election win late last year. Mamdani is a Democrat and Trump a Republican.

Mamdani posted a photo with Trump on social media. “I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon. I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City,” Mamdani wrote.

Mamdani said he raised concerns with Trump about a detention on Thursday of Columbia University student Elmina Aghayeva from Azerbaijan by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and that Trump later informed him she will be “released imminently.”

The federal Homeland Security Department subsequently said it freed Aghayeva and launched removal proceedings against her.

While both men have been critical of each other’s policy positions and hold radically different worldviews, their previous meeting in November was unexpectedly friendly.

In that meeting too, they spoke about bringing down the price of housing. A former real estate developer, Trump had brightened at Mamdani’s call for more housing in New York.

Making housing more affordable has been one of Trump’s pledges ahead of the midterm elections in late 2026 as prices for housing remain significantly higher than they were a few years ago. Cost of living and affordability were also issues at the heart of Mamdani’s mayoral victory.

Trump reiterated his pledge in his State of the Union speech this week and has announced some policies aimed at addressing the problem. Still, US mortgage rates remain high and the housing supply in most of the country is short of what is needed to meet demand. This leaves the cost of home ownership increasingly out of reach for many families.

Economists and trade groups say Trump’s aggressive trade and immigration policies have raised prices for building materials and appliances and undercut labour supply, making it harder for builders to ramp up housing construction.

Mamdani has criticised Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown, especially his use of ICE agents and deportation attempts, along with the president’s policies towards Israel’s war in Gaza.

Mamdani’s office said he handed a list to the White House of four pro-Palestinian students battling deportation attempts and asked for help to dismiss those cases.

The four names were Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, Mohsen Mahdawi and Leqaa Kordia. Kordia, who was recently hospitalised after a seizure in detention and has lost dozens of family members in Gaza, remains detained by ICE while the other three were released over the last year.

Trump has cast pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic. Demonstrators, including some Jewish groups, say he wrongly conflates their criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism, as well as their advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.

• Latest diplomacy seen as last chance to avoid war.
• Iran has indicated it could make concessions.
• Tehran will show flexibility, says ministry spokesperson.

The United States and Iran made progress in talks over Tehran’s nuclear program on Thursday, mediator Oman said, but hours of negotiation ended with no sign of a breakthrough that could avert potential US strikes amid a massive military buildup.

The two sides plan to resume negotiations soon after consultations in their countries’ capitals, with technical-level discussions scheduled to take place next week in Vienna, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi said in a post on X after the day’s meetings in Switzerland.

Badr Albusaidi will hold talks with US Vice President JD Vance and other US officials in Washington on Friday, MS NOW reported late on Thursday. Neither the White House nor Oman’s embassy in Washington immediately responded to requests for comment.

Any substantial move toward an elusive agreement between longtime foes Washington and Tehran could reduce the imminent prospects for US President Donald Trump to carry out a threatened attack on Iran that many fear could escalate into a wider war.

But Tuesday’s indirect talks wrapped up without a deal, still leaving the region on edge.

The Omani minister’s upbeat assessment followed indirect talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Geneva, with one session in the morning and the second in the afternoon.

“We have finished the day after significant progress in the negotiation between the United States and Iran,” Badr Albusaidi said.

But with many analysts seeing the latest diplomacy as the last chance before Trump could decide to go to war, Badr Albusaidi provided no details and stopped short of saying the two sides had overcome their biggest stumbling blocks to a deal.

Describing the talks as some of the most serious that Iran has had with the US, Araqchi told Iranian state television: “We reached agreement on some issues, and there are differences regarding some other issues.”

“It was decided that the next round of negotiations will take place soon, in less than a week,” he said. The Iranians, he added, had clearly expressed their demand for lifting of US sanctions, which Washington has long insisted will only come after deep concessions from Tehran.

There was no immediate comment from the US negotiating team on the outcome of the talks. But Axios quoted a senior US official as saying the Geneva negotiations were “positive.”

The discussions about the decades-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear work come as fears grow of a Middle East conflagration. Trump has repeatedly threatened action if there is no deal, and the US military has amassed its forces in waters near the Islamic Republic.

‘Intense and serious talks’

A senior Iranian official told Reuters earlier on Thursday that the US and Iran could reach a framework for a deal if Washington separated “nuclear and non-nuclear issues.”

The Trump administration has insisted that Iran’s ballistic missile programme and its support for armed groups in the region must be part of the negotiations.

After the morning session, Badr Albusaidi said the two sides had exchanged “creative and positive ideas”.

But a senior Iranian official said at the time that some gaps still had to be narrowed.

Washington, which believes Tehran seeks the ability to build a nuclear bomb, wants Iran to give up all uranium enrichment, a process that makes fuel for atomic power plants but that can also yield material for a warhead.

Iran has long denied wanting a bomb and said earlier on Thursday it would show flexibility at the talks. Reuters reported on Sunday that Tehran was offering undefined new concessions in return for removal of sanctions and recognition of its right to enrich uranium.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that Iran’s refusal to discuss its ballistic missile program was a “big problem” which would have to be addressed eventually.

The missiles were “designed solely to strike America” and pose a threat to regional stability, he said, but offered no proof to back the claim that US territory could be targeted.

Trump threatens ‘really bad things’

Trump said on February 19 that Iran must make a deal in 10 to 15 days, warning that “really bad things” would otherwise happen.

He briefly laid out his case for a possible attack on Iran in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, underlining that while he preferred a diplomatic solution, he would not allow Tehran to obtain a nuclear weapon.

In June, the US joined Israel in hitting Iranian nuclear sites and has been ramping up the pressure on Tehran again since January, when Trump threatened to intervene over its crushing of nationwide protests with thousands killed.

Since then, Trump has deployed fighter jets and aircraft carrier strike groups in the region.

Iran responded to last summer’s strikes by firing fusillades of missiles at Israel and has threatened to retaliate fiercely if attacked again, raising fears of a wider regional conflict that has alarmed Gulf oil producers.

Within Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei faces the gravest crisis of his 36-year tenure, with an economy buckling under tightened sanctions and renewed protests following the major unrest and crackdown in January.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday that Khamenei has banned weapons of mass destruction, which “clearly means Tehran won’t develop nuclear weapons,” reiterating a religious decree issued in the early 2000s.

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has introduced new rules aimed at preventing monopolies in the pharmaceutical sector, a move doctors say could help reduce medicine prices and prevent recurring drug shortages.

Under the new system, pharmaceutical companies will be required to appoint more than one authorised agent in the UAE for each medical product. The measure is designed to increase competition in distribution and strengthen supply chains.

Health experts say the change could have a direct impact on prices. When a single distributor controls the supply of a medicine, it can set prices with limited market pressure. 

By allowing multiple agents to handle the same product, competition is expected to grow, which may gradually bring down costs for patients.

Doctors also note that reliance on one supplier has previously led to shortages when production delays or global disruptions occurred. In recent years, patients in the UAE faced difficulty obtaining certain diabetes, weight-loss and mental health medications due to high demand and supply chain problems.

With more than one authorised distributor, any logistical failure by one company would be less likely to disrupt patient treatment. Greater competition is also expected to improve service standards in storage and transportation.