Politics
Govt groceries? NY’s new leftist mayor eyes supermarket experiment

NEW YORK: New Yorkers struggling to afford food in the country’s biggest city — and often exorbitantly expensive financial capital — may finally get a break if the incoming socialist mayor’s daring new plan succeeds.
Some 1.4 million residents in the Big Apple are food insecure, meaning they’re unable to regularly access affordable, healthy food. One in three use food banks.
Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani won a stunning victory, in part on his promise to open affordable city-run supermarkets.
The 34-year-old vows the stores will focus “on keeping prices low, not making a profit.”
It’s a novel idea in a city more associated with Wall Street wealth.
The stores would be exempt from rent and taxes, with savings passed to shoppers, while centralised warehousing and distribution would aim to reduce overheads.
But Mamdani’s experimental plan to open five pilot stores on unused city land, as well as free buses and subsidised childcare, is still only small-scale — and not universally welcome.
Nevin Cohen, an associate professor at CUNY’s Urban Food Policy Institute, said Mamdani’s plan remains “pretty vague” on basic points like location or even type of store.
President Donald Trump, who hosted Mamdani for a surprisingly cordial visit at the White House earlier this month, has led many right-wingers branding the incoming mayor a “communist.”
And private supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, a Trump ally, is campaigning against Mamdani’s city groceries, asking “how do you compete against that?”
Affordability crisis
No one disputes the need for cheaper and better food.

More than 40% of people in the poorest of New York’s five boroughs, the Bronx, eat neither fruits nor vegetables in an average week.
Some 1.8 million New Yorkers are already dependent on federal food subsidies, a program briefly frozen during a row in Congress over government spending this month.
Even Trump agreed with Mamdani at their meeting that “getting housing built and food and prices” should be priorities.
“The new word is affordability. Another word is just groceries,” Trump said.
New York has an existing city program to lure supermarkets to underserved areas called FRESH. It uses tax and planning incentives to entice developers and private store operators.
At one outpost of the FRESH program in East New York, a deprived Brooklyn neighbourhood, a Fine Fare supermarket opened under a new apartment building in 2023.
Laura Smith, the NYC Department of City Planning’s deputy executive director, told AFP that FRESH helps “encourage more fresh food supermarkets across the city in areas where residents have a harder time reaching full line grocery stores.”
In return for permission to build extra apartments, the developers of the store and 40 others were obliged to allocate space for a supermarket. Thirty-five more are in the pipeline.
National solution?
Mamdani is cool on the FRESH project, saying on his website that instead of “spending millions of dollars to subsidise private grocery store operators we should redirect public money to a real ‘public option.'”

But Fine Fare is a hit locally.
“I like it because it’s close by to where I live and they gave everything you need,” said retiree Ivette Bravo, 63, shopping for the holidays.
The scheme, started under mayor Mike Bloomberg in 2009, has survived two other mayors and is fixed in city law.
The FRESH program had been “modestly successful” as it “helps people not have to travel further,” said Cohen, the policy expert.
If Mamdani’s project is successful, it will add another option.
But everything being done adds up to a drop in the bucket for a city with some 1,000 supermarkets in total.
In the end, solving food insecurity isn’t something New York can do alone, whatever the innovations, Cohen said.
“That actually requires national-level policy.”
Politics
White House briefly locked down after Secret Service shooting in Washington

The US Secret Service said on Monday it was on the scene of an officer-involved shooting in Washington in which one person was shot by law enforcement.
“US Secret Service personnel are on the scene of an officer-involved shooting at 15th Street and Independence Avenue in Washington, D.C. One individual was shot by law enforcement; their condition is currently unknown,” the Secret Service said in a statement on X. The White House was briefly locked down on Monday afternoon.
The DC Police Department said police were on the scene of the probe.
“The scene is secure. Avoid the area as roads will be closed for several hours,” police said in a statement.
Law enforcement agents have been on alert in recent days in the US capital following a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner late last month, over which a suspect has been arrested.
This is a developing story, and it is being updated with new developments.
Politics
UAE says air defences engage Iranian missiles, drones as flights diverted

- Iran denied targeting UAE.
- Attacks disrupt inbound UAE flights.
- Attacks injure three, reignite ME tensions.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) said its air defences were engaging missile and drone threats on Monday evening as firefighters battled a blaze at a major oil industry zone following a drone attack which authorities said had originated from Iran.
The Gulf Arab state’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the attacks marked a serious escalation and posed a direct threat to the country’s security, adding that the UAE reserved its “full and legitimate right” to respond.
Multiple flights bound for the UAE diverted to Muscat in Oman, while other inbound aircraft circled over Saudi Arabia, according to flight tracking service Flightradar24, as the attacks caused widespread disruption to air traffic.
Iranian state media, citing a senior military official, said Iran had no plan to target the UAE, whose defence ministry said earlier on X that it had intercepted three Iranian missiles over its territorial waters and a fourth crashed into the sea.
The drone attacks shattered a period of relative calm in the region since a Pakistani-mediated ceasefire between Washington and Tehran took effect on April 8, pausing more than a month of intense fighting in the Gulf region.
Civil defence teams were deployed immediately to contain the blaze at the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone, the Fujairah Media Office said in a statement, adding that three Indian citizens were moderately injured in the attack and taken to hospital.
By Monday evening, the ministry said air defence systems were actively engaging further missile and drone threats.
“All airports in the UAE are closed for the time (being),” the captain on one inbound flight to Dubai told passengers, adding that aircraft would be diverted to the Omani capital.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy issued a map it said showed an expansion of areas under Iranian control near the Strait of Hormuz, encompassing the UAE ports of Fujairah and Khorfakkan as well as the coast of the Umm Al Quwain emirate, Iranian news agencies reported.
During the period of intense conflict earlier this spring, the UAE said it had intercepted and destroyed thousands of drones and missiles.
UAE authorities on Monday issued mobile phone alerts in Dubai and Abu Dhabi warning of the possibility of missile attacks.
Monday’s strike was not the first time Fujairah’s energy infrastructure had been targeted. A drone attack on March 14 had previously hit the Port of Fujairah, triggering fires and the suspension of some oil-loading operations.
Fujairah has been critical to UAE oil exports during the Iran war as it sits at the end of the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline, which carries crude from inland fields to the Gulf of Oman, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.
This has allowed the UAE to continue shipping oil to global markets even as the waterway remained under threat.
Politics
Iran says it forced US warship back from Strait of Hormuz

Iran said it had forced a US warship to turn back from entering the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, although US Central Command quickly denied a report of a missile strike.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters Iran had fired a warning shot and that it was unclear whether the warship had been damaged.
Oil prices jumped 5% on renewed concerns that the vital oil route, already shut for over two months at huge cost to the global economy, would remain blocked for considerably longer, with little sign of progress towards a negotiated resolution of Washington’s conflict with Iran.
Iran’s navy said it had prevented “American-Zionist” warships from entering the Strait area by issuing a “swift and decisive warning”.
Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency said two missiles had hit the warship near the port of Jask at the southern entrance to the strait, but Centcom denied that any warship had been struck.
It said its forces were supporting President Donald Trump’s “Project Freedom”, which aims to “guide out” commercial ships stranded in the Gulf by the US-Israeli war on Iran, and were enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports.
Trump gave few details of his plan to aid ships and their crews who have been confined to the vital waterway and are running low on food and other supplies. Shipping companies gave no sign of being ready to resume sailings.
“We have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site on Sunday.
Iranian military’s warning
In response to Trump’s announcement, Iran’s unified command told commercial ships and oil tankers to refrain from any movement that was not coordinated with Iran’s military.
“We have repeatedly said the security of the Strait of Hormuz is in our hands and that the safe passage of vessels needs to be coordinated with the armed forces,” Ali Abdollahi, head of the forces’ unified command, said in the statement.
“We warn that any foreign armed forces, especially the aggressive US Army, will be attacked if they intend to approach and enter the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran has blocked nearly all shipping into and out of the Gulf apart from its own since the start of the war, cutting off around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas shipments and sending oil prices soaring by 50% or more.
Centcom said it would support Trump’s “Project Freedom” with 15,000 military personnel and more than 100 land- and sea-based aircraft, plus warships and drones.
“Our support for this defensive mission is essential to regional security and the global economy as we also maintain the naval blockade,” Admiral Brad Cooper, the Centcom commander, said in a statement.
‘Convoys not a solution’
Hundreds of commercial vessels and as many as 20,000 seafarers have been unable to transit the strait during the conflict, the International Maritime Organisation says.
Container shipping group Hapag-Lloyd said on Monday its risk assessment was unchanged and that transit through the strait was still not possible.
Numerous executives from the shipping and oil industries have said they need an end to hostilities and some form of peace deal because military convoys alone are not enough to allow normal traffic to resume safely.
The United Arab Emirates accused Iran of attacking an empty crude oil tanker belonging to the Abu Dhabi state oil firm ADNOC with drones as it attempted to pass through the strait.
In a rare piece of good news, Pakistan said the US had handed over 22 crew from an Iranian container vessel that American forces had seized last month.
Islamabad, which has been trying to broker a peace deal, described the US move as a “confidence-building measure”.
The Trump administration has been seeking help from other countries to secure shipping in the Strait. Centcom said the latest effort announced by Trump would combine “diplomatic action with military coordination”.
It was not immediately clear which countries the US operation would aid or how the operation would work. It will not necessarily include US Navy ships escorting commercial ships, Axios reporter Barak Ravid said in a post on X.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump said any interference with the US operation would have to be “dealt with forcefully”.
Iran reviews US response to peace proposal
The United States and Israel suspended their bombing campaign against Iran four weeks ago, and US and Iranian officials held one round of face-to-face talks. But attempts to set up further meetings have failed.
Iranian state media said on Sunday Washington had conveyed its response to a 14-point Iranian proposal via Pakistan, and that Tehran was now reviewing it. Neither side gave details.
A senior Iranian official has confirmed that Tehran envisages ending the war on all fronts — including Israel’s attacks on Lebanon — and resolving the shipping standoff first, while leaving talks on Iran’s nuclear programme for later.
Washington wants Tehran to give up its stockpile of more than 400kg (900 pounds) of highly enriched uranium, which the United States says could power a bomb.
Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful, although it is willing to discuss some curbs in return for the lifting of sanctions. It had accepted such curbs in a 2015 deal that Trump abandoned.
Trump is under pressure to break Iran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz to try to prevent soaring gasoline prices, causing a voter backlash against his Republican Party in midterm congressional elections in November.
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