Jodie Comer stops stage performance because of New York air: ‘I can’t breathe’

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.

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Tens of millions under air quality alerts in US as Canada fire smoke drifts south

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.

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At a glance: what you need to know about Canada wildfires and smoky US skies

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.

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Traffic cop sues city over ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ cards for NYPD friends and family

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.

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Tiananmen massacre museum opens in New York despite fear of Beijing backlash

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.

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US doctor accused of using own sperm to impregnate patients dies in air crash

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.

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Trump hush money trial set for March 2024 during Republican primaries

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.

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Couple who helped Koreans stranded in US blizzard feted as heroes in Seoul

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.

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New York Christian university fires two staff for including pronouns in emails – reports

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.

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Viral story of migrants displacing unhoused veterans from hotels turns out to be false

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.

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Trump’s allies attempt to undermine prosecutors endangering his 2024 bid

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.

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New York law aims to stop funding of illegal Israeli settlements in West Bank

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.

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Rudy Giuliani sued by former assistant alleging sexual assault and harassment

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”.

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‘He didn’t completely break us’: Buffalo grieves mass shooting one year on

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.

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Trump rages after sexual abuse verdict but legal woes have only just begun

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.

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Legal defense fund raises over $1m for accused in Jordan Neely subway death

Daniel Penny was charged on Friday with second-degree manslaughter in death of fellow passenger on New York subway

An online fundraiser for Daniel Penny, who placed fellow subway rider Jordan Neely in a fatal chokehold in a case that has come to symbolize fears over crime, racism and vigilantism, has raised more than $1m for his legal defense.

The fundraiser for Daniel Penny, a white former marine, who was charged on Friday with second-degree manslaughter in the death of Neely, who is Black, is on GiveSendGo. The Christian fundraising website has also hosted drives for rightwing vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse and far-right groups, including January 6 insurrectionists.

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Man charged with manslaughter over subway chokehold death of Jordan Neely in New York

Daniel Penny, a former marine who surrendered to police in New York, could face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty

The man who killed Jordan Neely after putting him in a chokehold while on a subway in New York City has been charged with second-degree manslaughter, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said on Friday.

Daniel Penny, 24, could face up to 15 years in prison if found guilty under the charge. Penny surrendered himself to New York police on Friday morning.

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Ex-marine to be charged in subway chokehold killing of Jordan Neely

Daniel Penny, 24, faces second-degree manslaughter charges that could carry up to 15 years in jail, according to Manhattan DA’s office

Authorities in New York said they will bring criminal charges against a former marine who put fellow subway passenger Jordan Neely in a chokehold that killed him.

Daniel Penny, 24, is expected to be arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter, which could carry a jail term of up to 15 years.

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E Jean Carroll considering suing Trump for his remarks during CNN town hall

The disparaging comments came just a day after the ex-president was found liable for sexually abusing the writer

Writer E Jean Carroll is considering suing Donald Trump for defamation again after the former US president made disparaging remarks about her during a televised CNN town hall just a day after he was found liable in a civil case for sexually assaulting her.

“Everything’s on the table, obviously, and we have to give serious consideration to it,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan told the New York Times about the prospect of a defamation lawsuit. “We have to weigh the various pros and cons and we’ll come to a decision in the next day or so, probably.”

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‘We’re living in madness’: George Santos’s constituents on federal charges

Residents of the congressman’s New York district say they’re fed up with a system that enables his behavior

“It’s like we’re living in madness,” said Danielle Gentile at a Brazilian restaurant in Long Island’s Westbury, one of a cluster of towns close to the eastern border of the fabulist Republican congressman George Santos’s third congressional district.

“I know politicians lie all the time, but you’ve got to at least try to keep up,” Gentile added. “But what’s he going to say? I didn’t mean to lie? He’s like the Brian Williams of politics.”

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