No charges filed against ex-president or Trump Organization in New York inquiry into potential golf-course tax irregularities
Make that one less legal headache for Donald Trump.
A suburban New York prosecutor said on Thursday that she has closed a multi-year investigation that focused in part on whether the twice-indicted former president or his company misled authorities to reduce taxes on properties they own.
Continue reading...New York City, parts of Pennsylvania and Baltimore all issued warnings as 421 wildfires continue to burn up north
Poor air quality returned to the north-east US on Sunday, although it was nowhere near as bad as the heavy haze that recently shrouded the region and triggered global headlines as wind-borne smoke from raging Canadian wildfires caused orange skies, thick smog and record-setting pollutant levels.
On Sunday morning, a smoke plume moved across New York City, leaving the air quality index in the city at 103 and categorized as “unhealthy for sensitive groups”, particularly for those with heart or lung problems.
Continue reading...Orange smoky skies might be a new phenomenon for those on the east coast, but for the American west, it’s just the average summer
It was a sight all too familiar to Californians: orange skies and thick smoke blanketing the sky, emitting the eerily out-of-place smell of a campfire.
But this time the scenes were in New York City, as smoke from more than 400 wildfires darkened the famous skyline and gave the US its worst day of air pollution in recent history.
Continue reading...US vice-president said administration working with Canada to tackle the crisis; Canadian PM accuses opposition leader of fighting climate plan
Protesters are set to descend upon the White House on Thursday amid growing anger among climate activists at Joe Biden for allowing a controversial gas pipeline in Appalachia to be fast-tracked.
Several hundred protesters are expected to demand Biden “reclaim his climate legacy” by blocking the Mountain Valley pipeline, a 300-mile pipeline that will bring fracked gas from West Virginia to southern Virginia.
Continue reading...Millions of Americans remain under air pollution warnings as schools close and air travel is disrupted
Toxic smoke from Canadian wildfires could linger over vast swathes of the US for days, officials warned, as millions of Americans remained under air pollution warnings.
Across the eastern US residents were again urged to stay inside and limit or avoid outdoor activities on Thursday, as schools in some cities closed, sporting events were canceled, and air travel was disrupted.
Continue reading...Actor was helped off stage from her one-woman show Prima Facie after city’s poor air quality prompted breathing issues
Jodie Comer stopped her one-woman show Prima Facie on Broadway because of breathing difficulties owing to New York’s air crisis.
According to eyewitnesses, the award-winning star of Killing Eve, tipped to win a Tony award this weekend, was 10 minutes late for the matinee performance. After three minutes of the show, she announced that she couldn’t proceed.
Continue reading...Eastern US states including New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut issue alerts as hundreds of wildfires burn in Canada
Tens of millions of people in the US were under air quality alerts on Wednesday, as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south, turning the sky in some of the country’s biggest cities a murky brown and saturating the air with harmful pollution.
States across the east, including New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, issued air quality alerts, with officials recommending that people limit outdoor activity.
Continue reading...Hazy skies hung over north-eastern US a day after the midwest received a similar alert from the Environmental Protection Agency
Canada is dealing with a series of intense wildfires that have spread from the western provinces to Quebec, with hundreds of forest fires burning. Wind has carried smoke from the fires southward, triggering air-quality alerts throughout the United States.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday issued a poor air-quality alert for New England, a day after parts of Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota received a similar advisory. Last week, US officials as far south as Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania reported being affected by the wildfires.
Continue reading...Mathew Bianchi claims superiors retaliated against him for writing tickets for people holding ‘corrupt’ courtesy cards
Mathew Bianchi became a Staten Island traffic cop in 2017, two years after joining the New York police department, assigned to enforcing traffic violations and issuing tickets. In the first two years on that beat, he received stellar performance evaluations.
But in November 2018 – a year into his career in the traffic unit – Bianchi issued a ticket to a civilian who held a New York City police department laminated courtesy card, an unofficial credential issued to NYPD officers based on their union affiliation that can then be distributed to family members and friends to carry with them.
Continue reading...Communist party has campaigned for decades to eradicate remembrance events for the 4 June clashes in Beijing
When Zhou Fengsuo was looking for a space in New York to display his art collection, he couldn’t believe his luck when he stumbled across 894 6th Avenue in the heart of midtown Manhattan. The numbers of the address – 8946 – were the same as the date he wanted to commemorate: 4 June 1989. It was “unbelievable”, the former student leader marvelled.
That Zhou’s collection, which opened to the public on Friday as part of the June 4th Memorial Museum, ended up in such an uncanny location is the result of a concerted, decades-long campaign by the Chinese Communist party (CCP) to eradicate any remembrance of the 1989 massacre around Tiananmen Square anywhere in the world.
Continue reading...Morris Wortman, 72, was passenger in hand-built, experimental plane that went down in New York state on Sunday, killing pilot too
A New York fertility doctor who was accused of using his own sperm to impregnate several patients died when the hand-built airplane he was in fell apart mid-flight and crashed, authorities said.
Dr Morris Wortman, 72, of Rochester, was a passenger in the experimental aircraft that went down on Sunday in a pasture in Orleans county. The pilot, Earl Luce Jr, of Brockport, also was killed, the county sheriff said.
Continue reading...Video hearing follows news that E Jean Carroll seeks new damages over ex-president’s comments in CNN town hall
Donald Trump’s trial in New York on criminal charges over hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels will begin on 25 March 2024, amid the Republican presidential primary and less than than eight months before the general election the former president hopes to contest.
The trial date was announced in a hearing in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, Trump attending by video link from his Florida home.
Continue reading...Alexander and Andrea Campagna took in Korean travelers during deadly snowstorm in Buffalo last year – and got special thanks in return
A US husband and wife who sheltered 10 South Korean travelers in their home during a deadly snowstorm last Christmas have gone to Seoul and been feted as heroes.
Alexander and Andrea Campagna went to South Korea’s capital as part of a 10-day tour of the city organized as a token of gratitude for the husband and wife who opened up their home in Buffalo, New York, to strangers in need.
Continue reading...Former employees at Houghton University say administrators claimed pronouns in signatures violated new school policy
A New York Christian university terminated two employees for putting pronouns in their respective email signatures, these former workers allege, according to reports.
Raegan Zelaya and Shua Wilmot, who were residence hall directors at Houghton University, said that administrators told them to take the words “she/her” and “he/him” off of their email signatures.
Continue reading...Leader of non-profit organization accused of fabricating stories about veterans being kicked out of hotels in upstate New York
Recent reports about how migrants displaced unhoused veterans from upstate New York hotels have turned out to be false after circulating widely among rightwing media outlets.
In an odd saga involving apparently altered receipts and paid unhoused actors, the chief executive of Yerik Israel Toney Foundation (YIT) – a non-profit organization focused on housing military veterans – has been accused of fabricating stories about unhoused veterans getting kicked out of hotels to make space for migrants.
Continue reading...Ex-prosecutors express criticism as key Republican allies attempt to derail investigations into former president
As Donald Trump’s legal troubles mount at the federal, state and local levels, the ex-president and his lawyers are banking on their political allies in the Republican party to make attacks on a New York prosecutor who has charged Trump with criminal offenses and to also get them to help derail investigations that endanger his 2024 campaign.
Former prosecutors and members of both parties have voiced strong criticism about the drives by Trump, his lawyers and Republican House allies to attack prosecutors who have filed charges against Trump, or are investigating him, calling such moves antithetical to democratic principles and the rule of law, as well as fruitless.
Continue reading...State assembly member introduced law to prohibit tax-deductible donations from being used to expel Palestinians from their land
New York’s state assembly is to consider legislation to stop registered charities from sending tens of millions of dollars a year to fund illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
State assembly member, Zohran Mamdani, has introduced the “Not on our dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence” act to prohibit tax-deductible donations from being used to expel Palestinians from their land and other activities widely regarded as war crimes under the Geneva conventions.
Continue reading...Noelle Dunphy gives graphic descriptions of assault and also accuses former New York mayor of wage theft in 70-page lawsuit
A former associate of Rudy Giuliani sued the former New York mayor, presidential candidate and attorney to Donald Trump for $10m on Monday, alleging “abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft and other misconduct” including “alcohol-drenched rants that included sexist, racist and antisemitic remarks”.
Filed in New York state, Noelle Dunphy’s suit includes the allegation that Giuliani “often demanded oral sex while he took phone calls on speaker phone from high-profile friends and clients, including then-President Trump”.
Continue reading...Mourners gathered to remember the 10 people killed by a white supremacist last year at the Tops Friendly market
As families across the US celebrated Mother’s Day, several hundred people – including prominent elected officials – gathered at Buffalo’s Jefferson Avenue Tops Friendly market for a different reason: to mark the first anniversary of the day a white supremacist gunman drove several hours to Buffalo’s East Side and murdered 10 people at gunpoint.
People from across New York state, the US and Canada had come to the predominantly Black neighborhood to show support after the shooting. And Sunday was no different as speakers hailed Buffalo residents’ resilience 12 months on from the mass killing that left their city bereaved.
Continue reading...Investigations are mounting, making it harder for the former president to spin his troubles as persecution by liberal elites
If the outcome of Donald Trump’s sexual assault trial wasn’t a foregone conclusion, his response to a jury finding he attacked the writer E Jean Carroll was all too predictable.
The former president lashed out at the judge as biased and the jurors as “from an anti-Trump area”, meaning liberal New York, after they believed Carroll’s account of the millionaire businessman attacking her in a department store changing room in the mid-1990s. The jury ordered him to pay $5m in damages for “sexual abuse” and for defaming Carroll by accusing her of “a made-up SCAM” for political ends.
Continue reading...