Victim, 45, hospitalized and in stable condition as police unable to say if attack was random or targeted
A 45-year-old man was set on fire in the middle of Times Square overnight on Sunday, according to police, three months after a woman was killed on a subway train in an arson attack.
Footage from the scene captured the moments the man, shirtless and severely burned, was rushed by authorities into an ambulance after the flames were extinguished.
Continue reading...Departures follow justice department shelving charges widely seen as reward for Eric Adams helping Trump administration
Four deputies to New York’s mayor, Eric Adams, resigned on Monday as the growing chaos following a justice department request to drop corruption charges against him, widely seen as a reward for his help with Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, engulfs his three-year-old administration.
According to reports, four of Adams’ deputies – first deputy mayor Maria Torres Springer, deputy mayor for operations Meera Joshi, deputy mayor for health and human services Anne Williams-Isom, and deputy mayor for public safety Chauncey Parker – said they were stepping down.
Continue reading...It took nine days to identify Debrina Kawam, 61, of Toms River, New Jersey, after she burned to death in Brooklyn
The woman who was set on fire in a subway car in New York on 22 December, horrifying New Yorkers and renewing a debate over city safety, has been identified as 61-year-old Debrina Kawam, of Toms River, New Jersey.
The victim’s identity, released by the New York police department, came nine days after the fatal incident. Investigators had previously said they were using forensics and video surveillance to identify the victim.
Continue reading...Gigantiello, who let singer film in church, stripped of duties after inquiry shows he sent parish funds to Eric Adams aide
The leader of a New York City church where pop star Sabrina Carpenter filmed provocative scenes for a music video was stripped of his duties on Monday after church officials said an investigation revealed other instances of mismanagement.
Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello was relieved of “any pastoral oversight or governance role” at his church located in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, Bishop Robert Brennan said in a statement issued by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.
Continue reading...Beleaguered mayor in court as prosecutors allege Adams, 64, ‘sought and accepted improper valuable benefits’
Eric Adams, the embattled Democratic mayor of New York City, who was indicted on federal criminal charges in an unprecedented scene for a sitting mayor of the city, pleaded not guilty in court in Manhattan early on Friday afternoon.
The mayor arrived at court on Friday morning hours ahead of a scheduled arraignment, accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions and free overseas trips from foreign actors seeking influence.
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Here is more from the federal indictment against Eric Adams:
In 2014, Eric Adams, the defendant, became Brooklyn borough president. Thereafter, for nearly a decade, Adams sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish govermnent official seeking to gain influence over him.
By 2018, Adams – who had by then made known his plans to run for mayor of New York City – not only accepted, but sought illegal campaign contributions to his 2021 mayoral campaign, as well as other things of value, from foreign nationals.
Eric Adams, the defendant, sought and accepted illegal campaign contributions in the form of ‘nominee’ or ‘straw’ contributions, meaning that the true contributors conveyed their money through nominal donors, who falsely certified they were contributing their own money.
By smuggling their contributions to Adams through US-based straw donors, Adams’ overseas contributors defeated federal laws that serve to prevent foreign influence on US elections.
Continue reading...Mayor says he will stay in his role after reports emerge that he may soon become the first sitting mayor of the city to be criminally charged
Eric Adams, the New York City mayor, has said he will stay in office despite reports emerging that he had been indicted following a federal corruption investigation.
It is still unclear what charges Adams, 64, will face but federal prosecutors are expected to layout the details of the charges Thursday, the New York Times reported.
Continue reading...Mayor Eric Adams sent letters rescinding key and asking for it to be sent back to City Hall, which received it on 10 June
Sean Combs has returned his key to New York City after a request from mayor Eric Adams in response to the release of a video showing the music mogul nicknamed “Diddy” attacking R&B singer Cassie, officials said Saturday.
The mayor’s office said Combs returned the key after Adams sent letters to the embattled musician’s offices in New York and California on 4 June rescinding the key and asking for it to be sent back to City Hall. The city received the key on 10 June.
Continue reading...New York police say about 29% of those detained ‘not affiliated’ with university as more are arrested at NYU and New School
New York’s police department has declared that approximately 29% of the people it arrested at pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University were “not affiliated” with the institution, as the city’s mayor continues to face scrutiny over his claims that the hardline police response was due to the actions of “outside agitators”.
The NYPD also said 60% of arrestees at City College of New York (CCNY) on Tuesday night were unaffiliated with the college, though a CCNY spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian that these arrest figures applied to protesters both on and off the college’s grounds.
Continue reading...The New York City mayor has claimed police arrested protesters after non-student elements escalated the situation
The New York City mayor, Eric Adams, remains under pressure to divulge how many of the 282 people arrested at campus protests in Manhattan on Tuesday night were non-students after repeatedly claiming that “outside agitators” were responsible for escalations that prompted an overwhelming law enforcement crackdown.
Adams, a Democrat and former city police officer, was asked by local reporters on Thursday morning to give a breakdown of the arrest numbers. He repeatedly declined to provide details.
Continue reading...Three donors say that they – and, in two cases, their spouses – were reimbursed for donations to the New York City mayor’s 2025 campaign, a tactic that violates state law
Political contributions to New York mayor Eric Adams totaling more than $10,000 were secretly bankrolled by business people tied to the city’s hotel and construction industries, according to three individuals listed as donors in government records.
Continue reading...Brianna Suggs questioned by corruption squad as Eric Adams cancels several Washington DC meetings
The home of a consultant with ties to the New York city mayor, Eric Adams, was raided by the FBI on Thursday.
Brianna Suggs, Adams’s top campaign fundraiser, was questioned by the FBI’s public corruption squad as they searched her house in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, the New York Times reported.
Continue reading...Mayor Eric Adams announced on Monday that abortion pill prescriptions would now be available by telephone or online
New York City public hospitals will now offer abortion care via telehealth, placing them among the first public health systems in the US to do so.
The city’s mayor, Eric Adams, announced on Monday that abortion pill prescriptions would now be available by telephone or online, adding that such access can happen from “the comfort of your home”.
Continue reading...Progressive Tiffany Cabán says Eric Adams’ hostile comments on migrants have ‘real possibility’ of inciting violence
A prominent New York progressive is warning that mayor Eric Adams’s hostile comments about the rising number of migrants in the city are “dangerous” and risk inciting violence against the new arrivals and other immigrants.
Tiffany Cabán, aiming for re-election to the city council this November and long endorsed by leading leftwing figures, including US senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, attacked as “irresponsible” the mayor’s remarks last week that the sharp increase in migration to New York would “destroy” the city.
Continue reading...Medical examiner confirmed on Wednesday that 30-year-old Black man died from compression to the neck
Pressure was mounting on police, prosecutors and the New York mayor, Eric Adams, on Thursday as protesters, advocates and even Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez criticized the lack of action over the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old Black man and Michael Jackson impersonator who was placed in a chokehold by another subway rider.
Adams has heightened police presence in subway stations in an attempt to curtail crime, while endorsing involuntarily hospitalizing people experiencing homelessness with mental illness and using police to remove people suffering from mental illness from subway stations.
Continue reading...Eric Adams gets split decision while spokesman says: ‘One decision is clear, however: the mayor still hates rats’
In the latest round of his long battle against rats, the New York mayor, Eric Adams, scored a split decision on Tuesday when a hearing officer dismissed one summons while upholding another citing Adams for not doing enough to keep rodents at bay at his Brooklyn townhouse.
Adams was fined $300. A spokesperson, Fabien Levy, said the mayor was “grateful” one summons was dismissed and would consider his options about the second.
Continue reading...Mayor says city’s strained care system can’t handle influx and blames government for lack of coordination during El Paso visit
In an unprecedented visit by a New York City mayor to the Mexico border, Eric Adams said his city doesn’t have enough “room” to host more migrants in its strained care system.
He made his remarks on Sunday at a news conference during his trip to El Paso, Texas, the first visit of its kind by a New York mayor, after an ongoing crisis sparked by the controversial decision of some Republican governors in the south to send migrants to mostly Democratic-administered municipalities around the US.
Continue reading...Eric Adams issued summons by health department in May after inspector spotted ‘fresh rat droppings’ at his Brooklyn townhouse
New York City mayor Eric Adams is such an enemy of rats that he once called a press conference to demonstrate a contraption for drowning them in poison. Now Adams finds himself contesting a $300 fine issued by his own administration over a rat infestation at a building he owns in Brooklyn.
Adams was issued a summons by the city health department on 10 May after a health inspector spotted “fresh rat droppings” at his townhouse on Lafayette Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
Continue reading...The city is looking for ‘somewhat bloodthirsty’ applicants to a new role designed to tackle its very old rodent problem
Hate rats? Are you a “somewhat bloodthirsty” New Yorker with excellent communication skills and “a general aura of badassery”? Then you might have what it takes to be the city’s new rat czar.
Mayor Eric Adams’s administration posted a job listing this week seeking someone to lead the city’s long-running battle against rats. The official job title is “director of rodent mitigation”, although it was promptly dubbed the rat czar. Salary range is $120,000 to $170,000.
Continue reading...Lisa White, who earns $241,000 a year, is one of a number of Eric Adams’s friends, family and former colleagues hired to top roles
A career 911 dispatcher and longtime friend of New York City mayor Eric Adams who rented a room to Adams in her apartment in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights for four years now has one of the highest-paid jobs in city government, records show.
In May, the NYPD appointed Lisa White as its deputy commissioner for employee relations, at a salary of more than $241,000 a year – a nearly fivefold boost over her prior salary there and almost as much as the police commissioner makes.
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