Category Archives: New York

More US states report measles cases amid vaccine misinformation

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Ohio, Maryland and Alabama among states to report new cases, with 378 confirmed in first few months of 2025

More US states are reporting measles cases as the Texas outbreak expands, surpassing last year’s total, amid vaccine misinformation and hesitancy.

The Texas outbreak could take a year to get under control, one health official said – during which time it may spread to more states. Yet the parents of the six-year-old girl who died of measles in Texas have spoken against measles vaccination as misinformation continues to proliferate, including from figures such as the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

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Columbia University caves to demands to restore $400m from Trump administration

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Measures include empowering security officers to arrest people, and reassigning control of Middle East department

Columbia University has yielded to a series of changes demanded by the Trump administration as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal funding the government pulled this month amid allegations that the school tolerated antisemitism on campus.

The university released a memo outlining its agreement with Donald Trump’s administration hours before an extended deadline set by the government was to expire.

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Two men convicted of murder-for-hire plot against Iranian American journalist in New York

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Masih Alinejad had incurred the wrath of Tehran by campaigning for Iranian women to reject strict dress codes

Two men have been found guilty of plotting to assassinate the Iranian American journalist Masih Alinejad at her home in New York City in a murder-for-hire scheme that prosecutors said was financed by the Iranian government.

The verdict was returned at a federal court in New York on Thursday, ending a two-week trial that featured dramatic testimony from a hired gunman and Alinejad, an author, activist and contributor to Voice of America.

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‘Cataclysmic’: environmentalists fear effects of Trump cuts on Great Lakes

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Advocates warn firings and funding freezes already risk poisoning drinking water and decimating fish population

Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s attacks on federal agencies and funding freezes will be “cataclysmic” for the environment of the sensitive Great Lakes region if not reversed, industry and environmental advocates in the region warn.

Initial actions taken since Trump returned to the White House in January – and put Musk in charge of slashing the federal government – already risk poisoning drinking water, decimating fish populations, and risking the jobs and health of tens of millions of people who rely on the lake system, they add.

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French politician jokes US should return Statue of Liberty for siding with ‘tyrants’

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Raphaël Glucksmann quips that US should give back 19th-century gift from France over Trump’s approach to Ukraine

A French European parliament member has quipped that the US should return the Statue of Liberty, which it received as a gift from France about 140 years ago, after Donald Trump’s decision “to side with the tyrants” against Ukraine.

Trump’s White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, then responded to Raphaël Glucksmann on Monday by calling him an “unnamed low-level French politician” and saying the US would keep the statue.

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Man set on fire in New York’s Times Square

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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.

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Wendy Williams’s tragic tale shines a light on court-ordered conservatorship

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Former talkshow host takes public her battle to remove her guardian, ordered by a court due to dementia and aphasia

The note dropped from the upper floor window of an assisted living facility in New York on the morning of 10 March contained a simple message: “Help! Wendy!!” it read.

For any patient inside, it would have been tragic. But, astonishingly, the writer of this note was Wendy Williams, a trailblazing television talkshow host and once one of the most recognisble daytime TV faces in America.

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Almost 100 arrested during protest occupying Trump Tower over Mahmoud Khalil

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Demonstrators led by Jewish Voice for Peace demanding release of Palestinian activist stood in US president’s New York City building

Protesters organized by a progressive Jewish group occupied the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City on Thursday to demand the release of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian Columbia University student held by US immigration authorities, and nearly 100 were arrested.

Chanted slogans included: “Free Mahmoud, free them all” and: “Fight Nazis, not students.”

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US judge blocks deportation of Palestinian activist detained by Ice

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Critics condemn arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia University graduate student who led protests over Gaza war

A judge has blocked the deportation of the prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s protests against Israel over the war in Gaza. Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University until this past December who holds permanent US residency, is being detained by US immigration authorities at a facility in Louisiana after his arrest, according to information from officials.

A spokesperson for the US’s homeland security department – as well as the country’s top diplomat – confirmed the arrest. In a statement to the Associated Press, a homeland security department spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said Khalil’s arrest was made to support Donald Trump’s presidential orders “prohibiting antisemitism”.

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Ontario sets 25% surcharge on energy exports to US to counter Trump tariffs

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Premier Doug Ford says province ‘won’t back down’ until US president retracts duties on Canada

The Canadian province of Ontario is imposing a 25% surcharge on electricity exports to the states of New York, Michigan and Minnesota in protest against Donald Trump’s tariffs, the premier, Doug Ford, said on Monday.

“President Trump’s tariffs are a disaster for the US economy. They’re making life more expensive for American families and businesses,” Ford said in a statement.

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‘Reeks of McCarthyism’: outrage after Ice detains Palestinian student activist

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Arrest of Mahmoud Khalil a ‘targeted, retaliatory’ attack on his first amendment rights, say civil rights groups

Free speech organizations and advocates are expressing outrage after a prominent Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last year, was arrested and detained over the weekend.

Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card, was taken into custody by federal immigration authorities on Saturday night, who reportedly said that they were acting on a state department order to revoke his green card.

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Crews continue to battle wind-driven brush fire on New York’s Long Island

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Three of the fires are contained, while one is still burning in Westhampton, officials say

Firefighters in New York were continuing to battle at least one brush fire in a wooded stretch of Long Island on Sunday with the wealthy coastal enclave of the Hamptons vulnerable and officials warning that high wind gusts threatened to ignite further blazes.

The state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, declared a state of emergency on Saturday after four separate fires broke out. The flames were spreading across large swaths of the narrow strip of barrier land that stretches for more than 100 miles east from New York City out towards the Atlantic Ocean.

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Fires rage on Long Island as New York governor declares state of emergency

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State agencies responding around Pine Barrens, where homes, chemical factory and Amazon warehouse are at risk

Quick-moving brush fires burned through a large swath of land on New York’s Long Island on Saturday, fanned by high winds that spewed thick grey smoke into the sky and prompted the evacuation of a military base and the closure of a major highway.

Kathy Hochul, the state governor, declared a state of emergency and said state agencies were responding to the fires around the Pine Barrens, a wooded area that is home to commuter towns east of New York City.

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Hazel Dukes, lifelong civil rights leader, dies aged 92

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President of the NAACP New York state chapter fought tirelessly for voting rights, fair housing and education

Hazel Dukes, the president of the New York state chapter of the NAACP and lifelong civil rights advocate, died Saturday at the age of 92.

Dukes peacefully passed away in her New York City home surrounded by family, her son, Ronald Dukes, said in a statement.

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Andrew Cuomo announces run for mayor of New York City

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Democrat resigned as governor three years ago after being accused of sexual harassment and Covid mismanagement

Former New York state governor Andrew Cuomo on Saturday announced a run for mayor of New York City, an attempt to come back from a sexual harassment scandal that forced him to resign more than three years earlier.

Cuomo, 77, served as governor from 2011 to 2021, guiding the state through the worst, deadliest months of the Covid-19 crisis. But he was forced to resign in August of his final year as governor when an investigation commissioned by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, found he had sexually harassed at least 11 women during his time in office.

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Rose Girone, believed to be oldest living Holocaust survivor, dies aged 113

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Born in 1912 in Poland, Girone was one of about 245,000 survivors living across more than 90 countries

Rose Girone, believed to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor and a strong advocate for sharing survivors’ stories, has died. She was 113.

She died on Monday in New York, according to the Claims Conference, a New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

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New York governor orders removal of Palestinian studies job posting at Cuny

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Hunter College faculty and staff union condemns Kathy Hochul’s order to take down listing, calling it ‘overreach of authority’

The New York governor, Kathy Hochul ordered the City University of New York (Cuny) to immediately remove a job posting advertising a Palestinian studies professor role at the state university system’s Hunter College.

In the job listing, Hunter College wrote that the institution is seeking “a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender, and sexuality”.

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New York City’s Ukrainian community ‘disappointed’ after Trump’s ‘betrayal’

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As the US upends decades of foreign policy, those watching the war unfold from miles away resolve to stand strong

Members of New York’s large Ukrainian community expressed a mix of disillusionment, betrayal, defiance and acute uncertainty about what the future holds for Ukraine after tensions escalated this week between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Geopolitical events in the last week have shocked Ukrainians at home and overseas as well as US lawmakers and allies, as the US president appeared to heavily favor the Russian president Vladimir Putin to dictate peace terms on the eve of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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No evidence of hate crime in killing of US transgender man, authorities say

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Five people charged with murder in Sam Nordquist’s death in upstate New York also identified as LGBTQ+, say officials

Authorities investigating the alleged torture and murder of Sam Nordquist in upstate New York say they have found no evidence the transgender man’s killing was a hate crime, pointing out that five people recently charged in connection with the slaying also identified as LGBTQ+.

“We urge the community not to speculate into the motive behind the murder as we work to find justice for Sam,” authorities said over the weekend in a joint press release from the Ontario county district attorney’s office and New York state police. “At this time, we have no indication that Sam’s murder was a hate crime.”

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Four deputies to New York mayor resign in fallout over dropped corruption charges

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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.

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