Thousands of people gathered at Istanbul’s city hall for a second night Thursday to rally against the arrest of the city’s mayor, which many see as a politically driven attempt to remove a key rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from the next presidential race.

Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested in a dawn raid on his residence on Wednesday over alleged corruption and terror links, escalating a crackdown on opposition figures and dissenting voices. Several other prominent figures, including two district mayors, were also detained.

The detention of the popular opposition leader deepened concerns over democracy and sparked protests in Istanbul and elsewhere, despite road closures and a four-day ban on demonstrations in the city.

It also caused a shockwave in the financial market, triggering temporary halts in trading on Wednesday to prevent panic selling.

In his first comments on the mayor’s detention, Erdogan accused the opposition of failing to respond to the allegations of corruption with evidence or legal arguments.

2 convicted in N.Y. plot on Iranian journalist

A jury has convicted two men of plotting to assassinate Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad at her home in New York City in a murder-for-hire scheme that prosecutors said was financed by Iran’s government.

The verdict was returned at a federal court in New York on Thursday, ending a two-week trial that featured dramatic testimony from a hired gunman and Alinejad, an author, activist and contributor to Voice of America.

Prosecutors said the convicted men, Rafat Amirov and Polad Omarov, were crime bosses in the Russian mob. Their lawyers argued that they were innocent and trial evidence was flawed.

Alinejad, 48, was targeted by Iran for her online campaigns encouraging women there to record videos of themselves exposing their hair in violation of edicts requiring they cover it in public.

Court rejects N.Y. law on noncitizen voting

A New York City law that would have allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections was declared unconstitutional on Thursday by the state’s highest court, which overwhelmingly upheld a lower-court ruling.

The law, which was passed in 2021 but never went into effect, would have given the city’s roughly 800,000 legal permanent residents more of a say in the governance of their home.

Writing for the 6-1 majority, Rowan D. Wilson, chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, concluded that the state constitution made citizenship a condition of voting. Lawyers for the city and an immigrant civil rights group, which had appealed the lower-court rulings, had argued that the state constitution was more expansive in who had the right to vote.

White House postpones N.Y. toll deadline

The Trump administration has pushed back a Friday deadline for New York to end its new $9 congestion toll on most drivers entering Manhattan.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Thursday said he was giving the state an additional 30 days as “discussions continue” on the Republican administration’s demand.

But he also lashed out at New York officials, who have said for weeks they did not intend to comply with the deadline as they have filed a lawsuit challenging Duffy’s decision to rescind the toll’s federal approval last month.

“Your refusal to end cordon pricing and your open disrespect towards the federal government is unacceptable,” Duffy wrote in a strongly worded post on X, formerly Twitter. “Know that the billions of dollars the federal government sends to New York are not a blank check. Continued noncompliance will not be taken lightly.”

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office shrugged off the announcement.

Kentucky governor vetoes GOP’s DEI bill

Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a GOP-backed bill Thursday to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at public universities, declaring that diversity should be embraced as a strength while branding the legislation as being “about hate.”

Beshear, who is seen as a potential candidate for the White House in 2028, announced his veto in a social media video. His forceful defense of diversity initiatives comes as Republican President Donald Trump seeks to end government support for programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.

“I believe in the Golden Rule that says we love our neighbor as ourself, and there are no exceptions, no asterisks,” Beshear said. “We love and we accept everyone. This bill isn’t about love. House Bill 4 is about hate. So I’m gonna try a little act of love myself, and I’m gonna veto it right now.”

Menendez family disputes D.A.’s stance

The family of Erik and Lyle Menendez on Thursday rejected claims by the Los Angeles district attorney that the brothers hadn’t appropriately taken responsibility for the 1989 killing of their parents and said that any lies they told during their murder trial were due to trauma and fear.

“Kids lie when they’re scared, when they feel intimidated, and when they become traumatized. They lie when they don’t know who to trust. But they grow up, they learn, and they take responsibility,” said Tamara Goodell, a cousin of the brothers who spoke Thursday at a rally calling for the brothers’ release from prison.

The family’s rally was supposed to coincide with a resentencing hearing for the brothers that could result in them being immediately eligible for parole after 35 years behind bars. It was postponed to April after Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced his office was withdrawing the resentencing motion previously submitted by his predecessor, George Gascón.

Taliban free American tourist after two years

An American man who was abducted more than two years ago while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist has been released by the Taliban in a deal with the Trump administration that Qatari negotiators helped broker, the State Department said Thursday.

George Glezmann, an airline mechanic from Atlanta, is the third American detainee to be released by the Taliban since January. He was seized by the Taliban’s intelligence services in December 2022 and was designated by the U.S. government as wrongfully detained the following year.

In a statement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Glezmann was on his way back to the United States to be reunited with his wife, Aleksandra, and praised Qatar for “steadfast commitment and diplomatic efforts” that he said were “instrumental in securing George’s release.”

Rebels seize another key town in Congo

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels battling Congo’s army captured another strategic town in the country’s mineral-rich east, residents and insurgents said Thursday, despite ceasefire calls this week by the Congolese and Rwandan presidents.

The decades-long conflict in eastern Congo escalated in January, when the M23 rebels advanced and seized the strategic city of Goma, followed by the town of Bukavu in February.

The latest fighting came after the presidents of Congo and Rwanda held unexpected talks in Qatar on Wednesday and called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. The meeting followed a failed attempt to bring Congo’s government and M23 leaders together for ceasefire negotiations on Tuesday, with the rebels pulling out after the European Union announced sanctions on rebel leaders.

The rebels entered the town of Walikale late on Wednesday, according to residents and civil society leaders, and rebels said in a statement late Thursday that they had “liberated” the town.

Israeli gov’t OKs Shin Bet intel chief’s firing

The Israeli government late Thursday approved Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ouster of the head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, a move that has further roiled a deeply divided country still at war.

The Cabinet unanimously decided that the Shin Bet chief, Ronen Bar, would be removed from his post April 10, or sooner if another director is named, according to a statement released by the prime minister’s office shortly after midnight.

But in a stark challenge to Netanyahu, Bar refused to attend the nighttime meeting over his dismissal. Instead, he sent a stinging letter addressed to the government stating that the process was illegal and that the prime minister’s motives were “fundamentally flawed.”

The attempt to fire Bar is likely to be contested in the country’s Supreme Court.

For Mariah Carey, Christmas comes early

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that Mariah Carey did not steal her perennial megahit “All I Want for Christmas Is You” from other songwriters.

Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani granted Carey’s request for summary judgment on Wednesday, giving her and co-writer and co-defendant Walter Afanasieff a victory without a trial.

In 2023, songwriters Andy Stone of Louisiana — who goes by the stage name Vince Vance — and Troy Powers of Tennessee filed the $20 million lawsuit alleging that Carey’s 1994 song, which has since become a holiday standard and annual streaming sensation, infringed the copyright of their country 1989 song with the same title.

Their lawyer Gerard P. Fox said he’s “disappointed” in an email to The Associated Press.

Mother Jones magazine cofounder dies at 77

Jeffrey Bruce Klein, one of four journalists who in 1976 founded the magazine Mother Jones, rooting it in the crusading left-wing politics of the 1960s, and who returned in 1992 to rebrand it for younger, more digital readers, died March 13 at his home in Menlo Park, Calif. He was 77.

His sons, Jacob and Jonah, said the cause was complications of a nerve disease.

Klein was an East Coast transplant to the San Francisco Bay Area, drawn in the midst of 1960s counterculture.

In 1974, he joined Adam Hochschild, Paul Jacobs and Richard Parker, all editors at the progressive magazine Ramparts, to plan a publication that would expand the left’s focus on government malfeasance, corporate muckraking and the role of money in politics.

They called it Mother Jones, in honor of the fiery labor leader Mary Harris Jones. Working from an office above a San Francisco McDonald’s, they produced their first issue in 1976.

— News service reports