Katie Honan, a hard-nosed City Hall reporter for the nonprofit newsroom The City, was there to cover the opening of a new campaign office for Adams’s independent, desperate, long-shot bid to win reëlection.

Mayor Eric Adams of New York has sought to argue that his first-term wins have earned him the right to serve a second. But he cannot shake the stench of corruption around his administration.

Mayor Eric Adams claimed Tuesday that the city’s legions of rats are “really running scared’’ because of his efforts to thwart them — while a City Hall poster bizarrely touted him as the bald-headed “Mr.