*By Carlo Versano*
Cynthia Nixon is sticking by her controversial bagel order.
The progressive Democrat challenging incumbent Andrew Cuomo in New York State's upcoming gubernatorial primary shared a cinnamon raisin bagel topped with lox and cream cheese with Cheddar on Tuesday. The unconventional medley ignited a [firestorm](https://nypost.com/2018/09/10/cynthia-nixons-bagel-order-is-horrifying/) on Twitter over the weekend, but Nixon has bigger fish to fry.
She wants the two-term Cuomo, who has long been thought to have presidential ambitions, to re-establish his liberal bona fides for voters calling for change. Cuomo maintains a 40 point lead over his challenger, according to the [latest polling] (https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2018/governor/ny/new_york_governor_democratic_primary-6526.html). But Nixon pointed to a slew of recent upsets ー Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Andrew Gillum, and Ayanna Pressley ー that have fueled her optimism for Thursday's primary.
"The polls across the board are just not capturing the progressive moment we're in," she said, adding that hundreds of thousands of new Democrats have registered to vote across New York State following Donald Trump's election.
Nixon's platform is built on issues of housing affordability, universal healthcare, and criminal justice reform. The latter has garnered her perhaps the most traction.
In a debate last month, Nixon pointedly called the legalization of marijuana a "racial-justice issue."
"Using marijuana is something that's effectively been legal for white people for a long time," she said during her interview on Cheddar. "It's time to make it legal for everybody else."
Part of that reform includes paroling and expunging the records of New Yorkers who were convicted of smoking or selling pot and using tax revenues from a nascent (decriminalized) weed industry to invest in communities that have been ravaged by the decades-long war on drugs.
Nixon's position on pot was viral enough to cause rapper T.I. to [gush](https://thegrio.com/2018/09/11/ti-cynthia-nixon-marijuana-vote/) over her on Twitter, though he admitted he doesn't know who the candidate is.
Cuomo, for his part, rejected what he called "reparations" during the debate, but struck a more cautious, pro-legalization position ー a leftward policy change that may have developed only at Nixon's prodding.
But the actress-turned-activist isn't running to liberalize Cuomo ー she's running to replace him.
"To be informed about Andrew Cuomo is to want a change," she said.
The former "Sex and the City" star said she has been encouraged by support upstate and in the suburbs, though New York City remains her core base. To that end, she has run aggressively on a campaign to fix the subway, pinning the decrepit state of the system on her opponent.
In New York, the subways are theoretically controlled by the governor, who oversees the MTA. Nixon has pledged to pass congestion pricing and a tax on the wealthy to pay for much-needed repairs to an aging infrastructure. She said Cuomo has not aggressively fought for the funding in Albany.
With two days to go until New York Democrats head to the polls, Nixon, who has refused corporate donations, knows she's the underdog against a well-known, well-funded, powerful incumbent. But there's no denying the country's progressive wave. The question remains whether that wave will be enough to carry Nixon to victory.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/cynthia-nixon-optimistic-despite-trailing-gov-andrew-cuomo-in-latest-polls).
Regulators in Colorado have to keep up with and adapt to a fast-growing, ever-changing industry which consistently introduces new products into the market. "It is a challenge, but the engagement we have with stakeholders has been really valuable in helping us navigate those issues," says Dominique Mendiola, recently-appointed director of marijuana coordination in the state.
President Donald Trump's ambivalence at a joint press conference with President Vladimir Putin gave the Russian leader a "get-out-of-jail-free-card" for future elections, says Joaquin Castro, Democratic Representative from Texas.
The backlash from President Trump's meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin continued well into Tuesday, with politicians from both sides of the aisle condemning Trump. During his meeting with Putin on Monday, Trump seemed to side with the Russian President over U.S. intelligence officials on the issue of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Shares of Netflix tumbled after the company reported lower-than-expected subscriber growth in its quarterly earnings report on Monday. The streaming giant also missed Wall Street estimates on revenue and earnings per share.
And Jonathan Trager, CEO of Group Elephant, joins Cheddar to talk about his organization's mission to stop the poaching of elephants and rhinos in South Africa.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
Trump Faces Bipartisan Backlash
Russian Woman Charged With Election Meddling
Hawaii's 'Lava Bomb' Injures Tourists
Deadly Fire Near Yosemite National Park Doubles
The New York attorney general candidate, who previously worked on Cynthia Nixon's campaign, plans to tackle corruption in the state. "People are really sick and tired of not having serious, on-going corruption prosecutions in New York State done by the state attorney general."
The show, which features political figures like Bernie Sanders and Trent Lott, premiered last night on Showtime. While it taps into political and social issues like gun control, popular.info’s Editor in Chief Judd Legum doesn’t know if it will significantly affect the public’s attitudes. “I don’t think this is a complete game changer, but I do think that things like this can contribute into some of the changes and attitudes on guns."
Following the president’s refusal to take a question from CNN’s Jim Acosta last week, Morgan criticized the mainstream media and the president for constantly being at each other’s throats. “I wish everyone would just take a chill pill and work a little bit better together with mutually better respect.”
During a joint press conference with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, Finland, Monday, President Trump refused to say whether he believed his own intelligence agencies about whether Russia interfered with the 2016 elections. The press conference drew criticism from Republicans and Democrats back at home.
These are the headlines you Need2Know:
*President Trump meets with Russian President Putin in Helsinki, Finland, days after the indictment of 12 Russian operatives for trying to disrupt the 2016 election.
*A federal judge blasts the HHS giving them one more week to reunite 2,000 families at the border after the administration missed the initial deadline.
*Protests erupted in Chicago over the weekend after a popular barber was shot and killed by the police.
*Novak Djokovic and Angelique Kerber won Wimbledon titles over the weekend. And France took home the World Cup.
Cheddar's Hope King gives us the details.
Before his private meeting with Russian President VladimirPutin, President Trump tweeted that the U.S.-Russia relationship has taken a hit because of the federal investigation into election interference, which Trump says is a "Rigged Witch Hunt!" Trump also labeled the EU as "foes" of the United States over the weekend, further alienating allies that he has been criticizing for the past week. Cheddar's J.D. Durkin brings us the latest from Helsinki, Finland.
