New York City Mayor Eric Adams insists that he isn’t dropping his reelection campaign after reports he had been approached about potentially taking a job with the federal government.

Trump administration intermediaries recently reached out to people close to Adams, a Democrat, to discuss whether he would be open to abandoning his reelection campaign to take a federal job, according to a person familiar with those conversations.

The person speaks to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the private nature of those conversations.

It is unclear how far those talks progressed, but as media reports about them multiply, Adams insists in interviews and through a spokesperson that he has no intention of dropping out of the contest against Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.

“Mayor Adams has not met with Donald Trump — don’t believe the noise. He is not dropping out of the race,” says his campaign spokesperson, Todd Shapiro.

After Mamdani romped in the Democratic primary, which Adams had skipped, some pundits suggested that the 33-year-old democratic socialist might be unbeatable in the general election unless either Cuomo or Adams dropped out.

During a series of television interviews where he had intended to talk about his efforts to fight crime in the city, Adams battles back against the idea that he might leave the race.

“If there’s any changes in this race, I will announce that,” Adams tells Fox 5. “Right now, we’re moving straight ahead to do — No. 1, serve this city as we’re currently doing, doing a darn good job. And we’re looking forward to reelection.”

After spending Tuesday in Florida after his 65th birthday, Adams is asked whether he met with anyone from the Trump administration while there. The mayor will only say that he “met with several political figures,” including Miami’s Republican mayor.

The White House does not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Mamdani held a news conference in Manhattan yesterday, calling the reports “an affront to democracy.”

“We know that this city will decide its own future. And we know that it is New Yorkers that we will turn to to make that decision in November, not the White House in Washington, D.C.,” he says.

Adams had previously quit the Democratic primary after he was charged in a federal corruption case. The Trump administration successfully moved to drop the case so the mayor could better assist with the president’s immigration agenda, which freed Adams up to run as an independent in the general election, but has not helped his image in the overwhelmingly Democratic city.

A spokesperson for Cuomo, who is now running as an independent candidate, does not immediately return a request for comment.

Pope Leo XIV stressed the need for a two-state solution and a permanent ceasefire in the war in Gaza during a meeting Thursday with President Isaac Herzog at the Vatican.

During the meeting, joined by the Vatican’s political leadership, Herzog asked the pontiff to assist in efforts to free the hostages, a day before the 700th day of their captivity in Gaza, according to a statement by the President’s Residence.

Herzog also sought to reassure the Vatican over the treatment of Christians in the Holy Land and the situation in Gaza.

According to the Vatican readout, Leo expressed his hope for “a speedy resumption of negotiations so that, with willingness and courageous decisions, as well as the support of the international community, the release of all hostages can be achieved, a permanent ceasefire reached with urgency, the safe entry of humanitarian aid into the most affected areas be facilitated, and full respect for humanitarian law be ensured, together with the legitimate aspirations of the two peoples.”

He also said that “a two-state solution is the only way out of the current war.”

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The pope raised the often thorny issue of relations between Israeli government offices and the Catholic Church in Israel, “with particular attention to the importance of Christian communities and their commitment, both locally and throughout the Middle East, to human and social development, especially in the areas of education, the promotion of social cohesion, and regional stability.”

Herzog “emphasized that the 48 men and women still in captivity are in immediate and grave danger, and he called for intensified international efforts to secure their release as soon as possible,” the President’s Residence statement read, adding that Herzog asked the pope to meet with hostage families.

They also discussed the global fight against antisemitism, and “the importance of protecting minorities in the Middle East – particularly Christian communities and the Druze community in Syria.”

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Herzog’s office said that “the situation of Christian communities in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza” was discussed, a likely reference to consistent criticism from the Catholic Church over Israel’s policies toward Christians in Israel and the West Bank.

“This is a very important and sensitive issue,” Herzog said after the meeting. “I spoke about the wonderful communities in Israel, about the duty and need to safeguard and protect them, and I reiterated Israel’s clear commitment to freedom of religion, of worship, and of course to the development and protection of the Christian communities in the Holy Land.”

The Vatican brought up the humanitarian situation in Gaza as well.

According to Herzog, the issue “resonates strongly in the world’s media and certainly affects Israel’s relations with various countries. I described the massive Israeli effort currently underway, which has significantly changed the situation, the facts, and the reality on the ground.”

Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin and Foreign Minister Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher also joined the meeting.

“The very fact that Pope Leo XIV, who has just entered his office, receives the president of the State of Israel at the Vatican is a very important statement,” Herzog said. “It shows the great importance of the relationship between the Holy See and the State of Israel, and of course with the Jewish people. The issues at hand are extremely sensitive and weighty these very days.”

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Herzog added that Israel “would be delighted” to host Leo on a visit.

The audience was the first between Leo and an Israeli head of state. Leo spoke by telephone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July after an Israeli shell slammed into the only Catholic church in Gaza, killing three people and wounding the parish priest.

The Vatican has tried to maintain its tradition of diplomatic neutrality throughout the war, calling for the return of hostages while denouncing Israel’s attacks against civilians in Gaza. But both Pope Francis before, and Leo since his election in May, have voiced mounting outrage at Israel’s actions in Gaza, with the late pope calling for an investigation to determine if they constituted genocide.

Leo has been stepping up his calls for a halt to the war in Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists rampaged across southern Israel, murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages to Gaza.

Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are holding 48 hostages, including 47 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023. They include the bodies of at least 26 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said. Hamas is also holding the body of an IDF soldier killed in Gaza in 2014.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 63,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.

Thursday’s release from the Vatican was notably longer than usual for statements about the pope’s meeting with foreign leaders, which typically offer only a few lines of information and do not give specific details about the topics discussed by the pope.

Leo and Herzog announced earlier this week that they would meet, but had disagreed publicly over whose idea the meeting was.

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The presidency had issued a release on Tuesday saying Herzog would meet Leo at the pope’s invitation.

In an unusual statement later that day, the Vatican responded: “It is the Holy See’s practice to accede to requests for an audience with the pope made by Heads of State and Government; it is not its practice to extend invitations to them.”

Then-Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar told associates in the days prior to October 7, 2023, that an “extraordinary act” would be required to derail normalization talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, according to a document found by the IDF in Gaza and seen by the Wall Street Journal.

Arab intelligence officials familiar with Hamas tell the Journal that the document appears to be genuine.

It is not the first time that documents ostensibly found in Gaza have been leaked to the international press.

The Journal does not publish any images of the documents. There is no official Israeli comment.

The minutes of a meeting of Hamas’s political bureau in the Strip on October 2, 2023, cite Sinwar saying, “There is no doubt that the Saudi-Zionist normalization agreement is progressing significantly.” He warned a deal would “open the door for the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to follow the same path.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Sinwar said that it was time to activate the plan for an attack that the terror group had been planning for some two years “to bring about a major move or a strategic shift in the paths and balances of the region with regard to the Palestinian cause.”

Without directly quoting the document, the Journal says Sinwar expected other Iran-backed terror and proxy groups to join the fighting.

Other documents apparently seized by the IDF and reviewed by the newspaper include one from September 2023 that recommended escalating the violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem to decrease the chances of normalization between Jerusalem and Riyadh.

The report also says that Saudi pledges to uphold the interests of Palestinians are “weak and limited steps to neutralize” Hamas and stop it working against normalization.

An internal briefing marked “secret” from August 2022, apparently written by Hamas’s military leadership, says: “It has become the duty of the movement to reposition itself to… preserve the survival of the Palestinian cause in the face of the broad wave of normalization by Arab countries, which aims primarily to liquidate the Palestinian cause.”

The documents also apparently include an October 2022 advertisement for a vacancy for a position for an individual to lead diplomatic efforts to derail the normalization.

Last year, German tabloid Bild published content from an ostensible document apparently found by the IDF in Gaza. That report on the document is a key element of a leaked intel scandal at the Prime Minister’s Office.

The document reported on by Bild was allegedly unlawfully removed from the IDF’s military intelligence database by a reservist — a noncommissioned officer (NCO) — who gave it to Eli Feldstein, an aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who saw to it that it was transferred to Bild, though he was aware that it was obtained illicitly and that the military censorship had barred the information from publication.

The German current affairs show “Panorama” said yesterday it had acquired the full, highly classified document reported by Bild in September, claiming that the publication seriously distorted the file.

While Bild presented the document as evidence that Hamas was not interested in reaching a serious ceasefire-hostage deal with Israel, “Panorama” said the full document showed Hamas was ready to be flexible in arrangements and sought a truce for 84 days with a pathway to ending the war.

The Bild report excluded this information and presented Hamas as indifferent to whether the ongoing war ended quickly. It reported that it instead prioritized maintaining the terror group’s military capabilities, “exhausting” Israel’s military and political apparatuses, and increasing international pressure on Israel.