Category Archives: New York

‘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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US justice department sues New York over immigration rules

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Attorney general Pam Bondi targets state law allowing people to get driver’s licenses without legal residency

The US attorney general announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration is suing New York state over its immigration policies, accusing state officials of choosing “to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens”.

Standing in front of federal agents who have been tasked with helping in Trump’s immigration crackdown, Pam Bondi echoed the president’s rhetoric as she vowed the justice department would take on communities that thwart federal immigration efforts.

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Three-hundred-year-old Stradivarius violin sells for $11m in New York

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Proceeds from sale of 1714 instrument will be used to fund scholarships for violinists at New England Conservatory

A Stradivarius violin crafted in 1714 sold for $11.25m (£9.1m) at a New York auction on Friday, missing the world record for a musical instrument that some predicted it might break, but still securing a solid financial future for a new generation of performers.

The 311-year-old instrument, listed by Sotheby’s of Manhattan as “a masterpiece of sound”, once belonged to the celebrated 19th-century Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim, a close friend of the composer Johannes Brahms. It was gifted to the New England Conservatory in 2015 following the death of its most recent owner, a former student, Si-Hon Ma, with the understanding it would one day be sold to fund musical scholarships.

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Salman Rushdie set to testify as attempted murder trial gets under way

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Hadi Matar, 26, accused of stabbing author 10 times in case likely to draw world’s media to tiny upstate New York town

A man accused of attacking Salman Rushdie as he was being introduced at a literary lecture in New York state in 2022 is going on trial this week in a case likely to create global headlines.

The trial could upend life in the tiny upstate New York village of Mayville, whose population of less than 1,500 is not accustomed to finding itself at the center of a media circus covering the attempted assassination of one of the world’s most famous writers.

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Harvey Weinstein back in court as judge set to decide #MeToo retrial start

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Disgraced producer wants extra charge involving allegation from woman who was not in original case throw out

A judge on Wednesday set a 15 April trial date for Harvey Weinstein’s retrial, as the disgraced movie mogul pleaded in court to move the trial date sooner citing health conditions.

Weinstein appeared in court in New York on Wednesday morning, seated in a wheelchair. He addressed the court and begged the Manhattan criminal court judge Curtis Farber to move up the trial date to before 15 April, expressing he “can’t hold on anymore”.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

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Anne Frank exhibit opening in New York amid US debate over antisemitism

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First full-scale replica of Frank’s attic annexe goes on show next week on International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The first-ever full-scale replica of Anne Frank’s attic annex goes on show in New York next week, part of an ongoing effort to maintain awareness of – and combat – antisemitism in the midst of conflict in the Middle East and political tensions in the US.

Eighty years on from Frank’s death, aged 15, in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, the exhibition at the Center for Jewish History in downtown Manhattan aims to introduce new audiences to one of the most famous victims of Adolf Hitler’s “final solution”.

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Trump loses bid to delay sentencing in hush-money case

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President-elect to be sentenced on Friday over conviction stemming from money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels

Donald Trump on Monday lost a bid to put off his sentencing on Friday for his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star.

Citing both presidential immunity and the demands of Trump’s impending January 20 inauguration as the 47th US president, his lawyers on Monday morning said judge Juan Merchan’s intention not to penalize Trump was “of no moment”.

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Jocelyne Wildenstein, socialite known for extreme cat-like plastic surgery, dies at 84

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Known as ‘one of the jet set’s most outrageous characters’, Wildenstein died in Paris hotel aged 84

The Swiss socialite and cosmetic surgery aficionado Jocelyne Wildenstein, sometimes known as “Catwoman” due to her extensive plastic surgery, has died, her partner said on Wednesday.

“It is with heavy heart and with great sadness that Mr Lloyd Klein announces the unexpected death of his beloved fiancée and longtime companion, Jocelyne Wildenstein,” the fashion designer said in an English-language statement sent to the Agence France-Presse news agency.

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Man pushed in front of New York City subway train injured but alive, police say

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The incident occurred in the heart of Manhattan and a man has been taken into custody, but charges are yet to be filed

A man waiting for the subway in Manhattan was pushed in front of an oncoming train on Tuesday afternoon, but survived with injuries to his leg and head, according to the New York police department.

The apparent attack comes less than two weeks after a woman died after being set on fire on a stationary train in New York, an act of violence that horrified the city.

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Woman fatally set on fire in New York subway car identified

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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.

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New York governor orders firing of 14 prison workers after fatal attack on inmate

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Kathy Hochul calls for ousting of correction officers and nurse allegedly involved in death of Robert Brooks, 43

The New York governor, Kathy Hochul, has directed 14 workers at a state prison to be fired after they were allegedly involved in an attack that resulted in the death of an incarcerated man.

Robert Brooks, 43, died in a local hospital a day after a 9 December incident at the Marcy correctional facility in central New York.

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