🗽 Axios PM: Web of scandal

Plus: The internet's favorite hippo | Thursday, September 19, 2024

Open in app View in browser   Presented By FICO   Axios PM By Mike Allen · Sep 19, 2024 Good afternoon. Today's newsletter, edited by Sam Baker, is 570 words, a 2-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing. 🚨 Breaking: North Carolina's GOP gubernatorial candidate, Mark Robinson, defied calls to drop out after CNN reported that he had posted a series of offensive messages on a porn-focused message board, including one in which he called himself a "black NAZI." Go deeper.     1 big thing: NYC's web of scandals   Illustration: Allie Carl/Axios   New York City Mayor Eric Adams and his inner circle are staring down a growing list of legal problems and a full-blown political firestorm, Axios' Noah Bressner writes. 🔎 At least four agencies — the Justice Department, the FBI, the IRS and the city's Department of Investigations — are now involved in four separate corruption probes of people in Adams' orbit. One investigation is reportedly focused on whether Adams' campaign illegally conspired to receive foreign money. Two more involve alleged corruption by people whose relatives are high-ranking city officials. The last known investigation appears to involve Adams' director of Asian affairs, according to local news website The City. The NYPD commissioner resigned last week after the FBI had raided his home earlier this month. Adams' chief counsel quit a few days later. This week, two senior fire department chiefs were arrested on bribery charges. 🔮 What's next: Adams is already facing tough primary challenges next year, and some critics have called for him to resign even before any of these investigations' findings are made public. 🏙️ What they're saying: "New Yorkers still expect us to do our jobs every day, and that's what we're doing," mayoral spokesperson Fabien Levy told Axios. Adams also has said he's focused on his governing priorities — this week, for example, he's hosting New York City's first-ever "Rat Summit." Go deeper.     2. 🚙 We're driving more   Data: StreetLight; Chart: Axios Visuals Americans are driving even more than they did before the pandemic, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick reports. Average daily vehicle miles traveled increased 12% across the 100 biggest metro areas this past spring, compared to the same period in 2019. 🚦 Zoom out: Experts said the size of that increase is surprising, given the persistence of remote work and many cities' recent efforts to improve public transit and bike infrastructure. "Whatever efforts we've strived for to keep [vehicle miles] down, they're not quite working — or they're not working yet," said Emily Adler, director of content at StreetLight Data. Go deeper.     A message from FICO Myth or fact: Only mortgage lenders use the FICO® Score     Myth! FICO® Scores are relied on by lenders — but these same scores are essential to mortgage insurers, ratings agencies, regulators, investors and others — all to provide millions of Americans with homeownership. Learn more.     3. Catch me up   Lebanese soldiers prepare to explode a walkie- talkie they found thrown away today. Photo: Stringer/picture alliance/Getty Images 🇮🇱 Hezbollah's leader called Israel's remote detonations of pagers and walkie-talkies a "declaration of war," and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin postponed a visit to Israel because of the escalation in fighting. Go deeper. ⚖️ An Alaska man was arrested for threatening to injure and kill six Supreme Court justices and some of their family members. Go deeper. 🌎 "Isolationism will not keep anyone safe. We live in an interconnected world," outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg warned in his farewell speech.     4. 🦛 1 hip hippo   Moo Deng plays with a zookeeper in the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand today. Photo: Sakchai Lalit/AP Thailand's hottest celebrity is Moo Deng, a 2-month-old pygmy hippo whose expressive face has made her an Internet sensation. Several professional sports teams in the U.S. have made memes with her, as has the official account for X, and any number of Thai businesses. 😎 She's so popular IRL that her zoo has had to limit visitors to five minutes of cooing and snapping photos. The number of weekday visitors to the zoo, which is about two hours outside Bangkok, has more than quadrupled since Moo Deng came on the scene, and hippo-watchers line up well before the zoo opens. Go deeper. Moo Deng and her mother Jona today at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo. Photo/Sakchai Lalit/AP     A message from FICO Myth or fact: FICO® Scores cost less than a slice of pizza     Fact! What you need to know: Mortgage closing costs can be thousands of dollars, but FICO's price is less than a slice of pizza — and it's the foundation of a safe housing ecosystem. Test your knowledge and get the facts about FICO® Scores.   Are you a fan of this email format? Your essential communications — to staff, clients and other stakeholders — can have the same style. Axios HQ, a powerful platform, will help you do it.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Advertise with us. Axios, PO Box 101060, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. To stop receiving this newsletter, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.   Follow Axios on social media: