Dozens arrested as the investigation that saw Istanbul's mayor jailed deepens

News

Dozens arrested as the investigation that saw Istanbul's mayor jailed deepens

2025-04-26 15:25 Last Updated At：15:32

ISTANBUL (AP) — Police in Istanbul detained 47 people Saturday in dawn raids linked to a corruption investigation that saw the city’s mayor imprisoned last month, leading to Turkey’s largest protests in more than a decade.

Among those arrested in Istanbul, the neighboring province of Tekirdag and the capital, Ankara, were senior officials from Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, local media reported.

The March 19 detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who is the main challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 22-year rule, saw hundreds of thousands of people flood the streets of Turkish cities to protest what many consider a politically motivated case. The government insists Turkey’s judicial system is independent.

In a statement, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office said simultaneous operations were conducted against 53 suspects, six of whom remain at large. Searches were continuing at homes and workplaces, it added.

Demonstrations against Imamoglu’s jailing and wider democratic backsliding saw more than 2,000 people arrested for taking part in banned protests last month. Many of them were students but journalists and trades unionists were also among the detainees.

Imamoglu, who also faces terror-related charges in a parallel investigation launched last month, was nominated the presidential candidate for his Republican People’s Party, or CHP, while in prison. Elections are due in 2028 but could come earlier.

The cases against him, which include several others that pre-date the March investigations, could see him banned from politics.

The CHP-supporting Cumhuriyet newspaper reported that Saturday’s arrests included the deputy secretary general of Istanbul municipality, Imamoglu’s private secretary and the head of the city’s water company. Gokhan Gunaydin, a senior CHP lawmaker, said the municipality was being “effectively rendered inoperable” by the arrests.

The wife of Imamoglu’s adviser was also detained Saturday. The adviser was among some 100 arrested in March’s wave of arrests and remains in prison.

Demonstrations against what the opposition calls the “March 19 coup” are continuing, although on a smaller scale. Ankara governor’s office said Saturday that 30 people were arrested at a protest the previous evening. The CHP was due to hold a rally later Saturday in the Mediterranean city of Mersin.

The party won a swath of major cities in 2019 local elections, making further gains in last year’s polls. In Istanbul, Imamoglu’s victory ended 25 years of control for Erdogan’s party and its predecessors.

US stocks drift as Wall Street heads for the finish of a big winning week

2025-05-16 21:43 Last Updated At：21:50

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is heading toward the finish of a strong, potentially perfect week as U.S. stocks on Friday drift close to the all-time high they set just a few months earlier, though it may feel like an economic era ago.

The S&P 500 was up 0.1% in early trading and potentially on track for a fifth straight gain. It’s heading for a 4.6% rise for the week, which would be its third big winning week in the last four, as hopes build that President Donald Trump will lower his tariffs against other countries after reaching trade deals with them. Such hopes have driven the S&P 500 back within 3.6% of its record set in February, after the index at the heart of many 401(k) accounts briefly dropped roughly 20% below the mark last month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 52 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Trump’s trade war had sent financial markets reeling worldwide because of twin dangers. On one hand, tariffs could slow the economy and drive it into a recession. On the other, it could push inflation higher. A couple better-than-expected reports on inflation this past week helped soothe some those second worries.

But all the Trump’s on-and-off rollout of tariffs could by itself damage the economy by creating so much uncertainty that it causes U.S. households and businesses to freeze their spending and long-term plans. A report coming later in the morning will offer the latest snapshot of sentiment among U.S. consumers, which has been souring sharply because of tariffs.

In the meantime, Treasury yields eased in the bond market following this week’s better-than-expected signals on inflation, which could give the Federal Reserve more leeway to cut interest rates later this year if high tariffs drag down the U.S. economy.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.39% from 4.45% late Thursday and from more than 4.50% the day before that. Lower bond yields can encourage investors to pay higher prices for stocks and other investments.

On Wall Street, Charter Communications rose 1.3% after it said it agreed to merge with Cox Communications in a deal that would combine two of the country’s largest cable companies. The resulting company will change its name to Cox Communications and keep Charter’s headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.

Novo Nordisk’s stock that trades in the United States fell 1.8% after the Danish company behind the Wegovy drug for weight loss said that Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen will step down as CEO and that the board is looking for his successor. The company cited “recent market challenges” and how the stock has been performing recently.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed amid mostly modest movements across Europe and Asia.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 inched down by less than 0.1% after the government reported that Japan’s economy contracted at a faster rate than expected in the first quarter of the year.

AP Writers Jiang Junzhe and Matt Ott contributed.