Monetizing MAGA. Cuomo’s Biggest Rival. Plus. . .

It’s Wednesday, May 28. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Gabe Kaminsky on how the Trump family is “monetizing MAGA”; Kat Rosenfield on the BLM star journalist felled by #MeToo; and much more.

But first: Why the New York mayoral race is so much closer than it looks.

On paper, former governor Andrew Cuomo’s path to becoming the next mayor of New York City should be a cakewalk. The incumbent, Eric Adams, is so unpopular he’s not even running for the Democratic nomination. And the guy in second place, Zohran Mamdani, is a self-described “socialist” few have heard of. (Read my recent profile of him here.)

But a new poll shows the race tightening considerably. And even though Cuomo still has a 10-point lead, this isn’t an ordinary election: Next month, the primaries will be called by ranked-choice voting.

It’s a system that advocates promised would help elevate more centrist candidates, but the Democratic strategists I spoke to for my latest piece for The Free Press confirmed my suspicion: Ranked-choice voting means that Mamdani could come out on top.

Could a system that was supposed to boost moderates help hand a socialist the keys to America’s largest city? That’s the question at the heart of my story.

—Olivia Reingold

The Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Ziyu Julian Zhu via Getty Images)

• The Trump administration is pausing all student visa interviews and expanding social media screening for potential applicants. The move comes days after the administration barred Harvard from accepting foreign students—a move that was blocked by a judge. Officials did not specify what they would look for on applicants’ social media.

• In yet another escalation of his battle with Harvard, Trump officials announced that they would end all remaining federal contracts with the university. It amounts to a pause of about $100 million—a small sum compared to the $2.2 billion the administration has already frozen. The General Services Administration cited antisemitism and race discrimination as the reason for the termination.

• The White House officially announced changed Covid vaccination guidelines, with RFK Jr. saying that healthy children and pregnant women no longer need to be vaccinated. The news follows last week’s new FDA guidelines for Covid boosters; the agency no longer recommends boosters for healthy Americans aged 64 and younger.

• The U.S. military has begun to strengthen its presence in northern Europe in the face of increased Russian activity. Officials recently conducted joint military exercises with NATO countries in the region, aimed at deterring Russia and reintegrating allies. New NATO members Finland and Sweden partook, with the latter nation rearming strategic islands to serve as hubs for NATO logistics and sea control.

• Victor Orbán plans to ban gay pride celebrations in Hungary via laws that will penalize organizers of and participants in pride. The move is set to further alienate Hungary from the rest of the EU bloc, at a time when Brussels is inching closer to using the so-called “nuclear option” to punish Hungary over its Ukraine policy, by stripping it of its voting rights in the European Council.

• A Texas bill requiring all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments (on posters at least 16 by 20 inches) is nearing passage in the state legislature, after a similar bill in Louisiana was deemed unconstitutional. “It is incumbent on all of us to follow God’s law and I think we would all be better off if we did,” said Rep. Candy Noble, who oversaw the bill’s passage in the House.

• Neuralink, Elon Musk’s brain-mapping start-up, raised $600 million in a funding round, valuing the company at $9 billion. Musk’s company has successfully implanted three chips into the brains of paralyzed or nonverbal patients, connecting these patients to a computer interface that allows them to communicate using only their thoughts.