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Mamdani’s racial equity plan a hidden ‘moving the goalposts’ ploy to justify massive gov expansion: expert
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New York City’s socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani is «moving the goalposts» on poverty in the nation’s largest city with his newly unveiled racial equity plan to justify a massive expansion of government intervention, a top city policy analyst warns.
Mamdani released his «Preliminary Citywide Racial Equity Plan» earlier this month, which quickly received pushback from President Donald Trump’s Justice Department as well as from the Manhattan Institute’s Santiago Vidal Calvo, who told Fox News Digital that when the report uses a «true cost of living» to claim 62% of New Yorkers can’t make ends meet in the city, it’s a ploy to declare a crisis that needs more government.
«What he’s essentially doing is moving the goalposts,» Vidal Calvo explained. «He’s essentially saying that what the federal government qualifies as somebody below the poverty line — which is essentially like $34,000, $35,000 a year, those might be like 2024 numbers, but it’s pretty close to that — we’re essentially moving the goalposts so anybody under $160,000 with children cannot afford to live in New York City.»
«Those numbers, in reality, if you live in New York City, they don’t sound crazy, they don’t sound, you know, high. But in all of reality, for any single person across America, $160,000 is, you know, a breadwinner. It’s essentially enough money to raise a family and to have children and to have a good life. So when we move the goalposts into that direction, without actually recognizing what are the underlying issues of the disease, what are the actual problems that make New York City expensive, then we’re just attributing a problem and throwing a dart at the board and saying, ‘This is it.’»
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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a press conference at La Marqueta in East Harlem on April 14, 2026, outlining plans for city-run grocery stores aimed at lowering food prices. (New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during a press conference announcing a city-run grocery store plan in East Harlem.)
The «reality» of the situation, Vidal Calvo says, is that you «don’t make a place more affordable by making people earn more» but instead the city needs to «ask the right questions» about policies that drive wage growth and new housing development.
«So the issue here is that we are focusing on a problem that the socialists in City Hall want to believe—that if you give people more money, they essentially can access more things,» Vidal Calvo said. «But you’re not asking what is the tradeoff of giving people more money. And just by placing that the ‘True Cost of Living’ in New York City is $160,000 a year for people with children, that doesn’t necessarily mean that people, first, can afford that life or, second, they are able to get those salaries.»
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The high cost of living in New York City is driven by several factors, including housing, which is an area where Vidal Calvo says City Hall needs to «encourage more housing being built around the city.»
«That’s how you lower the price of housing,» he said. «It’s not by freezing rent, it’s not by stabilizing markets—normally what that leads is to more and higher prices.»
Rather than a giant administrative effort to grow government with more departments and staffers, Vidal Calvo explained that the city should instead be reforming zoning to build faster, slash permitting delays, make it easier to establish child care facilities, reduce administrative barriers, and create opportunities for employers to hire more people and recruit talent from across the United States.
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Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks during an event. (Getty Images)
Mamdani’s racial equity plan has drawn intense scrutiny from conservatives over its conclusions on race and efforts to base government action to address racial disparities, including from DOJ Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon who said she will «review» the matter.
Vidal Calvo, who recently published a New York Post op-ed on Mamdani’s plan, told Fox News Digital, «I feel like this is just another way to put DEI on the table without calling DEI.»
«And we have now found that in academia, in many government programs, in many existing architectures of social structures, DEI does not work, and unfortunately, this might be just another case in which it fails, and not because of the well-intended reason of trying to make everybody earn a living, because I feel like that’s a good intention that everybody can have,» Vidal Calvo explained. «But it’s about the solutions that they’re trying to actually approach. It’s about methodology of how they’re actually trying to approach this method. You cannot argue that just because somebody is a different race, it’s become insanely more unaffordable to make a living in New York City. That’s not how it works.»
Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment.
new york city, housing, social policy, zohran mamdani, socialism
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NY AG hopeful blasts Letitia James as Medicaid fraud recoveries collapse: ‘She’s not doing the job’
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Republican New York attorney general candidate Saritha Komatireddy is making Medicaid fraud a centerpiece of her campaign, charging that prosecutions have sharply declined under Attorney General Letitia James.
Cracking down on Medicaid fraud has become a flashpoint issue in the country after investigators uncovered billions of dollars in alleged fraud tied to public assistance programs in Minnesota. The scandal pushed the Trump administration to make cracking down on fraud a higher priority, with Vice President JD Vance leading a federal effort. Now, Republican candidates in races across the country, including New York’s attorney general contest, are calling for states to do more to prosecute Medicaid fraud and recover taxpayer money.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Komatireddy accused James of failing to aggressively pursue Medicaid fraud, saying taxpayers could be losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars in recoveries.
«They’re totally failing to prosecute Medicaid fraud, and you can look at that based solely on the record of Letitia James and her Democratic predecessors,» Komatireddy said. «This is not a partisan issue.»
New York Attorney General GOP candidate Saritha Komatireddy blast AG James for failing to adequately investigate and prosecute Medicaid fraud. ((Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images) Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)
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Komatireddy’s said Medicaid fraud recoveries have plummeted under James, falling from $168 million in 2019, her first year in office, to just $31 million in 2024, according to data from New York Attorney General’s annual reports.
Before James took office, New York attorneys general routinely posted some of the nation’s largest Medicaid fraud recoveries. Under Eliot Spitzer, the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit recovered $243.6 million in 2006. Andrew Cuomo’s office then recovered $113.8 million in 2007, $263.5 million in 2008 and more than $283 million in 2009, totaling more than $660 million during his first three years as attorney general. And Cuomo’s successor, Eric Schneiderman, recovered more than $335 million in 2012 — the second-highest annual total in the unit’s history and its highest recovery in seven years.
«Even her Democratic predecessors used to bring in $200 to $300 million per year in fraudulent proceeds,» Komatireddy said. «When Tish James comes into office, it goes down to $20 to $30 million per year. According to her own year-end reports, she’s just decided not to do that part of the job.»
ALEX BERENSON: MINNESOTA WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING: NEW YORK’S MEDICAID GRIFT IS FAR WORSE
Republican candidate for New York Attorney General Saritha Komatireddy holds a news conference with state GOP lawmakers on increasing public transit safety in New York on Wednesday, April 29, 2026, at West Capitol Park in Albany, N.Y. (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images))
As New York recovers less money from Medicaid fraud each year under James, the state’s spending on the fraud recovery program has increased, from about $45 million in fiscal 2020 to $70 million in 2025.
«It used to be the case the New York Attorney General’s office would get around 100 criminal convictions a year, holding people who are stealing from Medicaid accountable,» Komatireddy said. «Under Tish James, that number is very low. There’s one year where she got eight criminal convictions.»
New York’s handling of Medicaid fraud has also caught the attention of the federal government. Earlier this year, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz sent Gov. Kathy Hochul a letter asking for more information about how the state screens providers and fights fraud. Oz said the review is meant to help protect Medicaid beneficiaries and maintain public confidence in the program. New York was one of only three states — along with California and Minnesota — to receive the letter.
READ: DR. OZ PUTS ALL 50 GOVERNORS ON NOTICE OVER BILLIONS LOST TO MEDICAID FRAUD
Komatireddy said reduced enforcement ultimately costs New Yorkers by increasing healthcare spending and reducing funds available for other state priorities.
«It’s New Yorkers who pay the price, because when people steal from Medicaid, that increases our healthcare costs,» she said. «When we are just letting a billion dollars go out the door over the course of her term, that’s money that we could be getting back as taxpayers.»
Instead, Komatireddy said lawmakers are forced to seek additional revenue from taxpayers.
New York Attorney General Letitia James stands silently during a press conference at the office of the Attorney General in New York City on Dec. 15, 2025. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
«The folks in Albany keep thinking of new ways to take more money away from taxpayers,» she said. «If you had an attorney general who actually prosecuted fraud properly, you wouldn’t have to worry about a tax hike.»
Komatireddy pledged to strengthen the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit by adding 20 criminal prosecutors.
Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor who spent more than a decade in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and later served as chief of staff at the Drug Enforcement Administration, has framed the race as a choice between a career law enforcement prosecutor and an inept incumbent.
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«Like I said, we have to actually just do the job of attorney general,» Henry said. «That job involves prosecuting crime and fraud.»
The New York Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
attorney general, health care executive, republicans, governors, kathy hochul
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La Universidad de El Salvador identifica dos genotipos del virus Epstein-Barr en linfomas de Hodgkin
La Universidad de El Salvador (UES) confirmó la presencia de los genotipos uno y dos del virus Epstein-Barr en linfomas de Hodgkin diagnosticados en el país, un hallazgo que aporta bases para futuras investigaciones sobre el comportamiento clínico y las alternativas terapéuticas de estos tumores en la región.
La investigación, a cargo del Laboratorio de Virología de la Facultad de Medicina, pone en relieve la importancia de caracterizar a nivel molecular los tumores vinculados a este virus, que puede estar presente en más del 90% de la población mundial.
Carlos Ortega, médico y biólogo molecular experto en virología y responsable del laboratorio, explicó en entrevista con Infobae que el virus Epstein-Barr es un virus de ADN descubierto el siglo pasado a partir de su relación con tumores.
“Más del noventa por ciento de la población puede estar infectada por el virus a nivel mundial”, detalló el especialista, quien también es profesor del Departamento de Microbiología de la Facultad de Medicina.
La infección suele ser asintomática, aunque en algunos casos provoca mononucleosis infecciosa y, en menor medida, se asocia a tumores como el linfoma de Hodgkin, linfoma no Hodgkin, linfoma Burkitt y otros.
El estudio de la Universidad de El Salvador comprobó que ambos genotipos principales del virus —el tipo uno y el tipo dos— están implicados en linfomas de Hodgkin entre la población infantil salvadoreña.
Ortega explicó que “el linfoma de Hodgkin es un tumor de linfocito B, una célula clave del sistema inmune”. Cuando se produce la infección, “el virus Epstein-Barr infecta estos linfocitos y permanece latente de por vida, por factores ambientales, de inmunosupresión o genéticos, esta infección puede transformar el linfocito B y provocar el cáncer”, detalló el galeno.
El médico aclaró que, aunque la presencia del virus no explica la totalidad de los casos, sí contribuye a la inmortalización de estas células en un porcentaje importante.
“Ambos genotipos, uno y dos, son capaces de provocar la transformación del linfocito B en un linfocito anormal, lo que desemboca en el linfoma. El comportamiento clínico, epidemiológico y de pronóstico puede variar dependiendo del genotipo involucrado”, señaló Ortega.
Antes de este trabajo, en El Salvador no existían datos sobre la prevalencia de los genotipos del virus en linfomas infantiles y adultos. Según el equipo de investigación, conocer estos genotipos es clave para establecer comparaciones con otros países y avanzar hacia mejores alternativas terapéuticas.
“En nuestro país no se había demostrado cuáles eran los genotipos que estaban relacionados con los linfomas que se diagnostican, en particular el linfoma de Hodgkin”, subrayó Ortega.
El hallazgo resultó de una colaboración previa a la pandemia entre el Laboratorio de Virología y Microbiología Molecular, Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de El Salvador, y el Laboratorio de Biología Molecular, División de Patología, del Hospital de Niños Ricardo Gutiérrez, de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Además se contó con el apoyo de la Red Iberoamericana de Linfomas-RIALCYTED.
Sobre la continuidad del estudio, el médico explicó que “el siguiente paso es analizar el comportamiento clínico de los linfomas en relación con los genotipos del virus en más casos”. Asimismo, desean investigar variantes dentro de cada genotipo y comparar la filogenia de los virus detectados en El Salvador con la de otros países, lo que podría contribuir a mejorar el diagnóstico y tratamiento de los pacientes.
“Esto permitirá una mejor caracterización de estos tumores y, en consecuencia, un mejor tratamiento. Ya existen fármacos dirigidos a proteínas del virus que transforman el linfocito B, lo que abre la puerta a la medicina de precisión”, dijo Ortega.
El galeno agregó que la Universidad de El Salvador busca contribuir a la caracterización molecular de estos tumores para facilitar el acceso a tratamientos más efectivos, aunque reconoció que el costo de los diagnósticos y tratamientos sigue siendo elevado para la mayoría de la población.
“El tratamiento del linfoma de Hodgkin puede superar miles de dólares por paciente durante todo el proceso terapéutico, ya que habitualmente se requieren varios ciclos de tratamiento y seguimiento especializado”, indicó.
En cuanto al acceso, Ortega aclaró que tanto en el sector público como privado existe la posibilidad de caracterizar muchos de estos tumores, aunque en la práctica la mayoría de la población depende del sistema público por el alto costo de los tratamientos.
Destacó que existe una fundación que colabora activamente con el Hospital Nacional de Niños Benjamín Bloom para ayudar en la terapia de los infantes con cáncer, incluido el linfoma de Hodgkin.
Sobre el cuadro clínico, el médico mencionó que “el síntoma inicial puede ser un ganglio inflamado en el cuello u otra región, a veces puede acompañarse de fiebre prolongada, sudoración nocturna, y otros síntomas inespecíficos”. El diagnóstico requiere estudios especializados y biopsia, “y los pacientes deben ser derivados al Hospital de tercer nivel”.
El especialista reiteró que solo un pequeño porcentaje de todos los infectados desarrolla linfoma u otra neoplasia relacionada con el virus, ya que influyen factores genéticos, de inmunosupresión y ambientales.
“Los fármacos usados para tratar el linfoma de Hodgkin se basan en esquemas terapéuticos bien establecidos y su utilización se fundamenta principalmente en la caracterización clínico-patológica del tumor.
No obstante, la caracterización molecular del linfoma, incluida la identificación del virus de Epstein-Barr y de sus genotipos, aporta información valiosa para comprender los mecanismos biológicos de la enfermedad, su comportamiento clínico-epidemiológico, y el desarrollo a futuro de terapias más específicas”, aseguró el galeno.
Agregó que “este conocimiento podría contribuir a optimizar el manejo de los pacientes y mejorar su pronóstico a medida que avancen las estrategias de medicina de precisión”; por ejemplo, para atacar específicamente los antígenos con función oncogénica del virus Epstein-Barr en los linfomas.
Finalmente, el especialista destacó que el avance en biología molecular tras la pandemia fortaleció la capacidad del país para caracterizar tumores y diagnosticar casos, aunque insistió en que aún falta mucho por investigar sobre la relación entre los diferentes genotipos del virus y el comportamiento clínico de los linfomas entre la población infantil del país.
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