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The vast majority of mayors in American cities do not support sweeping changes to the funding of their police departments, and most say last year's racial justice protests were a force for good in their cities, according to a new survey of more than 100 mayors from across the U.S.

Eighty percent of the mayors who responded to the Menino Survey of Mayors say they believe their police budgets last year were "about right." Most mayors said they did not support reallocating many, or some of their police department's resources and responsibilities.

The findings come in the early days of the Biden administration, as the president seeks to make good on campaign promises to rein in police abuse and dismantle systemic racism. The country's divisions over race, criminal justice and policing are some of the most significant domestic challenges facing Biden's administration.

Across the country, state and local officials, frustrated by what they described as a lack of leadership in the White House and an absence of consistent guidance from federal agencies, took steps on their own to prepare for the pandemic and protect their communities. In some cases, these actions preceded federal directives by days or even weeks as local officials sifted through news reports and other sources of information to educate themselves about the risks posed by the coronavirus.

With scant information about the virus and no warnings against large gatherings, cities such as New Orleans moved ahead in February with massive celebrations that may have turned them into hotspots for the virus.

“The leader in global pandemics and protecting the United States starts at the federal level,” said Nick Crossley, the director of emergency management in Hamilton County, Ohio, and past president of the U.S. Council of International Association of Emergency Managers.

The mayor of Rochester, N.Y., Lovely Warren entered a not guilty plea Monday afternoon to campaign finance fraud charges. If convicted, she could be removed from office and be disbarred.

The court appearance comes three days after the second-term mayor and two political associates were indicted on charges they knowingly committed finance violations stemming from the 2017 reelection campaign.

Separately, Warren is facing mounting criticism for her administration's handling of the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who died of asphyxiation in March following an encounter with Rochester police.

London Mayor Wants Trump State Visit Canceled The U.S. president criticized the mayor on Twitter following the London Bridge terror attack.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has again signaled he thinks government officials should rescind U.S. President Donald Trump's invitation for a state visit to Britain later this year. "I don't think we should roll out the red carpet to the president of the U.S.A. in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for," Khan told Britain's Channel 4 News on Monday. Khan and Trump have been at odds in the wake of Saturday's London Bridge truck-and-knife terror attack that left seven people dead and dozens injured. [RELATED: Police Identify All 3 London Attackers] Trump on Sunday took to Twitter to criticize Khan's response to the attack, in which the London mayor said citizens shouldn't be alarmed by seeing more law enforcement on the streets. "At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is 'no reason to be alarmed!'" Trump tweeted.ADVERTISING Khan's office initially said the mayor was ignoring Trump's comments, calling the tweet "ill-informed" and accusing Trump of purposefully taking the mayor's remarks out of context. And Trump again lashed out.

Trump Lashes Out at Puerto Rico Mayor Who Criticized Storm Response

President Trump lashed out at the mayor of San Juan on Saturday for criticizing his administration’s efforts to help Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, accusing her of “poor leadership” and implying that the people of the devastated island were not doing enough to help themselves.

As emergency workers and troops struggled to restore basic services in a commonwealth with no electricity and limited fuel and water, Mr. Trump spent the day at his New Jersey golf club, blasting out Twitter messages defending his response to the storm and repeatedly assailing the capital’s mayor, Carmen Yulín Cruz, and the news media.

Pundits have long predicted that Eric Garcetti, the mayor with clear ambitions for higher office, would not finish out his second term. Now, it seems likely that the Democrat running the second largest city in the US will be stepping down more than a year early – with widespread reports that Joe Biden has selected him as his ambassador to India.

Garcetti, the son of a former LA district attorney, served as a city councilman before being elected mayor in 2013 on a “back to basics” platform of increasing jobs and fixing city streets. He had initially considered a 2020 White House run and later joined the Biden campaign as a co-chair. When it was rumored last year that he was under consideration for a cabinet position (possibly transportation or housing secretary), Black Lives Matter LA and other activist groups began holding loud, daily protests outside Getty House, the mayor’s residence, urging Biden not to pick a “self-seeking mayor for a cabinet position in which he is completely unqualified”.

The LA Times editorial board recently urged Garcetti to stay, praising his “vision for a more livable, transit-oriented, environmentally and technologically friendly city” and his success at passing a new earthquake safety law.

Democrats running for New York City mayor will square off in a crucial debate Wednesday night, but they won't just be trying to convince voters that they're the best candidate for the job -- being someone's second, third, fourth or even fifth favorite could be almost as good.

Unlike past elections, Big Apple voters will pick their party nominees for mayor on June 22 using ranked-choice voting, and it could take weeks to determine the winners.

This will be the first time voters will be able to rank their top five choices in order of preference for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough president and city council instead of selecting just one candidate for each spot.

Richard A. Carranza will resign as chancellor of New York City’s public school system, the nation’s largest, in March, city officials announced Friday.

The abrupt move comes after disagreements between Mayor Bill de Blasio and Mr. Carranza over school desegregation policy reached a breaking point in recent weeks.

He will be replaced by Meisha Porter, a longtime city educator and current Bronx superintendent who will become the first Black woman to lead the sprawling system, which has over 1 million students and 1,800 schools.

Flint Mayor Karen Weaver on Tuesday outlined  an estimated $55-million public works project expected to begin within a month to remove Flint's lead-contaminated pipes from the water distribution system.

First priority will be given to high-risk households with pregnant women and children, Weaver said at a news conference at City Hall.

Last week, Weaver called for the immediate removal of the city's lead-contaminated pipes and announced a plan that included help from Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero, who has offered technical assistance from the Lansing Board of Water and Light. Lansing has removed about 13,500 lead pipes in the city.

Running for mayor of New York City once involved, well, some running — from shaking hands on the Staten Island Ferry to schmoozing with donors at fund-raisers and awkwardly dancing in parades across the five boroughs. This year, the candidates have spent a lot of their time on Zoom. It’s been weird.

It isn’t only the pandemic that makes this year’s mayor’s race different. This year’s primaries are in June instead of September, as in years past. This will also be the first mayoral election in which New Yorkers use ranked choice voting to cast their ballots. Paying attention now is all the more important since Primary Day is just a few months away, on June 22. Because Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly seven to one in the city, the winner of the primary is almost certain to become the city’s next mayor. Time is ticking.

The lack of attention on the race might be one reason early polls have Mr. Yang, who came into the race with high name recognition after his presidential bid, far ahead of his rivals.

For months, worried parents in Flint, Mich., arrived at their pediatricians’ offices in droves. Holding a toddler by the hand or an infant in their arms, they all have the same question: Are their children being poisoned?

To find out, all it takes is a prick of the finger, a small letting of blood. If tests come back positive, the potentially severe consequences are far more difficult to discern.

That’s how lead works. It leaves its mark quietly, with a virtually invisible trail. But years later, when a child shows signs of a learning disability or behavioral issues, lead’s prior presence in the bloodstream suddenly becomes inescapable.

The Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a security failure, an intelligence failure — or both. How could security forces in the nation's capital be so swiftly and completely overwhelmed by rioters who stated their plans openly on a range of social media sites? President Trump had even tweeted on Dec. 19: "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

The Metropolitan Police Department arrests Enrique Tarrio, leader of the far-right Proud Boys group. He is charged with destruction of property and possession of high-capacity firearm magazines. He's released the next day and told to leave Washington.

And then there is the National Guard. In the 50 states and Puerto Rico, the Guard is under the command of the governor. In Washington, D.C., however, the Guard is under the command of the president, though orders to deploy are typically issued by the secretary of the Army at the request of the mayor.

Washington (CNN)Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced Friday that a member of her staff has died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus.

Bowser later identified the staffer as George Valentine, who was serving as the deputy director of the Mayor's Office of Legal Counsel.

As of Friday, three people in Washington, DC, have died from the coronavirus and the nation's capital has 267 confirmed cases, according to CNN's tally.

He volunteered for Gary Hart, the Colorado senator who was the party frontrunner for 1988 until scandal brought him down. Entering elected politics himself, O’Malley was the mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2007 and the governor of Maryland from 2008 to 2015. He aimed at the White House as a happy warrior, a guitar-playing politico with a record of progressive policy achievement.

A few days before Iowa votes again, O’Malley walks a few blocks from his Washington office. The room is quiet, the table discreet. The national stage is not. Over at the Capitol, in the impeachment trial, Donald Trump is on his way to acquittal.

never

The climate can't take a return to 'business as usual'

Mayors from 33 leading global cities have published a ‘statement of principles’ for a climate-friendly post-Covid world. Plus, why 2020 feels a lot like 1945

Can the world really return to “business as usual” after the coronavirus lockdowns – and even if it can, does that mean it should? Mayors representing 33 cities that are home to more than 750 million people have signed a “statement of principles”, published on Thursday, which commits their communities to a more climate-friendly and less unequal future.

The Democratic candidates for mayor of New York City forcefully attacked their opponents’ records and ethics in starkly personal terms on Wednesday night, tangling over how they would address growing concerns over rising violent crime and the city’s economic recovery.In their first in-person debate of the campaign, the eight leading contenders battled over crime, justice and the power of the police, questions of education and charter schools and, in the debate’s most heated moments, the issue of who is qualified to lead the nation’s largest city.

The candidates took the stage at a moment of extraordinary uncertainty in the race, even as the contest nears its conclusion.

Those three candidates all have distinct bases, but they are in direct competition over some moderate white voters, and Mr. Yang and Mr. Adams have both criticized Ms. Garcia in recent weeks in a sign of her emerging strength — and a sharp departure from their previous friendly postures toward her.

There is something about Andrew Yang that makes him the candidate to beat in New York City's mayoral race. With less than two months to go before the Democratic primary on June 22, Yang continues to outpace his many rivals in a notoriously tough city.

Yang, who had a brief stint in corporate law, has more substantial experience in business. He worked for a number of start-ups, headed an education company and in 2011, founded the non-profit organization Venture for America in an attempt to create jobs and bring high-tech work to cities that were suffering from the Great Recession. While the Obama administration listed him as one of the 500 "Champions of Change" and a "Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship," Venture for America so far has failed to meet its own goal of creating 100,000 jobs by 2025.

But Yang has gained traction by pushing unconventional ideas like a universal basic income. His presidential bid centered around his proposal to offer $1,000 a month to everyone over 18 — a policy he has reworked and narrowed significantly to try to tackle extreme poverty in New York. He has also proposed the Big Apple Corps, an initiative in New York that would hire 10,000 aspiring college graduates to tutor 100,000 public school students.

Lori Lightfoot swept into office as Chicago’s mayor this year promising to end inequities that have long divided the city. She would invest in struggling neighborhoods, she pledged, and put badly needed librarians, nurses and social workers in schools. Six months later, the mayor has found herself in a thorny spot: facing off against tens of thousands of striking teachers who are demanding action on some of the very issues she promised to solve.

The teachers’ strike, which has canceled two days of classes for more than 300,000 public school students, is the most significant test so far of Ms. Lightfoot’s leadership. Standard strike issues, like pay, have certainly come up, but they have been eclipsed by the Chicago Teachers Union’s calls for more counselors for students, some of whom live amid daily violence; affordable housing for students in a city where home prices have forced residents to move away; and smaller class sizes than the ones some teachers said had swelled well over 30.

A radio ad from the union said Ms. Lightfoot’s “campaign promises don’t mean a thing unless she tells Chicago Public Schools to make good on them.”

In an interview with The Washington Post, McLaughlin (R) said he rushed to Hillcrest Funeral Home about 15 minutes after “the first call” reporting that 18-year-old Salvador Ramos had crashed his pickup truck nearby. He found himself standing near an official he identified only as “the negotiator,” while frightened parents gathered outside the school and police waited well over an hour to storm the classroom.

He said he doesn’t believe the negotiator was aware there were children calling 911 and asking police to save them while the gunman was in the classroom. The mayor said he was not aware of those calls, nor did he hear shots fired from inside the school, across the street.

In the recent Texas primary for governor, he opted not to endorse the Republican incumbent, Gov. Greg Abbott, labeling him a “fraud” over his approach to the border and immigration. And he has appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” multiple times to lambaste the Border Patrol’s release of migrants into the streets of Uvalde and lament that he cannot get a call back from the state’s two Republican senators, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn.