Category Archives: New York

Poem inspired by New York mugging wins top prize in National Poetry Competition

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Imogen Wade’s The Time I Was Mugged in New York City impresses judges for ‘lyricism in the account of an abduction’

• Scroll down to read the winning poem

A poem inspired by the author’s experience of being mugged has won the first prize of £5,000 in the National Poetry Competition.

The Time I Was Mugged in New York City by Imogen Wade tells the story of being locked in a van at JFK airport by a man dressed in black, driven to Grand Central station and made to give the man money.

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Claims of ‘lawlessness’ on New York City subways increase danger, critics say

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Violent crimes in 2024 have been used as ‘political tool’, and law enforcement response does not solve root issues, critics say

A high-profile string of violent crimes on New York City’s subway in 2024 has been used “as a political tool” by pundits and politicians, transit advocates say, leading to a false perception of spiraling underground crime, which could create more danger in the future.

Crime in the subway system, one of the world’s most used rapid transit systems, declined in 2022 and decreased again in 2023, according to police. But subway crime is up so far in 2024, and it is the nature and violence of the incidents that has captured public attention.

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Reddit shares priced at $34 in largest IPO by social media company in years

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Platform to make its debut on New York stock exchange on Thursday with a market value of $6.4bn

Reddit will enter a new era as a publicly traded company with a market value of $6.4bn after the social media platform’s initial public offering was priced at $34 per share.

The price, announced late on Wednesday, came in at the top of the target range set by Reddit’s investment bankers as they spent the past few weeks gauging investor demand for the stock. It sets the stage for Reddit’s shares to begin trading Thursday on the New York stock exchange under the ticker symbol RDDT in the largest initial public offering by a social media company in years.

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Senior UN officer on Gaza hunger strike claims assault by guards at New York HQ

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Bruno Donat, head of UN Mine Action Service in Geneva who is fasting over child victims of war, in ‘intense pain’ after incident

A senior UN official who went on hunger strike in support of child victims of the Israel-Hamas conflict has said he was assaulted by UN security guards at the organisation’s New York headquarters.

Bruno Donat, head of the UN Mine Action Service in Geneva, alleged the guards pushed him back on to the pavement outside the headquarters on Monday so forcibly that he fell, striking the back of his head. Donat did not break any bones and has since been discharged from hospital, but says he is still in intense pain.

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Jonathan Majors sued by former girlfriend for assault and defamation

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Grace Jabbari lawsuit also accuses Marvel actor of intentional infliction of emotional distress, battery and malicious prosecution

Jonathan Majors’s former girlfriend has filed a lawsuit accusing the Creed III and Marvel actor of battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, malicious prosecution and defamation.

Majors, 34, in December was found guilty of misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment in connection to a March 2023 altercation with his then girlfriend, the actor and dancer Grace Jabbari. Sentencing for the criminal case is set for 8 April.

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Teenage twin sisters stabbed, one fatally, at New York deli

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Sanyia Spain, 19, said that attacker made advances towards her and her sister Samyia and violently retaliated when they declined

Early Sunday morning in New York’s Park Slope neighborhood, 19-year-old twins Samyia and Sanyia Spain were stabbed by an unknown assailant following an altercation. The sisters were taken to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist hospital, where Samyia died and Sanyia was released after being treated for her injuries.

Sanyia said in an interview with the New York Daily News that the attacker made advances towards both girls, and violently retaliated when they declined. The teens were with a group of friends and relatives inside a bodega moments before the stabbings occurred.

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Trump asks to delay hush-money trial until supreme court weighs immunity claim

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Trial set to begin on 25 March, one of four federal criminal cases the presumptive Republican presidential nominee faces

Donald Trump on Monday asked the New York judge overseeing his criminal case on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star to delay the trial until the US supreme court finishes reviewing his claim of presidential immunity in a separate case.

The hush money trial is set to begin on 25 March in a New York state court in Manhattan.

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Donald Trump seeks new trial in E Jean Carroll defamation case

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Lawyers say judge erroneously excluded evidence of former president’s state of mind and also call for $83m award to be cut

Attorneys for Donald Trump have requested a new trial in the defamation case brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, hours before he was unofficially crowned the Republican party’s presidential candidate.

Trump’s attorneys, led by Alina Habba, filed papers in federal court on Tuesday arguing that the jury’s compensatory and punitive awards of $83m for denying he sexually abused her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s are out of proportion and should be reduced.

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New Menendez indictment charges senator and wife with obstruction

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Eighteen-count indictment adds to corruption charges New Jersey Democrat already faced

Senator Bob Menendez and his wife were charged with obstruction of justice in a new, 18-count indictment unsealed on Tuesday, adding to corruption charges the New Jersey Democrat already faces.

Menendez has pleaded not guilty to earlier charges of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from businessmen to impede law enforcement investigations they faced, and illegally acting as an agent of the Egyptian government.

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University of Florida terminating all diversity, equity and inclusion positions

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Move is to comply with state law passed by Governor Ron DeSantis that prohibits public funding of DEI programs

The University of Florida is terminating all its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) positions to comply with a state law passed in January that prohibits state or federal funds from being used to fund the programs.

The university, with more than 30,000 undergraduates, said in a memo issued on Friday that it was closing its office of the chief diversity officer, eliminating DEI positions and administrative appointments, and halting DEI-focused contracts with outside vendors.

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Flaco, New York City’s beloved owl, dies after striking building

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The bird escaped last year after vandals damaged his enclosure at Central Park Zoo

The Eurasian eagle owl named Flaco, which escaped New York City’s Central Park Zoo last year, has died after crashing into a building in Manhattan, officials said late on Friday.

Flaco went down after striking a building on West 89th Street and people reported the injured owl to the Wild Bird Fund (WBF), a statement from the Central Park Zoo said. WBF staffers soon found Flaco unresponsive and pronounced him dead at the scene.

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Ex-CNN anchor John Avlon announces Congress run to defeat ‘Maga minions’

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Journalist seeks to flip Long Island seat as a Democrat to build ‘broadest possible coalition to defeat Donald Trump’

The former Daily Beast editor and CNN anchor John Avlon announced his candidacy for US Congress in New York as a Democrat, seeking to flip a seat on Long Island, where Republicans saw surprising gains in the 2022 midterm elections.

In a video announcement, Avlon said he was running to help Democrats win back the House from Donald Trump’s “Maga minions”.

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New York man pleads guilty to running ‘Breaking Bad-style’ meth lab

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‘Brilliant’ scientist Matthew Leshinsky turned himself in after calling the police to report a burglary at his lab in Suffolk county

A New York man, whose attorney said is a “brilliant” scientist who researched drug addiction “for the public good”, has pleaded guilty to running a meth lab in a case that prosecutors compare to the series Breaking Bad.

But Matthew Leshinsky’s chemistry skills took him only so far. The 23-year-old was busted for running the meth operation in Ronkonkoma, New York, after calling the police to report a burglary at his cannabis analyzing side-hustle, Quantitative Laboratories.

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Ex-Honduran leader praised by Trump faces trial in US for running ‘narco-state’

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Juan Orlando Hernández stands trial in a New York courtroom on Monday accused of taking millions in bribes from drug traffickers

Five years after he was lavished with praise by Donald Trump for “stopping drugs at a level that has never happened” – and two years after he was extradited in shackles to the US – the former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández is to stand trial in New York on Monday, accused of overseeing a “narco-state” and accepting millions in bribes from drug traffickers, including the former leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Hernández is the first former head of state to face drug trafficking charges in the United States since another former US ally, the Panamanian strongman Gen Manuel Noriega, over 30 years ago.

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New York archdiocese calls funeral for trans activist at cathedral ‘scandalous’

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Pastor of St Patrick’s Cathedral condemns service for Cecilia Gentili after she was celebrated as being ‘mother of all whores’

The Roman Catholic archdiocese of New York City has condemned a funeral service for the transgender activist Cecilia Gentili at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral after congregants cheered her for being celebrated as “the mother of all whores”.

The packed funeral – organisers reported 1,400 mourners – took place on Thursday, 10 days after the Argentinian-born Gentili, 52, died at her Brooklyn home.

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New York governor seeks to quell business owners’ fears after Trump ruling

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Kathy Hochul says law-abiding businesspeople have ‘nothing to worry about’ after question on state’s commercial climate

The New York governor has told business owners in her state that there is “nothing to worry about” after Donald Trump was fined $355m and temporarily banned from engaging in commerce in the state when he lost his civil fraud trial Friday.

In an interview on the New York radio show the Cats Roundtable with the supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis, Kathy Hochul sought to quell fears in some quarters that the penalties handed to Trump for engaging in fraudulent business practices could chill the state’s commercial climate.

This article was amended on 18 February 2024 to correct a misspelling. An earlier version referred to “venal” rather than “venial” sin.

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Elton John to auction off 900 items worth $10m from former Atlanta home

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Silver boots, Banksy original, pinball machine and more going under hammer at Christie’s, New York

Fans of Sir Elton John’s flamboyant style will next week have the chance to splash out on his snappiest Versace looks in a huge 900-plus lot auction that includes the contents of the Rocket Man’s $7.2m (£5.7m) Atlanta apartment.

Christie’s auction house in New York’s Rockefeller Center has been transformed into a John emporium for two live – and six online – sales of the singer’s collection, including several pairs of his trademark thick rim spectacles and a vast art collection that features a Love, Lust and Devotion section dedicated to his treasure trove of male art.

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With business empire on brink of abyss, tycoon Trump recasts himself as victim

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Former president’s business fortune risks slipping from his grasp after ruling, while he marches closer to the Republican nomination

From Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue to the Trump Building on Wall Street, the Trump World Tower by the United Nations to the Trump International overlooking Central Park, Donald Trump has stamped his name in golden letters on skyscrapers across New York City.

This real estate empire was the springboard for Trump’s ascent from tabloid fodder to reality TV stardom, and ultimately the presidency, all built on his self-projected image as America’s most famous businessman.

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Donald Trump ordered to pay over $350m in New York financial fraud case

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Trump also banned from running any New York corporation or entity for three years in devastating blow for ex-president

Donald Trump, his eldest sons and associates have been ordered to pay over $350m by a New York judge who found them guilty of intentionally committing financial fraud over the course of a decade.

“The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience,” judge Arthur Engoron wrote in his decision. In a devastating blow for the former president who had built his reputation as a successful real estate developer, Engoron barred Trump and two other executives from serving as officers or directors of any corporation or entity in New York for three years. His sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr, were banned for two years.

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New York jury begins deliberations in NRA civil corruption trial

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Gun rights group and ex-leader Wayne LaPierre accused of being ‘caught with their hands in the cookie jar’ over lavish spending

A New York state jury on Friday began its deliberations in the civil corruption trial of the National Rifle Association and its former long-serving leader Wayne LaPierre.

Jurors started deliberating a day after a lawyer with the New York attorney general’s office said on Friday that the NRA and LaPierre were caught “with their hands in the cookie jar”, summarizing accusations that the gun rights group’s executives wildly misspent millions of dollars on private flights, vacations and other lavish perks.

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