The service sector employment index weakened, standing at 44.3, after 49.5 the previous month.
Both are considered likely candidates for mayor in four years, and with Mr. Bloomberg's weakened standing, colleagues predicted that both Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Liu would forcefully resist elements of the administration's third-term agenda.
If she's charged, Lagarde is not likely to have to resign from the IMF, but it could weaken her standing.
Mr. Bloomberg's critics sought to portray him as unfit for public office, while the Bloomberg campaign accused the state Democratic Party of planting the article just days before the primary on Tuesday to weaken his standing.
Washington is also worried that the video could weaken its standing in Afghanistan just as it is struggling to balance its relationship with President Hamid Karzai and to engage in talks with the Taliban — negotiations that the Afghan leader has so far viewed warily.
They think it weakens their standing in internal elections and thus in the party.
The Afghan government appears to believe that there is a plot by the United States to weaken Afghanistan's standing in order to gain leverage in the negotiations.
In 1990, Mr. Cheney opposed seeking authorization to use force from either Congress or the United Nations, fearing that failure to get a resolution would weaken the United States' standing.
As sanitation and drainage systems continue to weaken, pools of standing water are expanding, forming larger and new breeding grounds for the disease-carrying mosquitoes.
But it is eager to avoid doing so because that action would likely leave the United States isolated on the issue, weakening its standing with Arab nations at a politically delicate moment.
