Amid controversy, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is championing a new law aimed at enhancing transparency in food delivery services. This initiative is stirring debate as critics warn it could lead to increased food prices due to its demand that delivery platforms cease concealing tipping options for couriers.

This legislative push follows a directive established by Mamdani’s administration, which is seeking to enforce a measure passed last year under his Democratic predecessor, Eric Adams, who did not finalize it with his signature.

Allegations against UberEats and DoorDash by the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) cite these companies for obscuring tipping buttons and setting a default tip at a mere 10 percent.

Mayor Mamdani has asserted that such practices have dramatically reduced the gratuities earned by delivery workers, slashing tips by as much as 79 percent.

Emphasizing the impact of the new policy, he highlighted that within just the first half of this year, the reform has returned $104 million to the pockets of delivery workforce members.

He added: ‘This is only the beginning.’

Many online saw this as not just Mamdani embracing the excesses of the left but abandoning his so-called affordability agenda.

‘Is Zohran Mamdani really bragging about making Uber Eats and DoorDash more expensive for New Yorkers? I guess his “affordability” agenda doesn’t extend to New Yorkers who order in take out,’ wrote one critic. 

Columnist Jonathan Levine added: ‘All the millionaires and billionaires using UberEats and DoorDash now going to pay more! Hurray!’

‘Great idea! Everyone loves being forced by apps to pay higher tips. This will definitely boost Mamdani’s approval ratings,’ added entrepreneur Rajat Suri.

‘Maybe DoorDash and UberEats can insert a “compelled by Mayor Mamdani” tooltip into the tip section to fairly attribute this brainwave.’

One critic slammed Mamdani for bloviating over a law that he had nothing to do with passing.

‘Hey Zohran Mamdani: Nice try! You even take credit for laws you didn’t pass. The NYC Council enacted these delivery-app laws in 2025 before you became mayor. Customers still aren’t required to tip and they can leave $0 if they choose,’ wrote Sam E. Antar. 

‘Apparently rewriting history is easier than writing legislation.’ 

Mamdani did respond to claims he was stealing credit from Adams for the law in a statement to Fox News.  

‘A law is only as good as its implementation,’ a spokesperson said. 

‘We have been intentional about enforcing the laws on the books so that we are putting money back into the pockets of working New Yorkers.’ 

Technically, the rules were finally put into practice on January 26, weeks after Mamdani took office. 

The city argues that the law was necessary after DoorDash and Uber Eats hid tipping menus when the city enacted a minimum wage law for delivery workers.  

‘DCWP estimates those changes cost workers an estimated $550 million in tips,’ the city claimed.

Apps can now offer 10 percent, a custom tip or the option to leave none. 

The city said that in the four weeks before the law was implemented, delivery workers were earning an average of $1.18 per delivery.

That increased to $2.29 per delivery, nearly double, in the four weeks after the law was implemented. 

They also claimed that the new law had ‘no measurable impact’ on the number of orders placed via the apps. 

The minimum wage law and the tipping laws have allegedly increased earnings for delivery workers by $2billion in the past three years.   

‘We changed the law, enforced it, and it’s working: $104 million has gone back into the pockets of the workers who keep this city fed, rain or shine. New York will not allow billion-dollar tech companies to boost their profits by taking money from working people,’ Mamdani added. 

Mamdani’s first year has seen mixed results, as his initial friendship with President Donald Trump has faded amid the mayor’s criticisms of Israel and threats to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A poll released Thursday by CNN showed 30 percent of the country viewing Mamdani favorably, as opposed to 35 percent unfavorable.

While that was an overall negative, it was still a better approval rating than many Democrat and Republican lawmakers, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mike Johnson and Chuck Schumer.  

A newly surfaced video captures what could be the critical moments when a North Carolina woman, missing since July, potentially entered the water close by her holiday resort in Grenada.

Elizabeth “Liz” Waddell, age 43, was last observed strolling along Grand Anse Beach on July 22. The licensed physical therapist from Cary, NC, embarked on a three-week vacation with a companion but mysteriously disappeared following an afternoon swim, law enforcement officials report.

A surveillance video that Liz’s family uploaded to YouTube reveals an individual resembling Waddell walking by a pool, clutching a towel. Shortly thereafter, this person is seen nearing the water’s edge and appears to dive in for a swim.

Reportedly sourced from surveillance footage of an Airbnb property, the video could represent the final documented sight of Waddell alive.

In a statement, Liz’s husband, Cailen Waddell, said in part:

“Despite our exhaustive efforts, we have not been successful. After careful and thoughtful consultation with family, local authorities, the U.S. Embassy, and others here in Grenada, I join authorities in believing there was no foul play.”

He has been on the ground searching with authorities since he arrived in the island country on Friday, two days after his wife went missing.

In a news conference on Wednesday, Randy Connaught, the commissioner of the Royal Grenada Police Force, said they have not reached any conclusions about Waddell’s disappearance.

Police have used dive teams, drones and dogs to try and locate any trace of Waddell.

The investigation remains active, with detectives continuing to pursue multiple lines of inquiry while urging anyone with information to come forward, police said.

A mysterious figure has been celebrated as a hero after rousing a slumbering Las Vegas family from the grips of peril. This unknown savior alerted them to an early morning house fire, allowing them to escape unscathed, and then vanished before anyone could capture his identity.

Grateful for their lives, the family is now on a quest to find this man. They recount how he knocked fervently at their door, shouted “Fire!” and even took up a garden hose to combat the blaze, then quietly took his leave. The family believes he is responsible for not only saving them but potentially their neighbors as well.

The blaze erupted just before dawn, around 5 a.m., on July 5, engulfing their home situated in the Las Vegas Valley.

Home security footage, which was later shared with Fox News Digital, vividly captures the inferno consuming the backyard as the flames continued to spread.

Danna Shabtai, the homeowner, recounted to Fox News Digital how she had retired for the night after urging neighborhood children not to ignite fireworks near her property on the evening of July 4.

Hours later, at 4:51 a.m., she woke to someone frantically ringing the doorbell and pounding on the front door.

“My dog started barking, so I woke up and I stumbled to the door,” Shabtai said. “I opened the door and the gentleman was yelling, ‘Fire! Fire!’”

“He pointed toward the back of the house, and I turned around and I could see the French doors to the backyard. I just saw orange — like a wall of orange.”

After realizing the fire was far more serious than she initially thought, Shabtai said her sister grabbed the family’s garden hose and rushed outside to fight the flames while she scooped up her 14-month-old son and ran next door to wake her neighbors.

“I started banging on their windows and their door trying to make noise, like, ‘Wake up! Wake up!’” Shabtai said.

She said two women joined her in pounding on the neighbors’ door until everyone inside made it out safely.

Meanwhile, the stranger grabbed a hose from the neighboring home and tried to keep the flames from spreading.

“He went to those neighbors’ house and grabbed their hose from the front yard, and he was trying to put out their fire,” Shabtai said. “So not only did he wake us up, he was trying to put out the fire with my sister.”

Shabtai believes the man’s actions prevented an even greater tragedy.

“If he wasn’t driving by at that time, I don’t know. It would have been a lot worse before we would have even noticed or woken up that there was a fire,” she said.

The family has since taken to social media in hopes of identifying the mystery man so they can thank him in person.

“You’re an angel. You saved our lives, and I’m really thankful for everything that you did,” Shabtai previously told Fox 5 Las Vegas. “You didn’t have to stop. You could have driven by and said, probably someone already called it in. But no, you took the time, and you woke us up, and you’re a hero.”

Speaking directly to the mystery man, Shabtai thanked him for stopping when others may have driven by.

“You saved probably two households and a bunch of pets because it would have been way too far gone before we would have realized,” she said. “You saved our lives. You’re a hero.”

Shabtai said she believes the fire began after children across the street continued setting off fireworks despite being asked to stop.

She said she heard debris landing on a neighbor’s gazebo and believes she saw a glowing ember drift over a roof toward the neighboring property before everyone went to bed.

She believes the ember may have smoldered for hours before igniting the fire, though officials have not determined an official cause.

In a Facebook post after the fire, Shabtai credited the unidentified passerby with saving multiple families and expressed frustration over what she believes caused the blaze.

“This is why you leave fireworks to the professionals,” she wrote. “This guy who just happened to drive by saved our lives and our neighbors’ lives. Next year I’ll be standing outside with my garden hose and hosing down any feral kids lighting up fireworks in my neighborhood.”

She later shared a video of the aftermath, writing that while her family was fortunate to remain in its home, others were not.

“Aftermath of fire. Neighbors are displaced now because of fireworks. Luckily we don’t have to leave,” she wrote.

A woman, once confined unjustly behind bars, has shared the harrowing tale of how she was framed by her ex-fiancé and his new partner for crimes she never committed.

Michelle Hadley, now aged 39, found herself under arrest in July 2016, accused of cyberstalking and threatening her former fiancé, Ian Diaz, and his wife, Angela Connell. She endured 88 grueling days in jail, facing the daunting possibility of a life sentence.

However, the truth soon began to unravel as authorities discovered that Angela had been the mastermind, sending the menacing emails and even pretending to be a victim in a fictitious ‘rape fantasy’ advertisement on Craigslist.

With these revelations, charges against Hadley were swiftly dropped, leading to Angela’s imprisonment in January 2017.

Even so, federal investigators sensed further deception in the narrative. After a thorough, years-long investigation, they became certain that Ian had also played a role in this elaborate scheme.

He was ultimately arrested in 2021 and was convicted of stalking, perjury and obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Ian’s ploy is now laid bare in a new Netflix documentary, A Toxic Love Story, which premiered on July 23.

However, some key details of the case were left out of the film.

The documentary details how Ian and Angela made several calls to law enforcement in Anaheim, California, beginning in May 2016, claiming Hadley was sending Angela threatening messages from an account titled LilithIsTruth.

The disturbing messages included: ‘You must be gone,’ ‘You have not heeded my warnings’ and ‘Watch your back.’

They soon became even more menacing with messages like: ‘Ian does not love you’ and saying Angela had ‘stolen my treasured home,’ apparently referring to the condo Hadley had bought with Ian while they were together.

As the messages continued, the couple obtained a restraining order against Hadley.

Yet the Diazes claimed they continued to receive messages – this time accompanied by pictures of dead fetuses, reading things like: ‘Drop the restraining order or you will continue to suffer’ and: ‘We will steal your child and watch as it dies’.

Another read: ‘You will die tonight while someone rapes you.’

Then in June 2016, the case took a dramatic turn when Ian claimed that Hadley had posed as Angela to respond to a post on Craigslist asking for a woman to help act out a rape fantasy.

The post had said: ‘I am looking for women who have fantasies about being raped or forced to perform.

‘I’ve done this before with a couple of ex-girlfriends and found it very intense and exciting’.

The man who posted it, who is identified in the film as ‘Rick’, says that he got a message from someone with the username, ‘Lilithistruth’, inviting him over.

The response he got read: ‘I’ve been dying to have a rape fantasy occur while walking my dog, following me home, dragging me upstairs to the bed.

‘I am 30, tall, gorgeous and ready,’ followed by Angela’s full address.

The message went on: ‘Even if I scream, don’t stop.’

Angela later claimed she was physically threatened in her garage.

In the police bodycam footage from when detectives visited the condo, Angela pointed to a black mark on the wall and said it was a makeup stain from when a figure with a black ski mask over his face grabbed her.

Crying, she told the officers: ‘I just didn’t know what was happening. He grabbed me, he had me pinned by the hair at the neck. He told me, now you’re gonna get it, you’re finally going to get raped.’

Angela and Ian both blamed Hadley, who was finally arrested by the police on felony stalking charges that could have sent her to prison for life if convicted.

But while she was in prison, law enforcement began to suspect something more was going on – and that Angela may have sent the threatening emails to herself and lied about the attempted rape.

They soon learned that Angela had previously lied to an ex-boyfriend, Jason Rayburn, about being diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.

Rayburn describes in the documentary how Angela insisted on going to her chemotherapy ‘appointments’ alone until one day Rayburn insisted on accompanying her, and was shocked to find it was for removing a mole. 

Then Rayburn, a California highway patrol officer, got another shock: he claimed an image that Angela had sent him supposedly of her hospital room during chemotherapy was pulled from Google images.

That is when he said he realized her cancer was a lie.

She had also allegedly lied to him about being pregnant with twins, showing him a fake sonogram and doctored pregnancy tests. 

Angela was ultimately arrested in January 2017, and pleaded guilty to charges including fraud, false imprisonment and falsely reporting a crime.

She was then sentenced to five years in prison, and by April 2017, Ian had his and Angela’s marriage annulled.

Still, Department of Justice Special Agent Jason Higley said he continued to have suspicions.

He then reviewed body camera footage from Angela and Ian’s 911 calls and became convinced that Ian was coaching Angela on what to say.

As he then continued to investigate, Higley said he discovered fragments of a LilithIsTruth email on Ian’s computer that proved he had written at least one of the messages.

It is now believed Ian sought revenge on Hadley, who had paid the down payment on their condo.

After they split, Ian remained at the home and later moved Angela in. 

But Higley suggested in the documentary that Ian wanting to keep the condo was only part of Ian’s motive for framing his ex.

‘To me, it boils down to Ian wanting to control someone. He wanted to control Michelle and she got away and that made him angry,’ he claimed.

‘In my view, Angela Connell was a perfect partner because she craved empathy. Angela loved portraying herself as a victim, and Ian exploited that.’ 

The former US Marshal was then arrested in May 2021, and was later found guilty of stalking, perjury and obstruction of justice and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He was later dismissed from the US Marshals Service in 2023. 

But some key details about the case were noticeably left out of the documentary – including Angela’s larger web of lies detailed in divorce filings, court records and witness statements.

During her criminal case, Angela had also been accused of fabricating major parts of her personal history, including aspects of her education, employment and background, the US Sun reports. 

Prosecutors also alleged Angela regularly created false narratives involving pregnancies, illnesses and personal crises which she used to gain sympathy, financial support and gifts.

The documentary also failed to mention how Ian allegedly pressured Michelle into leaving her job as a marketing support manager for a risk services company in Orange County and instead accept a position at Disneyland Resort – even though it would pay $20,000 less.

The career move made Hadley feel more vulnerable in her relationship, she told Buzzfeed News in 2019, saying she believed her then-boyfriend wanted her working at Disneyland because his former colleagues could keep an eye on her. 

Hadley went on to sue the Anaheim Police Department, noting that she had argued from the beginning that she had been framed as she denied sending the threatening messages and posts.

She sought more than $25,000 in damages, accusing investigators of overlooking evidence that could have cleared her name and failing to properly investigate whether she had been framed.

Police officials denied any wrongdoing and argued officers had probable cause for the arrest based on the information available at the time.

Still, the city settled the suit with Hadley in 2021 with no admission of liability.

Yet sources told TMZ this week Hadley settled for around $1.8 million.

Two years later, the former inmate gave birth to a daughter on the same day Ian was convicted.

‘Raising this beautiful little girl is my fairytale ending,’ she told the documentary. ‘I think it is “happily ever after.”‘

Meanwhile, Angela was released from prison in 2020 and completed her parole in 2021. She has since founded a nonprofit and now claims that she was ‘wrongfully convicted.’

But Ian remains behind bars to this day as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied his conviction appeal last year.

He is now due to be released on January 31, 2031.